We hear a lot of messages of all sorts, from different directions, on a daily–even an hourly (or more frequent)–basis.

Catalogs, TV/radio commercials, billboards, online ads… and people!

Every single one has an opinion.

They all have their own angle, of course; but, they pretty much all try to convince us of something. Buy this. Buy that. Upgrade it. Get more! Do it now!

Don’t get me wrong. Many of the things we see and hear are good products, much-needed services, and things we can actually find use for.

But how many of these things constantly remind us of what we don’t have? How many of them are just distractions?

That’s why I decided to write Making Cents.

What This Letter Is About

In Making Cents, it will be my primary focus to help us all (myself included) make sense out of our finances.

Everything I listed earlier are all things that can compete for our time, attention, and money. The TV commercials… the online advertisements… and, yes, people.

Whether they mean well or not, they’re distractions… Distractions that make it difficult to manage our finances.

But if we come up with ways to navigate our finances, we’ll find our way through to financial wellness.

Just imagine all the possibilities we could have if we were “financially” well… Not only would we be financially free (or on the path to it). We’d be free to do things we never thought were possible.

For some of you, that’s starting your own business. And for some of you, it’s going on missions trips. For others, it’s being able to provide for your family in every way imaginable. And for others, it’s giving back to the community.

And being a financial coach, having talked with people of different walks of life, I know whatever it is… It. Is. Possible. No matter how much you earn doing what you do for a living.

That’s what Making Cents is about: Helping us all make sense of our finances, one cent at a time.

What We’ll Talk About

So, a few times a month in this letter, you’ll hear from me. And I’ll unpack some of the most talked-about areas of finance and explain what it means for all of us.

We’ll cover a multitude of topics from ignoring the outside “noise” I mentioned earlier to getting in the habit of saving… to defeating debt… to learning how to invest.

For example, there are a lot of questions about saving…

How much should I save? How do I save? Where do I save? What’s the purpose of saving, anyway?

And there are even more questions about investing. Tons of them…

What’s the difference between saving and investing? How do I invest? What do people invest in? Isn’t investing just for rich people? When should I start investing? Should I invest? Isn’t investing risky/dangerous?

And then there’s the D-word: Debt…

How do I get out of debt? Can I get out of debt? Where do I even start? But debt can be a good thing, right?

So, there’s a lot to uncover, and then some. There are so many areas of finance that confuse us. But we can make sense out of them all.

In Making Cents, my goal is to help you see that our finances don’t have to be complicated.

There’s so much you can do for yourself to come out on the winning side–and develop financial wellness. It’s not about how much you make. It’s about what you do with it.

It doesn’t matter who you are, what you do, or how young/old you are… Whatever your situation is today, it doesn’t have to be your situation tomorrow.

So, how far can you go? How high can you climb?

We all can succeed. I’m just here to help you get there.