About this Site

Our Mission

This site was built to give my children — and anyone who finds it — the financial foundation our schools never provide.

Everything here reflects what I have learned, what I have built, and what I wish I had known sooner. By writing it all down — the tools that work, the mistakes that cost me, and the principles that have guided our family — I am building a roadmap my children can follow and improve upon for generations.

Why This Matters

The American education system does not teach personal finance. By the end of the 1990s, corporate pension plans had largely given way to the 401(k), shifting the full burden of retirement planning to individuals — most of whom had no idea it was happening. A generation later, most adults are still figuring it out on their own.

Personal finance is the one subject every child will use without exception. The sooner a young person learns the basics and starts saving, the better positioned they will be for the rest of their life. That is the entire premise of Early Life Investments.

What You'll Find Here

These pages contain the investment and budgeting tools that have worked for our family, along with honest reviews of the books that shaped my thinking. Some of it will need to be adapted to your situation; not everything will apply to everyone. What I can promise is that nothing here was included because it sounded good — it is here because I used it.

This site includes worksheets, investment guides, budgeting frameworks, and practical insights drawn from military service, higher education, career changes, marriage, raising children, retirement planning, and building generational wealth — all learned through trial and error. I made mistakes, learned from them, and documented them so others can learn too.

About Me

I grew up in a lower-middle-class household, one of four children. My father worked in a factory and was laid off more than once. My mother managed every dollar with a discipline I did not fully appreciate until much later — every week she would spread the finances across the kitchen table to plan the week ahead. If we wanted something beyond the basics, we earned it ourselves. Those years gave me a work ethic and an appreciation for money that has carried into every stage of my life.

I enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and served as a Fiscal Officer managing the maintenance budget for a company attached to 3rd Marine Division. It was during that time — simultaneously earning my B.S.B.A. in Personal Finance — that I built my first financial spreadsheets and began applying what I was studying to my job and my own finances. After leaving the Marines, the GI Bill sent me back to school. I spent the next eight years studying math and physics and completed a Ph.D. in experimental nuclear physics — a path I found unexpectedly and pursued out of passion for making sense of the unknown.

It has been more than thirty years since that first finance course. Across military service, graduate school, career changes, marriage, and raising children, I have made nearly every kind of financial mistake and learned from most of them. The rules have changed since the late 1990s — technology has driven the cost of investing close to zero — but the fundamentals have not. Earn more than you spend. Save early. Invest consistently. Leave something behind. Every year the conviction behind this site grows stronger.

Final Thought

Financial security is possible for anyone willing to commit the discipline and patience it requires. Not everyone starts from the same place — some are lucky, others are born into wealth. But most of the gap between where someone is and where they want to be comes down to knowledge and habits, both of which can be built at any age. I hope what is here gives your family a head start.