Dear Reader, you may not know it, but this blog has existed for quite some time. Years in fact. But you’d never have discovered it no matter how hard you looked. Why? Because it existed only in my flea-addled brain. And notwithstanding the many, many . . . many failings of that small vessel, one thing it did have going for it was a fail-safe lock.
Today that changes. I welcome you to FI for the People, where we will discuss some things I know nothing about, a smattering or more of things that I know a wee bit about, and yet other things I know a great deal about. I plan for all of this to revolve around the subject of personal finance but reserve the right to define that topic as liberally as I choose. And then to arbitrarily and capriciously change my definition of it.
What do I know?
Category 1 (things I know nothing about) I hope to keep to a small and infrequent number of posts. But one doesn’t get to my level of incompetence without knowing nothing about a whole lot of things. Not sure if this qualifies an accomplishment or not.
Category 2 (things that I know a wee bit about) should be pretty broad as there’s lots of things I know at least something about. Mainly that’s cuz I am old. So very . . . very old. And I’ve been around for long enough to have seen a great many things. And in the area of personal finance and other business/finance/economics subjects, I’ve done a lot of face-palming experimenting and reading (books, major publications and many FIRE blogs) over the course of decades. But I make no promises that anything I write will be terribly helpful. And as I am in no way, shape or form a financial advisor or anything close to it, I caution you to take anything I write with a grain canister mine’s-worth of salt. I’ll shoot for entertaining tho. Deal?
Category 3 (things I know a great deal about) will be, unequivocally, focused on little old me and my family. I anticipate that these posts will largely focus on my own actual experiences, failings and occasional triumphs modest successes. Take the meagre wisdom in them for what it’s worth. Which, full disclaimer, probably isn’t much. But, to paraphrase the eminent sage Lloyd Dobler, if you start out expecting nothing, then everything’s kind of a pleasant surprise.
I’m funny how? I mean funny like I’m a clown, I amuse you?
A recurring theme and subarea of content for this blog will be, I hope, humor. I’m not sure if I believe that laughter is the best medicine, but I think you could do worse. Probably.
So, you may ask, why did it take so long to publish this blog that I claim has existed for years? That’s a good question, Dear Reader. And it deserves a good answer. But I don’t have one, other than that I finally decided to put pen to paper fingers to keyboard and just get on with it.
But be warned, my slothfulness knows few boundaries. Hopefully that doesn’t translate to my blog-posting frequency. Or maybe you will find that you hope it does. I wouldn’t blame you.
And so I’ll leave you with something funny, which I’ll preface by stating that there may be no bigger fan of wits and witty humor than me. So, I’m starting this tradition with some quotes from Mark Twain, who is my favorite author, and perhaps America’s greatest ever wit. You, Dear Reader, decide where each bon mot falls on the scale of funny vs. profound.
“I am not one of those who in expressing opinions confine themselves to facts.” – Mark Twain
“When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear.” – Mark Twain
“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” – Mark Twain
“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.” – Mark Twain
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain
