Hi! Thanks for stopping by—I hope you find the website helpful. 

My name is Chris, but my moniker is The Financial Bishop, and in this little corner of the digital world I get to share my personal views and opinions about personal finance (Please see the disclaimer page). I’m just an average Joe who went to college and studied the Humanities. Then I went on to do a Master of Divinity degree–hence The Financial Bishop moniker. However, after three years of the 93 hour degree, I decided not to seek employment within the Church setting. And so like  many people with non-lucrative degrees, I found myself in a whole lot of debt and unable to find a “good job.”

I never knew how sweet the taste of freedom was until I lost it—backed into a corner, I was forced to take a job just to put bread on the table. I made $29,000 (gross) my first year out of Graduate School back in 2011. After finding myself in a less than desirable job situation, and shackled with a lot of debt, I got serious about personal finance. I found out the hard way how debt takes away your freedom, your choices, and much of your opportunity to do good in this world.

Sticking to Dave Ramsey’s snowball debt repayment strategy, we paid off nearly $100,000 of debt (school loans and consumer debt) in approximately 3 years. Currently I’m working towards Financial Freedom—a state of being where financial needs are addressed by income-producing investments. Though I’m not “Financially Independent” (FI) yet, this blog will catalog my journey to FI and beyond. I’m getting closer every day. You can read about where it all began here. 

Why write this blog when there’s so many other great resources out there? So often I come across a FI or FIRE blog and discover they made it to FI primarily because they had a sweet six-figure salary along the way and just lived like a normal person without increasing their spending. I’m not an engineer, a computer software developer, and I don’t make a six-figure salary–it was and still is hard to relate to their stories. 

So why write this blog then? I’m writing for my family, my loved ones, and for the average Joe and Jane. I’m making my way towards FI and I wanted to share that with others who also can’t relate to the high salaried earner. If you feel discouraged because of your finances, like you’ll never reach FI, and that you cannot relate to all the bloggers who make well over six figure salaries, this blog is for you. I’m writing to share the hope of a life without debt, a life with opportunity, and freedom, and a life lived to the fullest. For all those average Joes and Janes out there, for all those who find themselves in a job they never intended, and for all those who want a richer life, I’m writing this blog for you. I’m just an average guy without a highly lucrative degree, making average pay fighting for Financial Freedom every day.