Welcome to See Me Get Rich!

Welcome to my new blog. I have never really been much of a blogger before, but I was inspired by a couple now-fellow bloggers, such as Ramit at www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com, to join the blogging ranks. Having recently begun investing and trying to get my finances in order, I decided to start this blog to help keep myself accountable as I begin the long process of working towards financial freedom.

My name is “Zachary Fruhling” and I am a community college philosophy instructor and graduate student, desperately trying to finish my Ph.D. I have lived on California's central coast for five years now, and have faced many a financial challenge since moving here. On top of living in one of the most expensive counties in California (one of the most expensive states in the nation), within the past five years I have gotten married, moved twice, taken out moderate student loans, and been a foolish spender. After realizing that my wife and I would be considered upper-middle class according to our annual income, but that we had nothing left over at the end of the year to show for it, I decided to get our finances in order and to start saving and investing for the future.

I spent my winter break from grad school and from my college researching how to get started in investing, something which I have been intending to do for simply years. My inspiration for investing comes mainly from my uncle, Mike Green, who worked for over 25 years at Anheuser-Busch and recently retired very well due to his company's 401(k). He had been urging me to get started investing while I was still young (actually it was more like, "Zachary, don't be stupid; start a retirement account NOW!"), but I was some combination of too lazy and too foolish to get started until now. So after researching online brokers, I decided to open up a Roth IRA through Sharebuilder.com because of their easy system of automatic investing via automatic checking account withdrawals.

As I was saying, I spent my winter break researching investment strategies and finally settled upon a portfolio comprised of ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds, which are similar to mutual funds but are bought and sold as shares on the stock market and which track major stock indexes). I am putting away at least 10% of my income into this account in addition to the 10% of my income that is automatically deducted from my paycheck at the university into a 403(b) retirement account. This places my savings at approximately 20% of my income, which should do very nicely in building our nest egg for the future. I have had a hard time finding enough teaching work, though, to support myself through the summer and next fall; so I am working fast to build a summer savings fund to pay the rent and bills through the summer. I will probably have to take a part-time job during the summer to get us through.

This blog will be very helpful in recording and tracking my progress. I will be posting some of my specific goals and a baseline status report of my current debt and investments. I am looking forward to watching the debt decrease and the investments multiply, despite the financial challenges of living in such an expensive state.

Thanks for stopping by! Much more to come very soon!