I truly am!

My name is Tushar Mathur and I was born in Pune, India. I currently live in Altanta, GA with my wife and 2 daughters (a Six year old and a 5 month old). I’m a software developer by day and a blogger, web designer and  internet marketer by night.

I have been blogging for quite some time now and since the last year I started seeing Yakezie pop up everywhere. From the sound of it, I thought Yakezie was a local group of people staying in the same city/zip who help each other out. And what do you know, that’s exactly what it is. The only difference being that its not bound by any geographic location.  I really enjoyed the challenge, had a lot of fun and, in the process, discovered so many awesome bloggers and websites. I was able to connect with quite a few likeminded people who helped me provide content for my website as well. Yakezie is a great forum and have recommended it to a few other finance/lifestyle bloggers as well.

TECHNOLOGY IS IN MY BLOOD

I’m a hardcore techie at heart. I love working with websites and content management systems. In my day job, I code a lot on the Microsoft platform, but for my own websites I prefer linux. I love Apple products and am always the first to buy the newest iPhone/iPad. I am always on the lookout for new apps that can simplifiy my life. Thats why I love Mint for personal finance and I do my bookkeeping in Outright.

Growing up in India, my parents never had credit cards. Other than a mortgage, if you want to buy something big, like a car, you save up for it and pay cash. My parents paid a 75% downpayment on our house. Can you believe it? 75%. This was the mindset I came with when I moved to the US. But, the story was totally different here. So first I got my financial house in order. During that journey friends and colleagues used to ask me for financial advice and so to educate myself and others to stay out of debt and start saving, I started Everything Finance. Its been a great ride to do research on the best education accounts for my kids.

PERSONAL LIFE

In my Personal Financial life, I currently don’t have a formal budget. But I watch all my accounts like a hawk everyday. I check every transaction to make sure its right. Since the very beginning, I have followed the money philosophy of “Pay Yourself First”. My wife and I put money in our savings first. Then we budget for our expenses. So this works very well for us. During our first few years of marriage, we used to watch The Suze Orman show regulary. I liked her philosophy of “People First, then Money, then Things”. With her advice, we worked towards our emergency fund, setup our 401K and Roth IRA accounts and started feeling really good with saving all that money. Every paycheck we used to get excited to find out how much we can put towards our savings. I really liked watching Suze’s show, but recently that “can I afford it?” segment is quite ridiculous. And then she delivered a big shock when she announced a crappy Prepaid debit card. And then calling a personal finance blogger an ‘idiot’ on Twitter was way out of line.

BLOGGING FOR A WHILE

I have been blogging about Personal Finance since January, 2007. So going on 5 years now. It’s been amazing to see the blog grow from a free Blogger blog to a self-hosted WordPress website. I have learnt a lot of great stuff from Yakezie, like new plugins and getting ideas for writing. These days, My day job is demanding more of my time and so I have hired some nice folks ot write for Everything Finance. I’m currently writing this post from Akron OH. (So if there are any Yakezies who wnat to meet up please let me know)

My situation is a little different from other bloggers here at Yakezie. I don’t share too many personal stories because, frankly speaking, my life is quite boring. Fortunately, I never had any debt (except a mortgage). I have managed to keep my day job so far. But I am very focused on making more money.  I’m always on the lookout for a business opportunity whether its online or offline, although I do prefer online.

I have learnt a lot from all of you and I hope to continue helping in any which way I can. Please feel free to contact me if you feel I can help in any way. As a side note (and a shameless plug) I also offer medical transcription services. So if you know any healthcare professional who might need transcription services, please send them my way.

Encouraged with my financial success with Everything Finance, I started a few other sites to expand in other areas like Investing, and in turn supplement my online income even more. I’m always on the lookout for a good business opportunity. Thanks to Yakezie I have met some great writers who help me with content for my site and now I  have also partnered with another member to start another website. We’ll make an announcement in the upcoming months.

Cheers and Good luck to all of us in our upcoming endeavours!