About
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My name is Mark and I work as an Accounting Manager for a large company in St. Louis, MO. I began this site to truly help inform my friends and family about investing and saving and budgeting and more, and then thought, why the heck not give everyone this valuable information.
My mission is to make this process as simple as possible, to focus on helping my children and others learn personal finance through lessons in investing, budgeting, retirement planning and frugal living.
More or less, I think it is near impossible for one to find advice in terms that someone without a financial background could understand. Moreover, I don’t think our schools properly teach our kids to be prepared for the real world, and most kids get themselves into financial trouble at a young age. I want my kids to be prepared, and I’m sharing how I am preparing my children through various articles under my personal finance section under Frugal Kids. But I’ve also made a point to help people who don’t have any kids make sense of personal finance too.
As mentioned, I’m a father of 4, so here’s a little more about my kids:
Max – born 2009

Max will be our last child (I’ve made certain of that through elective surgery). He’s learned to sleep through constant pandemonium to say the least. I imagine he will be a hard sleeper when he gets older.
Hannah – born 2008

Hannah Bear, as I like to call her, is everything I could have wanted in a girl. She is so damned gorgeous, with her bright blue eyes, awesome and hilarious personality, she is so freaking smart it’s incredible.
Jake – born 2006

Jake is my sports kid, he’s a hockey player and all around sports nut. He likes to take dumps in random places around the house and destroy as much as possible. He’s a smart and loving brother and great kid, when he’s not getting into trouble.
Kyle – born 2001

Kyle is the oldest and most caring big brother in the world. He maybe one of the most responsible 8 year old kids this side of the Mississippi. He can make eggs, ramen noodles, and much more on his own. He has his own alarm clock and gets up on his own and get’s ready for school without help from mom and dad. He helps out so much in the house and with his siblings. He’s so independent. He’s not so much into sports as he is into animals and science (he does enjoy baseball and fishing), he loves chess too.
So, my times of going out have come to pretty much an end. After the kids get to bed, I’m intent on filling my time by educating myself and others, hopefully to have something for my kids to look back on as well to help them as they begin the process of managing their own finances. I will show you what I’m doing to help them become frugal kids and eventually frugal adults. I can’t afford to not teach them! Not to mention, through promotion of my advertisers, I can make an extra buck or two to put aside for them. I will not however, compromise my values and ethics in order to push a sponsor down your throat. I think there is value in offering you specific products that can help you save money, and in most cases ads that I serve from Google can be relevant and helpful to those whom are searching for certain information I might not have. My site is 100% completely free to use.
What makes me so qualified to help you, or why should trust my advice or opinions? Besides my over 10 years experience as a professional Accountant, I have a bachelor’s degree in Finance from Southeast Missouri State University, as well as a Masters’ degree in business I obtained at Fontbonne University here in St. Louis. I understand most everything financial and will break it down for you to understand easily. Moreover, I like to keep up with the personal finance world so I can provide you with the latest and greatest information available. But keep in mind, you should still consult a certified financial planner or such for specific advice for you.
I hope you enjoy my lessons too, I am quite certain they will clarify much of the questions you have. Please write me with any and all questions you have, I promise to reply ASAP.



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thanks for helping understand compound interest!
Hey Jim, thanks for your comment! – no problem at all. I hope you read through my lessons and come back for more, as I will be updating this site as often as possible.
Mark, . We have a section on the front page of The Dollar Stretcher.com called “Frugal News”. I’ll include a link to your post. Hope that many of our visitors read it.
Enjoyed your post on negotiating
We work with a variety of bloggers and sites. Often we trade guest posts. If you’d be open to that please let me know.
Gary Foreman
The Dollar Stretcher.com
ps: we have something in common. I’m a grad of SW Mo St and my wife is a MO native
Thanks Gary. I would definitely be interested in trading guest posts. Let’s get in contact and get something worked out.
Hello,
I am a graduate student at the University of Hawaii conducting a research survey on credit card debt and advertising. I am attempting to get as many volunteers as possible. The survey is completely anonymous, takes around 10-15 minutes, and I will post the data on my website after the collection is complete this September. The address is http://www.pacrin.com.
Thank you — Shawn