Smart Personal Finances

Smart Personal Finances is about providing free information and calculators to help you understand your financial situation and make the best decisions. Topics include mortgages, credit cards, jobs, personal income, expenses, retirement, student loans, and many more. Smart Personal Finances doesn’t just mean spending and borrowing wisely. To get the most out of your money, you have to earn and save wisely, and understand the financial decisions you make.

10 Ways To Improve Your Finances

Minimize Your Expenses
Understand Your Mortgage
Start An Emergency Fund
Understand Your Student Loans
Start A Retirement Fund
Lower Your Utilities
Maximize Your Income
Pay Off Your Debt Quickly
Start A College Fund
Follow A Budget

Each week, I will add articles and calculators covering these topics.

Financial Calculators
For each topic I cover, I will maintain a free calculator on this site. You can use them here, add them to your personal iGoogle page, or put them on your website or blog. This allows you to see the effect of any financial decision you make. The more informed you, the more likely you are to make good financial decisions.

Articles
The most difficult part of dealing with a difficult financial situation is not knowing or understanding your options. My goal is to develop an encyclopedia of finance knowledge where you can find the answers to any questions you may have. I will add three articles a week to this site on the topics important to your everyday life. There are links to bookmart this site at the top of the page so you can check back weekly to see what has been added. There is also a button in the righthand column to get my blog as a widget from widgetbox. This lets you see at a glance from your homepage new articles as they are added.

What Makes Smart Personal Finances Different?
There are thousands of blogs and websites on the internet giving financial advice. What makes this site different? There are hundreds of programs with financial calculators. What makes mine different? Everything on this site is free. I have nothing to sell. I have no reason to suggest one service or another. I only provide information and tools to help you make your own decisions. I do have sponsors whose ads appear on my site, but I only use sponsors whose services I feel will be beneficial to my readers.

Most people don’t go out and buy Quicken or any other financial software before they sign their mortgage or student loan. If you don’t currently have a retirement or emergency fund, or think you can’t afford one, you are not going to pay for advice. If you need advice on the getting the best deal on a loan, you don’t want to ask a lender. That is why everyone needs a free, unbiased source of information to make their decisions.

Who Am I?
My name is Christopher Johnson. I am a husband, father, mathematician, actuary, computer programmer, and web developer. If you have any questions about or comments about content on my site, or if you have suggestions for articles you would like to see, please feel free to Click Here to email me.