It’s been a year since my mother died, which means it’s taken me a year to finally share these thoughts. After she left us, one of my first …
Credit Cards
How My Dad Retired During a Pandemic
At age 13, in the blazing heat of central Florida, my dad, Melvin Brown, started “working” as a fruit picker in citrus groves. Nearly 57 …
Top 5 Things I’ve Learned from the Pandemic
In March 2020 when the global COVID-19 pandemic caused our country to shut down and blew up our economy in the process, I came to a powerful …
How Thomas Butterworth Earned Two Debt-Free Degrees
Thomas Butterworth’s wife and my wife met and became friends during their days as students together at Kennesaw State University. I met …
How to Determine Needs vs. Wants
The following is an excerpt from my book Margin Matters: How to Live on a Simple Budget & Crush Debt Forever. The concept of …
Top 10 Reasons You’re Always Poor
The pandemic has caused many of us to view our finances in a different way. As a result, individual financial burdens have been magnified …
What my Grandmother Said about Money
Perhaps the biggest regret of writing my personal finance book was not having the opportunity to interview all of my grandparents to …
Christian Wilkins: My New Favorite Player
I spent most of my childhood living in Miami rooting for the Dolphins. They haven’t been very good lately, but I still force myself to watch …
Why We Canceled Our Last Credit Card
I finally did it. I built up the courage to cancel our remaining credit card. Discover Card was our final credit card and had about a …