Welcome!

In my 25+ years (hard to believe) of experience in financial services, I find the industry in general, and practitioners in it, unnecessarily complicate things for the average consumer.  Making things seem so arcane, and magical that only a trained wizard in the black arts of economics and finance can help you interpret and understand what you read or hear in the news, is standard industry practice. 

Growing up on a farm, my small town upbringing and professional experience have taught me several principles which inform this blog, and which have driven me, despite a deep streak of lazy, to share with the world at large.  They are:

1. People trump the organization – It doesn’t matter about the sign above, the door, it only matters who’s sitting behind the desk.
2. Keep it simple – financial structures, explanations, life.
3. There are two sides to the coin – Math and Science, the technical parts of financial planning, are important, but they have no more than equal weight with the touchy-feely, arts and crafts side of decision making.
4. Everyone learns differently – sometimes it’s an analogy or a story, sometimes it’s a scratchy diagram, but we can always find a way to simply explain what we’re talking about.

The principles basically coalesced over the years to the catchphrase, “It’s not Rocket Science”.  While I certainly didn’t invent the phrase, I have been applying it to explanations of financial planning for over a decade.  This blog is dedicated to that principle. 

I hope you enjoy.

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In financial planning the math and science is easy, however, the arts and crafts are the subjective touchy feely parts of decision making that may be more difficult.

Scot Bolton

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