I fixed my money with a spreadsheet and a Sunday morning

That Sunday I made a coffee, opened a blank spreadsheet, and refused to close the laptop until my numbers made sense. It took most of the morning and it was not fun. But it was the first time I had seen all of it in one place, and the panic went somewhere, because panic is mostly just not knowing.

That file grew a tab. Then eleven more. Thirty-four months later the $9,400 I owed was gone, and the spreadsheet had become the thing my friends kept texting me about. So I cleaned it up, gave it away, and started writing down what I learned. That is this site, and that spreadsheet is free because it should be.

What I actually do

I manage a three-dentist dental practice in Greensboro, North Carolina. Scheduling, insurance claims, supply orders, payroll admin for nine people. It is a job made almost entirely of spreadsheets, which explains a lot about me.

It also means I set up payment plans for patients most weeks, and I have watched a hundred perfectly capable adults apologize for their own money. That is the reason this site sounds the way it does. Nobody here is going to be told they would be rich if they skipped the coffee.

What I’m not

Not an advisor. Not a planner. No certifications, no letters after my name. I am a person who was bad at this, got systematic about it, and kept notes. Everything here is the honest version of what worked, with the math shown so you can check it, and I will tell you when something is a personal preference rather than a rule.