Canadian Finance Blog

---

Introducing – Teacherman Posted: 03 Jan 2012 02:00 AM PST By day he is plain clothes modest high school teacher, but by night he transforms into a superhero that fights widespread crimes such as investing in mutual funds with excessive MERs and falling into credit card debt – he is "Teacherman." Ok, so I'm not usually that cheesy or dramatic.  I chose the pen name "Teacherman" because I really am a high school teacher and one of my favourite books is the biographical "Teacherman" by Frank McCourt.  So why the whole secret identity thing?  After all, it's not like I'm "The Dark Knight" who is worried about evil doers coming after my civilian persona right?  Well kind of… See, as a teacher my job is highly politicized, anything that I write online could, and probably would be held against me at some point.  I don't want to give you guys a heavily moderated, sugar-coated version of my true beliefs, so instead I hide behind a moniker.  Hopefully one day I will enjoy an early retirement and not have to worry about stifling my big mouth (does that metaphor still work for a blogger that uses a keyboard as opposed to a voice box?).  I've been informed that revealing your "true identity" has become a rite of passage on this blog, so hopefully you'll forgive my caution. A few years ago, as I approached the end of my university degree I started realizing that pretty soon I had to enter this adult world of finance where there was more to worry about than saving my money by buying drinks that were on special.  I took a couple of economics classes just for kicks, and got extremely curious about the economy and personal finance.  Things like the magic of compound interest or the most effective way to use leverage fascinated me.  Over the next couple of years I started reading several blogs on financial topics including this one, in addition to a couple dozen financial books every year.  Yes ladies and gentleman, My name is TM and I am an addict and a geek. About one year ago I got together with a buddy who was realizing many of the same things I had.  We decided that it was ridiculous that we had been given no formal education in how to handle a mortgage or what our insurance options were.  We decided to start a personal finance site aimed at helping young people specifically, My University Money was consequently born.  Since we've established the site, I've had a great time meeting new bloggers from all walks of life and learning something on a daily basis.  I live rurally, so a public forum where I can exchange thoughts and knowledge with others in invaluable to me and I'm happy (and a little nervous) to making the leap to writing for such a well-established blog as CFB. Tom has set me up to fill in a slot every second Tuesday.  I think I might be an affirmative action hire – the government was going to re-name the site "Alberta Finance Blog" unless they diversified a little bit (I'm from Manitoba).  I hope to focus on some broader financial topics such as financial literacy, the craziness of certain "personal finance commandments," kids these days and why they need to read sites like this, as well as some investment-oriented talk and the usual money-saving adventures we all know and love.  I thrive on a good debate and appreciate learning something new (even if it involves looking dumb in front of readers) so you should definitely "beak me" and “let me know what it is” as the kids say these days (ever want to feel old, stand in front of high school kids all day).  I'm very excited to be writing for CFB and please don't tell Tom if you think I suck… he's already nervous about hiring someone so close to Eastern Canada and I kind of ruined his Oprah reputation for having bloggers "come out of the closet" on his site, so I'm on thin ice! No related posts. Introducing – Teacherman originally appeared on Canadian Finance Blog on January 3, 2012.

You are subscribed to email updates from Canadian Finance Blog To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610