Firefighter. Paramedic. Husband. Dad. Still on the path.
I'm Nate — I work full-time as a firefighter-paramedic, I'm married, and we're raising one kid together. I'm not writing this from a place of having already reached financial independence. I'm writing it from the middle of the climb, same as most of the people reading it.
Why I started documenting this publicly
A shift schedule like mine — 24 hours on, 2 off, 24 on, then 4 off — has a way of forcing you to get realistic about time and money. There's no squeezing in a side hustle between meetings, and there's no pretending "I'll figure out the budget eventually." Either the systems work while I'm at the station, or they don't work at all.
Somewhere in the process of building those systems — automating investments, paying down debt on purpose, figuring out credit card points instead of leaving them on the table — I realized the notes I was keeping for myself were useful to other people too. So I started sharing them.
What "the in-between" means
Most personal finance content is written for people in crisis or people who've already made it. I'm writing for the space in between those two — families who aren't drowning, but aren't exactly thriving either. You've got a mortgage or rent, probably a car payment, maybe daycare, and you're doing okay — but "doing okay" isn't the same as "on track," and closing that gap is the whole point of this project.
Family, in the background
My wife is part of a lot of the story here — the trip decisions, the budget conversations, the actual lived experience of trying to do this as a family and not just a spreadsheet. She's not a co-host and this isn't a joint venture; it's my project. But none of it happens in isolation from her, and I try to write about it that way.
Why the trust angle matters
Before the fire service and before this project, I worked in cybersecurity and DHS investigations. That background is a big part of why the Points Concierge service is built the way it is: I will never ask for your account logins or passwords, and I built the entire intake process so I never need them.