In January 2009 at the height of the financial crisis, I was a math and music teacher that suddenly lost his job. I had $4,000 in the bank and $42,000 in debt, including school, vehicle, credit card, and medical debt. Creditors would call daily, and angry letters threatening collections began to appear. I was worried and sleepless. This was not the life I wanted to live. I needed to change my relationship with money in a big way.

I worked nearly every single day, weekdays and weekends, and adopted a lifestyle that was truly based on needs, not wants. It felt like a 12-round prizefight, paying each card off one by one. I learned about how I built my bad habits and how to trade them for good ones. And over the next two and a half years, all $42,000 of debt owed was paid back.

Along the way, I studied accounting, finance, risk, and how the market operates. I learned how people earned - and lost - tremendous amounts of wealth. I saw hard-working lower income earners build a strong nest egg and a solid financial foundation. I also saw people who earned tremendous sums of money annually consistently fail to make progress. And what I realized is that our emotions and behaviors, how we live, has an extraordinary impact on the outcome. I learned that money is personal, and I felt a deep desire to support and guide others in that fight for financial freedom.

Briggs Financial opened in January 2018 with the vision of providing purely financial advice to clients, to be in their corner and fighting alongside them. Briggs Financial now serves over 100 households, providing prudent financial planning, investment management, and tax preparation services to our clients. Our team now consists of of two full-time licensed financial advisors along with an amazing business consultant, focused on providing the highest quality of care and service while advocating for higher levels of ethics, accountability, and equality in the financial industry.