Clever Dude founded CleverDude.com in June 2006 while working as a technical analyst in the Washington, D.C. area. A Penn State graduate, he built the site as a side project alongside a white-collar career that included earning a master’s degree and multiple promotions.
In five years he wrote nearly 1,300 articles on personal finance and life lessons drawn from his own experience. The blog grew from a hobby into a recognized early voice in the personal-finance community and generated meaningful revenue. He sold the site in 2010, continued as a guest contributor through 2015, and returned in 2023 after further career advances, paying off his home, and extensive travel.
It's been a few weeks since I told you I was presenting my final project for my masters degree. Other than that, I just had to finish up one more class which happens to end next week. You would think I would have been excited to finish after over 2 … [Read more...] about I’m not a perfectionist
Credit • Debt • Family or Marriage • Finances & Money • Frugality
So, I've laid out how we got to our total consumer debt of $113,000 (not counting our roughly $400,000 mortgage). Now it's time to explain how we began to dig our way out. First, though, let me take you back to May, 2001 when I graduated college … [Read more...] about Our Journey to Debt Freedom: Graduation through Engagement
Free Music I like Christmas music, and I like free, so it's a good thing Amazon has rolled out its 25 free MP3s in 25 days again this Christmas season. If you miss a day, you can still go back and download it. Downloading MP3s from Amazon … [Read more...] about Amazon Holiday Deals: Free or Cheap Music, Games and Books
Automotive • Credit • Debt • Finances & Money
As of November 12, 2009, we're free of consumer debt. In the article, I promised to tell you all how we got out of $113,000 in debt, but I realized that I first need to tell you how we got into the debt. I'll try to be brief with the story, which … [Read more...] about Our Journey to Debt Freedom: The Beginning
Debt • Finances & Money • Home
Actually, I'm pretty excited that our adjustable mortgage rate reset. A couple months ago, I wrote all about the details of our two mortgages. To recap, our primary mortgage, which is about $300,000, is a 5/1 interest-only ARM mortgage. The "5" means … [Read more...] about Our adjustable mortgage rate reset! Oh No!
Credit • Debt • Finances & Money
As of today, we have paid off all $113,000 of our student loans, auto loans and credit card debt. We are debt free!!! (except for that pesky mortgage) I sent the final check of about $3,000 off to pay off my student loan last week, and now the … [Read more...] about We’re Free of Consumer Debt!!!!!!
In 11 days, I'll be finishing one of my last 2 masters degree courses; the other one ends December 16th. The first one to end started back in April, and I finally got my act together to finish all my deliverables and commit to a presentation date … [Read more...] about Thanks for the Hits! October 2009 Recap
You've heard me complain about the cost of owning a pool before. Well, the problem of being a homeowner is that when something breaks, you're on the hook to fix it. Such was the case with our pool recently when we asked a couple contractors to come … [Read more...] about $7,000 We’ll Never Get Back
