Jason Vitug, founder of Phroogal shares his journey from corporate American to world traveler and founder of a blog loaded with personal finance tools.

Jason spent ten years in financial services.  Part of his job was traveling across the country teaching financial literacy.  He found the same thing everywhere.  No matter how  little  or how much people made, they couldn’t follow their dreams because they had no knowledge of how to handle their finances.

Jason knew how to help these people but wanted to reach a larger audience.  After working non-stop for three and a half years he wanted a break.  He decided to go sit on the beach in the Philippines for six months.  A friend encouraged him to take a year off and visit several places.  He ended up seeing twenty one countries in 2012.

Conventional wisdom kept telling Jason the next step in life was to buy a house.  He knew that wasn’t the right decision for him.  He took the money he would have used as a down payment to pay off the remainder of his student loans and credit card bills.  He had about $10,000 left and that’s the money he traveled on.  Part of his travels were financed with credit card miles he earned while traveling for his job.  Jason saved money on lodging by using Couchsurfing.  The site saves you money and gives you a real glimpse of the place you’re visiting because you are staying with actual residents.

Jason was so inspired by his travels and by the stories of the people he worked with in the states that he knew what he wanted to do.  He started Phroogal which is a site that aggregates the best personal finance information.  Some information is curated by users of the site themselves.  If you have a favorite personal finance blog, podcast (LMM), or book, you can post it on the site for others to find and learn from.

Check out Phroogal, share your favorite personal finance resources and learn what other people have found helpful.

Show Notes

Phroogal:  Jason’s site loaded with personal finance information and a specialized search engine for financial knowledge.