I was ready for marriage at 18, especially with Megan. So when I finally popped the question—with her parents’ approval, of course—it was in her driveway after a date night in Houston. Our favorite thing to do was wish on the stars that we’d be together forever, so as we made our wish that night, I proposed.

I lost my job about two weeks after getting engaged, which we viewed as the perfect opportunity for me to go to college and start forging our path forward in life. During my time in college, I worked hard at loading trucks for UPS every morning and focusing on my schoolwork the rest of the day—a full 15- to 18-hour class schedule per semester. I got through college pretty quickly (100 hours in 15 months), only to graduate in the middle of a market collapse.

We got married on a Friday night in our hometown, Lufkin, at Megan’s church. Our immediate honeymoon was to Houston for the weekend. We stayed in a Four Seasons and caught an Astros game before heading back into town so I could take my last college finals. Our secondary honeymoon was in Vegas, mainly because we didn’t need to rent a car… you know, since I wasn’t old enough to.

Following our marriage, we decided to live below our means, seeing as I worked my way out of debt and Megan had come from a family that paid cash for everything. So, we started flexing our financial muscles: the majority of every raise we got was put into savings, and we acted as if we each made $10/hour. Saving was our number one priority.

I ended up making less than Megan after graduating and entering the job market, so when my brother offered me a job at his growing healthcare software company, I took it. While it wasn’t a job in finance directly, I was able to learn quite a few life skills—one of which was on a trip to LA. I remember noticing all of the extremely happy homeless people along Venice Beach, and in seeing their joy, I sat down to assess with Meg. We asked ourselves, “Why are we working so hard to retire in a beach town, when people are doing it now and seem happy?” This lesson and thought process was a huge milestone in our journey, and we still ask clients this same question today.

I left my brother’s company around 2013, started working in town at Merrill Lynch, and took on becoming our church’s youth pastor to about 70 kids, all so I could be closer to Meg and help raise our new baby boy, Kix. In the midst of my chaotic transition from essentially running a company to suddenly being the lowest on the totem pole, I quickly realized that Merrill Lynch was more concerned with sales than putting clients in the right investments. It wasn’t long before I started dreaming up my own company, leaving Merrill Lynch behind.

My father passed away in the summer of 2014, and with that, the pressing urge to create my own business was driven deeper. My dad had always been a dreamer, and I wanted to honor his dreams by becoming more: not just dreaming—doing. A year after leaving Merrill Lynch, Kovar Capital was born, and within a few months, I began an insurance agency and business consulting practice as add-ons for my clients.

I acquired a healthcare company through a partnership with some investors. What was supposed to be a fairly silent investment turned into me running the entire business within a few short weeks; although Meg and I poured all of our savings into it, we were on the verge of bankruptcy a few months in. Incredibly, by God’s grace and a lot of hard work, we were able to double that business every year that we owned it, and even successfully bought out the other investors in 2018.

Our experience of working with hundreds of couples taught us that many of them never could simply see eye to eye on their financial plan. We knew there had to be more to it! In our research, we came across The Money Couple and The 5 Money Personalities, and soon enough, we met with the owners who were ready to pass the torch of their mission on to a younger couple.

Towards the end of 2021, we sold our healthcare company and several ancillary businesses to be fully present and focused on Kovar Wealth Management, The Money Couple, our marriage, and our family. We feel our calling in life is to help other couples thrive and live more successful lives in every aspect. We want to encourage people and couples all over the world that no matter your background or your current situation, with a little luck and a lot of hard work, you can achieve your goals and get to where you’re going. Trust me—I grew up in a converted barn in the middle of nowhere.