About Financial Minimalist
Helping families, homeowners, and professionals across the Pacific Northwest — and throughout the U.S. — eliminate debt, build wealth, and finally learn to bank like a bank.
Most People Are Taught One Thing About Money
Pay your bills every month and keep moving forward.
From the moment we start earning, we’re told that this is just “how it works.” Work hard, pay your debts, make the minimums, maybe save a little if there’s anything left over.
But what no one teaches us is how to bank like a bank. And that’s not an accident.
Banks and financial institutions build their wealth not by following the rules they give us, but by structuring money to work for them.
- They use leverage
- They use cash flow
- They use timing.
Meanwhile, families across the country are trapped in a cycle — paying for homes over 30 years, staying in debt for decades, and losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest and unnecessary payments along the way.
Most households can’t even handle a $500 emergency, yet the average family is unknowingly paying far more than they need to over the life of their mortgage and debts.
The Turning Point
Here’s something most people never think about: would you rather make a dollar or save a dollar?
You pay taxes on the dollars you make, but you get to keep every dollar you save.
That’s the difference between working harder and working smarter. And that’s the principle that makes banking like a bank so powerful — it’s about keeping more of what you already earn instead of giving it away to interest, fees, and unnecessary payments. That reality hit me harder than I ever expected.
Nine years ago, I experienced a serious health scare that landed me in the ICU for two weeks. Six months later, I was back in the hospital again — this time having to relearn how to walk and even how to write.
Those experiences forced me to slow down and look at life differently. They showed me how fragile everything can be, and how much of what we stress over — especially money — is made far more complicated than it needs to be.
The Moment of Clarity
I realized that families don’t need another lecture about budgeting harder, pinching pennies, or working longer hours.
What they need is a system — a way to think and move their money differently. A way to put their own family in the position of the bank instead of being on the other side of the table.
That’s why I started Financial Minimalist.
What We Do
We help families take the same dollars they already earn, redirect them, and use them in a way that eliminates debt faster, pays off mortgages in a fraction of the time, and begins building long-term stability at the same time.
No gimmicks. No get-rich-quick schemes. Just clear, simple strategies the banks themselves have been using for decades — finally applied for your benefit instead of theirs.
What I Believe
I believe every family deserves that kind of freedom — the freedom to wake up without financial stress hanging over their heads, the freedom to know their home will be paid off years earlier than they thought possible, the freedom to give their kids opportunities they never had, and the freedom to retire without fear.
This isn’t about chasing money for money’s sake. It’s about rewriting the story you were handed.
You don’t have to live the way banks and lenders told you to live.
You can bank like a bank — and once you do, everything changes.
Meet James
With more than 25 years of experience in finance and strategy, James founded Financial Minimalist in Lakewood, Washington, to help families reclaim control of their money and peace of mind.
He’s guided hundreds of homeowners and professionals through a precise, math-driven process that eliminates debt, builds savings, and restores balance to their financial lives.
When he’s not coaching families through their Personal Savings Analyses, James enjoys the quiet side of the Pacific Northwest and believes simplicity — in money and in life — is the ultimate freedom.