About

Welcome to Fintovia

Your independent guide to personal finance — built for real people at every income level.

About Jamie Hartwell

I'm Jamie Hartwell, a personal finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio. I spent eight years in corporate HR before leaving in 2021 to run Fintovia full-time.

My relationship with money wasn't always pretty. At 25, a medical emergency left me with $34,000 in credit card debt on top of student loans. I spent four years paying it off using the debt avalanche method — not because I read it in a book, but because I ran the numbers myself and it was the only thing that made mathematical sense.

Since then: paid off the student loans, bought a home with my husband Dan in 2019, built a six-month emergency fund, maxed my 401k, and hit a $200k net worth milestone in 2023. None of it happened overnight. All of it is replicable.

That's what Fintovia is about. Not theory. Not motivation-poster advice. Just the actual moves that work, explained clearly, with real numbers attached.

What We Cover

• Budgeting and saving — strategies that hold up in real life, not just on paper
• Debt payoff — avalanche, snowball, and everything in between
• Insurance — how to get the coverage you need without overpaying
• Investing basics — 401k, Roth IRA, index funds, explained without the jargon
• Retirement planning — whether you're starting at 25 or catching up at 45

Editorial Standards

Every article on Fintovia is researched against primary sources — Federal Reserve data, IRS publications, FDIC reports — and updated when rates, limits, or laws change. We cite our sources. We give real numbers. We don't pad word counts with obvious advice.

We may earn a commission from affiliate links at no cost to you. We only recommend products we'd actually use.