Educator Spotlight:
James A. Lorenz Gives Back to His Community by Authoring, Donating His Comprehensive Financial Wellness Book
James A. Lorenz
An acclaimed author and Certified Financial Education Instructor (CFEI®) from Ohio, James A. Lorenz feels passionate about creating and delivering engaging, effective learning materials for a wide audience. With more than 35 years of curriculum development, writing, and teaching experience with both community colleges and in the private sector, James has authored several books covering such topics as network administration, routing, and switching. Today, driven by a desire to give back to his community and reduce the suffering people experience due to lack of financial knowledge, Lorenz’s overarching vision is to get essential financial tools into the hands of average people and help educate those people in how to use them.
To help reach that goal, Lorenz and his new publishing company, Heuristics Press, promote personal finance awareness by authoring and publishing financial wellness books in both print and eBook formats. His current book is titled Practical Guide to Personal Finance Awareness: What Every High School Graduate should Know about Money, and is available on his website www.heuristicspress.com via a print on demand portal. The 20-chapter book represents an encyclopedic reference work with practical value to instructors, coaches, financial professionals, and people who just want to improve their lives through financial education.
As each chapter in the book can stand on its own, readers can easily scan the table of contents or index to select topics of most relevance to their own interests and life events (read what you need). In addition, the book covers subjects not typically found in personal finance books, such as mindful awareness, and the attitude of gratitude, and its effect on prosperity. To help people avoid being taken advantage of, a chapter on financial scams and rip-offs is provided. To reinforce concepts, each chapter has tips and summaries as well as one or more hands-on financial exercises.
Free Personal Financial Spreadsheet (PFS)
A comprehensive Personal Financial Spreadsheet is the foundation of the book and can be downloaded for free and customized as needed. Lorenz provides a link to the professionally developed 7-page Excel workbook on his website at no cost, whether the book is purchased or not, to help promote the book and financial wellness. Built-in formulas in the spreadsheet can calculate personal financial indicators such as Debt-to-Income (DTI) and Debt-to-Credit (DTC).
Holistic, Mindful Focus
James’s book brings fresh perspective and insight into the types of real-world financial situations average people are likely to encounter during their lifetimes. He presents money tips and relevant notes through anecdotes related to his own personal experiences with financial situations, including money management, investments, home-buying, vehicle purchases, and funding college. The focus is on increasing mindful awareness about financial decisions to avoid making common mistakes. Lorenz donates a portion of the book sale profits toward improving financial literacy.
Since the Practical Guide’s release in January 2024, James has donated 30 copies to libraries, schools, civic organizations, and financial professionals. Heuristics Press has set a goal to donate at least 100 books across the state of Ohio by the end of 2024.
Pursuing His Calling
Before embarking on his personal finance awareness journey, James Lorenz had careers as an author/instructor in automotive technology, computer programming, and network engineering. He founded Heuristics Press as a family business and sold a collectible automobile asset to raise funds for the Practical Guide book-writing project. A blog posting on his website describes the process he went through to convert his beloved Camaro SS to cash to invest in the business. During this five-year process James had to learn all about the publishing business, website design, how to develop content for a 430-page tome, and book marketing. This monumental project demanded more than 5,000 hours of his time.
“I consider it to be my calling, which is sometimes referred to as ‘dharma’,” James comments on writing the book. “I have pursued my passion for giving back to the community in hopes that somebody – other than our daughters – can benefit from financial mistakes I have made during my life.”
An Eye to the Future
For the future, Lorenz and his publishing company plan to update the full unabridged version of the Practical Guide every two years. They also have an eye toward trimming the book down into a textbook edition specifically targeting high school seniors and first-year college students. The print and eBook versions are available now through the Heuristics Press website and on Amazon. The website also offers a downloadable personal finance spreadsheet that accompanies the volume.