Tom Di Giacomo

My Bio starts with my parents; My mother was an Italian mainlander from Cortale, a little town in the province of Catanzaro, and my dad from the tiny Sicilian town of Siculiana in the province of Agrigento.

My parents met in Buffalo NY, were married and soon afterwards had me (a birthright citizen of the USA).

The story of my mom and my dad's family migration to the USA could each easily be made into a movie, they’re remarkable, and have had a dramatic effect on my life.

Although we didn’t know it at the time, my siblings and I grew up poor. We weren’t aware of this because we had everything we needed.

My dad was a barber my mom a homemaker and seamstress (in that order). They were hard workers, tireless, frugal, and proud.

My grandfather (his migration story is particularly and individually remarkable) would say every time we saw him, “America Bella!”, every single time we saw him! He was so glad to be here in America. His family was desperately poor in Italy and came here with nothing.

My professional story starts at my first “real job” out of college fixing copy machines. I would listen to the older guys talking about retirement, investing money and financial freedom. These were not conversations I would hear at home. My family was too busy making ends meet. So, I started reading anything I could get my hands on regarding money, retirement, investing and financial freedom. It would soon consume me, especially when I opened my first investment account, sending hard-earned dollars to a Junk Bond Mutual Fund in the 1980’s, during the Junk Bond crisis.

You see, one of the cassettes I was listening to at that time was on contrarian investing. The lady on the tape would often say“buy on bad news”so I took her advice. Junk Bonds were on the news every night and Junk Bond Mutual Fund prices were sinking like the Titanic, and I kept buying. When the crisis concluded, the Junk Bond Fund that I had been buying throughout the crisis went right back to the pre-crisis prices and my investment paid off substantially. Now I was not only consumed but I decided to change my professional career path from technician to Finance, and here I am, 35 years later, talking to you about your financial freedom, and excited to help.