I’m Stefan — and I’ll be watching.
As a surveillance officer who decided to turn the camera on something more useful than casino tables. Your financial habits.
I spent 17 years in the casino industry — 5 as a croupier and 12 in surveillance — watching people make financial decisions under pressure, in real time, with real money. What that environment taught me about human behavior, risk, and money psychology is something no classroom could fully replicate.
But here’s the thing nobody tells you about working in surveillance: watching others make bad financial decisions doesn’t automatically make you immune to making them yourself.
I grew up in a working class family in Romania where the goal was simple — get a good job, keep it, be grateful. Nobody in my family ran a business. Nobody talked about investing. A mortgage was just something you carried for 30 years like a backpack you forgot was there.
So that’s exactly what I did. Until 2020 — when my mortgage interest rate spiked and something finally clicked.
I started reading obsessively. Kahneman. Housel. Taleb. Stanley. Dalio. Kiyosaki. I went back to college and graduated in Economics and Business Administration in 2025. My wife and I got completely honest with each other about money — and together we eliminated 23 years of remaining mortgage debt in 3 years.
I built an emergency fund. Started investing monthly in ETFs. Got properly insured. Stopped financing things I could save for instead.
I started at 33 with almost zero financial awareness. If you’re reading this thinking it’s too late — it’s not.
TheFinancialSurveillance is where I share everything I’ve learned — through the unique lens of someone who has watched human financial behavior up close for nearly two decades. I’m not a financial advisor. I’m not a guru. I’m someone who figured it out later than I’d like to admit, did the unglamorous work, and wants to help you do the same.
I’m still figuring out the entrepreneurial side of life — because nobody in my family showed me that path. This blog is me figuring it out in public.
You’re welcome to come along.
TheFinancialSurveillance.com — Watching over your financial future.