Book Erin Onsager to speak at your next event
Practical, no-jargon talks on small business finance, personal money basics, real estate investing, and the side hustles that actually pay. Drawn from 13+ years as a hands-on rental property investor and 20+ years working in finance.
Request Erin to speak See speaking topics
Why Erin
Erin is a successful residential real estate investor with 13+ years of hands-on experience building a multi-state rental portfolio, and a financial strategist who helps small business owners and individuals get the math right. She runs Simply Spreadsheets and works as a fractional CFO, drawing on a 20+ year career in finance.
Audiences walk away with usable frameworks, real numbers, and the confidence to act. No fluff, no jargon, just the math behind the decision.
About Erin (speaker bio)
Erin Onsager is a Denver-based financial strategist and successful residential real estate investor. She holds an Economics degree from the University of Chicago and has built a 20+ year career in commercial real estate finance, where she developed deep expertise in forecasting, fund management, and capital deployment. She is the founder of Simply Spreadsheets (simplyspreadsheets.co), a financial advisory practice serving individuals and small business owners across diverse industries including hospitality, interior design, startups, professional services, fitness, and engineering.
A lifelong entrepreneur, Erin has spent over a decade building a cash flow positive, multi-state residential rental portfolio. Alongside her professional career, she has built a long track record of creative income streams and side ventures, sharpening a real-world instinct for spotting opportunities and turning them into sustainable income.
Erin’s superpower is taking complicated financial concepts (compound interest, P&L analysis, depreciation, tax strategy) and explaining them in plain language anyone can understand. She is passionate about closing the financial literacy gap for women entrepreneurs and helping small business owners build sustainable, profitable companies.
Speaking experience includes contributing financial education through her blog at simplyspreadsheets.co and serving as a guest on personal finance and entrepreneurship podcasts. She is actively expanding her speaking platform on topics including financial literacy, residential real estate investing, entrepreneurial side hustles, and small business finance.
Event organizers: feel free to use this bio in your program materials, website, and social promotion. For a custom-length version, headshot, or topic-specific bio, email simplyspreadsheets.co@gmail.com.
Speaking Topics
Small Business Finance
Cash flow, forecasting, and bookkeeping demystified for owners who never planned to become accountants.
What audiences learn
- Why financial forecasting is the difference between surviving and scaling
- How to build a working revenue, cost, and cash flow model in a spreadsheet
- The six most common bookkeeping pitfalls that quietly drain profits
- How to run best-case, moderate, and worst-case scenarios for your business
- Hands-on practice with a simple, owner-friendly income and expense tracker
Ideal for
- Small business associations, chambers of commerce, and economic development groups
- Founders, freelancers, and solopreneur cohorts
- Coworking spaces and incubator programs
Mastering Your Finances with Simply Spreadsheets
A two-part working session covering financial forecasting fundamentals (revenue projections, cost structure, profitability, cash flow, scenario modeling) and income and expense tracking, with hands-on Excel breakouts so attendees leave with a forecast model and tracker they actually use.
Personal Finance Basics
The money fundamentals nobody taught you in school, explained without shame or sales pitches.
What audiences learn
- Building a budget that actually survives contact with real life
- The order of operations: emergency fund, debt, retirement, taxable investing
- How credit scores work and how to fix the few mistakes that hurt them most
- Understanding paycheck withholding, taxes, and what your W-2 is really telling you
- Choosing the right retirement account: 401(k), Roth, traditional IRA, HSA, SEP
- How to read an investment fee, and why it matters more than people think
Ideal for
- College and graduate student programs, alumni associations
- Corporate employee wellness sessions and HR lunch-and-learns
- Women in business groups, young professional networks
- Community and library educational series
Real Estate Investing Basics
An honest, math-first introduction to building wealth through real estate, from someone who has been buying, financing, and running rentals across multiple states for 13+ years.
What audiences learn
- House hacking 101: using your primary residence to live for less (or free), what lenders allow, and the trade-offs nobody mentions
- Financing strategies: conventional, FHA, DSCR, HELOCs, portfolio loans, and seller financing, plus when each one makes sense
- Pricing a rental: how to set rent using comps, cap rates, and cash-on-cash returns instead of guessing
- The real numbers behind the 1% rule, the 50% rule, and why they break in 2026
- How to underwrite a deal in 15 minutes before you ever tour the property
- The tax advantages most new investors miss (depreciation, cost segregation, 1031)
Ideal for
- Real estate investor meetups and REIA chapters
- First-time homebuyer workshops
- Financial planner CE sessions and wealth-building cohorts
- Corporate ERGs, conferences, and podcast guest spots
Side Hustle Opportunities
A funny, candid tour through every income stream Erin has actually tried, what each one paid, and which are still worth it in 2026.
What audiences learn
- How to evaluate a side hustle on time, capital, and ceiling (the three numbers that matter)
- Renting your home on platforms like Airbnb, Peerspace, and Vrbo, including the hidden costs
- Renting out an RV or camper on Outdoorsy or RVshare
- Pet sitting and dog walking through Rover and Wag
- Service-based hustles: from cutting hair in a college dorm room to fractional bookkeeping
- How to track every hustle in one simple spreadsheet so taxes do not bury you
Ideal for
- College career centers and alumni networking events
- Conferences and keynotes (high-energy, audience-favorite session)
- Podcasts, YouTube guest interviews, and live streams
- Women in finance, young professionals, and parent groups
Formats available
Keynote
30 to 60 minutes. High-energy, story-driven, takeaway-focused for conferences and large audiences.
Workshop
60 to 180 minutes. Hands-on, spreadsheet-included, breakout exercises. Best for small business and finance topics.
Panel or Podcast
Guest expert on small business finance, real estate investing, side hustles, or personal money basics.
Have an audience that needs this?
Tell me about your event, audience, and date. I reply within 48 hours with availability and a proposed format.
Email Erin to book a talk
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