What is a Blogger?
Being a somewhat-serious or long-term blogger, and a personal finance blogger in particular, is an interesting feeling. On one hand, you could be considered an "expert" because blogging allows you to learn and be exposed to things that most people aren't. For example, personal finance bloggers are sent financial books from publishers to review, we get asked "what-would-you-do" type questions from friends, co-workers, and readers, and even have the chance to moderate seminars and workshops occasionally. On the other hand, personal finance bloggers are not officially experts at all, and any sort of claim that you are is technically not allowed, since only licensed professionals can provide formal advice.
Regardless, it's been an interesting ride. Ten years seems like a long time for many things. Careers are often started and ended in such time periods. I've definitely seen my fair-share change and flux in the personal finance blogosphere.
Phases of My Personal Finance Journey
Throughout this blog's life, there have been very distinct phases, and I thought it'd be fun to share these with you all today.
Phase 1 - Blog Startup, Ignorance, and Infancy (Jan - Jul 2010)
The start of My Personal Finance Journey was not very pretty.
I started the blog in mid January 2010 without really having any clue about blogging or running a website. I simply knew I liked learning about personal finance and wanted to start a "side-hustle" business I could do in my spare time from home. The blog started being housed on the free Google Blogger platform without our own domain. In other words, the blog's address was mypersonalfinancejourney.blogspot.com. I started learning, reading, and writing as much as I could about personal finance and blogging.
The blog consumed all of my spare time (which was good, because at this time of my life, I had plenty!). I would often write and post articles 3-4 times per day to my blog, staying up until midnight - 2 AM. It was EXCITING times with everything being so new!
Phase 2 - Establishment of My Personal Finance Strategy (Aug - Dec 2010)
By mid to late 2010, my blog entered a second phase where I had learned enough about blogging and personal finance to feel like I could speak and write intelligently about the subject. It was during this time that I determined my asset allocation, passive investing, savings, and budgeting strategies. Of course, my discovery and establishment of those strategies were shared in detail on this blog.
Phase 3 - Yakezie, Increased Traffic, and Increased Income (Jan 2011 - Dec 2012)
The third phase of this blog started in approximately the early 2011 time frame when I got involved with the Yakezie Personal Finance Blogging Network. Using the learnings from other Yakezie members, I was able to drastically increase my blogging income and traffic.
Looking back, I was quite fortunate to have my income increase during this time since I went back to graduate school in the fall of 2010, greatly reducing my income compared to working a real job. At this same time, I completed refinements to my site, such as adding custom functionality by moving to WordPress self-hosted and buying my own domain space.
Phase 4 - Sustained Blog Growth, In-Depth Explorations of Personal Finance (Jan 2013 - Sep 2014)
By the time January of 2013 rolled around, I had been writing about personal finance on this blog very actively for 3 years. My book shelf had become nicely full of books on the subject, and I had read maybe 75 - 100 of them.
It was at this time that I really started delving into the mathematical details of my investing strategy and budgeting and sharing those findings here. I was able to run several personal finance seminars at my school and with a wellness group. My blog's growth and income continued to do well.
Phase 5 - Background Involvement, Focus on My Career (Oct 2014 - Present)
The next phase brings us to the current day! After finishing up graduate school, getting married, and starting my post-PhD career, my available time and energy to be actively involved in this blog on a daily basis went to much lower levels.
Essentially, I only was able to manage emails, advertisements, and making sure the site was still up. Next, I had two children in January of 2016 and December of 2018, which further reduced available time. I'd say my involvement went from ~ 10+ hours per week to ~ 2 hours per week. However, thanks to an awesome group of staff writers, I've been able to continue publishing posts so that things aren't completely dead here!
Rights and Wrongs Over 10 Years of Blogging
One of the things I've found most fascinating over the time I've been blogging is the differential fate of other bloggers I've interacted with along the way (and myself included):
- Several bloggers I have worked with closely have:
- Gone on to sell their site for literally millions of $.
- Routinely make >$100k per month from their blog.
- Routinely make a couple thousand $ per month from their blog.
- Routinely make a couple hundred $ per month from their blog.
- Leveraged the name they made in personal finance and blogging to start website businesses, SEO outfits, ad agencies, dog-walking services, etc (and turning those businesses into full-time gigs).
- Many bloggers I have worked with closely are no longer blogging or sold their blog.
Over the years, I've tried to observe what has caused these successes and apply it to my own situation. Along these same lines, I've done many things wrong and many things right over my 10 years of blogging. I wanted to share these reflections with you all today:
Something I've Done Right - Leverage This Blog to Learn Personal Finance
A lot of people in my professional field are pretty honest - they have no knowledge, or the desire to have knowledge, about personal finance. Through the motivation and outlet provided to me by this blog, I've been able to effectively teach myself how to manage my finances and the money I make during my career. At least so far, it's paid off big time in net worth growth in the past 10 years.
Something I've Done Right - Tackle Technical Personal Finance Topics
One of the things for which I'm proud is that I've been able to provide write hardcore, in-depth, mathematical, multi-thousand word articles on asset allocation and investing strategies. I feel like there are so many short, "soft" posts out there that this has provided some nice variety.
Something I've Done Right - Be Honest About My Goals With This Blog and Persist!
Since I started this blog, I was clear with my intention that I didn't want it to become a full-time job. My career in science and drug development/manufacturing has always been prioritized.
When you see blogging peers "making it big," it can be discouraging. It's easy to ask yourself, "They did it - why can't I?" I feel like this comparison has generated some jealousy, rage, and disappointment with some bloggers, causing them to stop blogging all-together.
Something I've Done Wrong, That Was Also Right - Not Taking Opportunities That Came My Way
Numerous times over the past 10 years, I've had the opportunity to do things that, quite honestly, would have greatly benefited my blog's growth in a significant way. However, they would have required additional time commitments away from my regular obligations, so I made the conscience decision to politely refuse. However, if you want to grow a blog into something big though, you should take advantage of these!
- Invited Interviews and panels from online and media news outlets.
- Face-to-face meetups with other personal finance bloggers.
- Attending blogging conferences (FinCon).
Something I've Done Wrong - Sustained Networking With Other Bloggers
In 2011-2014, I worked quite closely with other bloggers through Yakezie, guest posts, and joint-projects which benefited me personally and also from a site traffic and income perspective. However, that has dropped off sharply in the past 5 or so years.
Something I've Done Wrong - Failure to Get Affiliate Advertising to Work
I've tried 3 times to get affiliate advertising to work on my site, but I haven't yet been able to earn anymore than a few $. Maybe it's because you need a thousand visitors per day because there's only a 0.1% success rate to get revenue?
Something I've Done Wrong - Failure to Grow This Blog and Create Community Without My Active Involvement
The last item I'll conclude with that I've done wrong is that I haven't figured out how to make this blog be "successful" from a traffic and income perspective without me being actively involved in it. For example, in the past five years of "background involvement," traffic has decreased by more than 80% and my income has decreased by 95% from peak levels.
So, there you have it! My long overdue reflection on 10 years of blogging. Keep on trucking!
