My ambitions started out with reading lots of the best money books. I would go through page after page trying to find the magic equation for getting rich. By purposely picking books that were written by millionaires themselves, I thought I would be able to learn from their methods and reproduce their success.
To some degree this method worked. I learned the basics of financial planning on things like having a 401k, an IRA, stocks, etc. I also learned about the concept of passive income, and how everyday people use it to change their lives.
Books are great and I will never knock them. But after a point, the material and the messages started to sound the same. Over and over, the mantra of “spend less, save more” was becoming a bit of a broken record. And I REALLY wanted to know more about this whole passive income theory and how it could be used to retire early. Were there REAL people out there who actually had success with it?
The Web is Full of Both Advanced and Basic Financial Planning Tools:
Absolutely there was! And I found them on blogs.
Reading blogs have taught me so much more than I could have imagined about personal finance. I’ve been able to find very specific information about everything from retirement planning to asset allocation and stock valuation. And if that’s not enough, you can even find more serious ones that talk about buying options or making investments in private companies. No matter what it is you’re trying to find, there always seems to someone else who has had some success in this area before and is willing to share it with the public on their own site.
The people that write these sites live their advice. They really do retire by age 40. They really do figure out how to replace their employment income with something else. They really do figure out how to make what it is you’re trying to do work.
The other great thing about reading financial blogs: They get updated regularly. Unlike a book, there’s no waiting around for months or years for the next one to come out. As often as a few times a week you can read something new from your favorite writer; raw and uncensored.
Unlike the titles you might find at Barnes and Noble, the advice you find is not always conventional. Forget about saving just 10% of your paycheck. Forget about NOT taking on more debt. There’s a lot of different tricks people out there use and swear by, and each one of them has a different success story to share. The only question is: What do you want to learn from all of it?
The Top 100 Finance Blogs Infographic:
If you’d like to see a list of great financial planning blogs, then check out the following infographic by Credit Audit. I don’t know how, but My Money Design made it to the No. 7 spot out of 100. That’s pretty great considering there were some pretty big and much more established personal finance blogs on this list. I’m glad to know that someone thinks pretty highly of my site.
Readers – Where did you learn your basic financial planning habits? Was your blog included on this list? How would you have ranked these sites if you had put together this infographic?
Related Posts:
- How to Invest a Million Dollars and Why You’ll Need to Know How Someday
- My Picks for Vanguard Mutual Funds for Our Roth IRA
- Finally a Safe Savings Rate for Your Retirement Formula
Image courtesy of Sura Nualpradid / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Congrats on making the top ten! I agree that blogs are a great source of financial information. When I started looking to get out of debt, I began with books, which were great, but very generic. I needed real people who had been in my shoes and made it to the other side. Most blogger will also email you right back if you have a question. I don’t think you can get that from Dave Ramsey or David Bach.
Very true! There is something much more personal about reading and interacting with a blog. Usually you can find a much more detailed and tailored answer to the questions you seek.
Thanks so much for this; great post! Looking forward to learning more along the same lines.
You’re welcome Tony. You’re going to learn a lot from reading the blogs of others. I’ve been surprised at how many good ideas I’ve found out there.
Congrats on making it so high up the list. I’m not on it this year but who knows, maybe I’ll be on the 2014 list 😀 I use financial news websites like yahoo finance or BNN in combination with personal finance blogs to do most of my learning 🙂 And yeah, Investopedia is a great resource. I like their short videos with the playful background music.
Thanks! I usually go with CNN Money, Yahoo, and Morning Star for all my money news outside of blogs.
Congrats on making this elite list! I totally agree with you on books dishing out the same financial advice. It may sound slightly different here and there, but essentially it’s all the same.
I have learned a LOT (and am still learning a LOT) about investing and maintaining, growing a blog and what to do if you want to start making money off of your blog.
Imagine if they were around and insanely popular as they are now 20 years ago!
Thanks! I’ve also come to learn a lot about blogging; perhaps even more so than personal finance from reading other blogs. But in a twist: I’m trying to combine the two of them to make more money from my blog(s)!
I was also shocked to see my blog so high on the list. Hopefully it is a sign of great things to come 🙂
I think it is! Nice work!
Thanks for shared these information that’s “One stop financial blog” sources. A basic financial planning skill is necessary for money management. I have found most of learner using financial blog for learning strategies or tips because here blog owner reply each question that’s improve learner skill.
Thanks Shawn!
Hi MMD!! Thanks for reply.
Congratulations on making the list!
I’ve learned almost everything I know about finance from blogs. Scary isn’t it?
I’ve found that certain blogs are more or less helpful depending on where you are regarding your finances. For example, I don’t get much out of debt blogs, since I don’t have any debt. But I would imagine that these are hugely helpful for a lot people.
Thank you. It’s only semi-scary that your knowledge of finance comes from blogs. Who is to say that someone writing about how they retired at an early age isn’t anymore qualified to give advice than Dave Ramsey? That’s exactly what I like about them. You can really narrow in on “real” people who have either made it happen or are in progress of making it happen. I tend to favor blogs that talk about their strategies for early retirement because that is what I’m trying to do.
Nice Article ! yes its good to use blog for learning financial planning but i hope any time we may need a financial planner for parking our investment they are good enough to know were we can park our money or investment