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The Future of Lazy Man and Money

September 25, 2016 by Lazy Man 6 Comments

You may have noticed that I didn’t much last week. It was the annual FinCon personal finance convention in San Diego.

My Susan Lucci streak of losing Plutus Awards is still going strong. The biggest challenger is Stefanie O’Connell, but I’ve got a few years on her. She’ll be fine… she’s the next Jean Chatzky.

I was learning new things about personal finance, networking with new people, and getting tips about how to make this website a much better experience for you.

It’s shameful that I haven’t updated the design since 2007.

I’ve been working with a website designer to put together something fresh. You’ll love it.

Expect to see it in about a month.

While that’s going on, I’ll be going though the ten years of articles I’ve written. I’ll look for the best bits and pieces I’ve written. Then I’ll combine them into articles that make personal finance easy and actionable.

I plan to start interviewing other personal finance bloggers and people who doing amazing things. I’ve met a few of them during this conference. Most people will learn something from their journeys. Many people will learn a few things.

Finally, the design will be great for those mobile users. That’s the vast majority of you nowadays.

I’ve got a plan to deliver fewer, but higher quality, ads. If it works out, it will be great for everyone… and hopefully not too damaging to my wallet.

But I’m going to ask you for a little help… the stress on the little.

I need you to leave comments and questions. We learn by sharing thoughts and ideas about what works. Everyone makes mistakes and no one makes more than me… except maybe meteorologists.

This is why I need you to challenge me.

Let’s do this!

Filed Under: About / Admin, Blogging Tagged With: personal finance, website

Ten Reasons Why You Should be a Personal Finance Blogger

March 8, 2017 by Lazy Man 7 Comments

Back in May of 2007, I wrote Top Ten Ways Personal Finance Blogging has Helped Me. With nearly 9 years of more experience to look at my blogging experience (and correct the formatting issues), I think it’s time for an updated article. For nostalgia reasons (Letterman), I’ll keep the same countdown system as the original article.

  1. I still make money from advertising – Online advertising has changed a lot in 9 years. Entire income streams (text links) have disappeared and advertisers pay much less than they used to (budget is probably going to Facebook). However, there’s more traffic. I looked back over the years and there’s one year (my best year) that I made half of what I did as a software engineer. I’m getting close to that now, but it is a full-time job.
  2. I’m wiser about money – I’ve been reading Kiplinger’s and Money Magazine far, far longer than I’ve been blogging about money. You can a learn a lot from those magazines, but when you have to write to an audience it helps to research it and make sure you get it right.
  3. I’m forced to follow through – It’s really hard to tell people to contribute to their Roth IRA and then blow it off yourself.
  4. I look into things I wouldn’t have otherwise – Last year, we got solar power. I didn’t suddenly wake up and say, “Hey this is a great way to save money.” Instead, I thought, “This is a topic that I haven’t written about. Let me investigate whether this makes sense so I can help others.” You can read my articles on solar power here.
  5. I’m still learning business skills – Lazy Man and Money was never intended to be a business. It caught me by surprise that people would pay money to advertise on the blog. I wonder if readers think it’s just write an article and publish it. There’s a lot of (usually fruitless) negotiation with advertisers, technology issues (I was hacked last week), bookkeeping
  6. It fills a household need – Someone in the family needs to make financial decisions. My wife isn’t geared to thinking, “Let’s refinance the house.” It’s just not her thing. She’s great at numerous other things that make the household run, but I think being a respected financial blogger gives her the confidence that I’m not gambling the money away.
  7. I’m still learning to be a better writer – Writing effectively is one of the most valuable skills you can possess. I know some personal finance bloggers who get deals to write for companies at $1 a word. To put that in perspective, this article would be worth around $750. Not many people can get nearly that kind of money, but it isn’t unusual to make $50-$75 for an article on the side.
  8. I get help from others – When I have a money question, I have an audience of people who are usually willing to chip in. They often new ideas that I hadn’t considered.
  9. I get to help others – Money can be a taboo topic, but it shouldn’t be. When we discuss things we learn. I’ve gotten a lot of emails and comments about how much I’ve helped people. That makes me feel great.
  10. Inspiration – Inspiration is a two way street. When I read some of the blogs at Rockstar Finance’s Net Worth tracker I am excited by bloggers who have a million (or two!) dollars. A few times over the last year, people have said to me, “You inspired me to write a blog.” The strange thing is, these people have bigger and better blogs than I can even dream of.

I want to expand on that last one a bit. I was inspired by Boston Gal’s Open Wallet. She inspired others (as well as me). It’s incredible to think that one person can have an effect on tens of millions of lives, but that’s exactly what has happened. Sometimes it feels like it is impossible to change the world. There’s so much momentum and it’s easy to feel like what you are doing doesn’t matter. It does matter… probably a lot more than we can ever comprehend.

If this sounds like something you’d be interested in there are a few companies that can help get you started. I’ve found that companies such as Bluehost have an easy way to get started with a WordPress blog… and you really want to go with WordPress. It hosts around 99% of all blogs.

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: personal finance

Personal Finance Links (Annoying Weekend Edition)

August 1, 2011 by Lazy Man 5 Comments

This weekend seemed to have one problem after another. It’s put me in a rather sour mood. As such the first few articles of the week (and maybe more) are probably about 700% more “ranty” than usual. I just feel like I should get that out there to be fair. Hopefully things will get better as I take the evening off and go enjoy Chevy’s $2 table-side guacamole, a cocktail, and the American Idol concert.

Money Writers:

  • Brip Blap posts getting a job on wall street, circa 2009.
  • Frugal Dad shares seven secret places to hide cash in your home – well they were secret before this post!
  • Generation X Finance says your home is NOT an investment! Don’t treat it like one.
  • Are you radically frugal? Find out with Million Dollar Journey.
  • Digerati Life presents best travel sites for cheap vacation deals.
  • Money Smart Life discusses mortgage pre-approval when buying a house.
  • Jill blogs at My Dollar Plan about how to get control of your budget!
  • The Sun’s Financial Diary writes trade carbon emissions with ETFs.

More Financial Posts:

  • Free Money Finance asks what is money?
  • Five Cent Nickel shares some strategies to curb lifestyle inflation. What are yours?
  • Consumer Commentary reveals 10 purchases that can harm your credit.

Financial Posts of the Week:

  • Your Money to Keep writes a semi-serious semi-humorous post on 5 ways to get $20K by Monday
  • Money and Investing blogs fixed cost vs. time and materials.
  • Rich Credit Debt Loan gives4 tips to improve your finances.
  • Realm of Prosperity posts 3 things to stop buying for your health and your wallet.
  • Saving to Invest says there are 5 steps [you can] take now in preparation for double digit inflation.
  • Blunt Money shares foreclosure from a renter’s perspective.
  • Steadfast Finances asks why do we rent some stuff but buy other stuff?
  • Sick of Being Poor says I resigned this morning!
  • Wise Money Matters explains how to weather a recession.
  • Money Under 30 presents how to create a five-year financial plan.
  • Canada Personal Finance Website posts how to save money by downsizing saying it’s not always a bad thing.
  • Studenomics writes how to prevent getting scammed by all-you-can-eat buffets.

Filed Under: Links Tagged With: American Idol, Chevy's, personal finance

Personal Finance Links (Mother’s Day Contest Winner Announced)

August 1, 2011 by Lazy Man 3 Comments

I’m not one for suspense, so the winner of the Lazy Man’s Mother’s Day Contest was Tyler of Starshard0’s Super Blog. Congrats!

I’m really running out of time to come up with questions for personal finance guru, Jean Chatzky, so I could use some help on that front as well.

In other thoughts…

  • Sports – Celtics and Red Sox on at the same time tonight… both on national TV. This could be heaven or hell.
  • Doggie Savings – I found you can save a good amount of money on Firminators and puppy training pads on Ebay.
  • Gearing up for the move – I’m moving 1.5 miles next week… so I might not have as much time to write as much as I normally would. Then again, I have a few half written ideas around here somewhere. I hope they aren’t all from 2006 and being bullish about Bank of America.
  • Brip Blap converses about early retirement or meaningful work?
  • Frugal Dad offers up 14 quick ways to raise cash.
  • Generation X Finance urges readers to consider the impact on your finances when taking a paid leave of absence, FMLA, or disability from work.
  • Million Dollar Journey asks should you break your mortgage for a lower rate?
  • Digerati Life discusses children and money in a young entrepreneur learns about business.
  • Money Smart Life inquires how do you cope with fear?
  • An auction experience to remember: reflections and more at My Dollar Plan.
  • The Sun’s Financial Diary blogs about the economic recovery payment for Social Security recipients sent on May 7.

Other Financial Posts:

  • Free Money Finance teaches readers how to ask your doctor, hospital, or dentist for a discount.
  • Bargaineering discusses the cost of filing for bankruptcy.
  • Consumer Commentary writes on the unownership society.

Filed Under: Links Tagged With: early retirement, filing for bankruptcy, money finance, personal finance, social security recipients

Live from Finovate Startup – First Demo Session

April 28, 2009 by Lazy Man 4 Comments

I’m blogging live from Finovate today. Here’s an update from the first demo session:

  • Expensify – “Expense reports that don’t suck…” Gets all information from a credit card import and can produce an IRS tax-compatible receipt. Import from 92% of the US credit cards… Fairly impressive reporting.
  • kaChing – KaChing follows fund managers and reports extremely detailed information. The CNBC crowd should love this.
  • CircleUp – Their SmartPay product solves a very common problem, collecting information from groups of people. Sounds like it only uses Amazon payments (no Paypal?). They pushed integration with AOL Web Mail – not really that interesting in my opinion.
  • The Receivables Exchange – I’m a little hazy on this one… it’s not in my wheelhouse (i.e. not personal finance related). Allows companies to sell receivables, in a P2P marketplace. You bid on invoices that you like and collect the money. The company gets their money early to bring in more business… at least I think that’s how it works.
  • Strands – Competitor to Mint and Wesabe… The widget-based interface looks impressive… Good analysis of your income/expenses… Financial alerts could be useful… They integrate a news reader where you can add some blogs… You probably don’t care since they don’t offer Lazy Man and Money despite the fact that I helped them in a focus group. (I’m not bitter, not a small bit…)
  • iThryv – Pretty cool banking platform for financial institutions. They are big on the customizable UI (as you’d guess), but also allow good customization of the widgets. Also can target customers based on demographics… a 23-year old woman may get a different interface than a 60-year old man. They built in some reward point system in. It was more impressive than it sounds, but I don’t think you’ll find value in them unless your bank partners with them.
  • Lending Club – They talked a lot about the secondary marketplace… we already knew that, so it wasn’t that interesting. They previewed an upcoming feature. They previewed a feature to compare your performance to other lenders.
  • Tempo Payments – Tempo claims to offer higher reward debit cards. You can customize your card. Can you say Hello Kitty awesomeness?!?! They claim to offer an 80-90% approval rate. I will look into this a little more, but I wonder if the rewards will compete with my credit card rewards.
  • Wesabe – Cool, you can group together two credit cards. Wesabe has started selling Springboard – a whitelabeled version of Wesabe. They’ve signed Georgia’s largest credit union.

That’s it for the first round… I think I like Strands and CircleUp as the most useful new personal finance apps (Wesabe and Lending Club were already in my favorites. Expensify could be great for the business person on the go. Everyone seemed to love iThryv, but it means nothing to me without banking partners.

As Blog Traffic Exchange mentioned via Twitter, the buzzword here seems to be “widgets.” I don’t mind because I love me some widgets.

Filed Under: Finovate Tagged With: financial institutions, personal finance, widgets

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