I apologize in advance for what the title of some of my posts will sound like. At first glance, it will feel like I’m trying to lure you into a catch. It’s a game many website content providers play that implies they are about to give you some time-tested secret only to say “read my e-book” and redirect you Amazon to a copy of just that, a hastily constructed and barely edited version of what you could probably find for free elsewhere. I won’t do that.
I also won’t pay anyone to write content for me, pretending the words are mine or from my experience. The posts may be infrequent at times, but they will always be my own.
I’m no expert, just a guy who, by luck or lack thereof, has gained some insight into what it takes to do a few things financially. They’ll be no “one stupid trick” schtick or any of the other clickbaity nonsense to lure you from your article about Taylor Swift’s risky new direction by promising stunning new photos rarely seen from history. I won’t lie to you, trick you or deceive you into believing that I have all the answers. Sometimes I’ll straight up tell you that I’m clueless and have no idea what I’m doing.
I won’t give you advice, aside from getting into legal trouble for doing so, I just refuse. Advice is rarely taken and often wrong, so what I will do is just tell you what I did and how it worked or didn’t, for me.
I won’t tell you that I don’t get anything out of doing this. I may get a small amount of revenue through advertising (but I assure you, it’s not enough to keep the site running) but primarily what I receive is interaction with other people struggling through the same financial pitfalls I am. This exercise forces me to look my finances in the eye and not ignore them, call it enlightened self-interest but have no doubt there is self-interest involved.
If any of you who are reading this followed my previous site, you’d see that I’m starting from zero. Technically, it was too expensive or cumbersome to move the contents of the last site over. This is both a blessing and a curse as there were some great articles about getting financially back on track and increasing your creditworthiness through diligence and hard work. There was a ton about making better decisions and paying yourself first, valuing the wisdom of delaying instant gratification and making kids and family work on a budget.
Seven months later though, a lot has happened to make much of what I wrote essential and some of it downright wrong.
I will occasionally get political, which was something I refused to do before, what I will do is find a way to isolate or mark posts with political content so that any of you who don’t what to read that sort of thing can skip them. I try not to let a bloggers personal opinions get in the way of their content, especially if its good content, but in this day and age I also believe that trying to fully extract ones personal opinions from their financial choices can be tricky since so much of who we are as people come from where we started out or ended up financially.
Finally, I will never sell you something without telling you I am selling you something.
This learning from failing thing is hard, and I will by no means try to make it seem any less than that. There is no effortless way to game the system to make your credit score go up, and no magic (legal) side hustle that will make you instantly wealthy. It’s not called a side hustle because it’s three-card monte, its called a hustle because it requires work and practice, like any dance, to get it right.
