PFBlog’s blog recently wrote up an article: Some Sanity is Needed, Upcoming Contest, and it brought up some interesting thoughts/feelings and a chance for me to reflect on my reasons for blogging.
I guess you could categorize me as a longtime Internet user, but not a long time blogger…I’m a lurker. Since the early days of bulletin boards and dial up, I’ve been lurking and searching for the end of the Internet. I’ve never been one to fear buying things online, actually I doubt a majority of the folks blogging and reading finance blogs are even though I did see a recent survey that indicated the majority of the population still has some hesitation of online commerce. Sorry, went off on a tangent…So anyway, I really wanted to find an answer to this question, “At my age, how am I doing financially?” Better? Worse? Average? One site my searching led me to was bestcashcow.com. But I kept searching…keywords: “my net worth,” which led me to freemoneyfinance.com. And thus, my interest of blogging began…
I never knew a world of personal net worth tables and Moneysmartz’ bnwi existed! Holy crap, abc is worth how much?!?! How the hell does xyz have that much debt?!?! Hmmm, how am I doing? I found myself itching for the next net worth update of people I didn’t even know.
Eventually I realized I should be contributing too. So I started blogging…because I had lots of quirks related to money that I did for myself, why not write it down…Maybe other people could gain from it? And to be honest, for the longest time I yearned an avenue where I could write about money–my money, to be criticized by others and to find areas where I could improve. And blogging sure has helped me…from deciding to pay down my debt, to quitting the cancer sticks, to looking at my asset allocations, to seeing if my exuberance for a national sales tax had some merit, to figuring out what was really going in and out of my bank accounts…and why. Blogging really helps me manage my finances better, and thus I blog. At the same time, if it helps someone else, then it becomes that much better. So why do you blog?
EDIT: I should add, it definitely is nice to have readers though…Can’t lie about that :), and I appreciate it.
EDIT EDIT: I really had to take that line out because it bothered me.
Image Credit: http://www.blessed2bless.us/
Good to hear that your blogging has been so helpful. Congratulations!
I blog to keep me motivated and honest with myself. I can’t remember what I was searching for on the internet, but I found Frugal for Life which in turn led me to other blogs which spurred me to start my own. My main thinking was that if I posted to the world what I was doing to reduce my debt and be more frugal that it would force me to follow through because somebody out there somewhere would be watching me (hopefully). I’m extremely bad about follow through. Another HUGE reason was that the blogs I was reading were so inspiring that it was almost as if I couldn’t not blog myself. And its fun
It’s totally for the money! ha! I actually asked the same questions a couple of weeks ago: Why do you blog?
I think, in our individual lives, and unique circumstances, we all somehow have very similar reasons for blogging. We want to share, we want to be held accountable, we want to learn and maybe even teach.
:)– Over the past month I have been busy attempting to carve out my own personal niche in the personal finance blogging arena. The main reasons I blog are: to share my money experiences with others in my demographic group–and appeal to an audience that isn’t neccessarily that into personal finances and blogging; to hold myself accountable; and to maintain a regular schedule of thinking about money.
I am excited to see the direction the PF blogging community goes.
–CollegeGrad
Thanks for all the comments! No matter what the reasons for blogging, its awesome how easy it is for people to share ideas in this day and age…