Good reads from around the Web.
August always means the dog days for Monevator, and this year is no different.
Visitor numbers to the site are well down, as many of you unfathomably find fun, sea, and sunburn more appealing than pondering your optimal tax sheltering strategy.
The City, famously, gets sleepier. Hard to believe in these days of robot traders and PhDs fighting for scraps of additional return, but it seems to be true in the small caps I follow, where trading volumes are very light.
The Accumulator takes August off – which this year partly means taking a month off his on/off hiatus to write Monevator: The Paper Version (working title).
And Greybeard missed his monthly pension article deadline, due to illness.
(I’m sure he was poorly, but still… what about those Ashes, eh? 😉 )
As for the wider investing world, nobody is very excited about the interest rate speculation that so-called Super Thursday in the UK and the latest Federal Reserve minutes might otherwise have whipped up.
Even my tropical fish look bored.
Some things on my mind
Perhaps Monevator is having a mid-life crisis?
My co-blogger sent me an article from The Atlantic about the famous halfway stage through life when you look around and let out one almighty “meh”.
The author recalls his own happiness hiatus:
As the weeks turned into months, and then into years, my image of myself began to change.
I had always thought of myself as a basically happy person, but now I seemed to be someone who dwelt on discontents, real or imaginary.
I supposed I would have to reconcile myself to being a malcontent.
It’s well worth reading the article in full, but it’s also a convenient jumping off point for a few bits of housekeeping aimed at any of the Monevator faithful who are tuning in on one of the most pleasant weekends of the year.
Feel free to skip to the links below, as it’s all pretty self-indulgent stuff about the site that you don’t really need to know.
What does “US but relevant” in the links mean?
A few people have asked me why so many of my links in Weekend Reading are from the US.
Also, they add, what’s with the “US but relevant” comment that is appended to some US links but not others?
On the first point, I include a lot of US content because there’s so much more to choose from. If anything I show home bias, considering the relative mass of commentary!
This leads into the second point. Much of the US stuff I include is about general investing strategies, or interesting stocks or sectors. And where it’s just about US markets, that’s often directly useful too, at least to active investors – the US is still the elephant in the global money circus.
“US but relevant” is a warning I tend to save for where an article also talks about specific aspects of personal finance that won’t be applicable to UK readers.
Typically these include US savings vehicles (e.g. 401k plans) or quirks of the US tax system (such as its treatment of capital gains made by funds, which differs from the UK).
In such cases, “US but relevant” will hopefully stop people getting misled by such minutia, especially newer investors.
No discussion forum, after all
Last week I finally decided to to scrap a Monevator discussion forum I’ve had in sporadic development for a couple of years.
I’ve hinted at such a forum in the works to a few of you who’ve asked for it over the years, so I thought I should warn you to now stand down.
It’s a mild shame. The forum had quite a few hours put into it (including efforts made by my collaborator to help debug the-then beta Discourse software we were using) as well some money I’d spent over the past year on some separate server space to test and eventually host the forum.
However last weekend Monevator was hit by a batch of particularly unpleasant comments – mostly aimed at a fellow financial blogger but also a few at me – to the extent that I had to delete a big swathe of mean-spirited stuff, and to post some of the others only reluctantly.1
I was standing in a tent enjoying a jazz quartet at a festival when it hit me: “Just think, if you finally switch on the forum then you could be lucky enough to miss this sort of thing for more of dealing with that nastiness every day…”
That at last resolved my prevarication. No forum.
Now, many bloggers I know say that reader interaction is one of their biggest rewards from blogging.
I know that The Accumulator is a big fan, too.
But I’ll be honest, it’s never done much for me.
Don’t get me wrong – I do enjoy reading many of your comments.
For instance, I love Mathmo’s attempts to draw a thread through Weekend Reading. I like gadgetmind’s hints from the hi-tech cutting-edge. I’ve even come to enjoy some of Nevermind’s dour pronouncements. And the great warmth from Minikins often makes me smile.
However when it comes to interacting, it’s not such a positive experience.
These days the site often gets hundreds of comments in a week, so just keeping up with reading them is a feat.
(Remember that comments can be posted at any time on all our 1,200-odd old articles. And I see and read them all…)
Time is short for me like everyone else, and so interacting nowadays almost invariably just means correcting errors or deleting nastiness.
On The Accumulator’s passive investing articles it’s a different story.
Here readers do a great job of keeping us abreast of the minutia of changing platform and fund costs. And there’s very rarely any verbals (except when one of those annoying active/passive skirmishes breaks out).
But on my posts, interacting mainly entails addressing loud people who don’t know a quarter as much as they think they do saying something that’s either wrong or half the story.
My mother of all people told me years ago to ignore these comments. At the time I was having a spat with a professed expert who was calling the S&P “obviously” overvalued (this at about half the level it is at now) and me a dangerous zealot for suggesting people stay invested in equities.
Thing is, I told my mum, we don’t write long detailed articles on Monevator only for them to be derailed shortly afterwards in the comments. Hence I often feel the need to keep repeating myself in the comments, to stop readers getting misled.
The point is policing the comments is hard enough. I just haven’t got it in me to keep a forum up to standard – or even worse from turning rotten, filling up with spivvy stuff that costs people money and hosts scams and so forth.
I have even considered turning off comments on Monevator, as huge numbers of other sites are doing these days.
However we do have a mostly excellent community here on Monevator – partly through luck, partly because I suspect our verbosity and our investing approach attracts sensible people, and partly because I have always applied the benign dictatorship approach to censorship.
So for as long as that continues, we’ll keep the comments.
As for the discussion forum, I’m sorry a minority has potentially spoiled what could have been a useful asset for the majority, but time is just too tight right now to ensure I could deliver something of the quality and consistency that the majority deserves.
Finally, on monetization
Lastly, making money from Monevator – something that’s even more my problem, not yours!
This thought was sparked by a discussion I had with some readers the other day who explained they never see the adverts on Monevator because they block them.
These were regular readers, and they expected me to be proud of their ingenuity and sticking-it-to-the-man smarts.
And sure, as a Web user I don’t like ads any more than anyone else.
However the reality is the ad blocking revolution is going mainstream, and it looks like it might soon start to threaten the business model of lots of web publishers, including this one.
Hence I must admit to being less than enthusiastic about the spread of ad blocking!
As things stand, I really do try to keep ads under control here on Monevator.
For instance we don’t do full-site ‘wraps’ or pop-ups, we don’t break up the articles with ad blocks at all (virtually everyone does this now) and we have NEVER sold advertising pretending to be content or text links or things of that sort, despite daily requests to do so.
That is where all the lucrative money is now with web advertising (and why half the sites you visit these days are slow, loud, annoying, and possibly compromised in terms of their editorial).
Anyway, I’ve always just assumed monetization would get sorted eventually, if we built a decent product.
Seven years in perhaps I should try harder to do so!
In an ideal world we’d directly charge you a few quid a year, perhaps via a Patreon-style ‘pay what you can’ crowd-sourced solution. Then we could ditch ads altogether.
Even The Accumulator’s mythical book is an attempt to find a sustainable revenue stream, should he finish it before we’re both on the State pension.
(Please buy it, when it eventually comes out…)
If that doesn’t work we’ll just have to start a hedge fund! 😉
From the blogs
Making good use of the things that we find…
Passive investing
- Fees are guaranteed. Performance is not. – Ben Carlson
- Is beating the market harder than ever? – Canadian Couch Potato
- 3 reasons to cheer higher rates [US but relevant] – Rick Ferri
- Is there a monkey running my index fund? – Vanguard
- Portfolio charts tool [US but relevant] – Portfolio Charts (via JB)
Active investing
- The one question long-term investors must ask – iii blog
- There is usually something cheap to buy – The Value Perspective
- Escaping from a value trap – UK Value Investor
- Why emerging markets won’t crash – Behavioral Macro
Other articles
- One man’s story of going off-grid – Mostly Harmless
- Bond funds and rising rates – Kitces
- It’s never a normal market – The Irrelevant Investor
- There is no failure – The Escape Artist
- £1 million: A goal to retire early – Retirement Investing Today
- An attempt to pin $850 as fair value for gold [Research paper] – SSRN
Product of the week: According to The Telegraph, the Welsh bank Julian Hodge has just claimed table topping status with its five-year cash ISA, which pays 2.55%.
Mainstream media money
Some links are Google search results – in PC/desktop view these enable you to click through to read the piece without being a paid subscriber of that site.2
Passive investing
- UK index tracker price war heats up [Search result] – FT
- An overview of fund-of-passive-fund options – Telegraph
- Your strategy should fit on an index card [US, relevant] – ETF.com
Active investing
- The liquidity risk of alternative investment [Search result] – FT
- Why pension funds own real assets and infrastructure – II
- Why TV media stocks are in meltdown… – LA Times
- …but Disney and ESPN will be ok – Stratechery
- Vine is a sleeping giant within Twitter – Quartz
- 10 cheap-looking UK dividend payers – Telegraph
- Contrarian lessons from the Queen’s banker – Marketwatch
Other stuff worth reading
- What is your attention really worth? – NY Times
- Confusing what just happened with what happens next – Bloomberg
- The changing – aging – face of first-time buyers – ThisIsMoney
- Jeremy Corbyn could have solutions to housing crisis – Guardian
- Meanwhile, tougher penalties for rogue landlords – Guardian
- Are Mint’s £100 silver coins a good investment? – ThisIsMoney
- Earn £150,000+? Check out this pension tax perk – ThisIsMoney
Book of the week: Passive investing guru Larry Swedroe is a North Star here at Monevator. If you read the Couch Potato interview above and like the sound of his latest book, The Incredible Shrinking Alpha
Like these links? Subscribe to get them every week!
- Incidentally if any of these people or others try to repeat the gist of their comments again below, I’ll just delete them again. I think we best agree to disagree on this particular subject, eh? 🙂 [↩]
- Note some articles can only be accessed through the search results if you’re using PC/desktop view (from mobile/tablet view they bring up the firewall/subscription page). To circumvent, switch your mobile browser to use the desktop view. On Chrome for Android: press the menu button followed by “Request Desktop Site”. [↩]
I’m glad you decided against a forum,I read your site to gain knowledge not to pick a fight with you ! Sadly it is all too common on forums for people to want to ‘challenge’ the editor to verbal fisticuffs.
I am an avid reader of a Premier League forum, and my goodness me,WW2 breaks out after every game.
Keep it simple and succinct and you won’t go far wrong.
All The Best.
Hi,
As always, this is an interesting read. I’ve got a number of points to raise about the things you said, and I’ll just number them (I’m too lazy at the moment to write proper paragraphs!):
1. A discussion forum would not be as interesting/useful to me as the articles on this site. I come here because you and TA take a great deal of care to do detailed research and write clearly about the various topics you cover. I generally find the reader comments here interesting, especially when people seek and receive clarifications on various issues. I am involved in several discussion groups on various topics and I would never take them very seriously, because mostly people aren’t taking time to research and present ideas clearly. TL;DR – from my POV, moderating a discussion forum is not worth your time;
2. I am constantly amazed that I get all of this excellent information for free! The patreon thing is a good idea in my view. I would certainly contribute and it would be interesting to see you “thinking” publicly about the models you consider;
3. I run an adblocker, but switch it off for sites that I find useful (eg yours). I’ll usually switch off the adblocker when I find myself going *back* to a site that I have used before. I find it hard to browse generally without an adblocker, because I find certain types of flashing ads extremely uncomfortable. It has been my impression for a while now that these types of ads are on the wane – however it may be that the sorts of sites that I find useful are also less likely to include that sort of ad.
As always, thanks for this site. It really is appreciated..
I don’t think you really need a forum. The site is a fantastic resource as it is. There will always be ar**holes on (and off) the web. Sweep them aside and carry on. I’d be disappointed if the comments were disabled because it’s nice to get some feedback and different perspectives on each of the articles. Keep up the good work. We need a UK-centric site like this.
There seems to have been an explosion in the number of early retirement blogs over the last eighteen months which will affect traffic
Maybe you should look at how to use your huge back-catalog of posts more they aren’t really utilised much in the current design
I just wanted to say that I love this site and really appreciate the hard work that goes into it.
On the theme of comments and forums, when there was the outbreak of nastiness aimed at Mr MM, your comment in response – “I’m not interested in fermenting more nastiness in the too-nasty-already Web.” – says it all. No point setting up a forum if it’s just going to become a cesspit.
On monetisation, it might be worth reminding users about the possibility of turning off adblockers. (Like Andrew, above, I run an adblocker for general browsing and frenetic research work but turn it off for my regular sites. I also run a comment blocker on most news sites…)
You could also float the idea of subscription/sponsors. Yours is a site that I would be happy to pay for, as it is a source not just of useful information, but of good writing and good vibes. Keep it up! (But feel free to take a break if that’s what you need.)
Happy to be charged.
I don’t run an adblocker. I practice self control. In many ways it helps with passive investing. Remaining passive is the hardest thing in the world when it is so close, personal and integral to future plans.
I like this blog on facebook and have shown others specific articles.
Good luck with monetising the blog. I will buy a copy of the book.
I’m one of the many silent readers who very frequently read this site but don’t comment for a variety of reasons .. And I’d like to say I love this site and the work you do .. Thank you and carry on telling it like it is !
Ps I’d also consider subscription if it came to it
No doubt the content is of high enough quality to charge.
Cheers all. To an extent I was just thinking out loud and sharing some thoughts on my mind with any regulars tuning in at this unseasonable time of year — no imminent plans to change anything.
On the passive/platform side the comments have been really useful over the years — many people’s constructive input has definitely made the site better for everyone.
So our thanks to you, too!
A few comments (in the comments section no less!):
-Great links this week; I particularly enjoyed the gold article, and the off-grid one tickled my hippy-bone too.
-I’ve now disabled my adblocker on your site.
-I would happily chip in if a charge was instituted. This site has been the primary influence in motivating me to start investing and is certainly the best source I’ve found at a level that suits me. The post quality is one of the things that draws me back, and over the past months when I’ve been needing a fix I’ll often browse back through your old posts.
-Whilst I was looking forward to the possibility of a forum here, having been involved in moderating one in the past I understand why and support the decision not to go ahead with it.
Thanks to you and the rest of the team for the time and effort that goes into providing this great site.
When I was starting out in my first job, a director of The Firm, with a few grey hairs, advised me to read the FT every day, cover to cover or it would hurt my career. I tried, but it was hard work and I’m sorry to say that I didn’t. And perhaps it did hurt my career – look at me here: still working all these years later instead of retired, lounging on a beach. I resubscribed more recently and things are taking off again. Perhaps they were the wisest words I ever ignored, although I note that the Director is still working himself.
I now have the grey hairs myself If someone were to ask me for my sage advice on how to manage their financial career, I’d tell them to read every link on this blog, every Saturday, without fail. I think you’ve created something really valuable to people here, TI, with considerable personal effort. Thank-you. I think you shouldn’t worry too much about monetising it piecemeal — work on quality content and building audience — and then start a few exploratory discussions with the financial publishers and make it their problem. By all means stick a few ads up, a donate button and take the corporate coin to post some ads, but that’s the usual monetisation route for this sort of publication. In this sense, and many others, maintaining the format as article + comments rather than forum builds the value of the back catalogue. FWIW, I thought you handled the unpleasantness last week admirably. Don’t take it personally.
This weeks links interesting and varied as usual, but it’s definitely hardcore numbers week. Woot. Some real pleasing surfing starters in there, too — the kind that have you digging away on a dozen subsequent links understanding the author’s point. RITs million-pound analysis was a great one for me this week — branching off as it did into a series of his articles on SWR (is 4% too high? is 3%? is 2.5%? Am I going to have to save twice as much?). I’m left worried about my simple 4% assumption but also left wondering why he doesn’t just buy an annuity if he’s more pessimistic than the insurance industry, or buy US stocks if he feels that the UK situation is so much worse than the US analysis. Or perhaps use a more adaptive withdrawal strategy. Although his overall message is a good one: get on and save as much as possible as early as possible without worrying too much about the retire/no-retire decision until it is closer.
Part of the solution is in the excellent portfoliochart tools link — that’s a superb visualisation of the notion of diversification over time and asset classes really massively reducing portfolio volatility — particularly the funnel chart. Perhaps the most eye-opening thing is how much volatility remains on a 20 year view of most common portfolios. I wish there were a broader range of asset classes there (in particular for those of us with a parochial UK world-view), but perhaps they will expand the tool. I’d love for it to remember the portfolio as well!
Finally I can’t let go of the absurd off-the-grid article. Like most areas of human endeavour, FIRE thinking has its extreme practitioners. The MMM-frugalists. I think these are good end-points to have in mind, and to watch do their stuff, but way too extreme for my taste. I like my expenditure a little baggy around the middle and life gilded with a few unnecessary luxuries. I think FIRE thinking should be mainstream, taught in schools, and I’m not sure the extremists help promote the idea that *everyone* should be doing this. Although in terms of showing what is possible, they are to be admired!
Also happy (bordering on keen) to contribute
I would prefer a subscription model. I will be the first to sign up.
Personally – I wouldn’t use a comments board that much – but I would be happy to pay a few quid a year…some sites (Wikipedia did it a while ago) have a “help us keep it free campaign” and I donated to that because I use it a lot.
Been reading for a long time but this may be my first comment, not quite sure.
Fwiw, I’m not bothered about having a forum (some other sites I read have them and I never look at them) but I’d miss comments on your articles as I often learn a lot from them and get to see other perspectives.
I’d be happy to pay a subscription or donation and await the book with interest.
Thank you for all your hard work and for such a great site.
I wouldn’t be happy to pay directly for this site and I don’t think many other people would be willing to either
Rightly or wrongly the internet has got people used to free media
Fair enough when the content is bilge, tough when the content is value added
@Neverland — Yes, I’m inclined to agree. Getting on towards 1 million different people visited Monevator at least once in the past year, but I don’t delude myself that more than 1% would pay, the way the Internet works at present.
Patreon is an interesting model, in that it enables an inner circle/core to back your creative work, in exchange for some sort of perks or extra service or whatnot. A bit like a Kickstarter for creative projects.
I’ve considered putting my active articles behind a pay wall, too, as an option. It has the advantage of keeping the passive stuff free, which is clearly the USP of the site, and keeping the active stuff away from most people! 😉 But it would be a bit of a schism.
If I could get platforms etc to be interested in enabling affiliating linking we could go down the MoneySavingExpert route. I reckon we must have prompted the movement of hundreds of millions of pounds over the years. But alas they’ve largely ignored my requests. I think the regulatory situation in the UK doesn’t help on that score, versus the US, where smaller blogs are still able to scale. I get the sense that MSE and certain others got in early. But it may just be a lack of effort and persistence on my part…
Charging a subscription for site content could be tricky, as it’s difficult for a newcomer to know if the content is worth the fee. As an investing novice, Google allowed me stumble across your site and become enlightened. If you were behind a pay-wall this might never have happened.
I’m seeing more sites using https://www.patreon.com for accepting donations which can be either one-off or repeating. Although I guess the income would be a lot lower as it’s optional.
Another option, for some sites I use, is charging a subscription for the forum. This keeps the trolls away and ensures everyone is protective of the community that exists around the site. You mention you don’t have time to police a forum, but I would be very sure that other willing volunteers would be prepared to step up and moderate for you. This happens on pretty much every forum I frequent.
Also, people saying they wouldn’t use a forum… what if the comments were off and discussion for each article went through its’ own thread on the forum?
I’ve been a weekly reader for around 18 months or so. I put £750 into Royal Mail and decided I should probably do some research – here I am putting aside (in addition to pension and mortgage over payments) some £500 a month, almost exclusively into tracker funds.
I’ll be buying the book when it appears.
The only request I have – and it’s a bit niche and of concern to a Chosen Few – is whether you’d be able to look at an article on how being in a final salary pension scheme impacts on the the necessity of additional saving/investing? I’d be interested in your expert opinions…
Keep up the good work.
I use private mode, adbocker and ghostery these days. I never minded a bit of advertising when it was similar to what I’d expect in a newspaper. Now it’s like all out war – ads floating over the page, pop up and under and worst of all tracking across different sites.
I’m happy to disable adblocking for this site and even to pay a bit for access because it’s so useful. Have you considered detecting adblocking and popping up a suggestion to disable it for this site? I’ve seen this elsewhere and I’m happy to comply if it’s something I value.
Not bothered about a forum, but I hope you’re able to keep the comments.
Thanks for all your hard work.
It is the quality and style of the writing on this site that is key. The content is honest, humorous and sophisticated. It has an almost academic integrity but without the usual dispassion and sobriety associated with investment writing.
On monevating Monevator, I reckon you could write on any subject and I would enjoy reading it. You could easily regularly contribute to quality publications or media either as Monevator or yourself (if you’re prepared to cast aside your cloak!). Or you could let it fly the nest and the site could become associated with a publication or even radio station like Share Radio which, incidentally, is desperately short of regular content (and recently plugged Monevator and comments regarding the pension reform consultation).
But perhaps you don’t want any of that, after all this is your baby. I would be quite happy though to have the privilege of regularly admiring and cooing over its various bits in the form of in depth Monevator Guides purchased via the site. It’s not a mid life crisis, it’s a coming of age! : )
Never trust a decision made while listening to jazz.
Launch the forum, get some regulars roped in as moderators. This will reduce the micromanagement burden on you.
See how it goes – if its no good then ditch it
don’t ditch it before you’ve tried it – especially if you’ve already put a bit of effort in.
My two cents is that the future of Monevator is in spearheading some sort of financial literacy movement in the UK – MSE has similar ambitions. Team up, and get a slice of the 10s of millions that money supermarket pumped in.
Nice thing about that is that its a cause as well as possible monetization route. We need causes to get to the top of Maslow’s hierarchy.
It might do you good?
Some of the information on this site – mainly in the articles, but also in the comments – is unique. There really isn’t anywhere else that goes into the level of detailed analysis that you see here. In contrast, the personal finance pages of the newspapers are superficial and often plain wrong. It would be a huge shame if this cannot be made to pay.
I would also pay to continue reading and discussing, but I do see that this might not be a solution, as I would have been unlikely to sign up if I didn’t already know how high quality the content is.
I’ve been following this excellent site for a few years and I hope you continue to write!
As for ads there is another reason for blocking and that is that ad networks have been used to distribute exploits.
As well as echoing all the positive comments regarding the quality of information you provide, I would like to add a vote for the added value you also bring by promoting the UK PF blog community itself. I, for one, have definitely been “found” by lots of readers via being linked to from here. Networks are key for sharing information and you’re definitely a hub.
I know that being a valued and respected “public service” is probably not what you’re aiming for 🙂 But the fact remains, that is what you’ve become, and long may it continue.
I feel very sorry that you’ve been enduring nasty people on the internet. Your site has taught me SO much of what I needed to learn and couldn’t get anywhere else. A huge THANK YOU from me.
Sorry to hear there won’t be a forum, but I understand the hassle with moderation.
The comments, while often useful and interesting, are not always the best place to ask questions.
I recently started a forum on my site as I want people to be able to discuss in detail the many issues that arise about personal finance and early retirement.
I’m a great believer in the goodness in people, so hope those who sign up help one another to achieve their financial goals.
However, I totally understand TI’s viewpoint on forums and respect his concerns. I just hope, in my case, that this is one of the few times that he’s wrong.
PS. On the subject of payment. I think some would be willing to put their hands in their pockets and chuck Monevator a coin or two. Especially when they realise how much knowledge this site has given them over the years.
Another well written and interesting article, even if it was “looking inwards” for a change.
I’ve only written a few comments over the last couple of years but have found the responses invaluable to clarifying my understanding. Logically I would therefore likely find a forum equally valuable but I understand your reasons not to launch it.
Keep up the good work and as for monetisation, yes a “donate button” wouldn’t hurt but I’d avoid a subscription for much the same reason others have stated; new comers to the site wouldn’t know it was worth the money.
Instead of focusing on high quantity, low margin methods, have you thought about going for higher margin options? I reckon there would be a core of people interested in “workshop evenings” where for £10+ you simply provide a venue for like minded people to meet up. You could arrange attractive speakers and sponsorships (see Silicon Drinkabout model). Or what about putting together a two day “basics investment training course” and marketing it to big corporates as a perk to offer their employees to educate them on their options. Having the book published would probably help ‘the sell’ with that one.
I think you should turn monevator into a youtube channel and thereby make a fortune like those minecraft vloggers types
fascinating topics for videos could include:
– darning socks
– washing your hair with tesco daisy washing up liquid to save money
– claymation fantasy online broker death match
I’m sure these might get…well…dozens…of hits
You might even get groupies 🙂
This is a wonderful website with very superior content. Personally I would favour a Donate button, but I doubt I’d go as far as subscribing. As a long-term blog reader (music ones when I was younger) I’ve happily made occasional donations to blogs I read regularly.
I think the free model has gone too far e.g. I would much rather pay occasionally for Time Out as it was, rather than pick up the rubbish it is now (though I’ll admit I’m very grateful for the FT links). Right now, people are still so used to free, it’s hard to fight against that.
I think RossP above is right – without wanting to sound too ‘Nathan Barley-ish, you probably need to ‘work your brand’ more. The book will be a brilliant launchpad for this. Shame about the affiliate links – maybe the book will also help for this.
I’m glad about the forum decision – in the early 00s there were some wonderful music forums run by clubs/record labels with strong communities, but it’s easier with niche stuff with geeky people, and even they had occasional trolls. It seems too much work for little reward for you.
That said – I will admit I would love to have a place to discuss e.g. the likes of HAL and Camellia, and good ITs on discounts – nobody I know is interested! Perhaps a subscription forum for people into that sort of thing might work – less members means less work, and a bit of income.
Adblocking is complex: browsing without it feels like an assault on the senses. The ios9 thing will be big (good feature on theoverspill.wordpress.com about it).
Thanks again for your wisdom, and the friendly tone of the site.
Wise words as usual.
I ran a forum (non financial) for a while a few years ago and it turned into a massive battle between me, the spammers and the trolls. In the end it really wasn’t worth the hassle. I think your decision is probably a good one to shelve the forum as the current comments on the [top class] articles seems to have the right balance of quality content/community/discussion etc.
Another potential venture could be getting involved with the ‘School of Life’ – hogdkinson , de botton et al. You would fit nicely into the intersection of finance and philosophy. Bit like a more technical ‘new escapologist’?
So many options, so little time! I think you have numerous and exciting avenues to explore. I am exceedingly jealous
I would pay a *reasonable* subscription for the content as is (dear FT, £280 a year is unreasonable).
All that I ask in return is that you make fewer references to the London property market 😀
I really was ill, folks. And I’m not too keen on a forum, either — too many spammers, trolls, and idiots out there.
Re. subscription – run a poll. I think there’s a lot of us who’d be happy to pay a small fee (£12/year?) to ditch the ads and keep you wise old sages sharing wisdom. I know I would.
Might be a good idea to disable page views with a login form though, rather than block content being viewed altogether (a la FT: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9a291bf8-3fa2-11e5-b98b-87c7270955cf.html#axzz3iUjhpI8D). Otherwise, all that good Google indexing you’ve spun up over the years may disappear (as Googlebot can’t spider the content without being logged in).
To recap, charge a fee, ads suck. The wisdom I’ve read here has and will generate a far greater ROI than I suspect your subscription fee ever would. It’s got to work for the new investor though. £12 = 1% of a £1200 portfolio.
For plugins to do this on Wordpress, see WooCommerce Subscriptions & Memberships. Cheap, effective, and now supported by the Automattic team. Also, use Stripe, not Paypal. Paypal is fiddly for recurring subscriptions (let the computer do it – you don’t want to have to click buttons to make renewals happen as far as possible).
Best wishes,
Tim
Hope you’re back on your feet and well GreyBeard.
I guess the problem with being “ad funded” is you are always persuading people to go for the cheapest option. To some extent a fairly obvious way of reducing costs is to cut marketing and advertising budgets…To some extent this is probably less of an issue for more active investment. If you really believe that the price of something is going to double over the next year than the difference between 0.15% and 0.75% annual fees is trivial. You just wanna hope on that boat before it has left the harbour.
I think a subscription model is also a bit tricky on the passive side, as fundamentally passive investing is supposed to be simple and cheap. I think there might be a market for decent data driven analysis of UK companies, a British version of Aswath Damodaran.
I’ve been a reader of this site for a couple of years, and an occasional commenter.
I like this site because:
– It’s free. Sorry, there’s nothing on the internet I would pay to read. Might make a donation though.
– The quality, variety, frequency and tone of the articles are spot on.
– The comments, often by “regulars”, are usually excellent and add to the quality of the overall experience.
– The number of comments is usually small, which is key for me reading them. Hence I wouldn’t read a forum.
In summary I like Monevator because it’s not a hidden-agenda, money-grabbing behemoth. It’s a niche site run by the talented for the inquisitive. I realise that’s not the greatest of business models, but it does make for a cracking experience…
I personally dislike logging into sites solely in order to browse the content, so even free subscription sites will frequently mean I don’t enter. I don’t find your adverts intrusive, but did get caught out once before I realised one mined my Amazon browsing history (not your fault but the nature of the advert coding).
Probably I would buy the book to support you (when it comes out) or make a donation (your site content is worth it and I have done similar for Wikipedia), but for me logging in is a pain and a deterrence (I don’t really like staying logged into sites so the pain is repeated). You seem to remember me on the comments with a cookie, so that suits me fine!
I surf using an ad blocker. I do not want to click on any adverts. Any ad that I do click will have misled me into believing it was something else. Sites that serve such ads would deter me from using that site, whether or not the ad was under their control.
Would you actually earn anything from serving ads to people that don’t click them? If so I would disable the blocker on this site. If not then there is no point.
I do enjoy reading your site and have learned a lot from it. This site and RIT are the only UK financial blogging sites that I read and would be happy to make small contributions to. The reasons are that they are easy to read (writing style) while also containing original data analysis. I do read a few other sites, but no others I have found have both these qualities.
I think I saw that you use the Guardian’s advertising network for your ads.
You might want to consider a specialist financial agency like Webads to rep you instead.
Additionally, lead gen is something you may want to consider (and is certainly the way a lot of B2B sites are going)
Dianomi is a third party that can offer you good solutions, although there is more money if you approach the sponsoring companies directly (although there is equally a lot more work that way as well)
Here’s my tuppence-worth –
– I’d never heard of adblocker till I read these comments! So that’s where I’m going wrong …. Actually my brain must have trained itself not to see ads, because unless they are especially obnoxious I simply don’t notice them. The Monevator pages seem pretty light on advertising, so I won’t be trying to work out how to find adblocker (for this site, anyway).
– Echo everyone else’s comments about how great the site is. I really look forward to reading it.
– Sorry to hear about unpleasantness. There’s something about the anonymity of the web that allows people to indulge what’s despicable in their character. To any trolls etc reading this, I suggest you take a long hard careful look at your life and what you are making of it. When you were a child, is an abusive and bitter plonker the kind of person you dreamed of becoming? No, I thought not.
– I’ve never thought “What Monevator needs is a forum.” I have often thought “What great comments Monevator elicits from its readers!”
– Notwithstanding all the above, I wouldn’t pay a subscription – for a few reasons, including an antipathy to subscription in general, for anything at all – but would be happy to make the occasional small bung by way of a donation button and would seriously consider buying the book as a gift for friends and family members (is it going to be electronic only? Or on paper too?).
Like Tyro, I don’t use ad blockers and if you had asked me before reading this article I would have said that Monevator does not have ads. I think that tells you how restrained the ads are.
Is it possible to make the site content invisible to anyone who is using an ad blocker? Putting up with the very discreet ads is the very least that readers can be expected to do.
I’ve learnt so much from Monevator over the 1.5 years that I’ve been reading it. There doesn’t appear to be anything else comparable on such a consistent level.
I now also have learnt about Adblocker (brilliant) from Monevator, which I have promptly installed – and disabled for the Monevator website!
I’d donate Wikipedia style.
I agree with Ivanopinion – the ads are fine and there are far fewer than elsewhere – I’d be happy if there were more to be honest. I’m more than happy for you to make money from your endeavours (and I will definitely buy the book) but I think if the site is on a subscription basis and there is a need to log in then it could appear somewhat elitist, which might be counter productive (which is not to say that I would not subscribe). As others have said, Monevator is an invaluable resource, so long may it continue whatever you decide to do. Shame about the forum though – I think it could work well and stimulate new topics for your articles.
Thanks everyone again for all the very generous comments about our content, and also the various monetization ideas.
To be clear, I can’t imagine the whole site ever becoming subscription-only. There will always be a free-to-access site, with most if not all of our passive investing content on it.
Both me and The Accumulator have always done this site primarily for reasons other than to make money, although that’d be helpful. Both of us get a lot of satisfaction from helping others with this stuff. Plus we’ve all got karmic imbalances that need balancing, for want of a better metaphor. 😉
The way Patreon and similar things work is you can pay a fairly doable amount (and we’d be talking something starting in the region of £20 a year I’d imagine, not anything like the FT’s £200) to become a backer, or a patron, if you will. There may be perks of some sort to these insiders, depending on how you structure it. (Extra content. Or Monevator mug! That sort of thing). It’s quite transparent, too, from a backer point of view.
Regarding advertising, I’ve tried all sorts. Some of it would come under the headline “long story”. I think everything that’s been kindly suggested has been tried. Also we are making some money, don’t misunderstand me. It’s more about putting it on a sustainable footing for the time/effort and who knows maybe even being able to reinvest in more books, perhaps some physical material, offline events and so forth. (Perhaps even a forum moderator one day! I do hear those who say “don’t give up on it without trying” but I think it’d break my back at the moment. But there’s another world where it wouldn’t).
Anyway, very grateful for such a positive response as always. We hope we can keep meeting your expectations!
Well, I presume The Accumulator hopes that. He’s currently on a lilo somewhere… 😉
Great links as usual. 🙂
Just some points
1 – I think the comments work fine on here as people tend to give opinions rather than ramblings. on the articles that are here. I forum primarily for UK relevant passive investing / early retirement I’m should would go down well. Other than MSE’s sub-forum I don’t know of any other UK based financial forum. Nothing like Bogle Heads which although US is still a great source of info. A UK version would be great, I think it would work as an add-on to here because of the topics that are covered. I’ve moderated forums (computer & tech) before and it is hard to begin with but as communities grow, as you get to know posters and you get regular posters who create a welcoming environment it can become pretty self sustaining. If you decide to do it and need a hand I’d be up for it.
2 – I don’t click on adverts, I never have knowingly done so and I have Adblock installed. Though I’m not really swayed by adverts I can’t think of an occasion when I’ve seen an ad and though of yeah I’ve got to look into that some more. If you get revenue for impressions I’ll gladly disable my ad block for here though.
3 – If hosting (with the popularity of the website) is costing £££ have a look into Amazon S3 – https://aws.amazon.com/s3/pricing I’m basing my site on it and it’s dirt cheap.
4 – I’m not a fan of pay walls or subscription websites, especially when it comes to this genre of content. Just makes me think of ‘Donate $10 and I’ll give you the secrets to earn $500 per hour at home’ type websites. I think one of the best things about here and the websites that you recommend and who recommend here are all sort of a little community. Everyone is trying to help each other out, everyone is giving the average person their own knowledge and experience to learn and help people.
@TheInvestor – a Monevator mug you say? 🙂
@Aron: It is however hard to square the circle of being someone who blocks adverts and doesn’t want subscription based websites; unless you’re hoping people who do view ads or website owners are going to carry all the cost.
Why on earth would they want to open a forum, with all the responsibility of moderating it, costs etc for users who block ads and won’t pay…
All of the above is said as someone who also now uses an ad-blocker, and who would be quite unlikely to pay to view a website; I don’t know the solution, but I appreciate that one is needed.
Hmmm, If I load ghostery up on this page I get 25 trackers reported. 25! Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Monevator and think you guys are doing a good and useful (and fun) job, but if I’ve got 25 trackers working every time I load a Monevator page then I reckon I am paying for the content, in some spooky way.
@TI
@ghostery “….. 25 trackers …..” is news to me, although I imagine it possibly means that outside organisations are interested in my interests, and it may well explain why a particular double-glazing ad (I have been enquiring with the company concerned) has sometimes appeared recently (albeit small and not obtrusive as far as I am concerned) when I am reading here.
If I’m right, and please forgive any impertinence, may I ask whether this tracking is something beyond your control and for which you receive no recompense?
@ghostery @topman — Well I said in the article and the comments that followed that the site *does* make money, and that I’ve tried almost everything that has been suggested to make money. Of course there is revenue coming in from advertising. Some of that revenue is connected to the advertising that uses tracking code (i.e. Virtually all such advertising, here and everywhere else on the Web).
The issue is not “does this site make any money” for me, as articulated above. The issue for me is “does this site make enough money to make it worth *me* continuing”. The answer is definitely not, if it was being done solely being done for commercial reasons. However that’s far from being the case, which is why I will be continuing.
“Enough money” is always subjective, too, depending on what you earn, your skillset, where you live, and so forth. As you can imagine people who know about personal finance and investing can be very well paid if they want to be.
Re: The trackers, if it’s a shocking number than I’d imagine you’re not particularly familiar with how websites operate nowadays. 🙂 A buch of the trackers are connected to ads or affiliate stuff, as mentioned. So an advertiser wants to know where a click came from, to see whether it’s spending money in the right place, for instance. Alternatively, and what some find more sinister, they may seek to track “you” (they have no idea who “you” are, of course) in order to serve relevant ads. This is absolutely standard, even though people often get shocked for some reason why they first notice it. It’s how all Internet advertising on all sites and videos and so forth that you watch works. I don’t sit down with a shadowy third-party and make a deal, it’s just incumbent in the technology.
Aside from that, many of the tracking codes are for other stuff. For instance there’s a remote cache that serves up certain content to speed up the delivery of the site from around the world. The Facebook box to the right wants to know who you are, so it can show you your friends. And so on.
You are. If you are a regular reader of the site you are paying pennies over a year for that content. It’s utterly uneconomical from our point of view as content creators.
If the site had 5x as many readers then it would be economical, and your pennies would with all the others amount to sufficient. This is why the entire Internet is a land grab for readers/eyeballs, and a race to the bottom. It’s also why subscription or some other direct form of payment is preferable (especially for a site which is seeking to educate people about financial independence etc — there’s clearly a disconnect between that and advertising and so forth) but scant few sites (far less than 1%, and perhaps less than 0.01%) have ever actually made that work. I think we’d be in with a shot, but it’d be a big leap.