My weekend musings, followed by some money-tastic weekend reading.
Those of you who’ve been reading Monevator for a long time (I’m looking at you, sis!) will recall it’s been a tough old slog for yours truly.
I must hold the record as the whiniest blogger out there when it comes to the actual practice of blogging. (My comparison of blogging with $1-a-day Third World labor became something of a cult classic in certain blogging circles).
I like to think I have a decent blog with some useful information for anyone looking to grow their dough. But I know I’m a lousy actual blogger.
I take ages to write posts. I don’t make any real money from the lucrative money blog niche. I don’t promote my posts much anymore, I’ve got bored of submitting my blog to carnivals, and my blog is a secret in real-life.
It’s a miracle you found me!
Enter the Mavens
Here’s where – I hope – the Money Mavens come in. I was delighted to be invited to join this informal network of bloggers a couple of weeks ago, though I um-ed and ah-ed about it.
My fear is that as a rubbish blogger, I won’t have time to contribute fully to their initiatives. It takes me hours to write a post, and time is only getting tighter.
Will I find the time for networking? We’ll see. From your perspective, though, there should be only positive changes.
I’m a regular linker to a few of the Mavens already – Oblivious Investor, Wealth Pilgrim and Len Penzo – and the other members are also from the top-drawer.
I plan to run two special link roundups a month, pointing to some of my fellow Money Maven’s best posts old and new. This will be in addition – not instead of – your normal link round-up.
I also hope to flag up and discuss some of their ideas in individual posts in the months ahead.
No, don’t you go worrying about me. I’ll sleep when I’m dead!
From the blogs
- Do you have an investment back-up plan? – Oblivious Investor
- Spamanomics – The Psy-Fi blog
- UK property market update – Retirement Investing Today
- Crisis delivers black eye to classical economists – Investing Caffeine
- Sun Tzu’s Art of War applied to your debt – Financial Samurai
- Taking out a loan? Questions to ask – Digerati Life
- The big problem with money courses – The Simple Dollar
- Saving electricity at home – Simple in Suffolk
On the Money Maven network
- Len Penzo offers some gold selling tips.
- Green Panda Treehouse explains how to manage emails once a day.
- Money Help for Christians on the best personal finance software.
- Deliver Away Debt explains the concept of a sinking fund.
- Canadian Finance on the Canada Pension Plan (CPP).
- Oblivious Investor outlines US tax brackets.
- Wealth Pilgrim knows 5 Ways to Improve Your Credit Score Fast.
- The Centsible Life on Credit Scores and Credit Reports.
- Joe Taxpayer investigates Roth mania.
Mainstream money reads
- Beware of Greeks bearing bonds [a must read!] – Vanity Fair
- Dreman: Debunking beta – Forbes
- HSBC trounces iShares – Motley Fool UK
- China is restricting export of rare commodities – The Economist
- BP: The case for its defence – The Economist
- Equity risk versus time: A survey – Vanguard (via Mike)
- 48 zombie ETFs – Index Universe
- New high-yield Euro bond ETF from iShares – Fixed Income Investor
- High fee passive hypocrisy – Forbes
- New life in the sun can pay off – FT
- High earners spared PAYE pain – FT
- National Insurance cards to be scrapped – Telegraph
- Cult of the equity not dead yet – Independent
- [Interactive] How safe are your savings? – Guardian
Like these links? Subscribe to get them every week!
Good luck with the networking!
If anyone doesn’t have time to read all the links, please read “HSBC trounces iShares” from the Motley Fool. Besides being very useful, the comment from Disco58 is hilarious!
That comment by Disco is indeed hilarious and shocking.
No wonder investing knowledge is in such a woeful state in the UK!
I find this surprising! You are a good writer, and I though writing comes easy to people who write well.
Thanks Gabriella. The first draft does indeed come very quickly. I’m just fastidious about stuff like punctuation and so on from my media background. And slow at this proofing – and I still miss things! I also try hard to make sure my facts are right, so I will often do research on stuff I know about, just to make sure.
Thanks for your comments!
Well, personally, I think you are great writer! Indeed, your posts are something that is worth reading and I do like the layout of your blog!
Also, another great thing about your blog that it is for readers in this country. I always seems to suffer bad luck when trying to find British financial blogs!
Keep it up! It may be secret and hard to find blog but it is a real gem.
I agree with Gabriela. Why I keep returning to read and enjoy your blog is due to the detail and thought that goes into your posts. We all owe you a great deal thanks for the time you put in. I’ve not seen any British blog that has been half as useful for a novice investor as yours.
Good luck with your new venture!
I appreciate all the effort that goes into your posts…and the humour ‘No, don’t you go worrying about me. I’ll sleep when I’m dead!’ made me laugh out loud 🙂
.-= Laura@MoveToPortugal on: Frugal habits I’ve gained so far =-.
If you think you’re a lousy blogger then your not alone. To tell you the truth you have a much better statistics for a “lousy actual blogger”. I myself am having a hard time writing and it takes me a whole week just to write an article for my blog, still I keep on going. I think you’re doing great. 🙂
This is the ONLY blog that I check religiously, every day, for new content. And I subscribe.
Don’t bother about how long it takes you to write. It’s all about the quality, not the quantity – but lots of well-written articles once a day would be great! 😛
I found your site through Motley Fool so they thought you worth quoting and I haven’t stopped reading and learning from you ever since. Thanks and please don’t stop!
THAT’s what I appreciate about your blog, it just struck me! You can actually put a sentence together in good and proper English 🙂 I’ve never seen a ‘your’ when ‘you’re’ was meant, no ‘of’ where ‘have’ is the correct form…. add that to the fact you actually speak (write) sense too, then what’s not to love???
I would hesitate to call you a ‘lousy blogger’ – so it takes you a while to write a new post? Big deal – surely the metric that counts is that I (or any other reader, of course) log in to see what’s new. And if I log in more often than you post, does that make you a poor blogger? I don’t think so – if you were, would I (we) log in so often to see what you’ve written?
No, keep it up, you’ve definitely got me asking the right questions and looking at things I’d never haver considered before. And I’ve posted your URL at places where people have been asking ‘how/what/why’ questions regarding investing, so I hope there’s been a bit of traffic from that 😉
As for sleeping, that’s the best time to make money, surely? 🙂
Hi there,
No way in h*** could you be considered a bad blogger. I’ve found all of your posts very thoughtful and insightful. It’s been a great resource in informing my own investment decisions. I’m a long way off from being able to retire, but I live in hope still.
It may be difficult to write often but it’s the quality of the posts that count, and you don’t have to worry at all when it comes to that department!
All the best with the linking!
Wow, thanks for the very kind words everyone! I wasn’t actually in the funk as much as I sometimes get into with blogging, but it’s still always fabulous to hear that genuine living people are finding the site and my posts useful.
A special trailer – I have
blackmailedinvited a friend of mine to start contributing to Monevator, and with luck he’s going to become a regular. He’s big on passive investing and the nitty-gritty of TERs etc, and better yet he’s UK based, where such information is in woefully short supply in my opinion. Watch this space! 🙂I second all this… even I get my perspectives broadened by the Monevator, and I’m wrinkly enough to be at least his father… if not a spirited grandfather…!
Long may it continue.
Apologies for the late response to this blog post. I starred it but forgot to come back.
I just wanted to thank you for your long hard slog and to let you know that it does not go unnoticed. You provide a wealth of information for the entire financial spectrum, from novice to advance.
.-= David on: UK Income Tax Blunder – How It Happened =-.
@David – Thanks very much, your encouragement is always a very welcome boost! 🙂
Hi Monevator
Just adding to the chorus that I think your blog is awesome and I’ve actually heard friends talk about it too (in the real offline world!)
And that Disco comment on the Motley Fool was genius too! For everyone else the url is:
http://www.fool.co.uk/news/investing/2010/09/09/hsbc-trounces-ishares.aspx
.-= Adam-Magical Penny.com on: Attending University without Student Loans =-.