Some links that caught my eye this week.
Readers, I’ve got the blogger blues. Luckily for you I haven’t got my guitar out. But most days for a while now…
I’ve woken up in the morning
Got over to my desk
Had an overdue post on Lifetime ISAs or tax or whatnot
Wanted to do something else instead
Baby, I got them blogger blues…
This is not surprising. Monevator will be ten years old this summer, and I recently wrote my 1,000th article. I’ve never committed to anything this long, except peanut butter and phoning my mum once a week.
I was going to widen out this tale of woe – our plunging ad revenues due to high mobile usage and ad blocking, the long absence of The Accumulator as he writes our book, my failure to turn Monevator into the next MoneySavingExpert, a friend recently hospitalized from stress due to overwork – but that’s all by-the-by.
Bottom line: Something has to give to keep this ship afloat with everything else going on.
And Weekend Reading is it.
Why Weekend Reading is changing
For nearly ten years I’ve been at my desk by 8.30am on Saturday to finish this link roundup, which in practical terms has meant mostly no going out late on Friday and working for most of the past 500 Saturday mornings.
I’ve enjoyed it a lot, but I can’t overlook the times I’ve worked from hotel rooms or friends’ kitchen tables – or much more often stayed at home instead of taking that weekend break in the first place.
Most posts can be queued in advance, but topical links can’t. That puts the cosh on spontaneous holidays. I could just skip the links every few weeks, but I’m a do-or-don’t-do sort.
Other reasons to put Weekend Reading on the chopping block:
Tomorrow’s fish and chips paper: Many of you love the links – this is by far the most popular kind of article in terms of initial impressions. But after a week nobody is reading. Other articles can be delivering value for years. I’m instinctively an investor, and these links are more like a cash crop.
Nobody does this anymore: When I began blogging a gazillion years ago, Facebook wasn’t a thing and your social network was the people you’d buy a pint. Now almost no one does link lists. Very few sites even link out anymore from any articles. I’ve deliberately tried to support the best new UK investing blogs, but with a few exceptions (you know who you are! 🙂 ) not many sites send traffic here. At best most linking is on Twitter now.
The rest of Team Monevator cowers before it: An obvious solution to get me the odd weekend off would be to outsource the roundup to other writers. But it might as well be radioactive – it’s just too daunting to keep abreast of 100-odd websites each week.
It’s grown too big: Totally my fault. It means it takes several hours to create but more to double check. I’ve been a stickler for tidy formatting, too.
Now you know the background, here’s how it’s changing.
Weekend Reading is dead. Long live Weekend Reading!
I did consider scrapping Weekend Reading entirely, but two minutes with Google Analytics shows many thousands of people would be disappointed.
And what’s this blog for if it’s not to create a useful resource for many thousands of people?
Instead, a compromise:
Post links on Friday afternoons: This gives me my Friday nights back, and enables weekends away. A big win. It does mean we’ll lose the Saturday morning paper links.
A more idiosyncratic list: I can no longer claim this will be a comprehensive review of the Internet’s best money stories. Rather, it’s articles I’ve read and found useful.
Less formatting: I’m ditching nice bullet points and all but a few big sub-categories. Sounds trivial, but will probably save an hour.
More personalised: From now on I’m going to try not to write big prose intros (like this one) for Weekend Reading, but rather get straight into the links. However I’m also going to editorialize a bit more. Some of you will hate this, but others may find it more interesting (including me!)
Less blog promotion: With regret I will dial back the traffic I deliberately send to smaller blogs in order to save time and attention. I will still read them, and try to highlight their best articles.
Team Monevator: I’m hoping doing a shorter list (5pm update: I’ve failed this week!) that’s produced on Fridays might help me recruit someone else to do the job every few weeks.
This explanation might seem a bit self-indulgent. Who cares? Show me the links already!
However some of you have been reading Monevator for nearly a decade, and I know from your emails that perusing Weekend Reading has become a ritual. So I wanted to explain why it’s changing.
Hope you understand, and have a great weekend!
Note: 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.1
News
Lloyds, Halifax, and Natwest all hit by online banking glitch – ThisIsMoney
Northern cities see fastest house price growth for 12 years, but the south stalls – ThisIsMoney
London rents are falling, too. So much for buy-to-let pricing power – Guardian
Uh oh: UK GDP growth slowing as shoppers stop shopping – BBC
Double lock: Theresa May ponders ditching the 2.5% minimum annual pension raise. Might make State pensions more affordable and halt the upward creep in the pension age. (I need to write about what fairness means when it comes to pensioners. Is it right that minimum wage earners are busting their guts to see their real incomes decline while pensioners’ incomes are guaranteed to rise? Didn’t many – not all – pensioners have the chance to live more frugally, save, and invest over their long lives?) – Guardian
That said I definitely think the State pension should remain universal, whatever the OECD says about halting it for the richest. (Better to tax them instead) – Guardian
I’ve been increasing my (modest) investments in unlisted EIS companies, but it hasn’t been enough to stop total EIS investment slumping 12% on tighter rules [Search result] – FT
New study finds cash in the bank is a better predictor of happiness than income [PDF] – Report
How state benefits help the UK income gap shrink [Search result] – FT
Products and services
Premium Bond changes mean you’ll need to wait 55,000 years for a jackpot – ThisIsMoney
The price of honesty in financial services? Triodos Bank has just launched a new current account offering 0% interest and a £3 monthly charge – Triodos Bank
Fancy a 2.2% interest rate? You’ll need to tie up your money for seven years – Shawbrook Bank
Remember Thriva, the sci-fi blood test dashboard solution? (Work with me here.) Not only will you get £10 off your first kit with the following link, you can use the code ITSAPRIL at checkout to get a further 50% deduction – Thriva
Comment and opinion
Index funds are finally sexy. What a shame – Bloomberg
Don’t throw away your final salary pension [Search result] – FT
Just say no to Angel investing – Financial Samurai
Holding on in a bull market is hard – Ben Carlson
The 2015 Finance Act means companies can no longer offer dividends as capital – Telegraph
Early retiree mistaken for master of the universe – Simple Living in Suffolk
Josh Brown says he knows what bust the Dotcom boom – Reformed Broker
Why early investing is important: A reminder – Of Dollars and Data
Other interesting bits and bobs
Graphic: The relationship between fees, size, and performance for US fund managers – Twitter
How online shopping makes suckers of us all – The Atlantic
Can Britain pull together to get fit for Brexit? – CapX
Globalization: Trade rising again, reports of death premature – Bloomberg
Merkel warns Britons to ditch their Brexit illusions – Reuters
When Elon Musk got divorced, he only kept his Tesla shares due the kindness of is his fellow billionaires – CNBC
The Vauxhall Brexit is the perfect car for John Redwood and his ilk – Twitter
And finally
“The problem is that decades roll by and life gets busy, and if no-one challenges the negative ‘scripts’ that auto-play in your head whenever you stuff something up or get rejected, those teenage beliefs bed down, compound, and become ingrained – they become who you are. And they slowly but surely eat away at your self-confidence, keeping you locked in a job you’ve lost interest in, relationships you’ve outgrown, and a financial state that stops you from experiencing life on your terms.” – Scott Pape, The Barefoot Investor
Like these links? Subscribe to get them every Friday!
- 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”. [↩]
Comments on this entry are closed.
I’m glad to not see the end of the Weekend Reading links, I find them super useful!
Have you thought about setting up a Patreon? Not to lock content away, but to get a ‘better return’ for the time you spend writing?
I love the Weekend reading list, but it is your blog so I won’t quibble.
Suggestion? Just put up an open thread and have us post the links for you?!
Just put down the links you love. No need to be thorough.
It doesn’t always have to be pretty – just a list of links. I’d also suggest Patreon. I love this site despite the occasional political rant (but hey, it’s your site) and have been coming here for the decade. I’d back you if you can work out a way that helps. Maybe talk to Robert Llewellyn who does a superb YouTube channel called Fully Charged – he was struggling but has been rejuvenated because of Patreon.
Thanks for sticking with the weekend reading- we’ll get used to the new format in no time! I hope you find a way to rejuvenate your enthusiasm for your fantastic work
This is your website and, at the risk of embarrassing you, it is a really, really excellent one. I have never seen anywhere else any material which approaches yours in terms of clear but neutral and thought-provoking information on investing. So you do whatever you want, or need, to do get your life back while still running the show.
My only regular blog read. Thanks for sticking with it. Feeling on top of my weekend have done my weekend finance reading already!
I’ve been a regular reader since the start and probably take for granted all the time and work you put into the site. Good to be reminded. I’ll continue to read as long as you’re happy putting out content, whatever format that is in.
Everyone needs regular downtime – so, as far as I am concerned, if you wanted for example to push out on a Friday max 10 links (with a standard heading “I do not necessarily agree with the content” etc) and call that Weekend Reading, that would do fine for me. Take it easy.
I love the weekend links and having them on a Friday is just fine by me! +1 to the patreon. Every week I look forward to seeing what articles have been written and what the weekend reading holds in store. I use adblock but did sign up via your ratesetter link which must have done well? Thanks for all your hard work and keep it up! …Also eagerly awaiting part 2 of the LISA post…but no pressure 😛
100% agree with Steve.
The work and time you and everyone else puts in is superb. Every article is really well informed and engaging. The Weekend reading is a Saturday ritual for me now. I’m sure I can adapt to this though. 🙂
I am one of those who check Weekend Reading every week and follow the links.
I thank you for all the work it has taken, and can’t fault you for deciding to to tame its demands on your time. Enjoy life …. that’s what it’s all about ultimately, harvesting the joy from life, not just cultivating a link farm.
Enjoy the sunshine and the blue sky.
I really enjoy your weekly blog and always visit the page sometime over the weekend and enjoy many of the links (nice to see CAPX featuring – a favourite of mine) but can understand the immense workload that places on you. And it’s your blog so whatever you find of interest is likely to be of interest to many people like me who are regular visitors. As ever, keep up the good work.
TI, thanks as ever for everything on this site. I really wish you would set up a Patreon or online “tip jar” or whatever. Reading this site has transformed my approach to money, and it has been just so easy and enjoyable to learn here.
As for people using ad-blockers: you can disable them on a site-by-site basis. And ads here are never intrusive.
I wanted to say thanks for the (vast amounts) of time you put into Monevator, including the ‘weekend reading’ roundup. I must confess it is probably the only regular feed in my feedly subscriptions that I actually look for each week.
That said you’ve got to do what makes you happy, otherwise what is the point?
For what it is worth, one suggestion that may give you a bit more time back is look at automating things a little more. For example:
1. Applications like Instapaper or Pocket or Feedly provide a capability to save an article to a folder for reading later.
2. The automation part could come from turning that folder into a “recommended reading” RSS feed.
3. You could then surface that feed into a pre-formatted template, and display it here.
This would eliminate much of the scut work tasks involved in preparing a roundup, which would free up your time for the value add parts like the editorials or dirty weekends away or going to the pub with your mates. Just a thought.
Keep up the great work.
I like the idea of Friday links… Means I can get reading over breakfast on Saturday
Thanks from me too for all the work over the last 10 years. The site is interesting and informative and it has significantly improved my well being by teaching me to invest sensibly
Hi there,
I too am glad that you are keeping the links.
I might be interested in taking a turn collating them for you every few weeks. I do this kind of thing already on Twitter and Reddit (and a bit on my blog).
Mike
Before I dig into the links, I just wanted to let you know since taking the investment plunge in 2013. I’ve practically not gone a weekend with reading the weekend reading list, infact it’s what I like to do on a Saturday no matter where I am in the world, currently I’m in a hotel in Sofia, Bulgaria with a view of the Mountains as my back drop to this plunge (even though my partner berates me for being anti social). You’ve done a splendid job over the years and I will surely miss this current guise of weekend reading. Btw just to let you know, quite often when I do a search when I’ve a query about let’s say “energy” it links back to weekend reading links, which often provide a wealth of knowledge, all of the links each week reflecting typically what was occurring at the time make for a vast treasure trove of information.
I must admit that checking this website on a Saturday morning has become almost instinctive for me. The fact that it is the *only* blog I still check on a regular basis shows how valuable the content, including the Weekly Reading, is. I would hate to see the Weekly Reading disappear, so moving it to Friday is a good compromise.
As other readers have mentioned, a Patreon is a good idea. I would be happy to send a few quid a month (and I don’t normally pay for anything :)).
Thanks for sticking with The Weekend- it is my Sunday morning papers with coffee. I agree with using this section for contribution and compilation of links from your viewers…
@ investor. The links will be missed but I totally see why you need to adapt. I hadn’t appreciated how time consuming the whole thing was so a belated big ‘thank you’. I hope the blog continued to thrive and that you get your weekends back
The cash-in-bank paper: its conclusion is entirely plausible, but –
Self-contradiction: “while our correlational data do not permit causal inferences, we find that immediate access to money plays ….”
Calculated ambiguity: “a unique role in explaining the relationship between money and life satis- faction …”. To use “explain” in the statistical sense, hoping to fool laymen into taking the meaning to be the everyday sense, always seems a shabby tactic to me.
Bathos: “Therefore, to improve the well-being of citizens, policymakers should focus not just on boosting incomes but also on increasing people’s immediate access to money.”
And not just bathetic, but promoting the ever-increasing power of the state over the citizen. After all, it was open to them simply to urge people to build themselves a pot of £3k or so at the bank. Happily MSE commenters urge that same policy without the edifice of mock-scholarship that might put off the people most likely to benefit from the advice.
“It might not feel like it, but income inequality is at its lowest level since 1986.”
(i) Why would anyone think that they can “feel” inequality?
(ii) I blame the Conservatives and the Coalition. You didn’t get this kind of thing under New Labour.
Ive never added a comment here before, but feel it’s important to respond to this one. Thank you for all your hard work over the years, I hadn’t realised how much it was taking away from your ability to have a decent work life balance. I totally support your need to change.
Selfishly, I’m glad weekend reading changing rather than ending – I love your list and never miss it. You’re an integral part of my weekend!
Patreon sounds like a great idea – seems like you’ve got a very loyal band of fans here who’d like to support you, maybe buy a round of Friday night drinks!
Thanks for all the articles across the whole site they’ve been a big part of helping me put a plan together and I’m now looking at stopping full time work in 3 years. Hope you realise just how much of an influence you’re having on individual lives. Thanks again.
I’m going to read The Reformed Broker piece several times. Thanks for the link.
The FT piece against taking the CETV on a final salary pension: I was impressed a few months ago by The Blessed Merryn’s argument that taking the CETV was a brilliant way of realising the benefit of the great bond bubble.
There is also Martin Wolf’s argument: “he has cashed in two of his defined benefit pensions … Could that be the wrong decision? Yes. But I would have to live to be close to one hundred and the pre-tax returns on investment would have to be zero – or less – over decades. IF the latter were true, capitalism would truly be dead. Moreover, if capitalism were dead, would the sponsoring company be able to meet its pension liabilities, in any case?”
The barefoot investor: “keeping you locked in … relationships you’ve outgrown”. Is he advocating dumping your wife and children to find yourself a trophy wife?
I always read your Saturday blog and always find something interesting in the links. So thank you for all your hard work and I’m glad it’s not disappearing altogether. But I’m also a firm believer in not doing more work than necessary to achieve something so earlier, fewer links in a less tidy format is fine by me – and you are pretty much doing it for nothing, so we can hardly complain.
And the nice thing about the Net is that as long as your blog exists all your earlier work still exists and all your fantastic pieces on tracker investing remain to hopefully guide the young and stupid to a sensible strategy 🙂
Enjoy all those free weekends.
I think readers can rather take for granted the work someone puts into a website. As a minimum after reading the suggestion from other readers, I made a point of adding this site (and another I contribute to) to the white list of my ad blocking software. I have not encountered the Patreon model, so can not comment if it would be of benefit. I get occasional gripes from sites about ad blocking software; most I ignore but phrased nicely that might be an option to periodically nudge fans of this site into allowing ads on this site. Have a good weekend!
@TI, Dude, the consensus in these comments seems to be that everyone really appreciates it all (what you do on your site) and the links are a huge part of that. But we understand of course that it’s a big workload for a hobby and you’ve had to sacrifice for that and deserve a healthy work-life balance; we get that too.
So why don’t you let us help? Let us know what helps and I reckon a lot of people would actually be happy to help. It’s your baby and it’s clear you’re very particular, which is fine, but if you can think of ways we can help if we/you want to, that’ll be win-win for all, just tell us how. I’ve wanted to send you articles I think you may be interested in because they were similar/relevant to what you already post, but didn’t want to spam. I’m guessing a lot of your regulars would be happy to contribute just for the sake of it, so if that appeals to you, then find a way that’ll be acceptable to you. (I think most of us just don’t want you to close down one day)
Perhaps have a place on your site where people can dump stuff that’s on-topic, then you sift through it as and when you need enough material for a weekend post, i.e let us act as researchers. It needn’t be 100% up-to-date, i.e that exact week’s news, but as long as it’s relevant and informative it’ll still be welcome. Also, if it also helps, ask people to disable their adblocker just when on your site, that’ll be fair enough given it’s free; I already do that for a select few decent free sites I want to support, precisely to keep them that way.
Do whatever you need to do; I am sure the great majority of us will stay with you however you decide to organise things. But do as a result get to take all your weekends off! After all, God did not give us an Empire in order that we might work all week and then work also at weekends. I also support the idea of a Patreon box; I rarely pay for anything voluntarily but I would contribute to what you do because it is really good stuff. I used to be an investor being tossed on the rough seas of investment and feeling alarmed as I was thrown around my sea cabin; now I enjoy being hurled around because I know its good for me.
I just came here to second the Patreon comment. I’m an Adblock user (sorry!) for all websites on principle, but would absolutely love a way to give you money directly to show my appreciation of what you write.
To echo everyone else, thank you so much for all the work you and you co-writers put into this site.
This is the site that switched me on to how to approach retirement. I have enjoyed the site enormously, and it has taught me a great deal, both directly and by pointing me at other useful resources. I always enjoy browsing the stories and sites you identify over the weekend. And I am still profitably mining the archive.
But I fully appreciate the need to restructure from time to time to make it viable. I am just pathetically grateful that you will continue with that connecting role. Once again thank you.
That’s a punishing schedule you’ve been keeping to for the past 10 years, definitely time for a change. Thanks and keep up the great work – reading the post on Friday or over the weekend makes no difference to me – I’ll still look forward to the links!
I love the links and look forward to reading them with my coffee. You have introduced me to so many great blogs. But I echo everyone else in saying to put yourself first. Maybe you could do a once a month round- up? I don’t think it’s true that link posts are not popular with other bloggers: I also read Friday/Sat links from Austin Kleon, designmom, Physician on Fire, White Coat Investor (monthly) and Finanzwesir.
…And I enjoy reading your political ‘rants’!
Thank you for your service!
Sounds to me like what used to be a labour of love has become mostly a labour. One that i imagine doesn’t rake in a fortune.
I like this site and have learned loads from it. But the content is huge and the articles must take a massive time commitment and its not obvious to me why you put yourself through it. If the aim was to inform the masses and empower them to invest for themselves, then you’ve done that massively.
If you stop today, that work wont have been wasted. So scale back, take a break, start charging for it, or whatever else works for you.
On the weekend articles – its great that you put the lists out but why spend hours packaging up material that in the main people can find for themselves? My point i think is that the value you deliver (at least to readers like me) is the thought provoking articles on specific topics. If readers want the mournful reflections of the Ermine, or the considered analysis of Ben Carlson et al, or the middle class brexit angst of the Guardian, these things are not hard to locate.
My impression is you need a break. Why not go down the path of say the Escape Artist – its not certain when he will publish, but its every week or so when it appears its gold dust? Whatever you do, its not down to you to save the world so id ease off the hamster wheel.
Take it easy.
I strongly advise you not to go for a paid subscription model like Patreon. Very few would sign up for it, even if the cost were negligible. The information is of interest but is not something for which people would pay any tangible amount.Some things just have to be done altruistically for the public good.
First time commenter – long time reader. I get a lot of value from the content here and do wonder what might help make the commitment required sustainable. The changes you are making, along with the reasons you shared make a lot of sense.
Of course I love to benefit from freebies as does everyone else. But I would happily pay an annual subscription for both the “active investing” content, along with the “timely” content (link posts, first reaction to UK tax policy changes etc). Keep the “basics” free for everyone as I suspect those posts have the most positive and profound impact on those of us from non-investor families (certainly did me). But for those of us that subsequently got interested enough in this stuff to start admitting to ourselves we have an unexpected hobby, feel free to ask for something in return.
In case the idea of a paywall puts you off, bear in mind that paid-for content can be made available to all after X months…(e.g. Link posts…). That way, everyone gets the benefit, you still get the Google juice and the subscribers don’t care as they already acted on the information.
Whatever you think of the above idea, if the idea of contributing at some level for the next 10 years makes you shudder and look for the ejector button, it might be worth exploring ideas for sustainability that don’t naturally fit with your very giving nature :).
@TI It seem like you and the monevator team are reaching a crossroads in the development of your blog. Like other posters I look forward to the link listing too, and this is a great service, but it sounds like you and the other monevators need a good brainstorming session on how you move forward with the website now. Are the link lists really what monevator is about? Or is it to encourage financial self-help and investor education? Or something else? For me, the meaty bits are the article series on things like bonds and so on – I suppose that’s your niche to continue to be a blog with genuine reach – not like ‘moneysavingexpert’ in absolute terms but proportional to the potential readership, perhaps. I also like the ‘rants’ and philosophical articles about finance and lifestyle as a counterpoint to the bread-and-butter ‘sensible hats on’ stuff. By comparison letting me know Hadley Freeman has a view on lifetime ISAs this week (or whatever) is inconsequential, though fun.
I think I suggested a while back you could consider widening your team to bring in more people to maintain articles and so on, perhaps by approaching experienced and trusted commenters who are aligned with the ethos of the blog; these folk could compile the link lists if you want to retain these too, and you and the TA could step back to editorial roles. Somehow you have to work out how (and if) the website will continue to devlop and offer growing and sustainable value to the readership, while allowing you to scale down your involvement and stress as you need to. After all even Martin Lewis stepped back from MSE a couple of years ago. For my 2p I’d hope Monevator remains the go-to resource for people who are starting to seek reliable guidance and info to gain confidence and understanding about their investments and other aspects of personal finances and that you continue to aspire to be a best-in-class level of blog. I also like that Monevator continues to be fairly quirky and bijou – blogs that bloat to the extent that the comments run to several hundreds of off-topic asides and squabbles over esoteric nuances seem worse than pointless to me.
And dude – an hour of formatting? FWIW have a look at http://www.lyx.org (DOH! – the website is down at the mo for some reason, but trust me it is there…). LyX can be used to generate wordpress ready articles, for example using http://www.nongnu.org/lyxblogger/. The LyX approach to writing is to eliminate extraneous tasks like formatting [“LyX is a document processor that encourages an approach to writing based on the structure of your documents (WYSIWYM) and not simply their appearance (WYSIWYG”)]. And if TA is taking an inordinate time with your book and is writing using MS Word or something equally God-awfully unsuited to writing books, encourage him to try using LyX instead.
Phew – halfway through reading I thought everything was a goner – a nice play of dramatic tension in the narrative! Thank you, not only for the weekend reading, which is always entertaining and informative, but also for all the other work you do, because it helped me find my way out of a mess.
It’s why I’m sitting here five years after having checked out of the workforce for good, and looking forward to some fine wine this evening and podnering where to tour in the UK and maybe pick up some filming and recording jobs to find my way to more out of the way parts of this country. Because of what I learned from here I now have the freedom to use my time as I wish rather than selling it to The Man. So thank you, indirectly, for the gift of time. They ain’t making any more of it.
Great job – thank you for all your hard work and efforts over the years – really fantastic.
Thanks everyone for the generous words about the site and the support. I know some readers seem to get wound up for some reason by others saying nice things, but blogging in your spare room is not a gregarious and feedback rich environment, and so when it happens one is really glad it did. In fact I’ve never done anything else that gets the positive feedback that Monevator gets, whether in comments, emails, or from the odd person in real-life. (Someone wiser than me would probably better grasp where this suggests my priorities should lie, but I’m a non-committal generalist by nature, and I like to juggle options…)
In the spirit of not working on Saturday, I’ll just reply to a few points generally rather than try to reply to every comment individually — much appreciated though they all are!
I have to thank those who offered the ‘look after yourself’ comments. But to be clear the nadir on that particular score was probably about a year ago, when I truly was burning the candle both ends in various ways (not just work, and certainly not just Monevator) and it was finally showing. In the period after that, I’ve had more time to reflect about what I’m doing and what I’ve given up over the years.
(My dad always used to say if you want something done, give it to a busy man. Well I was *much* busier a year ago. Now I have more time, but the flywheel isn’t spinning so fast…)
Anyway, as I say much of this backstory is happening off-screen from a Monevator perspective. But when I assess where remaining big wins might be in getting things back on track in a sustained way, this re-working of the Link posts as I discussed above looks like a definite one.
The point is, I appreciate the concern but I wanted to stress this isn’t a wit’s end scenario. (Well, not any more).
More specifically on a few points:
Adblockers – It’s kind of people to turn them off for Monevator, I appreciate the faff and the thought. But I suspect it doesn’t make any real difference, to be honest. The site generates over a quarter of a million impressions a month; I’d imagine regulars turning off ad blockers might give me at most a few thousand back? And of course you guys are generally too smart to actually click on ads. 🙂 As I say, please do keep doing it — again, it’s appreciated — but it’s not a big picture solution.
Patreon — I have a friends who have urged this. My feeling though is it’s halfway house. I think without a truly massive push, we’d end up with a couple of hundred Patreons, who would rightly feel they had put something into the site, but who would still be seeing attempts at monetization, gripes about the drift to mobile, etc. If we got to a few thousand, very different story (I’d turn off all the ads etc) but personally I think we’d need to give more to get that, as there’s no way we’d be turning off all the free content, and as was mentioned it’s not like our stuff is entirely unique, however much we strive to present it as best we can.
Site revenues / workload — Related, someone mentioned the money for a round of beer etc. This isn’t really the issue, the site does make much more money than that (though about half what it did on run-rate advertising several years ago when it was smaller, for aforementioned reasons!) It’s more effort/reward (financial reward, I mean — as I say above it’s the best thing I’ve done for other reasons. Comments like @ermine’s are priceless, and I’ve been lucky enough to hear from dozens over the years on email etc). I’m a financially savvy person who can get paid well to communicate. Meanwhile Monevator is effectively a mini-publishing company, where I also write 80% of the content. The result is when it’s firing on all cylinders (and pre-Weekend Reading revision) it takes up perhaps 50-70 hours of my time a month, depending on articles and assuming no big site tech changes or other projects etc. So the opportunity cost is well into the thousands. That’s fine for six months, but do the maths over 10 years and it’s a bit frightening! Again, however, I feel I should stress the site has made money in the past few years — not enough to give a great ROI seen in that light, but enough for many rounds in the pub. So please don’t feel too terrible for me, it’s not entirely a labour of love. It’s more a subsidised labour of love. 🙂 The frustration I have is more the direction of travel (e.g. Seeing ad revenue halve while your readership doubles…)
Other financial opportunities — Another reason not to feel too terrible for me is I’ve done a poor job of really trying to monetize this site. (Weirdly, I am actually not someone very excited by money. I know. Ironic.) The air of anonymity doesn’t help here, but things like the Ratesetter affiliate deal (where a nice batch of readers should now be through their 12 months and £100 to the richer this month!) were proof I could do more. This is probably the solution to mobile monetizing, too. But anyway, that’s an issue for me to figure out. Just know I probably turn down 5-10 forex/spreadbetting/loan companies a week who want to pay me hundreds to embed their links or run their guest posts! My bar is high! But it’s not infinitely high; there will always be some attempts at monetizing, and I much appreciate that you guys get that.
Team Monevator — One reason it’d be good to have more certainty about revenues is to boost the team etc, either in terms of making it more sustainable for them, too, or maybe adding 1-3 more people contributing and putting things on a more professional footing. I can’t tell you how picky I am though. And I don’t really want lots of (/any) jobbing interns knocking out articles just to create content etc, so I wouldn’t really fear that happening.
Membership models etc — I may still do this at sometime. The difference I see with Patreon is we can create some sort of a paywall (or two) and change the experience in some way (content/no ads/whatever). Perhaps I’m too old-fashioned in seeing this route as more appropriate that Patreon, I don’t know! 🙂 The other snag here though is as I’ve said a few times, as much as anything I’d sort of like to take six months off entirely! (I’m hoping more modest changes can make this feeling go away). I am a serial monogamist who changes jobs and careers and even the sectors I’ve worked in. Ten years doing the same thing is a couple of lifetimes for me. So in some ways creating a cadre of rightly expectant paying customers might be counterproductive… 😉
Formatting of posts — Yes, this is ridiculous, and it’s entirely self-inflicted! And the new WR links format, without the bullet points etc, is going to annoy me more than anyone else. 🙂 In another life I was going to be a brilliant magazine publisher by now, but then print media died it’s death and life moved on. For a long time, before we switched to the responsive theme here, I would hand craft posts for line breaks and stuff just so they looked good on my monitor and in my browser (although I often forgot that was the case…) Not having all the different categories and whatnot does take a lot of pressure off ‘filling’ the format. It will all save time, at some cost of mental anguish to me.
User-sourced content — I hear what people are saying with these suggestions (and I will think about the more direct offers of involvement, too — thanks!) but to be honest I think it’d be just as much work and maybe more curating them all instead. If my email box is any indication, I’d be spammed to death too. (Monevator now gets 40-100 emails a day, at least three-quarters of which are probably promotional in some way but it’s not clear until you read them. And this when I’m semi-anonymous! If you ever wondered why your email got lost or I could only manage a short reply, that’s why! 🙂 ) Finally, I’m a control freak / perfectionist. Oh, and to be honest I quite like presenting my view of the week like this…
So there you have it, a bit more detail. I’m fine, I hope I didn’t sound too gloomy or unhappy, or whatever. But again, I really do appreciate all the comments and the pro-active solutions; even where I might suggest above that I don’t immediately see them as working for us, I will be mulling over in the days ahead!
And truly, thanks for reading this site, I know there’s a lot of options out there, and a lot of distractions.
I’ve been following your blog for what must be nearly the whole 10 years – never made a comment until now.
I feel a bit guilty really, harvesting all the truly great content, following the comments, and then giving nothing back – sorry.
This last post has finally prompted me to sincerely thank you for the life changing effect your work has had on my financial life. In fact, the whole FI journey that started from following articles and links on Monevator has meant I’m only a few years away from grabbing 20 years back from wage slavery. I can’t think of anything more valuable than that!
I can’t really give you any advice on monetising a blog, however leaving a PayPal ‘Donate’ button or similar on your posts/emails, might bring a surprising number of followers willing to buy you those Friday night drinks you deserve?
Loved The Atlantic’s article. I had heard that there were algorithms out there that directed Mac users towards the more expensive end of a retailer’s range of stuff than PC users.
But this… I don’t think we’re all that far from Skynet, if Skynet was out to rob you on your online shop instead of kill you.
In 2013 my boss said he’d consolidated his pensions into a SIPP and I thought, “what’s a SIPP?” A quick bit of Googling, and Monevator was very soon my financial adviser. I discovered other great blogs through Monevator, but none that I’d visit religiously on a weekly basis. After just a few weeks of discovering your site, I suddenly had plans to achieve FI at 55; it had never occurred to me as an option before! Now I’m gunning for 49, and there’s a possibility to achieve it.
I’m a bit of a skinflint, but would gladly contribute financially in some way; although not as much as FA’s charge of course 🙂 Just like I contribute to Wikipedia, but not as much as one would pay for Encyclopedia Britannica.
Thank you very much.
I value the articles more than the link lists, perhaps 70:30, but it sounds like your time is spent the other way. I’d also be happier to have less frequent articles, or updated versions of older ones, if that is less work for you. I know you are concerned about article length covering all the bases, but you’d be writing less repeat copy with updates, and the older comments would continue to provide information to newer readers.
I’d rather contribute my time than my money using a Patreon scheme.
Long time reader, first time commenter. Just to add the thanks for your hard work, I enjoy all you write, but weekends are precious. I also know the horrors of formatting pedantry.
Charles Arthur’s The Overspill is a great example of link sharing. Always something interesting, like someone reading the internet for me.
This is a wonderful site, it’s great because of the articles you guys write. The links are nice to have but they are not the reason for the site. On the matter of reward isn’t it time that authors of blogs like this demanded that they should be paid by their publishers? Why is it accepted that copy must be posted without remuneration?
I am revamping all my investments on a sensible basis thanks to this site. 30 years of ad hoc, best ideas (at the time), overlapping accounts. Muddle.
Thank you for your help.
( And yes, all the mistakes will be mine!).
I find that every now and again it helps to forget the babble of news, the sheer pressing noise of it, and just take a day and look at stuff as if you were a child again. It is, still, a very beautiful planet.
Love the Links, love the website. Thank you for what you do – it’s much appreciated!
+1 to everything said so far…Monevator has helped me make some good (great!) financial decisions. It feels wrong that it’s free…for what it’s worth I’d happily contribute along the Wikipedia / Guardian model…
Love your articles and rarely miss your Weekend Reading. However, like everyone else I appreciate you need to have a life as well.
You are the clearly the kind of person who gives generously to others so who are we to deny you a well-earned weekend break.
Thanks for everything!
Hey, nothing new or novel but I did want to offer my thanks for all your hard work! As with many other readers, this is the only financial site I read regularly now.
Best regards, Guy
Agree with sentiment from previous comments – great site, informative and very useful. If these changes improve your life then so be it!
As you know, I’m a big fan of weekly reading, and the links often form, challenge and adjust my way of looking at the world, and have helped me in organising my and others’ finances.
And while it might seem a cash crop to you, WR is the reason that Monevator is *the* single site that I feel obliged to recommend to anyone who asks me how I think about money as the place they must go and read every week. The other articles might have “slow burn” potential, but they rely on traffic to be read — WR must hose that traffic all over the site. More internal links as well as external ones, perhaps? You’ve happened upon a vital spark that engages readers. Many publishers fail to find such a valuable thing.
I’m delighted, then, that the links have survived the cull (and for me most of the value is the links rather than the hard-to-craft thought-leader article). And who cares if we miss the Saturday papers if you’re able to have a more sane life — collect the links during the week, schedule to publish and retire to a glass of wine on Friday night and tweeting at 1am… 😉
I’m sure I wouldn’t read and enjoy TEA and half a dozen other excellent blogs if you weren’t calling out the articles which are worth reading. I’ve certainly no desire to subscribe to all the blogs that you do! I stopped my adblocker on this site, but I’d also happily subscribe to be a “member”, although I’d counsel against making a paywall: the joy is the accessibility. Particularly if it helped make you feel even more trapped into continuing to provide such a valuable site.
I’m glad some sectioning (we all need sectioning!) survives. I particularly enjoy the other stuff about living better as well as wondering at the active/passive divide. I’ve never really understood the mainstream vs blog separation. Seems like unnecessary work.
Finally recall the true aim of the perfectionist is to perfect the art of the 80/20 solution. If you can reset that to your goal then “the best I could do in the time I allowed myself” is the new pinnacle. Sod the formatting. Feel the width.
PS Thank-you. Forgot to say that above, but really mean it. Your work enriches my life, I’d like to buy you a pint.
Monevator in any form is good and well done for the consistent high quality. I always get something out of it and the impact on my finances since reading it has been huge. It’s a free education so take it easy on yourself!!! Would also happily buy you a pint!
1) Thanks for helping me on my financial journey. Its been invaluable to me, my children and my family and i have pointed people towards your site (family and any friends interested in personal finance – not that many….).
2) I’ve often wondered how on earth you managed to create my weekend read of finance articles that has always arrived in my inbox without fail. I’ve nearly emailed you a few times to ask. The answer should have been obvious of course….hard work!
3) I had no idea you had ambitions of being the next MSE. Please take this as constructive feedback; a) You dont come across as ambitious/commercial at all! (but neither does MSE). Perhaps a few more affiliate links would help…. b) I never think of your site as a blog. Its an email (or it might just be the only blog post i get by email…)
4) If you want to make money out of your site, have a look at the value you provide and get people to pay for it!
5) Thanks for the weekly reading. If it stops from now on, I would be more grateful I benefited from it than sad that its gone.
Your website is a huge help to eejits like me who had no idea it was possible to be FI before the UK govt says you may be. I will read your links in any format you like, any day you care to publish them and am always grateful for your insight on what is amusing or relevant. Especially amusing. Chin up!
Thanks for the great work. Your blog got me into passive funds and vanguard lifestratergy in particular!
To echo others above – thanks for all the work on the weekend reading, it’s been great reading but I can understand the need to get your weekend back – it’s a lot of work to do week in, week out!
I will of course still be reading it 🙂
Thank you. I have really enjoyed reading your blog. It is really sensible useful information. Enjoy having your weekend back.
Congrats on your 1,000th post! I am pretty new at this stuff, so seeing someone go at it for 10 years is awesome. I look forward to continuing to read your posts.
Can’t add anything that hasn’t already been said, feel guilty about having had my adblocker on denying you some revenue so have turned if off. Did the Ratesetter referral about a year ago so not long to wait for the bonus – hope this makes up for it! Keep up the good work!!!
As a non-US, non-UK investor, I must say that Monevator has proved to be the best online resource about DIY investing after the Bogleheads forum. Please consider putting a “donate” button.
Over the past few years Monevator has gone from an occasional read, to checked several times a week for both the crafted content, and the conversations in the comments – and that’s where the most value is for me in the weekend reading lists. I’d echo the sentiment above that the more author-friendly version is still great, and I’m grateful for the work you put in
I love your ‘Weekend reading’ section, but to be honest, I almost never really read or look into the links. What I love about it is the short stories, insights and thoughts you write before you get to the links.
Thanks for your work!
Just to say many thanks for the numerous links you’ve given to my blog and the support, not to mention the boosts in traffic, that has come with the references. As a blogger I’d like to say I do it wholly for love, but if nobody reads it then I might as well just stick to my private diary. Feedback and traffic are what keeps me going, on top of the enjoyment of just writing, and you’ve really helped as I’ve gone along the way. Cheers!
Cheers for all the further comments everyone, and also thanks for reading Monevator! Lots of competition out there for our every second so very pleased so many people have us as one of their go-to web sites. You’re welcome Jim, and special thanks to Carlos for sticking up for my Saturday morning rambles… 😉 Perhaps they’ll make a very occasional reappearance in the future.
Sure this has already been said 50 times but:
1) I have no idea how you can keep up with, read and curate so many articles over the week. I don’t even get time to read all the ones you do post up so presuming you’ve read at least twice that amount to pick only the best ones! You are a PF reading machine!
2) I tried doing some weekly reading links years ago, and with only about 5 links per post and think I lasted about 2 weeks. Keeping this up for 10 years is amazing! I read plenty of decent stuff but just forget to bookmark it to reference later, maybe it is just getting into the habit of doing that then once that is ingrained it becomes “easier” ?
3) It’s definitely the part of the site I look forward to most, and glad it is surviving, the format changes sound totally fine and I can’t imagine many people will be annoyed about this!
4) I can’t believe formatting takes that long?! If you want a brief course on wordpress keyboard shortcuts shoot me an email 😉 (in all seriousness though, I don’t really care about how the posts are formatted so do whatever takes the least amount of time for you!)
Finally thanks for all the links you’ve posted and therefore traffic you’ve sent me over the last few years. I hope you can see I’ve tried where possible to reciprocate the favour either with relevant links in my posts or even just via the blogroll (Looks like you get at leasts 10 clicks a day from that… you’re welcome 🙂 )
@TFS — You’re welcome! Regarding the formatting, I think some of you are not managing to enter the mindset of a perfectionist. On my browser (Firefox, Mac) on the viewing setting I use, none of the bullet points under the old format accidentally bled over into the line below (a widow) and everything was perfectly spaced, and I could smile at it and all was good. That took a lot of fiddling — blame experience in pre-Internet era typography (and as I said above somewhere, I even knew it was futile because it doesn’t translate to what other people are seeing on the web). As I whittled down maybe 70 short-listed links to the 50 or so that went out, I’d often get stuck for 1-2 minutes trying to decide if a particular link was passive or active. Multiply than by say 5-10… And then you have the fact I had effectively 7 categories to fill. It all adds up. (I did it because I didn’t want to distract passive readers with active fireworks. Now everyone will have to take their chances).
In terms of reading, I read about 5-10 hours most days, and 12+ on many. It’s a rabid active investor thing, and just how I like it. (See this post for my good company: http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/28/what-its-like-working-for-warren-buffett-its-literally-just-reading-about-12-hours-a-day.html)
p.s. Yes, thanks for the link! Will continue to read your stuff; it’s a bit off-piste for core Monevator (I’d say you’re more a personal mission blogger?) but there have been some good and relevant posts over the years. 🙂
Just another “thanks” for all your hard work.
I know you’re not keen but I’d still add another vote for Patreon. I contribute a small amount via Patreon to a couple of other blogs I read regularly because I appreciate the work that goes into them and want their authors to be able to keep doing it. I don’t expect anything extra above the usual free service for doing so. Neither of the other blogs makes all their money from Patreon but it’s a useful, and regular, part of their income.
@Phil — Cheers, you’re welcome. I have had so many comments about this via email also, that I am pondering it. I may try something like Memberful. Same sort of low monthly cost, but with more freedom to try to product something extra for members, even if it’s just a Christmas message… 😉
“it’s a bit off-piste for core Monevator” – Haha, yes I’d agree with that but thanks for continuing to read. I don’t feel I’ve put out much of use recently so no complaints of not getting mentioned here as much. I have loads of ideas which might be relevant so need to pull my finger out and get them written up!
I would love to read a bit longer per day (not 12 hours though, I think my brain would melt!) but realistically only get about 2 hours a day and that’s only if I’m working (commute). So I have to be extremely picky about what I do read (which is why I love Weeking reading links!).
Happy to take my chances with the active/passive category potluck so no worries there, and I get the whole perfectionist thing, I used to be a bit like that but am slowly moving to a Pareto based view on all of that 😉