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#Tag: Getting to Know the “Person” Behind the Personal Finance Blog

BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 74 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Me jumping off a rock in Hawaii. #Tag: Getting to Know the “Person” Behind the Personal Finance Blog Hey everyone! To the left you can see yet another one of my pictures of me from far away. I like to tease you all with these. I mean, come on, I am still semi-anonymous! At some point though I will run out of far away pictures and be forced to share an up-close picture with you all.

Girl Meets Debt made a fun questionnaire so that everyone could get to know each other a little better. Cait, Tonya, and Krystal all took part and now of course I want to take part.

I know, I know, I talk about myself a ton on my blog. Oh well, it’s my blog and I’ll blog about whatever my heart desires. I always enjoy reading personal posts on blogs so I am hoping you all enjoy this. I tag all of you!

I haven’t really talked a whole lot about my blog and why I started it, so hopefully you learn something interesting today. So many things have changed since the day I started my blog back in August of 2011. When I go back and read those posts from before, I can’t help but laugh. My writing style and blog have changed tremendously, and so have I.


1) How did you come up with your blog name?

I don’t even remember how I came up with it. I will say that I kind of regret it and wish I came up with something fun and interesting, and possibly not so long!  I had a ton of ideas but everything seemed taken. Have you ever had name regret? Or am I alone on this?

2) Which bloggers inspired you when you first started writing?

I actually started by reading DailyWorth. I saw the DailyWorth founder in a magazine (I think it was Cosmo) and looked into the website. I then somehow got hooked on pf blogs and websites when before I barely ever even looked. I found a ton of blogs by looking at the comments on there and it was a long chain effect. Before I knew it I started reading blogs like The Happy Homeowner, Budgeting in the Fun Stuff, Judy’s blog and others and became hooked! These 3 blogs all made me want to continue blogging shortly after I started. What blogs motivated you to blog? Tell me!

I will also say that it was Newlyweds on a Budget who made me look into finding additional income streams. She was making money online from her blog, doing mystery shops, writing for other blogs and so on. She was a huge inspiration and one day I reached out and e-mail her and asked for help with it all.  I then of course was also obsessed with Crystal’s blog (BITFS) and everything she was doing. I was HOOKED on blogs that talked about a realistic way to make extra income.

3) Why write about finance?

I actually love writing about finance. I don’t think I’d say I’m strictly a finance blogger, mainly because I try and include everything about my life – family, wedding, friends, travel, and so on. Writing about finance is nice though because I do have a lot of financial goals and it seems easy to talk about.

I also knew that I wanted to be different. I read TONS of lifestyle and fashion blogs, and so many of them were asking me questions about finance. It is nice that people actually ask ME questions 🙂

4a) What do you enjoy most about blogging?

Blogging is great because of the community that it brings. I get so many great emails from readers and other bloggers everyday and it’s just crazy to think about. I started my blog in August of 2011, and before that I never even ONCE thought about blogging or starting a blog. I feel like because of my blog I am able to talk to tons of awesome people every single day, and I have made a lot of new friends. I will say that I am super excited for FinCon13, as it’s my first blog conference EVER.

If it wasn’t for my blog, I don’t think I would be anywhere near where I am today. I most likely would not have even ever thought about extra income, let alone making as much money in extra income as I am now. I also feel like I have improved in nearly every aspect of my life, and I attribute a lot of it to my blog. Having talked to so many awesome people through my blog, I just know that it offers such a great support system.

4b) What do you enjoy least about blogging?

I don’t know if there’s anything that I don’t like. I would say the occasional mean e-mail or mean comment is never great, but I have been doing a lot better with just ignoring things that aren’t true.

5) What’s the most helpful piece of advice you have learned from reading other PF blogs?

Ah! This is such a hard question. There are SO many things that I would say have been helpful. Spend less money than you earn, diversify your income, and make EXTRA INCOME! Also, don’t feel like you constantly need to keep up with the Joneses. Constantly comparing yourself gets you nowhere.

6) In terms of finance, what is your main focus at the moment?

Right now I’m really working on getting rid of all of my student loan debt. Then after that it’ll be saving as much money as we can for my new business venture and also for the down payment on our next house.

7) If you could give your younger self financial advice, what would it be?

There are so many things that I would tell my younger self: Don’t buy so many clothes! You don’t need that. That shirt you are about to buy looks just like the shirt you bought yesterday and the day before. Also, please pay off some of your student loan debt. You have the money to pay it off but instead you don’t.

In all honestly though, I am happy with the way everything in my life has turned out. Yes, at times things felt extremely rocky and scary, but everything that has happened has just made me that more of an awesome person.

8) Who in your real life knows about your blog?

Some people know that I blog (W, my sister, W’s family and 3 friends). No one besides my sister and W know the actual name though. Luckily they don’t read it though!

9) Does your real job have anything to do with finance or money?

I work in the finance industry, but it has nothing to do with personal finance. I know a lot of you want me to blog about my job but not many people do it so I feel like it would just be too easy to search me, and for other people to realize that this is my blog!

10) What’s the first thing you would do if you won a million dollars?

I would pay off my student loans, sell my current house and buy a new and affordable one, travel a tiny bit and save the rest. And lets be honest, I would of course buy some splurge worthy items. I don’t have debt anymore in this scenario, so I think I’m doing pretty well in this dream world.

Do you have any questions for me? Ask below!

Also, I tag ALL of you! Either run and make your own posts or answer some of the questions in the comments below.

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About Michelle Schroeder-Gardner

Michelle is the founder of Making Sense of Cents, a blog about personal finance and traveling. She discusses how her business has evolved in her side income series. She paid off $40,000 in student loans by the age of 24 mainly due to her freelancing side hustles. Click here to learn more about starting a blog!

Comments

  4. Laurie says

    Thanks for sharing, Michelle! It's always fun to know a bit more about the person behind the blog. I too have found it to be a wonderful community. In my "real" life, no one's really interested in PF, so they don't take much joy in hearing me ramble on about DTI and financial independence. :-).
    My recent post Oops, I Did it Again (Almost)!

    Reply

  5. John S @ Frugal Rules says

    Great idea for a post Michelle! I am curious as to what you do, but I understand the desire to keep it out of the blog. If I were to win $1 Million I think the first thing we'd do is buy a bigger house, then take a nice vacation and then invest the rest.

    Reply

  16. @girlmeetsdebt says

    Thanks for linking back to my #Tag Michelle 🙂 Those questions actually took me 2 hours to come up with. So lame right haha.

    I love the juxtaposition of your openness, yet mystery at the same time. And Making Sense of Cents is a rather catchy name!

    Reply

  25. Justin@TheFrugalPath says

    I also learned about diversifying my income sources from reading PF blogs, actually you inspired quite a bit of it.
    And the only people who know about my blog are my wife's family and a friend of ours. I can't tell those I work with for fear of retaliation of my frugal beliefs.
    Thanks for sharing. I like to know about the bloggers I read about. It helps to give some background to their style.
    My recent post Online Funerals: Stream Your Goodbyes

    Reply

    • MakingSenseofCents says

      How I manage my time would be a whole post in itself! I will make a post on that soon since many people do have that question. And yes I am earning some passive income from this site in the form of affiliate income and adsense. I don't know if you could really call blogging "passive income" though.

      Reply

    • MakingSenseofCents says

      I don't think I did anything special. I think people just find me relate-able (or at least I hope!). I try to be personal on my blog all the time, and not just crank out the normal PF posts so I think people can connect to me more easily. I could be totally wrong though 🙂

      And they ask me about anything and everything. My life, wedding, dogs, family, etc. I have a LOT of people emailing me about the passing of a family member and their moms being insane (just like mine). People also rant to me about their day and talk about their finances. I also tell people that I love to receive emails, so that might be another reason why I get so many.

      Reply

  30. Nick @ AYoungPro.com says

    I actually really like your blog name. It was the first thing that attracted me to reading your blog out of the thousands of other personal finance blogs.

    Reply

  34. JNieto says

    My wife and kids know I blog. I try to get my kids to read it but they won't, at least one of them gave it a like on facebook. As far as work and friends? I'd rather they didn't know. In the corporate world the question will always arise, "If you have time for this nonsense you should have time to do more work at home" it's always been an unspoken expectation wherever I have worked..
    My recent post Sequestration – Let it Come – Here’s Why

    Reply

  35. femmefrugality says

    I've had some blog name regrets. I was afraid it was scaring away all the men. I've learned to just embrace it, though. I'm a woman, so sometimes I write about woman things, and the type of men that won't read because of that….that's okay. I guess they're not my target audience as the blog's evolved. My male readers are awesome, though.

    The boyfriend tells everyone about my blog. I'm a little more close-lipped about it. I like to pretend it's anonymous even though I've violated that in the past lol.
    My recent post The Bible: A Giveaway

    Reply

  37. Trine-Marie says

    You are definitely not the only one to regret their name choice! I initially blogged on a Norwegian platform (in Norwegian) to keep my friends and family updated while I was studying abroad. Since all my posts would be personal, I figured I’d just pick my name. It worked well for that purpose, but I should have changed it when I switched to WordPress and blogging in English! After all, my name is not very easy to remember or pronounce for most English speaking people… And now it just seems like it’s a bit too late.

    Reply

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