I figured that since this will be the last interview for a few weeks I would have to find a really amazing person to interview. After searching far and wide (on the internet) I found the perfect person to interview, Erica Douglass of Erica.biz. No point to even try introducing Erica because she does a great job of describing herself in the interview:

Me: Your story is really inspirational and interesting. What motivated you to start a website where you share your tips?

Erica: I’ve been writing a blog for a long time; I started with a LiveJournal nearly 12 years ago. I have always enjoyed writing. After I sold my business, I realized people really wanted to hear my story, and also became aware that blogging could be a huge path to success for me. So, in December 2007, I bought the domain name erica.biz, moved my blog over, and started writing for other people instead of just myself and my friends!

Me: What are your greatest accomplishments?

Erica: Big question! Stating the obvious, selling my business for over $1 million at age 26 was unquestionably awesome. But there have been many other accomplishments I am proud of. I love public speaking and getting up on stage, and I have had the opportunity to speak in front of hundreds of people about business success. Recently, someone recognized me on the street from my blog, which was another great milestone. Finally, going from ~70 subscribers in late 2007 on my blog to over 2600 today is another thing I am quite proud of.

Me: If you had to start a business all over again from scratch how would you do it?

Erica: I am kind of doing this now — launching my new business, Inspiring Innovators, and blogging about the launch process. I would do what I am doing now (a membership site) instead of picking web hosting. Web hosting is a brutal industry. Membership sites have the perks of web hosting — a monthly fee — without the 24×7 support, pagers, and network outages.

Me: Any tips for starting a new business during a recession?

Erica: Great question. I wrote two posts about this: How To Choose A Business and Three Business Ideas That Will Thrive In A Recession. Since this is a hot topic, I will have many more posts about it, as well. Definitely subscribe to erica.biz and join my community to find out more.

Me: What advice would you like to give to current college students?

Erica:Know what you want out of life. If you want to own a business, there is no reason you have to graduate college to do that. In fact, I believe the best time to take a risk is when you are young. I started my business when I was 20. But then again, I knew even in high school that I would not likely complete college. I am happy with my decision to drop out, but I support others who think that graduating is the best choice for them.

It’s really all about what YOU want, not what your family/friends think are right. My mom told me when I dropped out (yelled, actually) “This is the worst decision you have ever made!” Years later, even before I sold my business, she broke down and said she was amazed by my courage to do what I thought was right instead of what other people thought would be best. Dropping out taught me to have courage and faith in myself, and that was probably a more valuable life lesson than many I would have found had I remained in school.

Me: What mistakes have you learned from the most?

Erica:I didn’t hire an accountant when I first started, and my business was really a mess financially. Having lost hundreds of thousands of dollars due to poor accounting, I am now a huge fan of documenting where my money goes. Spending money is the easiest thing in the world when you have a business. Knowing where that money goes, and whether you are cashflow negative or positive, is key.

An accountant can help you get a system set up that you can use daily or weekly to enter sales and expenses, and then help you file quarterly and annual returns. When you first start out, it may seem really expensive to hire an accountant, but you want to have those systems set up so you can focus on your business!

Me: What are common mistakes have you seen others make when it comes to starting a new business?

Erica:I talk about one common mistake — wishing to appear more “corporate” — in Delivering the Best Customer Experience, and another in Why Your Business Isn’t Doing As Well As It Could Be. The latter, despite its imperfect title, is probably one of the most important posts I have written. I could sell hours and hours of consulting time at $500/hour just fixing this one mistake for customers, and it would pay huge dividends for their businesses.

After almost a month hiatus I have returned with another interview with a personal finance blogger. I had the luxury of speaking with the full time blogger- Bob from Christian PF. Before I even get into the interview I want all of you to take a moment to read Bob’s post on how he earns a full time income from his blog.

Me: What do you think are the factors that have made your blog so successful?

Bob:

1. I had no idea that the Bible had so much to say about how to succeed in life – you would be amazed at some of the things I have found…

2. By defining success I mean, once I got laid off from my job and was attempting to make a full time income, success to me was making enough money from the blog to pay my bills. It wasn’t a # of visitors each day, or subscribers, it was paying my bills with the blog. That caused me to think about things differently.

3. And as far as the learning thing, when I got into this game, I knew next to nothing about blogging and the internet and while I still feel like I have a ton to learn, I have constantly been trying to learn more. When I didn’t understand how and why things worked, I didn’t turn my head, I dug in and tried to learn it. And from the 100s of mistakes I have learned quite a bit as well… Learning from mistakes and not repeating them is very important.

Me: What is a typical day in the life of a full time personal finance blogger?

Bob: Basically I write in the mornings and spend the afternoon on maintenance, optimization, building traffic, email, other online projects, etc..

Me: Any quick advice for personal finance bloggers that hope to go full time one day?

Bob: Keep writing – and find what monetization strategies are working and reinvest your energy into what works. I am all for diversifying and having multiple streams of income, but focusing a great majority of your time on the things that are already going well is a good idea.

Me: What financial decisions are you most proud of?

Bob: Deciding to care about my finances. I know it sounds simple, but it is the most challenging thing for most people. Once you car about getting your financial life in order – I mean REALLY care – a burning desire to get out of debt, make more money, etc, it really is pretty easy. So for us, once I decided to care, all the financial decisions really weren’t that difficult – as Dave Ramsey says, “20% head knowledge and 80% behavior.”

Me: Least proud of?

Bob: The way I paid for college was ridiculous. I bounced from schools a couple times when I changed majors and I wasn’t thinking anything about how much things cost. I ended up spending over $50,000 on a business degree that I probably could have gotten for a fraction of that if I would have been smart about it…

Me: Any advice for college graduates of 2009?

Bob:I told my wife that if we can spend our 20s making sacrifices financially, the rest of our lives would be pretty nice. There are about 100 reasons why this is a good idea, but basically look at it as your foundation that you are going to build on. So, when all your friends buy new cars, buy the cheapest (reliable) one you can afford, avoid credit cards like the plague, work hard at everything you do – people are always watching, pay attention to the small things…

At the time, I wasn’t sure that I believed what I was saying, but as I am almost 30, I am starting to believe what I told her.

Once again I would like to thank Bob for his well thought out answers and for sharing his input. Please take a moment to check out ChristianPF if you haven’t already done so.

Yes I have returned with another interview with an established personal finance blogger. This time I had the opportunity to speak with Peter from Bible Money Matters. I first spoke with Peter when he designed the logo for this site through his Logos For Websites service. Bible Money Matters is obviously a personal finance blog from the perspective of a Christian and it has a more positive tone than most blogs out there. I hope you have a chance to check out his blog and to read the following interview.

Me: What do you think are the key factors for the high level of success you have attained?
Peter: There are a lot of things that go into having a blog become successful. I can’t pretend that I’m an expert quite yet, but some of the things I’ve done so far that really helped me included:

Getting my own domain with good keywords, and self hosting the site using wordpress.
Getting a decent theme, that isn’t too distracting and is somewhat eye pleasing
Writing a lot of good content – especially when you’re starting out. I would post at least 5 times a week, sometimes more. I just published my 600th article after just over a year of blogging!
Network with other bloggers in your niche through forums, social media, commenting, etc.
Participate in lots of blog carnivals and write articles for article sites to get backlinks.
Use SEO plugins for wordpress to aid you in creating good SEO for your site.
Leverage social media like twitter, facebook, digg, reddit, stumbleupon, etc to promote your site, and network with others.
Write some more good content.
Write more.

It’s a learning process, and over time you’ll find out what things work, and what things don’t.

Me: What advice would you give to a new personal finance blogger?
Peter: Don’t give up!  There are so many new personal finance blogs popping up every day, and most of them will fail. The reason?  Too many of them give up or lose interest before they reach the tipping point.  Stick with it, write 4-5 good posts a week and over time you’ll reach a critical mass where you start making money, your posts start getting a lot of comments, and you start getting mentioned by others in roundups/etc.  For me it took a good 4-5 months before I really started getting traction.

Me: What personal finance advice would you give to a college student?
Peter: Try not to weigh yourself down with debt before graduation through student loans and credit cards.  Be conscious of the dangers of debt.  For most people going to a good in-state school will be a lot cheaper, and you can often pay off your tuition and room and board by working a little bit while you go to school.  Try to get scholarships, grants and other free money to pay for your schooling.  And don’t fall for the trap that says “Have fun now, pay for it later”.  I know I did and it took a long time to pay for it.

Me: What was the best financial decision you ever made?
Peter: One of the best financial decisions I ever made was to stop using credit and other debt, and instead started living a cash only lifestyle.  When you stop living with debt, which to most people is pretty normal, you have a weight lifted off your shoulders, and living life becomes a whole lot more fun!

Me: The worst?
Peter: The worst decision was probably signing up for a couple of credit cards in college because of the free t-shirts, and then proceeding to charge all sorts of things on those cards. Road trips, beer, TVs, video game consoles, you name it.

Me: What do you do for fun?
Peter: I love doing all sorts of outdoor activities.  Things like mountain biking on the trails near my house, playing tennis, softball and basketball.  I also love blogging, hanging out on social media sites, playing board games with my family, and playing my instruments (violin and guitar).  I also have a love of photography – who knows, maybe I’ll start a photography blog sometime soon!

For today’s edition of my interview series I will be speaking with the man responsible for The Financial Blogger. If you have never checked out the site then I highly recommend you do. The Financial Blogger is not just a name because he also happens to work in the financial industry and he is very well educated on various different investment options. After reading this interview you should definitely give his blog a read.

Me: What is it that separates your blog from the other pf blogs out there?

TFB: #1 The first thing is probably the fact that I am making more grammar mistakes and spelling mistakes than any other pf bloggers. Since I’m French, this is quite a challenge to write on a daily basis in English.

#2 I try to give another point of view on personal finance since I has been working in a bank for the past 5 years. I have experience in leverage strategies, credit and financial planning (I am a working as a financial planner since the beginning of 2008). My job obviously help to get the most updated investment strategy and more accurate information on specific topic (such as my estate planning series).

Me: What was your first major “break” when it comes to gaining popularity?

TFB: My first major break was when I got mentioned for the first time in a comment of Canadian Capitalist post on the Smith Manoeuver. This is when I realized that I can use promotion across other blogs in order to increase my traffic. It had a dramatic effect on my way of blogging and promotion The Financial Blogger.com.

Since then, I never stopped blogging and promoting The Financial Blogger. I hope my blog will keep growing for several years!

Me: If you had to start from scratch today how would you compete in such a competitive niche?

TFB: My blog is actually still new (I started in Nov 2006). However, the PF blogosphere was not as competitive as it is today. I think that if you want to start a blog today, you need to communicate with other bloggers and get noticed. You can use their blogs to leverage your traffic and make more friends!

Guest posts, great comments and emailing PF bloggers should be the first things to do. Once you get more notoriety, you can surely create a blogroll and exchange links with other bloggers.

I might try social bookmarking sites as well (stumble upon, tip, pf buzz, etc.). These site won’t bring quality traffic but it will increase temporarily your traffic and encourage you.

Me: What are your future blogging plans?

TFB: I am actually working on a new design for The Financial Blogger and also working on 3 different blogs:
www.intelligentspeculator.net : This is an investment related blog that gives tips and information on the market and possible trades
www.donotwait.com : This blog is brand new but it will be related to retirement and retirement planning.
www.thecredittoolbox.com : This one is more related to credit as the name says. You will find information on how to improve, understand and keep a good credit score.

My biggest dream would be to live from blog.

For today’s personal finance blogger interview I had the privilege of speaking with J. Money, the man behind the highly entertaining and always fun to read Budgets are Sexy. J. Money adds a very personal touch to the blog and at all times makes the site seem highly interactive. If you enjoy his answers and want to follow his work then subscribe to his RSS feed. Time to start the interview:

(Note: There are no typos or spelling mistakes in the interview, it is just the unique writing style of J. Money)

Me: What have been your favorite personal finance topics to blog about?

J. Money: Bad experiences all the way!  A) because ranting is sooooo much easier to write about, esp if you just went through it, and B) because it shows your readers that you’re only human too – even though we do all that we can to keep our finances in check!  Not only can everyone learn from your own mistakes, but it adds another element to your blog as well – drama!  haha…it goes a looooong way here in the blogosphere   after all, you can learn a lot more through entertaining stories than you can from dry cut and paste teachings.

Me: What key factors are crucial to your blog being so successful?

J. Money: I wouldn’t say that my blog is “so successful”, but i’ll def. take the compliment any day   I think success is determined differently to each and every blogger out there.  For ME, it means having a handful of readers come to my site each day and comment around.  The way i try and make this happen is by posting frequently (at least once a day, M-F), and by adding some flare to each of the posts. Writing straight from the brain and being all hopped up on coffee usually does the trick!  It’s also important to just be yourself out there.  There’s a billion personal finance bloggers around town, and we all have our own voice.  You stick to that voice, and keep your target audience in mind, and you’re smooth sailing my friend!

Me: Do you see blogging as a feasible full time income source?

J. Money: Most definitely – but not for me at this point   There are a lot of PF, and non-PF, bloggers out there (think Trent @ Simple Dollar or Perez Hilton) that have mastered the art of monetizing their sites, but it all comes with a bit of time and crazy hard work.  So is it feasible?  for sure.  But am I there yet?  Nooooo way, Jose. It would definitely be nice in the long run, but i’m just as content blogging for the experiance of it all right now.

Me: Best financial decision you made in your early 20s?

J. Money: Not going into debt.  I think that’s the hardest part for a lot of people starting out in the “real” world, esp when credit cards are in play.  That’s not to say i was perfect (cuz i sure as hell wasn’t), but just that i was fortunate enough to keep my level of debt to a minimum.

Me: Best general decision you made in your early 20s?

J. Money: Following your dreams no matter where it takes you.  It’s the one time in your life (at least for me, coming out of college) where you have a fresh start and no responsibilities at all.  You can move across country, take a fun and exciting job for YOU instead of the money, or even travel the world – it’s totally your world at this point.  The best part is that you’re not “jaded” yet, and you feel totally invincible.  I really miss that to be honest w/ you ;)

Me: Biggest issue facing new College/University graduates?

J. Money: Finding that first real career job, and in a timely manner. It’s one of the most frustrating parts i can remember (besides leaving the parties, of course), and it takes a lot of patience to get you started. The good thing though is that we have the internet these days, so you can literally search through hundreds of job openings every week! And with Facebook, Myspace, and Linkedin – you have a whole sea of possible contacts out there to help you out.

Me: It’s been really fun so far and thank you for your time. In conclusion could you provide some advice for new personal finance bloggers?

J. Money: Ask yourself WHY you’re blogging, and WHO your target audience is every now and then. It’s super easy to get caught up in everyone else’s successes or failures, but you have to remember everyone’s in it for their own reasons.  And just keep being yourself and blog because you want to blog, not because you may feel like you “have to”. If it ever gets overwhelming or boring, just take a step back and re-evaluate.  Remember, your blog is YOUR blog, and you can do whatever you damn well please with it.

If you were as entertained as I was by reading the responses of J. Money then check out Budgets are Sexy.

For the Personal Finance Blogger Interview Series we are starting the year off with a bang! I had the privilege of speaking with the man responsible for the very popular and informative blog: Dough Roller. I’m not sure if I have admitted this to him yet but it’s thanks to him that Studenomics is here today. I always wanted to start a personal finance blog (in fact I had been writing articles for months) but never got around to until I read the great post on How to Setup a WordPress Blog. If you want to learn more about making and managing money in an online world then Subscribe to the RSS Feed. Time to get into the interview:

Me: What is it that makes your blog so unique?

DR: My honest answer is that it’s not. There are 100s if not 1000s of personal finance blogs out there, and while we all bring our own personalities to our blogs, frankly, the blogs are generally not all that unique. Some are more popular than others, at least measured by traffic or subscribers or comments. But we are all writing about the same thing. One thing I try to do is make the content of my blog useful. While I wax philosophical every now and again, my primary approach is to blog about ways regular people can make more money, spend less, and invest the rest. Unique? I don’t think so.

Me: What key factors are attributed for the success you have reached with your blog?

DR: The first thing we need to do is define success. Some bloggers define success based entirely on how much money they make. Others define success based on traffic, number of subscribers, number of comments, and so on. I guess I use a mixture of these for myself, although I’m not as focused on the subscriber side of things. That being said, I think three things have contributed to what I feel has been a very successful blogging experience. First, tons of hard work. I get up every morning at 5 am and work for about two hours on my blog. I work on the train going into work. I work on the blog almost everyday at lunch. I work on weekends when I’m not spending quality time with my family. Successful blogging, however you define sucess, is a lot of work.

Second, a lot of luck. I joined the M-Network over a year ago, and met a great group of bloggers. They taught me more than you can imagine, and my blog has enjoyed a lot of success as a result. I’m also a partner blog with MSN’s Smart Spending. Donna and Karen at MSN are dynamite to work with, and it has helped me substantially.

Finally, and this is critical to the making money part of success, I’ve focused on keywords and SEO. If you want to make money with organic search traffic, you have to focus on keywords that bring relevant traffic to your site. I could go on forever on this topic, but my suggestion would be to find SEO and make money online blogs and start reading.

For fun, I recommend you read an article I wrote entitled, 30 Things I Learned in My First 30 Days of Blogging. I wrote this article late at night in a hotel room while on business travel. It was fun, but the truth is I had no idea what I was doing. If I only knew then what I know now!

Me: Would you recommend blogging as a full time source of income? If so,
then for what type of individual?

DR: The question here is whether blogging can generate enough income for you. It certainly does for some, but they are in the minority. I would blog full time if I could. I can’t financially right now, but I could see a time when blogging was full time or at least half-time. As for the type of individual, you need to be a problem-solver. Whether it is technical issues with the site, keyword research, SEO and so on, you need to be able to research issues, figure out solutions, and implement them.

Me: Best financial decision you made in your early 20s?

DR: Investing. Right out of college I began investing, even while I had school loans. It wasn’t much at first, but over time it has built up to a nice nest egg, even with the down market. My motto: Invest early, invest often.

Me: Biggest issue facing new College/ University graduates?

DR: In the U.S., the biggest issues is the future of our country. Both Medicare and Social Security are heading for serious trouble. Social Security is relatively easy to fix, but Medicare is a train wreck waiting to happen. The result will be higher taxes, and not just for the middle class. They might get a break when President-elect Obama takes office, but it won’t last; it can’t. We have an aging population, deteriorating infrastructure, and a government philosophy on both sides of the aisle that is moving us toward a European democratic socialism that will lower the standard of living in this country. I know, you’re sorry you asked.

Me: Given the current state of the economy, what is your number one tip
for saving money?

DR: Stay out of consumer debt. I’m not sure that’s a money saving tip, but it’s my number one recommendation. I use credit cards a lot, but not to support a lifestyle I can’t afford. I primarily use Balance Transfer Offers (shameless plug) to take advantage of 0% APR offers. But consumer debt is a killer, and it makes people miserable in the long run. Borrow for stuff that generally goes up in value (mainly just your home), but not for things that depreciate.

Me: Advice for a new personal finance blogger? (Tearing my blog apart is okay)

DR: Ok, I’ll tear your blog apart. Just kidding! Actually, your blog looks great. Visually, I wouldn’t change a thing. But here’s what I would do:

1. Take adsense off your site. I know it’s great to see a few bucks coming in, but until you’re getting at least 300-500 organic search visitors a month, it’s not worth it.

2. For each post, I’d pick a keyword phrase to focus on. I’d put that keyword phrase in my title and use it and variations a few times in each article. For important keywords, you should track your rankings in the major search engines. Here’s a Firefox tool that makes it a snap to track rankings: http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker/

3. I’d change your permalink structure to remove the date and put the category in the url instead. Nobody will be searching for your articles by date, so why put them in the url. Keyword rich category names, on the other hand, can really help seo.

If you enjoyed the wisdom shared in this interview then don’t hesitate to head on over to Dough Roller.

For the second edition of the personal finance blogger interview series I had the privilege of speaking with Kyle of Amateur Asset Allocator. Hopefully the readers of Studenomics, new pf bloggers, and those considering entering the blogosphere give this interview a read as Kyle has a lot of valuable insight to offer. Before I start typing away let’s dive straight into the interview:

Me: What made you start blogging about personal finance? (Yes I know you have probably answered this question 2 million times)

Kyle: Mostly, it was borne out of an interest in the subject.  I enjoyed reading other pf blogs, specifically freemoneyfinance.com and consumerismcommentary.com, and figured it would be an enjoyable hobby.  I severely underestimated how much work it would be to maintain a pf blog, but I have enjoyed it immensely and learned more about personal finance and investing than I ever thought possible.  Of course, there was also the lure of being able to make a few extra bucks running a popular blog, but that has also turned out to be much more difficult than I thought.

Me: What separates your blog from the many other personal finance blogs on the internet?

Kyle: Well, I think my focus, or lack thereof, of one.  Most personal finance blogs seem focus more on the how-to’s of saving money, frugality, and basic investing concepts whereas my blog has a much broader scope.  I often write about broad the economy and tackle controversial topics such as whether or not government inflation numbers are manipulated.  That post was quite popular because people tend to have very strong opinions one way or another.  Of course, I occasionally write “5 ways to…”-type posts, which are good for link-building, but I prefer to focus on broader economic or advanced investing topics

Me: What do you feel are the main reasons your blogging experience has been so successful?

Kyle: Writing quality content is important, of course, but sometimes there’s the temptation to phone-it-in once or twice per week just to have something to post.  While regular posting frequency is important, it shouldn’t come at the price of your content.  If you can’t write quality material every day, you shouldn’t try to post every day.

Networking is also huge in blogging.  I try to write a link post every weekend to highlight some of my favorite posts around the blogosphere, carnivals I participated in, and my own blog network.  Linking out and expecting nothing in return will get you noticed by other bloggers.  Eventually, you’ll get your break when somebody like Flexo or the people at the MSN Smart Money blog notice your work and send you waves of traffic.

Me: Would you recommend blogging as a full time source of income? If so, then for what type of individual?

Kyle: Well, it CAN be a source of full-time income but for most bloggers it won’t be.  It’s a great way to make an extra few thousand dollars per year if you work at it.  I think most of the more successful online entrepreneurs are in affiliate marketing and niche stores.  My advice would be not to put all your eggs in one basket.  I also run a few mini-sites on various subjects and plan on experimenting with niche eBay stores all the while building more mini-sites.  I am considering starting another flagship-type blog in the travel niche, but for the most part, I think blogs work better as a marketing tool than an income-generator in and of themselves.  Blogs are good for link-building but adsense will only take you so far, even if your blog has a lot of traffic.  Of course, there will always be guys like JD, Darren Rowse, and John Chow out there earning a living from their blogs, but for most individuals, diversification is key.  A few dollars a day from 100 different sites is better than 100 dollars a day from one site, in my mind.  The type of person who will be successful online is the logical, scientific type who thrives on experimenting with different marketing techniques and advertising placements.  If you like statistics, you will love running a website.

Me: Given the current state of the economy, what is your number one tip for saving money?

Kyle: Take your lunch to work and stop drinking soda/bottled water.  Not only will you save a lot of money, you’ll be healthier too.

Me: Best financial decision you made in your early 20s?

Kyle: To take the time to learn about investing myself rather than relying on the advice of others.  I read everything I could get my hands on about the topic and it’s helped me immensely.  It’s saved me from making a lot of dumb financial moves, like chasing returns or day-trading.

Me: Best general decision you made in your early 20s?

Kyle: To study abroad and learn a foreign language.  More than any single experience, that has helped me become wiser, more worldly, and well-rounded.  I think studying abroad should be a graduation requirement.

Me: Biggest issue facing new College/ University graduates?

Kyle: In this economy, just finding a job at all is probably the biggest issue.  More generally, however, I would say managing debt and spending patterns will be the biggest issue for most new graduates.  Many people think of college as their big party days, but in my experience that’s not true.  It’s much easier to go out and waste money every night when you have money to waste.  Those credit cards will sneak up on you if you let them.

Me: Advice for a new personal finance blogger?

Kyle: Yes, choose a less competitive niche!  Just kidding.  The best advice I can give is also the most generic:  network.  Write guest posts on other blogs.  Link to other blogs.  Participate in blog carnivals and group writing projects any time you can.  In general, you’ll get the best results networking with other blogs of your size and maybe a bit larger.  The large blogs get way too much email from upstart bloggers to help them out, but small-to-medium size bloggers are often more than willing to give you guest posting opportunities and link love.

Me: Any final thoughts

Kyle: Be patient.  It will likely take you 6 months or more to break the $100 per month mark and far longer to break $1000.  Blogging is a long-term commitment.

In case you have never checked out Amateur Asset Allocator before then I advise you give it a view as Kyle has frequent posts on meaningful subjects. If you enjoy financial and investment advice that’s easy to understand than it is clearly the blog for you.

Today is my very first interview with an established personal finance blogger. This is a new feature that I have just added to Studenomics. This feature not only benefits me but it greatly benefits the readers of Studenomics. The valuable insight that is provided by the establish personal finance bloggers that I interview should provide a great wealth of knowledge. Even the bloggers being interviewed benefit because they have the opportunity to reflect on their blog and the level of success they have been able to attain. Anyways on to the very first interview.

Today I will be interviewing PT of Prime Time Money

Me: What key factors are attributed for the level of success you have reached with your blog?

PT: Having a Passion – Making the most out of my personal finances is really fun for me.  Therefore, it’s easy to write about it most days.

Friends – Making friends in the personal finance blogging community (M-Network, Money Life Network) has been huge for my success.  The knowledge I’ve gained and shared amongst these other bloggers has helped tremendously to make the most of my efforts with my blog, Prime Time Money.

Being Consistent – A quick look at my archives will show you my path to success.  My goal is to provide at least two quality content posts per week.  I think I’ve been able to do that pretty consistently over the past 12 months.  People for the most part know what to expect from me on a weekly basis.  That builds an audience and it gives Google a lot to index for their search results.

me: Would you recommend blogging as a full time source of income? If so,then for what type of individual?

PT: I’m not a full-time blogger yet.  But I’ll try and share what I know.  Unless you’re a professional writer paid to blog for a company, you can’t exactly start out at the full-time income level.  It takes time to even bring any revenue in (3-4 months).  Plus, ad revenue from content web publishing isn’t exactly an established revenue stream.  Who knows when the current profit model will change.  Google traffic has only been around for so long. 

Someone just starting out should think about blogging as a way to eventually bring in a little extra income.  When you get to that level then start to think bigger (e.g. making your mortgage payment with blog income).  I suspect when you get to that point you can begin to think even bigger.

I suspect to become a full-time blogger you have to do a couple of things well: (1) Produce consistent content that people want and will want to share.  (2) Learn to monetize that content efficiently.

me: Given the current state of the economy, what is your number one tip for saving money?

PT: My #1 tip for saving money is to do it automatically.  Throughout my life, I never saved consistently until I set up an automatic direct deposit from my paycheck directly into my savings account.  Half goes in there, and the other half goes to my checking account.  I spend the heck out of every last dollar in the checking account and know that I’m still saving money because I’ve already stashed money in my savings account.  Essentially I pay myself first and then I spend the rest.

me: Best financial decision you made in your early 20s?

PT: Listening to Dave Ramsey and subsequently avoiding incurring any bad debts.  He just made sense to me and got me headed in the right direction.  Listening to the radio is something easy that anyone can do.  It was enough to jump start me into a better financial life.
 

Advice for a new personal finance blogger?

PT: Just make sure it (personal finance) is something you enjoy writing about.  There needs to be a bit of a passion for the subject to do what it takes to have success blogging about it.  Best of luck to you in your journey.

me: What are your future plans with your blog?

PT: No big plans yet.  I’d just like to keep learning and writing about personal finance.  At some point I’m sure life will get in the way or I’ll get really bored of writing on this subject.  Maybe I could see the blog.  But for now I’ll just work on increasing my subscribers and traffic, and enjoying the ride.

me: What type of reader would you recommend Studenomics to?

PT: I’d recommend Studenomics to anyone who’s looking for a young and fresh perspective on personal finance information.  Definitely those people in college or just entering the workforce.

Thank you for reading my very first interview. Chances are you have already heard of PT and his personal finance blog. In case you haven’t had a chance then I highly recommend checking out Prime Time Money and reading the great articles!