So, I know what you all are thinking. Why would someone assign a name to a site that is composed of 4 words, 3 spaces, and 24 letters?

Without giving away the answer quite yet, I will simply say that I am very grateful for and do not hesitate to apply liberal use of the “copy-paste” feature on computers! But, I am getting ahead of myself. It’s not time for self-directed insults to begin flying just yet.

My name is Jacob (guy in the picture to the right), creator and author of My Personal Finance Journey. I am 25 years old, and just started a Chemical Engineering PhD program this fall after working for a publicly traded pharmaceutical company for 2 years.

I was born and raised in Arkansas (but don’t have the accent!), and graduated from the University of Arkansas in 2008 with degrees in Finance, Biomedical Engineering, and Spanish.

How It Began

Looking back on it all, I think it is safe to say that I was unknowingly destined to start my own personal finance blog at some point in my life.

From the age of 18, I have always been fascinated with the idea of starting and growing new businesses. Through my undergraduate college days, I started and successfully operated 1) an eBay selling business and 2) a pet waste removal service. I also attempted several network marketing gigs, but failed miserably. Most likely won’t be trying those again any time soon!

At the same time that I was starting these different ventures, I also began reading any personal finance book that I could get my hands on. Several of the books that inspired me in my early days to learn more were David Bach’s “Automatic Millionaire” and Jeremy Siegel’s “Stocks for the Long Run.” I used the knowledge I gained from these books to begin investing my own money that I received from internships throughout college. By the time I finished school, I had been fully funding my Roth IRA for 3 years.

On a cold January day earlier this year, I was reading a book about different businesses that could be started with little or no capital investment. Among the listing of businesses was the idea of starting your own blog. I knew the second that I read this page that writing a personal finance blog would be a perfect fit for me . Not only could I tie together two of my passions in life (personal finance and starting businesses), but it would also be contained in an omnipresent, searchable internet location that could make the information accessible to anyone in the world.

Shortly after that day in January, I had my first several posts generated, and My Personal Finance Journey was born.

For those of you out there that haven’t experienced it, choosing a name for a site is a daunting task! Especially due to the fact that you have to choose the title right when you first start the blog. However, I felt very strongly about including the word, “Journey,” in the title. This was due to the fact that for me, personal finance really has been and continues to be a journey – one full of both successes and failures. So there, that’s how the name was picked!

What I Like and Don’t Like About Blogging

Even though I have only been blogging for a relatively short amount of time, I have definitely found out that there are things that I enjoy and some that I do not enjoy.

Let’s start with the things I do not enjoy.

  • Learning HTML for site design. I think I didn’t get this gene passed on to me when I was born. I love widgets and things that enable me to avoid computer language.
  • People emailing me with a guest post that they copied from another site.
  • Typing an entire post in blogger.com, and then losing it when finding out that my account has been logged out.

Things that I do enjoy.

  • Hearing reader’s opinions either in the form of  comments or emails.
  • Talking with people I meet that have read my site and ask me for guidance about how I would handle a financial situation they are facing in their personal life.
  • Discovering new tools to tweak my site and improve it.
  • Writing about economic differences between the various areas of the country I have lived in.
  • Writing blog posts about the proof that superior investment returns can be obtained from using index mutual funds compared to investing in individual stocks.

My Personal Finance Journey and the Yakezie Network

Since joining the Yakezie Challenge, my life situation has changed drastically (moved locations and left a regular 8-5 job for an irregular school schedule). Unfortunately, one of the effects of this has been that my posting frequency has gone down slightly from what it used to be. As a result, my Alexa score is not quite were I want it to be.

Nonetheless, the main way that the Yazekie Challenge has helped me is through providing a forum where I can bounce ideas off people with specialized knowledge of how things work in the blogosphere. For example, a few months ago, I had an idea of starting up a passive/index investing blog carnival. And, I was able to get feedback from more experienced Yakezie bloggers to determine if this was a wise course of action or not.

The Yakezie Challenge is very similar to the concept of “inclusion” principles that were practiced at the company I used to work for. Essentially, the whole idea of inclusion (and similarly, the Yakezie), is to provide a mechanism for everyone to be able to do their best work.

Thank you Yakezie!

To see a list of fellow Yakezie Members and their latest posts, visit the Yakezie Network.