Blogging about my personal finances | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

Hey guys. This is a question for all of you who blog about your personal finances.

What type of structure do you follow? Monthy net worth? Debt and goals only? Weekly updates? Etc.

How transparent are you with sharing personal information? Do you include income?

Those of you who blog about debt, do you list out every debt, or just give a total?

What are some good widgets for listing goals and our progress in our sidebar?

Do you think there would be any value in making videos? If so, what would the content be?

I am not creative at all, so I would love for you to share your tips on how to actually present the data in the posts. I currently use Excel and Quicken, so I can probably produce some charts or graphs if appropriate.

Basically, I want to start making detailed posts about our debt repayment on Fat Guy, Skinny Wallet (my posts have been about 90% weight loss). Both my wife and I are extremely private and guarded when it comes to our personal life, but we do want to hold ourselves accountable and also get tips/ideas from our readers. So we are willing to put ourselves out there somewhat to accomplish this.

What advice do you have for us? We really want to get started with this for August, so I am already a day behind.

Thanks!!!

~Khaleef

MoneyIsTheRoot said:

As far as my curiousity and interest is concerned, the more disclosed the better.  I read many blogs regularly that disclose all of their income/expense details.  When they use percentages etc I usually move on fairly quickly…just my personal taste.

My wife originally wanted to do percentages, but I told her that I would have no interest in looking at that if I were a reader. I guess that feeling is confirmed.

We're going to do real numbers regarding debt and our play to pay if off, but I'm not sure exactly how to make that compelling and useful.

Real numbers are more fun for the reader, but if you are going to worry about it all of the time, it probably isn't the best option for you.  Percentages work too – we can't be a voyeuristic, but it gets the job done.  Blog the way that makes you comfortable. 

By the way, I am starting my monthly income updates again in my Friday newsletter (specifically, the first update is in tomorrow's).

Post edited 10:38 am – August 2, 2012 by Budgeting in the Fun Stuff

I took them down because of hate mail and because Sam asked all of us to and I didn't want to get kicked out of the Yakezie.  So if you don't see me here anymore, you know what happened. 

Budgeting in the Fun Stuff said:

Real numbers are more fun for the reader, but if you are going to worry about it all of the time, it probably isn't the best option for you.  Percentages work too – we can't be a voyeuristic, but it gets the job done.  Blog the way that makes you comfortable. 

By the way, I am starting my monthly income updates again in my Friday newsletter (specifically, the first update is in tomorrow's).

I definitely won't put up our income, but I don't mind sharing specifics about the debt that we owe…even though it is a lot!!! I just have no idea on how to be creative with it, or what are some good tools (widgets and plugins) to incorporate this into the blog.

I've been open about my debt and savings.   To the penny.

I don't discuss my income because some coworkers read my site and that never works out well.

I've been struggling with how transparent to be with a recent windfall, though.  How does a blog about debt keep running when all of the debt is magically wiped out?  What happens to the flavor, the topics, and the community?

I think you should err on the side of too transparent.  While you can't unring a bell, your community will appreciate the openness.  

TightFistedMiser said:

I use real numbers for both my income and expenses and those posts seem to be the readers' favorites.  Although lately there haven't been many other posts.  I did stop posting my online income separately since that may have contributed to my sites being penalized.

I am not brave enough to post my income, but that is more because of having friends, family, and even coworkers looking at the blog. I hope that people will gravatate to our debt repayment stories. I have to talk about the whole "skinny wallet" part of the site now.

I think a networth update can be a good way to talk about the finances and the steps you're taking to improve them without getting into income specifics.  Two that immediately come up are J$ at Budgets are Sexy and Eric at Narrow Bridge who both do networth updates without talking much about specific income levels.

I share everything about our debt and I used to share income reports, but I stopped that in part due to Yakezie and in part because my husband finished his Ph.D. and as he moves into professional positions, he didn't want our income to be out there for anyone to see.

Thanks for all of the tips, suggestions, and examples. I am definitely motivated to do this, and I plan to start on Monday.

Can you recommend any widgets or plugins that can make the presentation a little better than just listing things?

I am thinking about trackers so I can show my progress. Since I use Excel, I will probably stick with that as far as inserting the info into each post.

What do you think?