Blogging about *your* personal finances | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

I admire those of you who can put yourselves out there and share details on your family budget, paying off debt and savings numbers. I'd love to do something similiar once in awhile, but I actually have a few payments that I am contractually obligated to keep private. For example, I have worked out a contract with my girls' private school – they don't want me leaking amounts because tuition rises regularly, while mine stays the same.

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can share specifics about our family budget without sharing the intimate details?

When I blog about the money I make blogging, I lump amounts together so I don't disclose each specific contract I make.  For example, I'll be breaking my blog income down by "Sponsored Posts", "Sidebar and In-Content Ads", "Widget Ads", and "Adsense" (adsense doesn't care, lol). 

When I disclose my budget, I also lump similar things into some categories (I'd do that more if I needed to keep a contract amount secret – you could lump all child expenses into one category so that no one will know exactly what you pay for schools).

I am semi-anonymous but a few fellow bloggers and all my family and friends and pretty much anybody who's ever talked to me knows about my blogs.  I'm just as open in "real" life as I am online, so full disclosure has never bothered me.

Hope this helps.  Let me know if you have any other specific questions as I reveal pretty much every little financial detail of our lives, so I have experience in this arena, lol.

I also share a hell of a lot but am anonymous. In your situation, I'd probably say "educational expenses" and lump it all together for the blog rather than list it individually. You could, alternatively, cut out the amount of the tuition from your listed take-home pay and make a note that your income and expenses don't reflect tuition, which you are contractually obligated not to disclose. That way the remainder of your budget is accurate.

I think that talking about everything in terms of a percentage would be great! Since I reveal my identity, that's what I plan to do in the future.

You can use generalizations. Use averages and estimates but not exact dollar amounts. That way people can get an idea without getting your personal information.

Hello JustHeather!

I don't like to share specific numbers generally either!

I am with KNS–I share my annual spending with readers and do it as a pie graph that compares percentages from the previous year. I think it is neat to see the percentage of my money that is spent on clothing from year to year, or vacations from year to year, and it gives my reader a snapshot.

Also, I don't mind sharing our debt load (though I don't like to share our mortgage for some reason), and so while we were paying off our debt, I shared all of my info on that.

Finally, I like to have savings goals where I share how much I want to save up, and how much I save each month from various sources. I recently did this with our honeymoon.

I hope this helps!

~Amanda

Frugal Confessions

I don't feel I have anything to hide so I share my income and expense figures with my readers.  I do lump together some of my online income into categories.  For example, rather then say exactly what affiliate programs are making me money I just have an affiliate income category.

Now that I'm married there might be some income or expenses that I wouldn't report to protect my family's privacy but that issue hasn't come up yet.  Also, if I were making a lot of money instead of a modest sum of money I might be more hesitant to share my income.

I want to do a networth post near the end of the year and I'm still thinking about how to do it. I want to share everything, but I'm kind of scare to put it out on the internet eventhough I am semi anonymous. I'm thinking about putting a password on the post and only let people I know, Yakezie members, and commenters in. Is this a good way to do it? 

I think lumping things is a great idea for your problem.

Budgeting in the Fun Stuff said:

retireby40 said:

I want to do a networth post near the end of the year and I'm still thinking about how to do it. I want to share everything, but I'm kind of scare to put it out on the internet eventhough I am semi anonymous. I'm thinking about putting a password on the post and only let people I know, Yakezie members, and commenters in. Is this a good way to do it? 

I think lumping things is a great idea for your problem.

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It's all up to you, but if you only want certain people to see it (like Yakezie), why are you interested in doing a net worth update on your blog?  I'm super nosey and would love to see it, so I am totally not complaining, I was just wondering what's your motivation?  I post for everybody to keep me honest and to get more readers, lol.
 

I want to do a goals and then networth post to show how close I am to my goal of retiring by 40. I'm just leary of putting the info on the internet. Don't you know, there are a lot of weirdoes on the internet.
I'll think about it a bit. Maybe I'll just put it in term of % accomplished.

I think percentages would be ideal to conceal any sensitive numbers.