Investing In Knowledge

This was originally going to be a single post, but I ended up breaking it into two in order to avoid overwhelming you with too much information at once. Trust me! Information overload is a real thing. I do not expect you to start following all of these bloggers, but my hope is that I can introduce you to one or two awesome new resources in your journey to Financial Freedom.

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” -Benjamin Franklin

Okay so honestly I have about a hundred blogs setup in my Feedly. Some of them I visit more frequently than others, but I try to keep up-to-date on a variety of topics in the entrepreneurship, personal finance, and minimalism categories. Out of all the blogs that I follow, these are the 30 that I find myself frequenting most often. They may not be the biggest blogs in terms of readership, but they provide the best content out there. I have listed them in no particular order. Honestly the numbers on the side were just to make sure that there were actually 30 when I started writing. Do yourself a favor and add a few of these to your regular reading!

1. Mr. Money Mustache

Mr. Money Mustache is one of the first blogs that I came across when I started learning more about personal finance and minimalism. His extremely funny and no bs writing style provides both entertainment and extremely useful information. Since finding his blog, I got myself out of debt and started investing like crazy. I have become much more active in the forums in recent months.

2. Smart Passive Income

I found Smart Passive Income much more recently, but wish I would have started reading and listening to the podcast years ago. Pat Flynn is a genuine guy who truly loves his readers and listeners. He consistently puts out high quality content for people trying to build up passive income online.

3. The BiggerPockets Blog

BiggerPockets is a real estate investment community. If you have any interest in getting started in real estate, then this should be your first stop. There is a wealth of knowledge in the blog articles and an extremely active forum for answering questions.

4. Side Hustle Nation

Side Hustle Nation is a must read for anybody working on their side hustles. Nick Loper has been featured in a Tedx Talks and truly believes in the hustle. On his blog you can find an enormous number of side hustle ideas and success stories. This blog not only inspires, but it gives you some actionable advice to get started with your own side hustle.

5. Mad Fientist

The Mad Fientist posts a little less frequently than some of the other bloggers here, but his content is always top-notch. You can tell that he puts a lot of effort into researching every little detail before publishing a post. If you are somebody who loves the numbers, then this blog is for you!

6. Financial Samurai

The Financial Samurai spent 10 years in the financial industry and has an MBA. He spent his time building up passive income and now has a solid portfolio of rentals, stocks, bonds and CDs providing him a healthy passive portfolio. He has been writing his blog for over 7 years and has some amazing content there to help turn your financial life around.

7. Get Rich Slowly

Get Rich Slowly has over 100,000 RSS readers currently and is one of the bigger blogs out there. Not to be fooled by the large nature of this blog, it avoids advertising flashy get rich quick schemes. The aptly named Get Rich Slowly provides a a ton of quality information on saving and investing money for the long-term.

8. RetirementSavvy

RetirementSavvy is the blog that I have frequented the most in recent times. James publishes a new article nearly every day. He is a United States Army Veteran with an MBA and a lot of great advice, strategies, and recommendations. One thing that I enjoy is that his articles are always straight to the point and his passion for the subject of personal finance truly comes out. I’m honored to have started to get to know James over the past few months.

9. Millennial Moola

Millennial Moola’s blogger Travis TMONEY is one of my favorite bloggers to read. He writes on a variety of categories from retirement, personal finance, investing, travel, and politics. The articles he put out are always well researched and his devotion shines through. When he is not out hiking, dancing, or playing the harmonica, he is trying to educate the millennials on matters of money.

10. The 4 Hour Workweek

You have probably already heard of Tim Ferriss and The 4 Hour Workweek. If you haven’t, then definitely check it out. Tim Ferriss is an angel investor and author who preaches life optimization and time maximization. He has an incredibly unique personality and some extremely influential books on lifestyle design. If you dream of automating your life, then be sure to read his books.

11. Life And My Finances

Life And My Finances discusses how to get out of debt, make more money, and invest it in order to become rich. Derek includes a lot of personal touches in his article that allow you to develop a connection with him. He refers to himself as cheap at times, but really he’s just very frugal. Due to this, he was able to pay off his mortgage at a young age and work on building up his own passive income portfolio.

12. Freedom Is Groovy

Mr. Groovy is somebody I only found recently, but I make sure to read each of his articles that come out. He is upfront about not being a fan of jobs (although he is extremely hard working) or the government. He refers to himself as a freedomist and this character rings through in all of his writings. His articles are there to liberate the 9-to-5 zombies from their prisons so that they too may enjoy some groovy freedom to do what their hearts desire. If you want a ton of information with some good laughs thrown in, this blog is for you.

13. Budgets Are Sexy

I started reading Budgets Are Sexy because of the headline “Where Personal Finance Nerds Are Cool.” After all, I’m a big fan of breaking stereotypes. However, I was still extremely surprised to find the blogger J. Money rocking a mohawk. With a unique flair and confidence on the subject of personal finance, you get two things from the Budgets Are Sexy Blog. First, you learn a ton of information on how to start paying attention to your finances. Second, you walk away saying, “Man, I want to be as cool as this guy J. Money.”

14. Money Manifesto

I have never personally met Lance at Money Manifesto, but I get this crazy feeling that he is just an insanely nice guy. On his front page he talks about one of his primary motivators for writing about personal finance is to inspire people. He is upfront about the time it takes to build your own business and he has been writing about blogging, self-employment, saving, and paying off debt since 2012.

15. Cash Flow Diaries

Alexander at Cash Flow Diaries started the site as a personal journal to track his journey to build up a huge passive income portfolio in order to become a multi-millionaire. He currently has 6 investment properties generating $24,000 per year in passive income. His goal is to increase that to $100,000 per year and you can read along as he continues his journey to get there. One of the best things about his blog is that it isn’t a bunch of theoretical stuff. These are all real numbers and how he is actually making his dream for freedom a reality!

Invest In Yourself

I am a firm believer that the best thing you can do is to learn and act on what you have learned. There is a world of knowledge out there on how to achieve your dreams, and I guarantee that you won’t find it plopped in front of the tv every night. You need to continually read about your topics of interest, and then act on that knowledge. Action is the important second half of that equation. Even if you know absolutely everything about a topic, you will not get any closer to success until you do something about it.

I have also found that action is the second half of your education. When people write in order to teach you something, they are writing from their personal perspective. This provides you with a completely different way of viewing things, but they have their own biases and problems that needed to be overcome. You can learn from these, but you will encounter your own struggles along the way that will teach you brand new things about your current task. Money, investing, debt, and financial freedom are all the same way. You have to read as much as you can, but continue to act on the information that you have learned!

What Did You Find?

What new blogs did you find here? Are there any that you would recommend that the other readers also check out? Share with us in the comments below!

Stay tuned. Next time I’ll post the remaining 15 blogs for Part 2. Again, these were put up in no particular order, and there are some amazing blogs still to come. Start investing in your financial education!