5 Good Personal Finance Blogs You May Not Know

There are a lot of personal finance blogs out there.   You may have already ran across some of the bigger well known personal finance blogs.    I previously listed my favorite personal finance blogs.  There are literally hundreds if not thousands more blogs focusing on personal finances.   I've sifted through a lot of them and below are a list of some of the more interesting and readable blogs you may not have heard of.

Barbara Friedberg Personal Finance  

"Educate, Inspire, Motivate for Wealth in Money & Life"

- -Barbara has an MBA in finance and a BS in economics.  Probably more qualified than 99% of the personal finance bloggers out there (including myself).   She writes well and covers some interesting stuff.

Cash Flow Mantra

"Increase Cash Flow by Saving, Earning, Investing"

--They focus on investing and passive income type stuff.   I like the writing and the variety of topics.

Canadian finance blog
"The Canadian Source for personal finance"
If you live a ways North of me and are tired of hearing about Roth IRAs and other American centric financial topics then this blog is worth checking out.  But then if you're Canadian you probably already heard about it, oh well its still a good one. 

Minting Nickels
"One Family's Adventures in Making Money From Nothing"
I love the graphics and photos on this blog.   They focus on making extra money from here or there.   Its a good read.  Did I mention the graphics are great?

And from the golden oldies column...

Bad Money Advice  
"Because Mainstream Personal Finance Advice Is Not What It Should Be"
This one is now actually retired.   The author went and got himself a real job and stopped writing some time ago.  But what he did write is still better than 99% of other blogs are writing still today even if a lot of its out of date.  If you've got some time go wander through the archives.

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Top Personal Finance Blog List at Money Crashers

Money Crashers has a list of Top Personal Finance Blogs. 

Free By 50 comes in at #231 on their list.    There are 476 blogs on the list so thats not too bad.  



The ranks are a compilation of various statistics that track readership and traffic levels.

There are a lot of great blogs on that list.   I read 8 of the top 20 blogs myself. Its a pretty cool list, check it out.

Alternate viewer and Mobile versions of FreeBy50

There are now two new ways to view FreeBy50.

Alternate article viewer
There is now a viewer for the blog that just shows the articles.   If you want to read the posts without all the clutter in the right and left columns and without advertisements (as far as I see) then you can use this viewer.   
The alternate viewer is at FreeBy50.com/view  The viewer has a few different ways to look at articles with flipcard,  sidebar and others.

Mobile version

The mobile version of Freeby50.com is available at Freeby50.com/?m=1
This is a stripped down version of the site that looks a lot better on many smart phones.

My Favorite Personal Finance Blogs

I read personal finance blogs quite a bit.   Reading other blogs is how I got started with the idea of writing my own blog.   There are a lot of great individual blogs out there which offer various views on personal finance.

Free Money Finance -I read this one a lot.   FMF has a lot of posts on a variety of personal finance topics. The author is pretty successful with his own finances with a good job and good savings.   He offers a lot of great career related advice.

Bargaineering
- Jim Wang writes Bargaineering.   He's been writing for over 5 years now and the blog covers a wide scope of personal finance topics.   Jim also some regular writers that help contribute content.  He has a feature called Bargaineering Bucks where you can earn bucks for commenting and then spend your bucks on auctions for books or ING referrals.

The Simple Dollar- This is another one of the most popular PF blogs with over 80k followers.   TSD is written by Trent Hamm. Trent started in a big debt whole and dug himself out.   One of Trents specialties is frugality and stuff like making your own laundry detergent. He does reader QA's twice a week which I find interesting.   Trent has also written a book titled The Simple Dollar.

Get Rich Slowly- Written by JD Roth.  GRS is one of the most popular PF blogs with over 80k subscribers.  GRS started as the story of JD's struggle to get out of debt.   GRS has expanded in later years to add additional authors.   JD has a book out titled Your Money: The Missing Manual

The Dough Roller - Dough Roller is written by "DR".   They have a lot of good articles.   I particularly like their regular feature that explains various tax forms.   I often link to those in my weekly blog roundup.   DR is joined by staff writer Michal.

Consumerism Commentary - Started way back in 2003 by Flexo, Consumerism Commentary is one of the older personal finance blogs around.

fivecentnickel.com - Written by 'nickel' the fivecentnickel blog has been around since 2005.  

My Money Blog

Article Featuring Free By 50 on ThriftCultureNow

I was recently interviewed for an article by ThriftCultureNow.com.  

You can view the article on line at :
A Free By 50 Retirement Plan: Take Note of Jim's Personal Finance Advice & Money Saving Tips 

The article is part of a series they've been doing called Thrifty Blogger of the Week.  They have featured such interviews of a number of bloggers.   Be sure to check out the other articles in the series.   There are a lot of good bloggers out there and this is an easy way to get an introduction to some.

2nd Anniversary of Free By 50

Today is the 2 year anniversary of Free By 50.

 My first post on March 11th 2008 was I want to be financially independent by age 50  and it had this short message:   "It is my stated goal that I plan to be financially independent by age fifty. I plan to chronicle and discuss my efforts towards that goal on this blog." Financial independence by age fifty is still my goal.


A lot has changed in two years but much has stayed the same.

When this blog started in March 2008, the unemployment rate was 5.1%.   It peaked at 10.1% in October last year and has now dropped to 9.7%

I was single and engaged two years ago and now I'm happily married.

I was eating out too much and spending around $900 a month, but since then we've cut back on our eating out and are now spending closer to $500 to $600.

I've got the same job but I got a pay grade promotion and a 14% raise in 2008.   In 2009 my company froze wages.

I live in the same house but we got the front yard landscaped and had the house air sealed and insulated which I figure has saved us about 40% on our heat this winter.

Our net worth grew by about $161k or about +34% from $467k to $628k.   A large chunk of that growth came from when my wife and I got married and combined finances so "my" net worth became "our" net worth.

On March 11 2008 the S&P 500 opened at 1,247.    It then climbed to a peak of 1,440 by May 2008.   Then it started to drop and around a year ago in March 2009 it had hit a low of 666.   Today it has recovered considerably and closed at 1,145.   If you had bought at the peak and sold at the low you'd have lost 54%.  If you'd bought at the low and held it until today you'd be up 71%.

Free By 50 on Twitter

Free By 50 is on Twitter.



I have it setup so any article posted here will be announced on Twitter.  So if you're a Twitter user and would like to get quick links to my posts then you can follow me on Twitter.

I'm also on Facebook :

freeby50 on Facebook

Carnival of Personal Finance Edition #227 at

Fabulously Broke is hosting the #227th Carnival of Personal Finance. Fabulously Broke took a novel approach to the carnival and wrote it in the style of telling the story of their own personal finance journey.

My article Cheap Ways to Delay Expiration of Airline Miles was included in the carnival.

A couple articles I found on the carnival that I liked myself were:

How much does it cost to raise a child & 10 ways to cut the cost! from Christian Personal Finance Rather then the vague giant "it costs $250,000" to raise a kid they give concrete numbers on what they actually spend on their children.

Ten Ways I Have Made Money Since Loosing My Job from The Buck List
Has 10 ways he at least tried to make money with varying success. I like this one since he gives some examples of stuff he tried that didn't work so well and some that worked better.

There are a ton of other great articles on the carnival so take a minute and check it out.

Monavie using Scare tactics against Lazy Man and Money

Lazy Man and Money is one of my top 10 favorite blogs. A while ago Lazy Man wrote about the company Monavie with his article Monavie Scam?

Now their lawyer is sending Lazy Man a cease and desist letter trying to get him to remove their name from his article.

I am not a lawyer, but frankly I think their legal argument is horrible. Lazy Man is obviously providing commentary on their product. This has got to qualify as legal use of their trademark. Otherwise how could any news source ever report on any trademarked company? The legal argument from MonaVie appears to hinge on his use of their trademark in his metatags. But metatags are simply descriptive keywords about a site.

MonaVie is apparently hoping that Lazy Man will be scared of a lawsuit and he'll remove their name from his site.

Carnival of Personal Finance #221 - Labor Day Edition

Financial Highway is hosting the 221st version of the Carnival of Personal Finance. This is the Labor Day Edition.

My article Angie’s List : My First Impressions is included in the carnival.

A couple interesting articles that were editors picks:

Spending Filters – How I Save Money On Just About Everything from Debt Free Adventure

and

Where To Find Other Sources Of Income from The Canadian Finance Blog

Carnival of Personal Finance #219 - Little League Edition

The Carnival of Personal Finance #219 - Little League Edition is up today hosted at Your Money Relationship.

My post Why I Don't Like Giving Friends a Ride to the Airport is in the carnival.

Some other articles from the Carnival that I found interesting:

Moneymonk discusses What is Upper Middle Class?

FIRE Finance has Free Money - Online Bank Account Signup Bonuses upto $850 in all though many of them have requirements.

Amateur Asset Allocator believes that Mortgage Life Insurance Is A Rip-Off and I agree.

Carnival of Personal Finance #218: the "Chuck Norris" edition

The Carnival of Personal Finance #218 - "Chuck Norris" Edition is up at this weeks host Budgets Are Sexy.

My post How To Get Thousands of FREE Books is featured in the carnival.

Articles that I found particularly interesting were:

Stupid, Pointless and Worthless Frugality Tips from Financial Methods

The Infomercial Copycat Method of Debt Reduction by Realm of Prosperity

Does a Pleasant Attitude/Personality Help You Succeed? from Free Money Finance