How Get Rich Slowly, The Simple Dollar, and IWillTeachYouToBeRich Rocked My World
Dec 15th, 2009 by Carlos
About three years ago, I was reading up on high-yield savings accounts and somehow wound up on a post on The Simple Dollar. I thought it was well written, informative, and had some charm to it.
Who’s in charge here?, I wondered.
I spent the next hour and a half digging through all the fantastic content on Trent’s site. From making his own bread to saving money by re-using ziplock bags, Trent’s charm and personality has become an everyday source of entertainment and inspiration.
A week or so later it dawned on me: I want to do this too. Without Trent and his site, I never would’ve even known it was possible to write about money and have thousands of readers at the same time.
He rocked my world.
Along Came JD
As I read everything I could on Trent’s site, one name kept coming up over and over again: JD. Commenters dropped his name like I should know who he was, but I didn’t.
Eventually I figured out he was the guy behind the “other” massive personal-finance site: Get Rich Slowly. You’d think I’d be done with reading about personal finance, but I spent another huge chunk of time reading JD’s posts on buying a car and being addicted to comics.
JD’s site taught me that anything’s possible—no matter how bad things might seem, you can always turn your life around.
When JD and Trent both quit their regular jobs to blog about money full time, the possibilities were endless. If they could do that, why couldn’t the rest of us find a way to do the same in our own unique way?
His post on The Third Stage of personal finance let me know it was OK to move past the basics and go deeper into more advanced/interesting subjects.
Ramit Busts the Door Open
The third site that I group into this triumvirate of elite personal-finance sites is Ramit’s IWillTeachYouToBeRich.
Ramit doesn’t mess around—he tells it like it is. If you’re making stupid mistakes, he’ll let you know about it. If you’re focusing on the wrong things to achieve your goals, he’ll give you an earful.
Ramit is a master of speaking the truth and rallying your emotions and spur you to action. His refreshing honesty also is at the opposite end of the spectrum of a site like TSD.
While Trent focuses on the little things we can all do to become more frugal, Ramit is after the big wins. I’m somewhere in the middle, but Ramit’ site is valuable because there isn’t anyone else quite like him.
So Many More
I’ve had so much help and inspiration from other bloggers, I can’t even front.
- Frugal Dad has helped me in so many ways, including hooking me up with Wisebread to become a writer for them.
- Lazy Man and Money motivated me and helped me a ton when I was trying to get my site off the ground.
- Brip Blap and I have gone back and forth on the ultimate purpose of even having a blog. Plus his post on making six figures was awesome.
The Importance of Giving
We all know that giving is rewarding and important. But it doesn’t have to mean giving a check or even giving your time to a charity. Helping others by inspiring them and lending them your experience and expertise is just as valuable.
I know firsthand thanks to all the help these and other bloggers have given me. They each bring something unique and different to the table and hopefully I too bring something to the table.
What sites/people/books have influenced you in your own endeavors?
Your Money or Your Life is by far the personal finance book that’s had the biggest influence on me. It literallly changed my financial life, and also got me started blogging. There have been way too many pf bloggers that have helped me over the years, either directly or indirectly, to list. But I will say that you are one of them
Thanks Jackie!! That’s awesome to hear! And I really need to read that book because so many people have been impacted by it…
Rich Dad, Poor Dad opened my eyes to a lot of personal finance related stuff. I realized it was a pretty sales-y book, but it did get me started.
I agree with Jackie that Your Money or Your Life was the biggest influence for me. Between that book and Extreme Early Retirement, I started to really question what I wanted in life, especially how I spend my money.
Kevin: nice to see someone else admit to Kiyosaki’s sales pitch of a book getting them started. Like you said, it was pretty basic, but it also was the spark that got me started on what has been a really long road. A good one though!
Thanks for the compliment. Now get back to work!!! (Motivating enough?)
Thanks Lazy! And you’re damn right it’s motivating enough!