Why Start a Finance Blog?
Finance is a tricky subject. We – yes, me included – have spent decades learning the hard-and-fast rules to get to retirement with money to keep us fat and happy on the golf course every single day until they carry us off.
First, I think we can get a little more creative about our perfect vision of retirement. Golf might be a little overdone.
Second, the rules changed. Again. They always do, and most people don’t know how to adapt until everyone else has already made money. I’m not here to help you get rich and retire early. I’m here to provide you with as much information as I can to help you navigate the ever-changing world of finance, and I think a finance blog is still a good way to get the message out.
The (Old) Rules of Finance
Stop me when you read one of these and you’ve included it in your current personal financial plan:
- The percentage of bonds in your portfolio should be the same as your age.
- The 4% Rule
- Get a financial manager and do what they tell you without question.
- Buy assets first. Then, you can buy liabilities.
- Your house is (or isn’t) an investment
- Invest in your company’s retirement plan
- Get into a good college
Believe it or not, if you made it past the first one then you’re actually ahead of the curve a bit. If you made it to the end and didn’t “stop” me, then you either have it all figured out, you appreciate sarcasm, or you need to start reading more about personal finance.
Why These Rules Are Old
These bullet points represent some of the most widely accepted “rules” for personal finance that have been touted as gospel for the last several decades. Don’t worry, I have posts on each one of these and why they’re mostly terrible.
To give you the short version, these rules helped get people involved in their own financial future for two reasons. First and foremost, the “smart money” understood early on that the largest untapped source of money on the planet was regular people and their dream of retiring with enough money. The more money they were able to pry from the peasants, the more leverage they would have to effect change as they saw fit.
The other reason for these rules is that it’s incredibly hard to write a game plan for each individual person because everyone is dealing with different issues, different desires, and different goals. These rules were created at various times to help paint a picture of success. If you follow just a few simple rules, you, too, can enjoy telling your book club that you’re a millionaire. At least, so said the guy writing a finance blog.
As a teaser to the whole point of this, the trick isn’t to understand the inner workings of the financial system – it’s to educate yourself.
How Things Changed
Nature doesn’t just maintain the balance of the natural world. It helps maintain our whole concept of reality. Covid was a shock to average people and smart money with their crystal balls with dollar signs in them. No one saw it coming, and then humanity reacted.
Imagine a wasp – let’s call it a murder hornet just for fun – flies right into your face. Then, let’s say you’re standing right next to your significant other. You react as you should – by screaming and flailing wildly to save your precious face.
In your futile attempt to solve the problem after you’ve already got a murder hornet well inside your personal bubble, your hand manages to connect with your significant other rather harder than you would normally prefer.
This is perhaps one of the best metaphors for what happened after Covid (he said while fake-dusting his shoulder because he’s that old). After the shock and awe of the event itself, it’s actually the reaction to the event that creates far more problems than you wanted to solve.
What Happens in the Future?
The initial market crash was certainly something to behold. It will be the case study used in classrooms to show how the stock market protects itself. However, when you consider the combined response of world governments, financial institutions, and average people, it’s complicated. You’ll find that we’re still trying to convince our significant other that there really was a murder hornet, and we were just trying to protect ourselves.
After the dust settled, there was suddenly a massive cloud of money floating above our heads. From meme stocks to housing prices, we literally watched our Econ 101 class unfold in front of us. The last time inflation like this was a problem, we were licking our wounds after pulling out of Vietnam. There are few similarities with where we are now.
We have unprecedented access to information, our money, and the financial markets. The “spread like wildfire” analogy doesn’t come close to explaining the speed our society is accustomed to.
Everything has changed, and the new rules are still yet to be written. What can you do at this point?
What Can You Do?
The old rules were an easy way for experts to explain how to manage everyone’s financial expectations. They would take complicated concepts and turn them into simple, actionable financial plans, and that usually meant readding dozens of finance blogs.
In order to move forward now that the rules have changed, the most important thing you can do is to educate yourself. Finance isn’t something you can ignore anymore, especially now that all of the old rules are basically worthless.
It’s going to be a great time for some people to rise up and spin a web of nonsense to convince you of new rules. The truth is that any mass distributed rules are going to be lost in this new reality we’re in. The best financial plan is not one that makes you the most money or helps you achieve a status you may never have wanted.
The best financial plan is one that allows you to get a good night’s sleep, wake up the next morning with a smile, and feel secure knowing your family is taken care of. That can happen in an infinite number of ways. It must start with you caring enough to figure it out for yourself.
What’s Next?
The internet is great, and it’s still in its infancy. Why start a finance blog?
Because the rules are always changing. Sure, there are hundreds – thousands – of websites devoted to spreading the word on finance.
At the end of the day, this is just a good old-fashioned David and Goliath story. This finance blog is a speck of sand in the pebble that David picked up to hurl at the impossible odds in front of him. I would never try to say that I’m David. But you’d better believe that Goliath in this metaphor is greed, and it keeps most people from realizing their individual financial goals. Let’s try and level the playing field.
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