Ads, Affiliate Links and Recommendations

There are sev­er­al stages to becom­ing an estab­lished blogger.

One: Get a web­site up and run­ning with a few blog posts.
Two: Start com­ment­ing on oth­er peo­ple’s blogs and Twit­ter accounts so they know you exist.
Three: Start get­ting spam com­ments on your articles.
Four: Start get­ting actu­al peo­ple to com­ment on your posts.
Five: Start get­ting emails from peo­ple with agendas.

Yes­ter­day I received an email about an “Excit­ing new busi­ness part­ner­ship offer!” My eye­brows imme­di­ate­ly shot up and my skep­ti­cal radar went to lev­el 100. I’ve got­ten a few offers from peo­ple push­ing prod­ucts and ask­ing me to pro­mote them here on my blog. I’m not about to just shove some­thing onto you, my won­der­ful read­er, with­out thor­ough­ly test­ing and vet­ting it myself first. I fig­ured since I did a review for JL Collins’ book, I should clar­i­fy my stance on reviews, rec­om­men­da­tions, ads, affil­i­ate links, and the like.

I haven’t put any ads on this site yet, and I’m not sure I will. I like the unclut­tered, clean look of the site with­out ads. Not to men­tion, ads incon­vienent­ly placed in the mid­dle of arti­cles dis­tract from the mes­sage peo­ple are try­ing to con­vey, and I don’t want that for my blog. I’ve seen some fel­low blog­gers post their AdSense rev­enue, and it’s usu­al­ly not more than about $200/mo for blogs with sim­i­lar size and audi­ence as this one. $2400 to inter­rupt my flow? Nooooo thanks.

I’m doing this as a labor of love and to doc­u­ment my progress on my jour­ney to FI. I’m not writ­ing arti­cles about my loud neigh­bors or my house hunt­ing process to make money. 

I’m doing this because I think my adven­tures are fun, inter­est­ing, and more impor­tant­ly, edu­ca­tion­al to at least one per­son out there on the Inter­webs. I did­n’t start this as a side hus­tle so I could pay off $40,000 in stu­dent loan or con­sumer debt. (Not that there’s any­thing wrong with that in the slightest!)

I’m doing this because I’ve got­ten to meet and inter­act with a ton of real­ly awe­some peo­ple all over the world who are inter­est­ed in the same thing I am. This net­work of peo­ple has helped me cel­e­brate major mile­stones and picked me up when I feel every­one in life is against me and my goals. Not to men­tion, I’m get­ting to go to all sorts of real­ly cool places and expe­ri­ence a lot of amaz­ing adven­tures I nev­er would’ve been able to with out this blog. (Like the Berk­shire Hath­away Annu­al Investors’ Meet­ing in Oma­ha, Camp Mus­tache in Seat­tle, and oh yeah, the Chau­tauqua in Ecuador! Not to men­tion all the oth­er lit­tle mee­tups I have with FI peo­ple out­side of the big meetings.)

So.….… my pledge to you is this:

Fiery Mil­len­ni­als will remain ad and affil­i­ate link free until fur­ther notice.

The only mon­ey I want to earn off this blog will be in the form of knowl­edge that I can apply to my finances.  So if you have any bits of wis­dom for me, feel free to shoot me an email! Espe­cial­ly if you know the ins and outs of doing a back­door Roth.

Gwen Recommends

Services

While I’m not will­ing to put any affil­i­ate links on the site right now, there are sev­er­al ser­vices and prod­ucts I can rec­om­mend for free! I use all of these reg­u­lar­ly and am pleased with the qual­i­ty I’ve got­ten so far.

Mint: My one stop shop for a quick bud­get and accounts check. View more here at www.mint.com.

Per­son­al Cap­i­tal: Oth­er peo­ple get more use out of this site than I do, but I find it incred­i­bly use­ful for the invest­ing side of my finances. I love get­ting an in-depth view of where all my mon­ey is invest­ed. Check it out at www.personalcapital.com.

Lab @ Mad Fien­tist: This is a fun lit­tle project from Bran­don the “Mad Fien­tist”. I use this to keep track of my progress (or lack there­of) towards my FI date. It tells me exact­ly (give or take a bit) what my FI date is based on the num­bers I put in at the end of every month. You can find out more at lab.madfientist.com.

Books

I haven’t read that many finance/Financial Inde­pen­dence books, but the few that I’ve read I feel oth­ers can get use out of them as well. There­fore, none of them should come as a sur­prise since most of them are clas­sics (or going to be soon):

The Sim­ple Path to Wealth by JL Collins: see my review at The Sim­ple Path to Wealth post.

A Ran­dom Walk Down Wall Street by Bur­ton G. Malkiel: A clas­sic if you’d like to try to under­stand how Wall Street works. Now in it’s 11^th edition!

The Mil­lion­aire Next Door by Thomas J. Stan­ley: Anoth­er clas­sic (although severe­ly out­dat­ed by now). Good for a look at the “typ­i­cal” mil­lion­aire next door.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosa­ki: Appar­ent­ly the “#1 Per­son­al Finance book” of all time. Good to help you shift how you think about money.

I Will Teach You to be Rich by Ramit Sethi: Aimed at Mil­len­ni­als like us! Ramit has a series of real­ly great videos on every­thing from cook­ing to nego­ti­at­ing a big­ger salary increase on his web­site. Great resource!

 

I also rec­om­mend a stroll along the beach at sunset

Blogroll

These are in no par­tic­u­lar order besides the one my brain spit out at me. I read all of these reg­u­lar­ly and get a lot out of them. Hell, most of these inspired me to either start my own FI jour­ney or start my own blog. Every­one I’ve met in per­son has been super nice and real­ly help­ful. Now.….… down the rab­bit hole.

Mr. Mon­ey Mus­tache: do I real­ly need to say any­thing about him? did­n’t think so

Mad Fien­tist: Great for arti­cles on tax­es and work­ing remote­ly. Almost FI.

Afford Any­thing: Real Estate, opti­miz­ing life, and gen­er­al hilarity.

Go Cur­ry Crack­er: FI, great for tax arti­cles and traveling

JLCollinsNH: Invest­ing!

Mon­ey Boss: J.D. Roth has a new blog­ging adven­ture. Also check out the old stuff on Get Rich Slowly.

Fru­gal­woods: Fru­gal extra­or­di­naires! Now they live on a rur­al home­stead in Ver­mont. Great for pic­tures of their adorable greyhound.

Root of Good: Retired at 33 with 3 kids. Good for a look at a “nor­mal” FI life.

Even­Steven: Great for encour­age­ment as he just recent­ly became debt free! Lives in Chica­go except when I’m vis­it­ing (hah!).

Mr. 1500: Almost FI. Great for arti­cles on ren­o­vat­ing and dinosaur pictures.

Income Surfer: Just fin­ished an epic road­trip! With a tod­dler and a dog, he’s got my mad respect.

Taw­can: Great for thought pro­vok­ing arti­cles and div­i­dend advice.

Mil­len­ni­al Boss: anoth­er young blog­ger like me! Great for advice on deal­ing with the work­place as we slog towards FI.

Our Next Life: Anoth­er thought pro­vok­ing blog as they work towards FI.

Ditch­ing the Grind: a dual mil­i­tary fam­i­ly liv­ing sim­ply over­seas as they work towards FI

Amber Tree Leaves: A Bel­gian blog­ger who got a late start on FI.

Wealthy Accoun­tant: Real­ly great tax advice! (and oth­er stuff as he’s been FI for awhile now)

Fer­vent Finance: anoth­er youn­gin! A high earn­er trans­plant to the Mid­west for now.

The Fru­gal Vagabond: Great for arti­cles on real estate from afar.

Retire by Forty: A stay at home dad who is FI. Anoth­er great look at a “nor­mal” FI life with some real estate sprin­kled in.

Plant­i­ng Our Pen­nies: A younger cou­ple going for FI. I enjoy read­ing their updates!