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I Am Robert Farrington, Founder Of The College Investor, And This Is How I Work

By Frugaling 7 Comments

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Robert Farrington Headshot Photo The College Investor
Robert Farrington

Over the last couple months I have interviewed a growing number of top bloggers and writers to get their input on personal finance (e.g., the founders of Budgets Are Sexy, The Broke And Beautiful Life, Frugal Rules, Debt Roundup, and Modest Money). Today, I’m excited to share with you another terrific interview with one of the top personal finance writers on the Internet.

Robert Farrington is the owner and creator of The College Investor. The site ranks near the top 50,000 websites in the world! He has a Master in Business Administration and has been writing about personal finance since 2009. Robert specializes in giving top-notch advice to young adults, who are beginning their financial journey. Here’s my interview with him. Thanks again, Robert!

1. What inspired you to begin The College Investor?

I started The College Investor as I was wrapping up college for a few of reasons:

  1. I was bored
  2. I was passionate about investing and personal finance
  3. I was tired of hearing the crazy things that other people were doing and wanted to help people get off on the best financial footing possible out of school

When I began, I really had no idea what I was doing, and it was a pretty pathetic site. I thought, “Hey, I could just post my random thoughts and people would read it.” Well, nobody did. Good thing I was passionate — it took about 2 years before I started gaining any real traction.

2. How did people react when you first started blogging?  How long have you been blogging?

The College Investor LogoI started The College Investor, which was my first blog, in 2009 – so that makes it over 4 years old. When I first started, the only person that knew about it was my then girlfriend (now wife). She was supportive, but like me, didn’t think it would become anything close to what we have today.

I started it as a hobby, and she viewed it as a hobby. It’s not to say that she didn’t get annoyed with me sometimes when I was up late writing or doing some technical stuff. But the fun thing now is that she has amazing ideas, and some of the most popular articles on The College Investor were hers. Now she’s pretty invested in it.

3. What was your web and tech experience before starting the site?

Screenshot of The College Investor Homepage
Screenshot of The College Investor Homepage

Before starting The College Investor, I actually had another site – San Diego Estate Sales. During college I side-hustled and did estate sales for others. I built a pretty simple website that worked as a lead magnet for me, even though I had no idea it was called that.

When it came to design and coding, I had no experience and I was pretty bad at it. I used a free theme and really basic hosting. You can see from my 4th Anniversary post for the iterations that the site has been through. Now, I have a professional designer that helps with that stuff, and various technical partners for the tech expertise.

4. What advice would you give to those looking to start their own site?

When I launched The College Investor, I had no real plan, defined goals, or structure. With my other sites, I put together strategic launch plans to kick it off with a bang. For The College Investor, it took over a year before I had 1,000 visitors in one month. Then, take my latest project at Beat the Nine to Five, and I had 1,000 visitors on launch day.

If you’re looking to start a website, you need a launch plan. Keep it simple, but consider a big launch post, have content on your site, try to get a mailing list before you launch, and get other bloggers involved. This will make your journey a lot more fun because you know people are reading your stuff from Day 1.

5. How do you make money from your site? Where does most of your revenue come from?

I make money from my site in a variety of ways. The biggest way is advertising – either direct advertising, CPM ads, and affiliate advertising. I’ve also branched out and started offering an eCourse to get started investing – my Investing 101 Course. Most of my revenue is advertising, but I’m working on growing my course revenues this year.

6. What do you think you’ve learned from your readers and fans?

I’ve learned a ton from my readers over the years. This year, I started surveying my audience to find out what they want more of. I asked 3 open-ended questions and got over 50 responses. It was a huge eye opener for me to learn what my audience struggles with and how I can help.

7. How can someone in lower incomes overcome financial hurdles and prosper?

I’m a big believer that everyone can side hustle and improve their financial status. I’ve been side hustling since high school and it’s been a great source of income for me. You are the only determining factor of your destiny – if you work hard and put in the effort, you’ll get the financial reward, as well.

8. Who are your financial role models?

I really like Ramit Sethi’s style when it comes to accountability, honesty, and what to focus on. I follow his school of thought about earning more, and not sweating the small stuff. I also enjoy Pat Flynn from a transparency perspective. It’s so great to share in his successes and struggles.

9. What personal finance sites do you read?

I don’t read as many sites as I used to, but I still get to Financial Samurai, Budgets are Sexy, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, and more each week. I also check out Rockstar Finance to see the best of the PF interwebs.

I’m actually into listening more to podcasts than reading. I regularly listen to Smart Passive Income, Entrepreneur on Fire, Side Hustle Series, Good Financial Cents, The New Business Podcast, This Is Your Life, and Online Marketing Made Easy.

10. What else would you care to share with the readers of Frugaling?

Blogging today is one of the most important aspects of media. People don’t just want the news anymore. They want perspective, and that’s where everyone has a story and perspective to share. There are hundreds of personal finance blogs, but that’s okay because my style is different than your style – and people relate not just to the facts, but to how they are presented.

It is important, however, to remember that this is a business or a hobby. Treat it as whichever you want, but realize the income is also directly related to how you treat it.

If you’re getting started, make sure you network with others, ask questions, and build relationships – just like you would with any other hobby or business. Working online doesn’t have to be lonely!

Want to read more interviews like this one? Read the entire interview series here!

Filed Under: Interviews Tagged With: Advice, Blog, Blogging, Founder, Income, Interview, Personal Finance, series, the college investor, Website, writers

I Am John Schmoll, Founder Of Frugal Rules, And This Is How I Work

By Frugaling 12 Comments

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John Schmoll
John Schmoll

My grandparents were storytellers. I could sit down with any of them and become engrossed in their words. I loved their insight, experience, and thoughtfulness. That love of learning about others continues, and now I’ve been spending some time interviewing the best of the personal finance community (like the founders of Budgets Are Sexy, The Broke And Beautiful Life, and Modest Money).

Surprisingly, it’s a tight-knit group of writers and financial experts. Some are certified financial planners, while others (like me) are experts in another field. Today, I have the privilege of interviewing one of the top financial bloggers, John Schmoll from Frugal Rules. John graduated with upwards of $20,000 in credit card debt after college. That’s when he turned it all around, got an MBA, and worked in the financial services industry. I’m lucky to be able to share his thoughts and insights with you today!

What inspired you to begin FrugalRules.com?

That’s a good question Sam. It really all started as I was looking for a way to be able to talk with others about money. I had just left my job to help my wife run our business and was missing talking about money all day with others. I had been in the financial services industry for roughly 15 years, in various capacities. That’s how it was born. From there, I just started looking for a good domain name and shortly after Frugal Rules was born.

How did people (friends, family, etc.) react when you first started?

Honestly, most of my family thought it was somewhat comical. I have absolutely no technical experience to speak of and have never done anything online in terms of business. They thought I’d either give up due to lack of time or get frustrated with it and throw in the towel. I just took it as a challenge to show that I could do it. 🙂

What was your experience with design, code, web work prior to starting your site?

Frugal Rule Website Screenshot
A screenshot of FrugalRules.com

Lol, absolutely zilch. My wife had a bit of design knowledge and that’s stretching it quite a bit. Because of that it was a bit of a challenge designing the site, but I was happy to just get something that worked. This is something I want and need to change going forward though…I just need to get started on it. 😉

What advice would you give to those thinking about starting their own site?

Find what you’re passionate about and go after that so you can establish your “voice.” You could write about many a number of things, but you want it to be something you care about otherwise it’s going to be a challenge. Beyond that, be prepared for some serious time and effort to make a go of it. The writing is the easy part, it’s the technical things, networking, and building relationships that take time. There are many bloggers out there and in order to make some decent headway you need to be able to make connections and get your name out there. The great thing is that many other PF bloggers out there are nice people and more than willing to help. Just remember that it’s a give and take kind of relationship though and really you should be more on the giving end of things than anything else.

Other than that, I say be yourself. Readers can tell when you’re being genuine and if you’re being yourself it’ll likely come out in your writing. Lastly, don’t get into blogging because of the money. Yes, you can make money blogging, but it takes a lot of time to get to that level and many that start out simply to make money most often give up out of frustration.

How do you make money from your site?

I make money from the site in a number of ways: affiliate advertising, freelance writing, and blog writing through our business. Now that I have a blog, we’re able to pitch blog writing to a number of our clients and we get to sign them on for that all because of Frugal Rules.

I also just started a new site recently with my friend Grayson (Debt Roundup), Sprout Wealth, where we plan to do some of the same things. Other than that, I’m looking to buy other websites to add to what I’m already doing.

What do you think you’ve learned from your readers and fans?

I’ve learned a ton from the community over at Frugal Rules, but it essentially comes down to seeing that we all come from different walks of life and that will color our view of money. I had seen that on one level in my last corporate job, but that was strictly with investments. I know it may sound cheesy, but I’ve seen first hand how there are many shades of gray when it comes to finances. There are a few things that can go across the board, but beyond that there are many things which can be done differently.

How can somebody in lower incomes best overcome financial hurdles and prosper?

Start tracking everything you spend. It sucks and is contrary to what we hear preached to us in our culture, but watch how you’re spending your money. Do that for a few months and see what mistakes you’re making and commit to changing. That could also mean starting to budget and, if so, find something that works for you and run with it. Beyond that, look for ways to can create additional sources of income through things like side gigs. Pair that cash with your lower expenses and you’ll greatly increase your chances of climbing out of that.

Who are your financial role models?

That’s a tough one. I don’t know that there is really one or two people out there that stick out to me. What really inspires me is seeing people who make a modest income that are able to really put themselves ahead financially. I got to see that a number of times in my past and was always challenged to see people who made very little, relatively speaking, that were rocking it with their saving and investing. That is what I aspire to do no matter how much we’re bringing in each year.

What personal finance sites do you read?

There are so many good sites out there that it’s really difficult to narrow it down to a small selection of blogs that I visit. My taste is pretty eclectic, but here are a few of the ones I go to on a regular basis:

Club Thrifty
Budgets Are Sexy
The Heavy Purse

And a few others that I’ve really been digging lately are:

Living Rich Cheaply
Broke Millennial

What else would you care to share with the readers of Frugaling?

First off, I’d like to thank you Sam for asking me to do this interview! In terms of your readers, my encouragement is to remember that finances are personal. We all have different goals in life and that is going to mean different things for different people. Just remember to make sure you’re doing all you can to make your money work for you as opposed to being enslaved to it.

Want to read more interviews like this one? Read the entire interview series here!

Filed Under: Interviews Tagged With: Blogging, credit cards, Finance, Frugal Rules, Interview, John Schmoll, Personal Finance, Sprout Wealth, Website, Writing

I Am J. Money, Founder Of Budgets Are Sexy, And This Is How I Work

By Frugaling 13 Comments

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J Money Budgets are sexyA man with a clever moniker recently emailed me to tell me he shared a story from Frugaling.org. Fortunately, this was not a con artist; rather, a leading personal finance writer, consultant, and designer. He goes by the name, J. Money.

Credited with founding BudgetsAreSexy.com (in the top 30k of site worldwide) and Rockstarfinance.com, J. Money took a small hobby into a magnificent career. I made some time to chat with him about personal finance, blogging, and what he reads. These were his responses:

What inspired you to begin BudgetsAreSexy.com?

To be completely honest, I was merely looking for a more productive way to waste my time at work 😉 All of my colleagues would spend their down time on video games and MySpace back in the day, and since I had recently plopped down $360,000 on a house with no budget and absolutely no money down (I know, I know…), I thought starting my own site would help me hunker down a bit and have a little fun at the same time. I saw other bloggers sharing their entire net worth with the world which just fascinated me, so I thought I’d do the same and see if it helped anyone in the process. And now here we are 6 years later! A hobby turned full-time employment, pretty incredible stuff… Who knew you could make money sharing your thoughts?

How did people around you react when you first started?

J. Money
The Man, The Myth, The Legend

People in my real life, or people online? My real life friends/family/co-workers had no idea – I went completely anonymous just so I could be as transparent as possible and say whatever I wanted without worrying about the consequences. Which sounds a lot shadier than it is (how much trouble can you really get into talking about budgeting?? Haha…), but the freedom and excitement it gave me helped catapult this little project into something bigger and better than I could have anticipated. And now this “J. Money” guy is more real than the guy sitting here typing this to you! 😉 And has way more friends too, as nerdy as that sounds.

As for people online, everyone was (and still is) incredibly kind. I have never met a group of people more willing to help out and welcome you into a community than the personal finance world. Both the bloggers, and the readers. We’ve got a really amazing community here, and one you don’t easily find in this world. ESPECIALLY online. You always read about all the trolls and haters and people being nasty left and right behind the computer, but you rarely see it in our small space. I don’t know if I’d still be around if this weren’t the case.

What was your experience with design, code, web work prior to starting your site? 

Oddly enough I came out of college with a degree in graphic design and advertising, but I hadn’t used it an ounce in the 7 years leading up to my blog. So the second I was able to dabble in it all over again I was pretty happy! And so were my parents – I was finally using that degree 😉 Unfortunately my skills are still stuck circa 2001, but these days everything is built for the average Joe out there and anything can be easily figured out with Google. Especially with blogging and WordPress. So if you’re reading this and interested in starting your own site one day, please don’t be discouraged by the technicality of it all – you’ll be fine!

What advice would you give to those thinking about starting their own site?

Oh man, just pick a topic you’re passionate about and then get to writing! All of the rest of the stuff is important over time (the design, layout, SEO, marketing), but really it all starts with your words. And especially your “voice” – the way your personality shines through. There’s a million blogs on money or cars or fashion/etc, but the one thing you have that nobody else does is your voice. Own it and just be yourself when getting your thoughts out because it’s unique! You’re not trying to duplicate anybody else’s sites, you’re trying to make your own. And once you get going all the other stuff will fall into place.

Feel free to reach out to me anytime with questions or ideas, I’m happy to help! j (at) budgets are sexy (dot) com.

(Fair warning though, if you tell me you’re doing it for the money I won’t be able to help you. I’ve never met one person who started a blog that way and got successful. You have to do it because you’re interested in it and it’s fun for you or else you’ll burn out in a matter of months 🙁 It takes a substantial amount of time and effort to make anything real off it, and you’re better off rockin’ a different side hustle if that’s your motive – which is perfectly fine!)

How do you make money from your site?

I make money a handful of ways: display advertising, direct advertising, affiliates, blog consulting, and building out a number of other online projects that also do the same. For instance, Rockstar Finance showcases awesome articles on money in a more fun and visual way.

But there are a ton of other ways to make money too that I currently don’t do: freelance gigs, ebooks, real books, speaking engagements, products, and a ton of others. It really comes down to what you’re interested in, and what you’re good at. And the beauty of the online world is that the opportunities are endless!

What do you think you’ve learned from your readers and fans?

Pretty much EVERYTHING, haha… I joke that my blog’s like the dessert of personal finance, and everyone else serves up the meat and potatoes 🙂 My goal is to really just motivate people to stop and think about their money every once and in a while, so my writing style is very fluffy and diary-like. Whenever I want to talk about a more serious, in-depth, topic on finance, I’ll share a few light thoughts and then open it up to my audience to chime in and fill out the rest. And they’re great at it. Our community is probably the best thing about my site, to be honest with you. We’ve got a lot of (friendly) discussions going on at all times, and no one’s afraid to ask for help or give guidance. I’m always learning a ton from them.

How can somebody in lower incomes best overcome financial hurdles and prosper?

Probably by first stopping to track every single dollar in and out for a few months. Which is boring as hell, I know, but it’s amazing how your mindset changes once it SEES where all the money is flowing! The first time I tried this (early 2008) I was blown away buy where all my money was going, and as time progressed I started catching myself before spending foolishly because I knew I had to document it all later that week. And soon enough I was saving *hundreds* a month with no real downsize in lifestyle – it was awesome!

The other thing I’m always harping on is having *multiple* sources of income if you can. There are two sides of growing your money in personal finance – the “cut your expenses as much as possible” one, and then the “make more money” one. Both fine to do and helps you get closer to your goals, but in my opinion the “making more” strategy will get you to the finish line MUCH faster. So I tend to focus on that part a bit more, and showcase some of these other jobs out there in our Side Hustle Series of our blog.

Who are your financial role models?

Hmm, that’s a hard one. I don’t really think I have a specific person or two I look up to – I tend to get motivated by what the “everyday” people are doing out there. Whether it’s finding a unique way to save I hadn’t heard of before, or someone sharing their latest tax-hacking or investment strategies. And I tend to find these people in the comments of other blogs, or the handful of new bloggers that are popping up. As I mentioned in the advice question earlier, everyone has their own story to tell, and I relate a lot more to them than I do, say, someone famous or a financial “expert.” They just seem way more genuine to me.

What personal finance sites do you read?

I’m really into the “retire early” crowd right now, so most of my faves right now are in that area:

  • jlcollinsnh
  • Mad Fientist

And then more generally:

  • Afford Anything
  • Enemy of Debt
  • Len Penzo

What else would you care to share with the readers of Frugaling?

Just keep on paying attention to that money, baby! The more you focus on it now, the less you have to do down the road… As a blogger friend of mine once said, “Think of your dollars as employees. Each one has the power to earn an income for you!”

Now go check out my new website: RockstarFinance.com 🙂

Want to read more interviews like this one? Read the entire interview series here!

Filed Under: Interviews Tagged With: advertising, Blogging, Budgets Are Sexy, How I Work, Interview, J Money, Marketing, Rockstar Finance, SEO

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