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This is the first financial blog that I ever read and it opened a new world to me, as I now subscribed to several for different perspectives. I was so impressed by the variety of topics that you cover. Out of all of the blogs that I now read, I know that I can always count on your having some substantial information. While it may not be relevant to me right away, I read it anyway, because I may need the knowledge in the future. I love the fact that it’s called Get Rich Slowly, because most of us can’t expect to get rich overnight. You’re teaching me lessons that I can use to gradually build wealth and reduce debt—which is the only way it’s going to happen making $35,000 at a state job for which there is no such thing as merit-based raises…only cost of living adjustments. With that, I’d like to see more articles on frugality and saving money, earning income based on hobbies, and making smart purchasing decisions. While articles about mortgages and home maintenance (I’m a renter) and investing (I’m still in debt) don’t apply to me yet, I know they will in hopefully 3 years, so I enjoy reading those as well. Thank you for providing me with this knowledge and introducing me to the world of personal finance. I had little to no knowledge about this before and hated numbers and math (I managed to graduate from college without taking a single math class). Now I can hold a conversation with anyone about personal finance and I’m setting myself up for a better future.

My favorite thing about Get Rich Slowly is the tone you take in your writing. Most other PF blogs have a condesending tone to them that I find annoying. Here I feel like the tone is more “Look what I found out about – what do you think” — more inclusive, I guess.

The best posts are the “personal experience” posts. Things that you have done or guests posters have done that helped out their financial situation. This includes (but is not limited to) posts about frugality, grocery shopping, selling items on Amazon etc. I also like the post today about the conversation you had with your friend about bigger houses not necessarily being better.

I am not wild about the hard core financial posts (investing, various types of mortgages, Roth IRA’s etc.) I feel like there is an abundance of that sort of information out there. The personal stuff is what interests me. That is sort of the advantage of a blog vs. a traditional PF publication, in my opinion.

I check in every day…often multiple times. Keep up the great work!

I like the number of daily posts. I am a stay at home mom with two children. I know you don’t have any, but I would like to see some posts (maybe guest posts) on tips for raising children on the cheap and planning for their education.

I like the education in general–anything that can get me thinking more about finance. While I wasn’t raised completely clueless about finance (two things hammered in by dad: pay off credit cards each month–no gathering debt–and enroll in the 401(k) at least up to the match!) there were many things I didn’t learn. It never occurred to me before to be saving money for the future. As long as I could pay the bills each month, things were okay, right?

Thus, I like the different hints on how to budget to spend less than I earn. I like to learn about different ways to save and invest. All the little hints help. This site is about inspiration and education to me.

I really like that you post several times a day. It makes me check back more frequently and it’s always nice to find something new to read.
I’m not a big fan of the investing posts. I think mostly because I’m not to a point where I’m investing in more than my 401K and occasionally the IRA. Maybe when I want to invest I’ll be more interested in those posts.
My favorite posts are the ones where you talk about what you’ve done to save money. Like growing your food and canning.
Keep up the good work!

Gotta say, I’m a fan of the giveaways.

I discovered you via Lifehacker a few weeks ago, and like other commenters before me, I have found your blog to be one of my favorites now that I know about it. (And not just because you are giving away free stuff!)

I don’t think I have a favorite article just yet, but that’s mostly because I’m still cruising through the old posts. So far, my favorite topic seems to be frugality — I’ve been living a frugal life for years but some of my habits have been slipping lately.

Being Canadian, I would love to see some posts or guest posts on Canada-specific subjects. I realize this might not be easy — might even be more of a “put up or shut up” type of situation, but I don’t think I have anything good and Canada-specific to put up!

I would like to see no more than one or two posts a day, mostly because my RSS reader is already a little overwhelming. With the quality of your current posts, I’d be happy with the low frequency and hence high signal-to-noise ratio that you’ve got going.

Only two improvements come to mind. First, I have subscribed by email to the followup comments on a few of the recent entries, but for some reason, I seem to be getting emails for comments on ALL threads. Checking the subscription page linked from the emails shows that I am only subscribed to the entries that I selected, so I think there’s a bug somewhere. Fix that, and my inbox and I will appreciate it!

Second is a formatting thing. It would be nice if the main column on the blog pages wasn’t limited to a maximum width. At home I have a 1600×1200 monitor, and it looks kind of silly to have entries and comments filling maybe a quarter of the available space. Blank space for ads, links, and supporting material is fine, but close to half of my horizontal space is filled with the (attractive, mind you) tan-ish background colour. I’ve done enough web design work to know that “attractive layout” and “flexibly sized layout” are often mutually exclusive, though, so I won’t be too upset if the site keeps looking nice but not filling my screen.

I’m a complete newbie to your site (only started coming here two weeks ago when i found by accident), but i’ll give this a shot:

I would love to see more calculators on here. It’s hard to find them, sometimes, and you can’t always be sure to trust the ones you DO find. Sure, _MY_ credit union has a lot of them, but I can imagine that others, especially those trying to fight their way clear, are overwhelmed enough without having to go searching for the right calculator!

I’d also love to see you get two differing theories on a problem, and list both of their entries together. Kind of a Point/Counterpoint thing, but with finances, $, investing, &c.

As far as what i HAVE liked, I really appreciate that you’ve been so open with your own faults. I am sure that it has given a lot of people the courage to work on their own debt quietly, to see you doing so publicly. (I also appreciate that you aren’t one of those who say Credit Cards are the cause of debt; just their use beyond your means. those reward points are great, as long as you don’t spend more then you make!)

Thanks again!

I love the fact that GRS is updated daily, because daily is how often I spend my money, and it’s really helpful to get that morning motivation to keep my financial goals in view and not blow it all on a big lunch out. I agree with a lot of others that the saving and frugality columns are the most helpful, because if I haven’t saved the money, I won’t have it to invest and so the other types of columns will be beside the point. That said, I appreciate the variety of topics. The information on selling on eBay and half.com was so inspiring that I went and opened an eBay account and I’m getting ready to launch a profitable clearing out of closets and cabinets. What I most appreciate is that the site is the attention to how we should make decisions about money, not just what to do. Thinking about issues of values, why we overspend, how little choices add up, and so on, really helps with the motivation. Thanks for a great site.

One of the things I really enjoy about your site is reading the comments. In May, you had a post about the Bank of Mom and Dad. I loved that article and equally loved reading what other people had to say about it.

Another post I really enjoyed was about using what we own. The thing that both of these, and many of your other posts, have in common is that they are about real life situations. I read a lot of financial blogs and magazines. Most of them I enjoy on a professional level – they offer great facts and statistics. But your blog offers situations I can see myself in and am therefore challenged to think about how I handle different financial issues.

I am a subscriber and highly recommend the RSS feed to those who don’t have it. It makes blog checking much easier.

In general I really like the format of your posts — you’re usually succinct and things are well organized. In contrast, I find the format of your blog itself (visually I mean) somewhat cluttered, especially above the post title and to the right (where you have the search bar, the links for RSS, subscribing etc). I appreciate why you have those things at the top, but they’re rather visually distracting (at least for me). If they could be integrated into a more cohesive format or something that would help. Also, I don’t see the merit of having ‘recent comments’ on the side — personally I would rather have your list of recent posts nearer the top.

but in general — love your blog! keep up the good work!

I’ve been reading and enjoying for a while, but not generally commenting. The articles I find most useful are on frugality (I can’t invest unless I have money left over each month) and getting the most from home ownership. We are mostly debt-free except for our mortgage, but the current housing market has stuck us in a house we didn’t originally intend to stay in. Our major goal, at the moment, is to get to the point where we can live reasonably on my income, and my spouse can stay home.

I just found your blog recently but I really enjoy it. I have 4 kids and not alot of time for surfing so I would love an easier to read format with highlighted tips.

What I enjoy: several posts a day (3 is a good number), the focus on the environment and climate change and generally ‘being green’ (and in turn, how to live a low impact and frugal lifestyle).

Suggestions: I also like the ‘extreme’ PF articles such as the one about eating ultra-cheap. What about traveling ultra-cheap? Have you discussed things like CouchSurfing? (www.couchsurfing.org)? that’s a great way to save $$$ and see the world!

Ways to Improve: Most PF stuff regarding debt is about credit card debt. But I think there are many out there in the same boat as me – I always pay my credit card on time in full and I have no debt such as car loans etc – but I have nearly $200K in student loans from grad school. I think there ought to be more out there about student loans and things that affect those who have it (like the recent legislation in September that is about to ax the economic hardship deferment, that is striking terror into my heart right now!!) and also how to deal with a debt situation where you will first be making very very little money but suddenly will have a large increase (i.e. medical school, my situation), and how to deal with Stafford subsidized/unsubsidized loans… that’s some stuff I’d like to see covered.

Thanks! I love this site.

I posted my first question to the viewers forum today and was looking for information from others who might have gone through similiar circumstances. What I’ve gotten back so far has been more personal assesment than insight. Hopefully that will change
JD also

I have myself been following lazy investing and find your blog very helpful in reassuring that its the right way to do it.

The good thing about this blog is I can really relate to it myself.

Keep up the good work.

My favorite articles are too many too list, but a recent favorite is “One Man Who Beats the Market (and His Suggestions for Individual Investors)”. It gave a good portfolio template to balance risk vs returns.

The topics I like most are investing and frugality. Maybe GRS would be enriched if there were more “consumer advice”. Clark Howard’s show (clarkhoward.com) would be a good example of what I am suggesting .

A GRS podcast would be super! Even more so if it included interviews.

One thing I like about the site is that even though some people might disagree with you and each other in the comments, it never seems to get nasty like it does on some other PF sites. I think this is partially due to the commenters themselves behaving, but also due to JD’s seemingly innate talent to foster discussion and not take criticism and disagreement personally, and rolling it back around to actually stimulate the conversation. That is a rare gift.

For constructive feedback, maybe some kind of Engadget-esque rating system for comments would be nice. That might be a little ambitious for this site, but maybe it could save some people a little time if they read only the highly rated comments.

Oh, and if we could win stuff by reading. More of that is always better

Honestly, I heard about this site because of the IPOD shuffle give away but when I got to the site the Get Rich Slowly logo on the right kept me reading.

I really liked Learning to Love the Not-So-Big House. I was able to relate.

My husband and I also upgraded and a couple of comments in the article mady my mouth drop, like the unused rooms we pay to furnish, cool and heat. Although we did need more space because baby came along, probably did not need all of the space. Articles like this would keep me much more grounded on any major purchases.

If you are able to keep posting articles like this, it allows the reader to tuck it in to the brain for future reference.

I like GRS. The content is good, guest posts are nice (maybe more frequently would be cool) because they give an alternate perspective on the same topic, which is always good. I like your ad placement and general site design as well, a lot of blogs try to stuff as many ads on the page as possible, but yours are out of the way and blended properly.I also like how many people participate in the comments and that you respond to them.

I subscribe to your site via RSS, so I read a lot but don’t contribute to the comments much (this is probably my 3rd time).

Anyway, I have very little criticism for the site. Overall it meets the goals set forth in both the title and the general tone of the site is extremely consistent.

One thing that hasn’t been mentioned much is preparation for a rainy day. There has been some talk about financial preparedness for emergencies, but what about preparing for long-term survival without income? Or preparing for emergencies that extend beyond financial hardship (e.g.: natural disasters). I realize that it would not normally seem like a topic for a financial blog, but I can speak from experience – having prepared beyond the financial needs of short unemployment, I’ve had opportunity to dip into physical (read: stored) resources that have really saved our financial bacon during long, lean periods.

Sometimes preparing for things moves beyond the financial and I’d like to see a little more about that subject.

I’m new to the blogging world – but your website seems like it would be very helpful to me.

The articles that I have read so far are very practical, easy to apply. And that is what I need.

The one area that I think could be strengthened – the ads that you have at the top of the page seem to blend in with everything else. It makes the site not as easy to navigate. I really have to look for the links that are of interest.

GRS is very enjoyable. I especially appreciate the anecdotes and stories about what’s going on in your life and how that relates to your finances. The layout of your site is excellent.

Hey J.D., I like this idea!

One thing I’d love to see at GRS is a problem solving post, where you answer a procession of personal finance questions from readers with short, pithy slices of wisdom. I’ve seen you do this a number of times with one question but tackling a higher volume in one post could be an interesting experiment .

I like a lot of the articles on your blog, but the post that is speaking to me right now is the latest one: Learning to Love the Not-So-Big House.

I am realizing a little bit the advantages of the smaller homes, although I expect my next one to be a bit bigger than my current one.

It isn’t because I have not given thought to a smaller home. Rather, it is because the home that is going to be built is geared around my family and our future plans.

I’m proud to say that every room in the house has a specific use and that there is as little dead space as possible in there.

There are steps that I am taking in the design of the house to help minimize the maintenance issues. This is mainly in choosing efficient building methods and materials that are easy to keep up.

Keep up the good writing.