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I often ponder which direction I should take Get Rich Slowly. Build the site? Write a book? Convince that other J.D. Roth to develop a television show around the premise?
My latest harebrained idea (which I’m only sharing because I’ve dismissed it) is to start a chain of Get Rich Slowly stores. I’d stock them with great personal finance books, magazines, and software, employ smart people who want to help others succeed at personal finance, and offer seminars on financial topics. The biggest problem? How to keep such a place from losing money!
Here are some recent articles with sensible ideas about personal finance:
Does money follow passion? That’s the question that Chris from The Art of Non-Conformity posed recently to a group of bloggers. “Not necessarily,” is the consensus. I said: “I think it’s more apt to say that happiness is related to doing what you love.” It’s more important to be happy than it is to be rich.
At Wise Bread, Philip Brewer has been churning out one great article after another lately. His piece on finding work worth doing relates to the post on money and passion I just mentioned. But I think his article on budgeting in a time of inflation is more practical. “The number one tool for dealing with inflation,” he writes, “is to have a contingency plan in your budget.” (If you’re not worried about inflation, you should be.)
Finally, Betsy sent me an article from Business Week that profiles a terrific mash-up that targets people just like me. Daniel H. Pink (author of Free Agent Nation) has written a comic book called The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need. Mixing personal finance and comics? Brilliant! Maybe that’s the direction I should take Get Rich Slowly…
This article is about Spare Change Monday, 5th May 2008 (by J.D. Roth)
May 5th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Just a thought :
“It’s more important to be happy than it is to be rich.”
I am from India and I do know what it means to have money than you guys out there in US. I have seen people struggle here just to earn 2 to 3 dollars a day working for more than 12 hours.. I know its hard but still people do it. Sometimes I feel it is better to be rich than being happy seeing the people struggle for money. You know you can say that statement only when you are rich.
If you are poor, you yearn for food and nothing else and at that time all that matters is just being rich and not about being happy (personal experience as well). After you are rich you tend to say that happiness is more important since money starts controlling you and not the other way around.
Saravanan
May 6th, 2008 at 12:06 am
Build the site AND write the book (the TV show will probably follow, without you needing to push it) … retail stores = infrastructure = risk (and, probably, LOSS).
This is the approach that I am taking with my new site ( 7m7y.com ) … I going to ‘coach 7 people to become Millionaires over the next 7 years and write a book (or two) about their experiences along the way … a documentary would be great, but costly.
Good Luck with yours! AJC.
May 6th, 2008 at 1:58 am
I think you should build the site and the rest will follow. You know, if it is not broken, why try to fix it. Maybe start to go slowly into other directions if that is where you’re heart is. By going slow, you’ll be able to see what you really want.
Rosemary
http://her-home-blog.com
May 6th, 2008 at 2:46 am
I enjoy reading GRS regularly and would definitely buy my personal finance books or resources through the site if
that was available (or of course just click through your affiliate links).
I’m not sure if retail shops would work, after all I imagine that your readership is pretty scattered around
the world (just a guess, I’m sure that you have the stats).
Do you think there is a market to offer personal advice or coaching at some stage? The service could be offered
online, but you would need to be careful about the advisors that you hire. Also, I
suspect that most of your readers are already on the path to sorting out their finances themselves (after all, they are reading the
site).
Maybe some occasional YouTube releases could test the waters for how popular a TV show would be. I for one would
definitely be keen to view any additional content you release.
May 6th, 2008 at 3:21 am
Thanks for the kind words, and the links!
May 6th, 2008 at 3:53 am
When I was pondering my future many years ago, I tried to make a strategic decision to work in a field that I felt was worthwhile (healthcare, without having to go through college again to retrain), in a position which would enable to me earn enough to support a family. So far it is working. I get the best of both worlds.
May 6th, 2008 at 7:19 am
Maybe you could open an online Get Rich Slowly store? It would be less overhead than a regular store, and we’d all have access to the products, no matter where we live.
Best of luck however you decide to expand!
May 6th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
J.D., it should be fairly straightforward for you to start monetizing your “expertise”. You have 56000+ subscribers after all!
If you haven’t heard of teachingsells.com, I’d highly recommend you look into it.
May 6th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
I have taught entrepreneurship at the graduate level to people in a not-for-profit field.
I like the idea of click-thru purchasing a lot, even just doing the Amazon referral thing until you see what the market is.
I don’t like the idea of brick and mortar at all. Spend, spend, spend on lotsa “gotta haves”. Puts you back where you started, only you will be going in the hole for business rather than personal items.
If frugality is important for individuals, it is even more important for bootstrapping a business.
May 6th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
“Convince that other J.D. Roth to develop a television show around the premise?”
Dude, thank you for the funniest thing I’ve read in a long time!
May 6th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
I think it’s great and important to have a job you enjoy, if not love, but I just have to call poppycock on all the studies relating job enjoyment to general happiness. Do you live to work or work to live?
May 6th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Hi J.D.,
Since you’ve talked about grocery shopping & inflation in the past, I figured you might enjoy seeing my newspaper’s story on one family’s shopping experience–and the subsequent attacking comments about the not-so-frugal mom.
http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Headlines/frtHEAD01FOOD050608.htm
May 7th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Hey JD … if you are looking for inspiration, how about making good on the financial calculators, etc. on the home page? I suspect that you are simply throwing away a lot of traffic because those other ideas are a good fit for what you’ve got here.
That said, it sounds like you need a break. Write a few articles ahead. Time them for every other day. Recharge. (I’m headed for Aruba in a couple weeks … wanna meet for dinner?) We’ll see you in a couple weeks.
(Set up automatic watering and let the garden go. One good day of weeding and you’ll be back on top of it.)