The middle of April is a Big Deal in my world.<\/p>\n
The trees have nearly finished blossoming, which means my allergies will soon go away. We’re seeing more of the sun, which means the worst of my seasonal depression is behind me. Today, on the 15th, Get Rich Slowly celebrates its anniversary.<\/p>\n
When I started Get Rich Slowly, I had no idea what it was going to become. I had no grand plan or vision. I just wanted to write about money while accomplishing three goals.<\/p>\n
On 26 April 2005 — a year before I started this blog — I published an article called “Get Rich Slowly!”<\/a> for my personal site. Here’s what I wrote:<\/p>\n Today’s entry is long and boring. It’s all about the keys to wealth, prosperity, and happiness. Over the past few months, I’ve read over a dozen books on personal finance. Recurring themes have become evident.<\/p>\n These books have embarrassingly bad titles, seemingly designed to appeal to the get-rich-quick crowd: The Richest Man in Babylon<\/em>, Your Money or Your Life<\/em>, Rich Dad Poor Dad<\/em>, Think and Grow Rich<\/em>, Wealth Without Risk<\/em>, etc.<\/p>\n Some of the books out there \u2014 most of them? \u2014 really are as bad as their titles. Others, however, offer outstanding, practical advice. The best books seem to have the same goal in mind: not wealth, not riches, but financial independence.<\/p>\n According to Your Money or Your Life<\/em>, which I consider the very best of the financial books I’ve read, “Financial independence is the experience of having enough \u2014 and then some”. More practically, financial independence occurs when your investment income meets or exceeds your monthly expenses. Financial independence is linked to psychological freedom.<\/p>\n How is financial independence achieved? Again, the best books all basically agree. (To some of you, this will be common sense, stuff you’ve known all your life. To others, like me, this kind of thinking is a sort of revelation.)<\/p>\n Here, then, is my personal summary of the collected wisdom found in these books.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n “It’s nearly impossible to get rich quick without luck,” I concluded after summarizing all of these money books. “Getting rich quick is a sucker’s bet. There’s only a slim chance that you’ll have the sort of luck that’s required. You might as well play the lottery.”<\/p>\n Instead, I thought the underlying message of these books was simple: “It is<\/em> possible to get rich slowly, however, with no risk, and with no luck. All that’s required is patience and discipline.”<\/p>\n That original “Get Rich Slowly” article at my personal site proved popular. It went the 2005 version of “viral”, being shared at sites like Boing Boing<\/a>, Lifehacker<\/a>, etc.<\/p>\n A year later, I was still searching for a way to earn money on the side to help me dig out of debt. I decided that maybe I could earn a few bucks by starting a site about saving and investing. I actually thought mine would be the first personal finance blog on the Internet! (Ha — little did I know! There were already dozens — dozens!<\/em> — of other money blogs out there.)<\/p>\n On April 15, 2006, I launched Get Rich Slowly. It was successful from the start. For whatever reason, the stuff I wrote resonated with readers. They shared the site with their friends and family.<\/p>\n Within weeks, I had several hundred readers. Within months, the audience had grown to several thousand. Within two years, more than 500,000 people per month were coming to the site. It was crazy. It was completely unexpected. I was shocked. And grateful.<\/p>\n Those early days of GRS were a hell of a lot of fun. I was figuring this money stuff out in real time, and writing about my successes (and, yes, my failures) as they happened. I did some stupid, stupid stuff — but as time went on, I got better at managing my money.<\/p>\n Needless to say, writing about smart money management every day — for 1000 days — produces a lot of articles! Certain articles stood out as particularly popular — I think because they were particularly helpful. Anyway, here are some highlights from the first three years of the site:<\/p>\n So much<\/em> happened in my life during these years, both good and bad. It seems odd to summarize that entire period in just a few articles, but I don’t want to overwhelm you. (If you want to read more, check out the archives<\/a>.)<\/p>\n While the early, heady years of GRS were carefree and fun, running the site eventually became work. A lot<\/em> of work. Plus, all sorts of stuff was going on behind the scenes in my personal life. My best friend committed suicide. I was unhappy in my marriage. I struggled with my weight. It was all too much.<\/p>\n In early 2009, I decided to listen to the offers from people who wanted to buy Get Rich Slowly. Shortly after the site’s third anniversary, I agreed to sell it<\/a>.<\/p>\n When I sold, I became financially independent. (I was already on a path toward financial independence — or “FI,” as we say — but the sale helped me leap ahead several years.) My plan was simply to walk away and be done with writing about money. Turns out, I couldn’t bring myself to do that.<\/p>\n You see, I love<\/em> the GRS community. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to continue answering emails, sharing reader questions and stories, and documenting what I was learning about money. Instead of walking away, I stuck around for another three years as editor and primary writer.<\/p>\n During that time, we brought in other writers to help me manage the workload. I was always amazed at how each new voice added another dimension to the site. And our content changed in yet another way because I was becoming much more philosophical about money at this time.<\/p>\n I’d always stressed the importance of psychology; but as my financial philosophy matured<\/a>, I became even more convinced that smart money management was all about mindset, not math. The math is easy. It’s the emotional stuff that’s tough. Some of the best articles from this era of GRS really get to the heart of these issues, and I hope that what I learned will be helpful to others, too.<\/p>\n Eventually, after three years of lingering at GRS, I reached the point where I was willing to cut the cord. I gradually reduced my involvement until I was ready to walk away. I eased myself out of the site and into the life I’d been hoping to pursue.<\/p>\n I sold Get Rich Slowly in 2009 but stayed on as editor (and primary writer) for another three years. By mid-2012, it seemed that Quinstreet, the company that had acquired the site, was ready to run the site on its own. Plus, it felt like both the audience and I were both ready for me to leave.<\/p>\n So, I retired. Sort of.<\/p>\n Although I no longer had any active involvement in Get Rich Slowly, I still contributed articles from time to time. Plus, I wrote about money for other outlets.<\/p>\n In 2010, I published Your Money: The Missing Manual<\/em>. (I’m proud of that book but it’s sorely in need of an update.) From 2011 to 2014, I wrote the “Your Money” column for Entrepreneur<\/em> magazine<\/a>. In 2014, I released the Get Rich Slowly course. In 2015, I started a new<\/em> site called Money Boss (which is now a part of GRS). And so on.<\/p>\n Plus, of course, Kim and I embarked on our awesome 15-month tour of the U.S. by RV<\/a>.<\/p>\n I’ll confess: I didn’t pay much attention to Get Rich Slowly after I moved on. I checked in now and then, but mostly I ignored it. Looking through the archives, here are some of the articles that stand out during the Quinstreet years:<\/p>\n During the Quinstreet years, the GRS audience dwindled. This was in part due to the way they managed the site. They had good intentions (and lots of smart people behind the scenes), but they didn’t have the same passion for personal finance that I did. Plus, they tended to make decisions that favored short-term results instead of long-term growth. I can’t fault them for their choices — they did what was right for them — but I’m sad that the community eventually collapsed.<\/p>\n Not all of the collapse was due to blog management, though. Even if I hadn’t sold the site, it likely would have faded eventually, and for a number of reasons: the rise of social media, the “death of blogs”, and increased competition from awesome new sites on a variety of niche subjects.<\/p>\n In 2015, I “unretired” from blogging. I founded Money Boss, a site where I posted long, meaty articles about managing your money as if you were the CFO of your own life. I had fun. The site didn’t grow as quickly as GRS had nine years before, but after eighteen months, the site had acquired several thousand dedicated followers.<\/p>\n Then, in the spring of 2017, Quinstreet approached me. They asked me if I wanted to re-purchase Get Rich Slowly. Looking at the numbers, I realized it probably didn’t make much financial sense to do so — but I didn’t let that dissuade me. In October 2017, I bought Get Rich Slowly<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the eighteen months since my return, I’ve published a lot of articles that I think are especially good. Here are some highlights:<\/p>\n I won’t lie. While I’m glad to be back and I’ve enjoyed the past eighteen months, it’s also been tough. I have lots to say, but I’ve struggled to figure out exactly how to say it. Blogging has changed. Expectations are different. I<\/em> am different than when I started this site.<\/p>\n I’m constantly wrestling with questions like: How often should I write? (Once a week? Three times a week? At random intervals?) Should I share only new stuff? Or should I republish updated material from the archives? In the olden days, I used to share tons of things from other sites. Should I continue to do that? Or should I focus on my own thoughts? How long should my articles be? (A few hundred words? Or…a few thousand?) What topics should I cover?<\/p>\n My publication pattern for the past year has been…well, irregular. There are some months where I write and publish a ton, both from myself and others. There are other months — like this one — during which I publish little. And my articles are all over the place.<\/p>\n I’m not worried, though. I know I’ll figure things out. In the meantime, I’m having fun. I hope that you<\/em> are having fun too. And, as always, if you have any suggestions and\/or requests for things you’d like to see around here, please let me know. I want GRS to be a useful resource for you — for all of you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The middle of April is a Big Deal in my world.<\/p>\n The trees have nearly finished blossoming, which means my allergies will soon go away. We’re seeing more of the sun, which means the worst of my seasonal depression is behind me. Today, on the 15th, Get Rich Slowly celebrates its anniversary.<\/p>\n When I started Get Rich Slowly, I had no idea what it was going to become. I had no grand plan or vision. I just wanted to write about money while accomplishing three goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3287,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[509],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236960"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236960\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/span>Get Rich Slowly 1.0<\/span><\/h2>\n
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<\/span>Get Rich Slowly 2.0<\/span><\/h2>\n
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<\/span>The Quinstreet Years<\/span><\/h2>\n
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<\/span>Get Rich Slowly 3.0<\/span><\/h2>\n
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In the Beginning<\/h2>\n