On Credibility And Objectivity As A Blogger

A quick note on this blog:

I’m not in it for the money.

Seriously. I think a lot of financial bloggers have come to see their blogs as a side hustle that will help them climb to an early retirement, financial independence or wealth. But that’s usually not why they went into blogging.

Reading most blogs from FinTwit, the FIRE community and others, I feel that most bloggers were mission-oriented when they set out. They want to help others and to hold themselves accountable. Which is wonderful – human altruism at work.

Where they often go wrong is in buried in their affinity for affiliate links and sponsored content and advertisements, all ways to wring some much-desired revenue from all of the time and effort they pour into their blogs.

As they move from altruistic mission to full-blown side hustle,  more often than not their blogs experience the dilution of content and the recycling and re-hashing of posts both on their blogs and on social media.

Readers are getting more to read and look at, but not necessarily more that will help them on their financial and personal journeys. Not only that, but it becomes difficult to distinguish what is good, unbiased advice from what may be written with sponsors and advertisers in mind.

The thing is, bloggers are not formally journalists. They don't have to try to be objective - and that's kind of the appeal. In a blog we can write about our personal thoughts and feelings. It's also a risk for a professional journalist to write such a blog, as it can damage our readers' perceptions of our own fairness and objectivity. I am a professional journalist, so I will endeavor to both reveal my personal thoughts AND to remain fair and objective at the same time.

Wish me luck.

I’ll take a sentence or two to state this doesn’t go for every blogger who allows affiliate links and sponsored content on their pages – but it is becoming a problem in the blogosphere. Readers interested in pursuing better financial lives have a right to expect credible content.

So for the time being, I will not be accepting any affiliate links on tis blog and there will not be sponsored content here. I will stay on-topic. As I am only an occasional blogger, I do not want to go through the efforts to seriously monetize my work here. I will likely add on Google AdSense over time, but that’s it.

Instead, I will continue using this blog to share what I am learning about personal finance, saving, investing, the financial industry and life-planning here and to hold myself accountable on my own journey. My content will, for the foreseeable future, not be diluted by advertisements and sponsors and affiliates.

You’ll get the genuine me and my honest thoughts. That’s my promise. Thank you for taking the time to click and read.