Looking to Start a Finance Blog? Here's My Experience after a Year

I meant to pen this article way back in August 2021 as it will mark my 1 year anniversary of blogging and would be a good milestone to look back on. Alas, work matters got in the way and I put it off till now.

The idea was first conceived back in 2018 when I found myself enjoying the content of local financial/lifestyle bloggers in this space. Some of them are still blogging till date (TurtleInvestor, 15HWW, HeartlandBoy, SGYoungInvestment, 3Fsetc), some have taken an indefinite hiatus (CheerfulEgg) and some have gone onto a total different path from when I started following them (GMGH).

Like the blogs I follow, I thought it would be great to start a small journal or a personal blog charting my financial/life updates as I navigate my way through adulthood.

2019 was a whirlwind period for me where I took on more job responsibilities and shed my new graduate image - the process was painful at times but ultimately, hard work prevails and I made it to the next stage of my corporate life.

Due to the lack of time, I put off this idea till mid 2020 when the circuit breaker in Singapore gave me a lot of personal time and finally some headspace to kickstart my "side hustle."

And boy, what a journey it has been.

In July 2020, I kicked off with my first post. There were barely any viewers and I was not keen to self promote it via my social media handlers - due to privacy reasons.

I do believe that staying private and away from revealing my identity has allowed me to form deeper connections with my readers (some of whom often share their journeys with me via email, please feel free to do so too here).

By staying private, I do not have to worry about what I am writing or if my thoughts would get me into trouble one fine day with my day job employers etc.

Some of the ways in which I built up hype and word of mouth was through getting my blog added into sginvestbloggersand TheFinanceSG (shoutout to Royston and Derek for their excellent work in helping consolidate a great place for sg finance bloggers to unite).

By a stroke of luck, I remember my blog hitting crazy views in the CNY period during 2021 when my Seedly article was featured widely on their social media. The article chronicles my GameStop experience and it stuck a chord with the masses at that point in time.

From then on, I was hitting a steady stream of readers and these readers have supported and followed my journey since. Massive thank you to all of you and I hope you keep coming back to this blog to enjoy my articles.

Another interesting way in which readers have found my blog was through Telegram investing/personal finance groups, occasionally I do get readers who post a link to my article onto these groups and I would get a sudden influx of viewers then.

That has helped greatly too so please kindly share my article if you think it has helped you and will help others too!

In terms of finances and upkeep for this blog, I use BlueHost which was recommended from various other bloggers and so far it has been a good experience with them. The upkeep cost for this site (inclusive of domain name, theme purchase, website hosting etc) came up to around $250 odd.

The site is littered with Google Ads as I needed to find a way to defray those costs (so if you are feeling generous, please do click on them from time to time) but to be honest, if I was relying on Google Ads along, it will not be sufficient to sustain this blog.

There were opportunities to earn extra income too from affiliates and referrals. That has actually been the main income source for this blog. However, to make it clear - I never ever refer/recommend a product which I do not believe in or use.

I started this blog with the intention of being true to my readers and being a reflection of my personal finance journey. It is still the case and will always be the case. So rest assured that whenever I recommend something, I have my own skin in the game and also use it myself.

It has been a roller coaster journey I would say, there were periods where I was so excited to write an article every few days to periods where I was so drained out and blogging was the last thing on my mind.

Going forward, I would like to blog more consistently. I see this platform as an outlet for me to gather and realign my thoughts away from my corporate life.

The ultimate goal would be to have this treasure trove generating enough income to defray some of my personal expenses. After all, being a personal finance blog, it would make sense no?

My only main gripe is that I should have started documenting my journey the moment I entered the workforce but anyhow, no time for regrets and every action along the way has paved this journey for me today.

Going forward, I do see big life milestones popping up around the corner (marriage/house/kids etc) so do drop in if you would like to continue reading/learning from my experiences.

In time to come and 25 years down the future, I would like to look back and see what the 2020s version of me was thinking in terms of his financial journey and how it has all worked out eventually (hopefully).

If you have read on to the end and is wondering if it is worth your while to start a financial blog - I would say go do it!

However, if you are looking to get rich from blogging then that's not a good idea. But, if you are looking for a good outlet to make like minded friends and also to pen down your thoughts and reflection while going through your most formative years then I'd say go do it!

Good luck and enjoy your adventure, for my readers out there, a big THANK YOU and I hope you continue to read and share my experiences with me!