Know Your Blogger Series

EAT Money

I started my blog because I thought it would be a fun project and would allow me to get more involved in the personal finance community.
My purpose is to give people the freedom that I have achieved! I have SO FAR to go on my journey but I’m confident I’ll get there. To do this I show people what I’ve done and how they could think about incorporating it into their life.
Check out our Q&A with EAT Money here.

Come read about how you can earn, automate, and track your money for financial success with EAT Money.

Each week at Personal Finance Blogs, we publish interviews from amazing bloggers from the personal finance space. This week, we are featuring the blog, EAT Money.
During these weekly features, we are hoping to provide a way for you to interact and learn more about different blogs in the personal finance space.
Below, you can read more about the story behind EAT Money, learn about the author, and learn personal finance tips from EAT Money to help you improve your financial situation.
A big thanks for EAT Money for this interview! Now, we will turn it over to the author for this interview.

Tell us about EAT Money

I started my blog because I thought it would be a fun project and would allow me to get more involved in the personal finance community. I started reading dozens of blogs when I graduated college in 2011, but had stayed mostly silent since then.

The “EAT” in EAT money stands for Earn, Automate and Track. Earning more at my 9-5, automating my life and tracking my expenses is what has allowed me to have the financial success I’ve had.

My purpose is to give people the freedom that I have achieved! I have SO FAR to go on my journey but I’m confident I’ll get there. To do this I show people what I’ve done and how they could think about incorporating it into their life. I don’t save 80% of my income and I don’t plan on retiring when I’m 35. I just want to have a good financial cushion and not have to worry about my finances.

What makes you and your blog unique?

I think its really the focus on earning more at your day job and budgeting. A lot of blogs talk about side hustles, retirement accounts and taxes. Those are all important things.

My site focuses on being an outstanding employee and tracking your money. If you do those long enough the gap between your income and expenses will grow each year. It takes hard work and it takes patience but I truly believe it can work for anyone!

What does “being good with your personal finances” mean to you?

Being good with your personal finances means having a:

Firm foundation on your income
Understanding where you spend your money
Having a financial plan, however simple, to get you where you want to go

I believe that with those pillars put in place it really will make everything else in life easier. There are certainly things you can do past those things but they are mostly building off of those three key items.

It certainly takes some work to get there but once you are it doesn’t take a lot of work to maintain.

What are some habits you practice to keep your personal finances in order?

I’m a strong believer in habits and how they can have out-sized impacts on your life (either positive or negative). I actively track my habits and work to get better each day. Like any walk of life, your finances can benefit from positive habits.

The first habit that I started in 2011 was tracking every expense. My systems and methods have changed along the way but I’ve always done it. This has given me a crystal clear picture of what my family spends our money on and how that has changed over time.

The next habit is putting together a monthly budget. I’m not someone that follows their budget to the dime. I use my budget to really understand what expenses are on the horizon this upcoming month and what we may want to try and hold off on. I try to avoid big spikes in spending as that tends to create bad habits.

The last habit that I’d like to mention is one that I have cultivated that helps me in every facet of life. I’m an avid learner. Starting in 2012 I’ve tracked every book I read and have read (or listened too) as many as 40 in a year. Being a learning machine is a competitive advantage no matter what you are doing.

What are your three articles people should read to get to know you and your message better on your site?

My posts tend to fall in one of three categories. I’ll select one from each category:

I write about earning more money. A great way to do that is with a graduate degree. I wrote a post about is an MBA worth it?

The next major area I talk about is budgeting. I have hit on this from several different angles but did write a post on the different types of budgets.

Lastly, I try to write periodically on mindset/motivation and how it can be beneficial. With that in mind, I wrote a piece on how your actions should match your ambition.

For someone looking to improve their financial situation, what’s your best advice?

In the short term, you should focus on tracking and understanding your expenses.

This will allow you to ensure your spending aligns with your priorities. For instance, if cars don’t matter to you a whole lot but you have a $400 car payment that may be something to rethink. Doing this in the short term will allow you to make fairly quick gains.

In the medium term, I’d start reading books, blogs and listening to podcasts associated with personal finance.

This education is the single most important factor for your long term success.

In the long term, I’d focus on optimizing your income.

Are you being the best employee you can? Would getting a certification or degree give your income a jump? This will take extreme patience but can have huge dividends on your long term success.

What’s an area of your life which has benefited from improving your personal finances? Have there been any areas of your life which have suffered?

Over time I’d say every area of my life has improved because I continue to get a stronger financial foundation under me. Frankly, just not having the stress of living paycheck to paycheck and knowing we can handle the unknowns that will pop up is key.

I’m very numbers & plan based while my wife is not. Early in our marriage we had several disagreements (still do occasionally) about why we need to watch our spending so closely. While having a partner that is the opposite of you is great in several regards, when it comes to budgeting it gets a little trickier.

In your opinion, what should you do first? Pay down debt, or invest?

I believe its very situation dependent. To me the most important metric is what percentage of your take home pay is going towards debt payments. I myself haven’t paid off all my student loans because its a very small percentage of my income and I’d rather have the cash in the bank.

In your opinion, what’s better? Focusing on increasing your income, or focusing on decreasing your expenses?

In the short term, I believe decreasing expenses via tracking every expense is the way to go. You can see immediate gains in the gap between income and expenses.

On the other hand, its very hard to pinch pennies on your way to a high net worth. After you have your spending under control you need to focus on raising your income WHILE NOT raising your lifestyle to match these raises.

While the level of your incomes and expenses is important the most important metric to track is the gap between the two. It needs to keep growing over time!

If you received a $5,000,000 windfall tomorrow, what would you do with the money?

The first thing I would do is let it sit in the bank for 6 months while I put together a plan. While that may not be the most optimized solution in the short term, I’d rather optimize for the longer term (if you haven’t picked up on it yet this is how I live my life: long term thinking and optimization).

I’d imagine some of my first actions after the plan is put together would be:

Paying off all my debt
Giving some of it away/setting up a non-profit
Maxing out all possible retirement accounts

I think the final big step would be to take a significant chunk of it and put it into index funds at a relatively conservative allocation. Those monies would be for future generations most likely in the form of a specific sum of money to either start a business or go to college.

Why do you believe learning about money and caring about personal finance is important?

The only reason that matters is because money gives you freedom. The more discipline you have in any area of life (physical, financial, or emotional fitness), the more freedom you have.

I know people that live paycheck to paycheck delay getting much needed healthcare and aren’t saving adequately for their future because they haven’t learned about personal finance and put together a plan.

Your happiness, the happiness of your partner and your family will all go up as you put together a financial foundation.

How You Can Contact EAT Money for More Information

You can learn more about EAT Money at http://www.eat.money/ and follow them on Twitter at @eatmoneyblog.

Thank you for reading this interview, and thank you, EAT Money, for providing us with some great personal finance tips!