Interview with Jonathan of My Money Blog

This is the 14th in a series of interviews HelpYourMoney.com is doing of other personal finance bloggers.

An Interview with Jonathan of the My Money Blog:

1. First, can you please introduce yourself and tell us why your started your personal finance blog?

My name is Jonathan, and I started my blog mainly because I was out of college, making some decent money, and I had no idea what to do with it.

I had a bunch of cash, some poorly-performing mutual funds, and a 8-year old used car. I could either have blown it on a new BMW and a nice apartment, or learned to save for the future and retire early. I chose the latter!

2. Do you feel you are on the right track to reaching your financial goals and what are they?

I do. My midterm goal is to save up about $100,000 to put towards a down payment on an expensive house on the West Coast.

My longterm goal is to be able to retire by 55. By my rough calculations, to do this I need to have a net worth of $1,000,000 by age 45.

3. Do you work in the financial industry?

Nope.

4. If you had to recommend just one financial related book, what would it be?

Just one? How about “A Random Walk Down Wall Street” by Malkiel. Followed closely by “Four Pillars of Investing” by Bernstein.

5. If you had to recommend just one financial related magazine, what would it be?

I personally think most financial magazines are too fluffy, although I do subscribe to SmartMoney and Kiplinger’s. If I had to pick one, I would choose the Economist. But I’m too cheap to buy it myself…

6. If you had to recommend just one or two financial related websites (besides your own and that is not a blog), what would it be?

Diehards.org and Morningstar.com.

7. What is one of the WORST financial related decisions you ever made?

Not contributing to my IRA.

8. What is one of the BEST financial related decisions you ever made?

Starting this blog and learning about investing.

9. Do You Trade Individual Stocks and If so recommend your favorite 3 to 5 picks?

I do own some individual stocks, but do not trade at this time.

10. If you could give our readers just one financial related tip, what would it be?

Learn. Read. Once you realize the power of making money work for you, instead of trading it for stuff you don’t need, you won’t ever go back.

11. Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers?

Thanks Tim for the interview opportunity, and thanks to my readers.

It’s totally cheesy, but really they have helped me to move towards my own financial freedom in multiple ways, and I can only hope I helped a tiny bit in moving them towards theirs.

>> Visit Jonathan’s My Money Blog.