This year has been an interesting one, and since I’ve been pretty sporadic with my posting as of late, I thought a little update about the blog was warranted.
I’ve been blogging for a long time now. I started this blog in 2016, which means I’ve seen the internet landscape change a lot over these past 8 years. Back in 2016, when I first started, blogging was about creating and being a part of a community. Most of the blogs I read were built around personalities – people just writing about interesting things and sharing their thoughts about money and financial independence. Community building sites like Rockstar Finance and events like FinCon helped to further that sense of community. It was awesome.
And that’s how my blog started out. I wrote about things that I thought were interesting, either something weird I was doing or some interesting thought I had about money or financial independence. For example, back in those early days, I wrote about interesting things I was doing – things like selling stuff I found in the trash or Airbnbing a room in my house. Sometimes, I wrote about general financial topics too – mainly to share things I was learning about as I did it (like opening my Solo 401k or refinancing my student loans). Other times, I wrote about interesting thoughts I had, like a concept I called the Reverse Latte Factor.
The thing is, when you write online, you need a way for people to find you. When I started blogging, you didn’t necessarily have to rely on Google to get people to your blog. There was a community that wanted to share good work, so I wrote stuff that I thought was good, and if I got lucky and people thought it was good, they’d share it on their blogs or on Twitter or Facebook.
A site like Rockstar Finance, for example, could put you on the map. If J. Money was cool enough to put a blog post of yours up there, you’d get thousands in a few days. The traffic wouldn’t stick around forever, but it did mean that a bunch of people would read your blog and maybe some of them would stick around. Other bloggers with big followings would often share good posts on their sites (Physician On Fire was a good example of someone sharing good blog posts each week).
If you got enough people finding your stuff, you could eventually get a loyal audience of readers Some news organizations might even hit you up and feature you. That exposure might even turn into a book deal. I never did get to that level, but I did get to a decent enough point that I was able to take a chance on this blog and quit my job. I wasn’t killing it by any means, but I was earning enough income from ads and affiliates that I felt I could make a go of it. I have to also admit that I had a spouse who had a good job and was earning a ton of money, so the risk I was taking in quitting my job and going off on my own was small.
So, for a while, that’s how I blogged. I wrote about stuff I wanted to write about. I got a decent amount of Google traffic too, mainly around some bank account bonus things and around the Netspend 5% interest accounts that were a big deal for a while.
The Move To SEO
In the past few years, the landscape of blogging has changed dramatically. The community around blogging isn’t what it used to be. Rockstar Finance was sold, then eventually went defunct. Other bloggers sold their sites too or stopped blogging. These days, there aren’t many bloggers left from my cohort (either they stopped blogging, sold their sites, or got big enough that they were able to transition into something else).
The financial independence community definitely still exists. ChooseFI focuses a lot on the community aspect. CampFI holds multiple weekend retreats every year throughout the country. And every year, Diania Merriman puts together the EconoMe conference, which is the largest financial independence conference in the country. If you’ve never been to a CampFI or to EconoMe, I highly recommend attending them.
But for the blog community, it seems like much of it has moved elsewhere, finding its way to social media sites like Facebook and Reddit, or else pivoting over to long-form or short-form video content on YouTube and Tik Tok.
I ended up pivoting the blog to SEO posts over the past few years so I could generate traffic, mainly writing informational SEO posts on DoorDash and Uber Eats. For several years, I was doing very well with this. Indeed, the last few years were the highest revenue years I’ve ever had on this blog. Writing random SEO posts isn’t the most fun thing to do, but it did generate traffic and, in turn, generated revenue for me.
But relying on Google also means you’re at the whims of whatever Google does. And this past year seems like the biggest sea change yet when it comes to getting Google search traffic. Google made some major updates to their search algorithm in late 2023, then did some more updates in early 2024. These updates devasted a lot of small publishers like myself. Looking at the data, you can tell that some blogs are probably finished and won’t ever be able to make it back – at least not without Google making some big algorithm changes again.
This blog got hit too by the Google updates, though not in as devastating a fashion as some blogs. Fortunately, it seems like things have stabilized now, but there’s definitely a new normal now. So with the Google algorithm changes, it means another pivot is probably in order.
So What’s The Plan With The Blog?
As you can tell, I haven’t been as consistent as I’d like to be. The Side Hustle Reports, for example, used to be published every month. I’ve fallen behind on these (but I’m hoping to catch back up). So, what is the plan going forward?
1. I’m Still Trying To Blog As Often As I Can
First, I’m still trying to blog as often as I can. My main issue is a lack of time and a bit of a lack of motivation.
On the time front, life is busy with two young kids. My house is a mess and I’m exhausted at the end of the day. This is something that isn’t going to change, so I’ve got to work with the time I have. As a side note, I have no idea how I would have been able to balance young children if I was still working as a lawyer.
On the motivation front, I’ve written a lot of stuff over these 8 years and while I’m definitely not out of things to write about, I have covered a lot of topics already or other people have covered topics I’d like to write about.
As a last thought, I’m also pretty much fully domesticated now. With two young children to care for, my world is pretty normal now. The only weird thing I do these days is bike everywhere with my kids. That’s a topic I will continue to write about and if I can convince even a few people to see biking as a real mode of transportation, I’ll see that as a win. So I guess you’ll probably continue to see more bike content, as that’s pretty much the only weird thing I do. And to any young people that are reading this now, do the weird things now, because as you get older, it becomes much harder to do weird things.
2. I’m Going To Go Back To More “Thinking Man’s Posts”
My second plan for this blog is to go back to writing more of what I call, “thinking man’s posts.” I’ve always had the most fun writing these types of posts, but the main issue with writing them is that they never had much SEO value (i.e. there’s no good way for anyone to find them on Google). But, with Google pretty much not showing a lot of SEO content written by smaller bloggers anymore, I don’t feel like I need to focus on SEO that much anymore
One strategy I might do is to start cross-posting the stuff I write here onto Medium. As a writing platform, Medium has always been intriguing to me because you can earn income from your writing without having to focus on SEO at all. Medium is a discovery platform (think of it like a YouTube for writing), so the stuff you write has a way to be found by people even if no one is searching for that type of post. In the past, I didn’t want to cross-post to Medium for fear it might impact the SEO on my blog, but now, maybe it doesn’t matter. Even now, I still earn a few cents every month from posts I put on Medium over 2 years ago, so maybe if I consistently put content up there, I’ll be able to earn something. I don’t know – I guess we’ll see.
I know some people also write on Substack, which I don’t know anything about. Again, this might be something I need to look into.
3. I’m Doing YouTube Content Also (But It’s Not Related To This Blog)
Finally, I’m spending more time creating content for my YouTube channel. I started this channel a few years ago to film myself biking around delivering food on my ebikes, but was never consistent with it. This year, I started doing a lot of short-form YouTube content (YouTube Shorts) and it’s done well, increasing myself from under 500 subscribers to around 5,000 subscribers in about 6 months. Maybe in another 6 months, I can get it up to 10,000 subscribers.
This is an ebike and food delivery-related channel, so it’s not directly related to personal finance or financial independence, which means many of you reading this might not care about it at all. My main issue with focusing on Financial Independence on YouTube is that the content mainly involves sitting and talking face-to-face with a camera and that is something I don’t want to do. But, if you do want to look at my YouTube channel, take a look and see if it’s interesting to you at all.
So, that’s sort of what’s going to be happening. I’ll write more random posts about things I think are interesting. A lot of it may be on ebike things because that’s sort of where my passion lies when it comes to financial independence. I think a lot of people underrate how valuable ebikes can be from a financial independence standpoint and I don’t see that many people talk about it. Plus, if ebikes help address climate change and create safer, more walkable cities, that’s a bonus for everyone.
Anyway, this is a bit of a rambling post, but I wanted to share that I’m still here and I’m still going to be blogging. There might be some more pivoting as the landscape of the internet changes, but for now, the plan is to write posts about interesting topics, to see if cross-posting to Medium works out at all, and to keep creating content for my YouTube channel. Thanks for reading.
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More Recommended Ebike/Scooters
Check out these other ebikes and scooters I've reviewed:
- Urban Arrow Ebike – Last year, I made one of the largest purchases I’ve ever made – I bought a $9,000 electric cargo bike from Urban Arrow. In my Urban Arrow review, I will discuss what it is and why I decided to buy this bike, as well as discuss how impactful a bike like this can be on your journey to financial independence.
- Troxus Explorer Step-Thru Ebike – The Troxus Explorer Step-Thru is a fat-tire ebike that I’ve had the pleasure of riding for a while now. It has amazing power, great looks, and awesome range. If you’re looking for a great fat-tire ebike that offers a lot for the price, the Troxus Explorer Step-Thru is definitely one for you to consider. Check out my Troxus Explorer Step-Thru Review.
- Hovsco HovBeta Ebike – The HovBeta is a folding ebike with great specs and a lot of interesting features, and importantly, it’s sold at a good price point. I’ve had a blast commuting with it and using it to do deliveries with DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub. Check out my Hovsco HovBeta Ebike Review.
- Vanpowers Manidae Ebike – The Vanpowers Manidae is a fat tire ebike that I’ve been riding as my primary winter commuting bike and have also been using it to do food delivery with apps like DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub. After clocking in a decent number of miles with this ebike, I wanted to write a post sharing what my experience with the Vanpowers Manidae ebike has been like. Check out my Vanpowers Manidae Review.
- Sohamo S3 Step-Thru Folding EBike Review – A Great Value Folding Ebike – The Sohamo S3 Step-Thru Folding Ebike is an entry-level folding ebike that offers a lot of value for the price point. I’ve been riding the Sohamo S3 for a while now, putting the bike through its paces, and I have to say, this bike has exceeded all of my expectations. Check out my Sohamo Review.
- KBO Flip Ebike – The KBO Flip is an excellent bike. I’ve had a great time riding it and think it’s a versatile bike that can be used for a lot of purposes and can fit a variety of lifestyles. It’s worked out great for me as a general commuter bike and as a food delivery bike. Check out my KBO Flip Review.
- Hiboy P7 Commuter Ebike – The Hiboy P7 is an excellent electric commuter bike that’s offered at an affordable price point. The range and speed of this bike are both very good, so you won’t have any trouble getting anywhere you need to go with it. As a food delivery vehicle, this is also good – with how much range it offers, you’ll be able to work all day on a single charge. Check out my Hiboy P7 Commuter Electric Bike Review.
- Himiway Escape Ebike – The Himiway Escape is an interesting bike for anyone looking for a moped-style ebike. If you’re a gig economy worker, the Himiway Escape is particularly interesting and it’s possible to think of it as an investment, especially if you can opt to do deliveries with the Himiway versus using a car. It’s not cheap, but you can definitely make your money back when you compare the mileage you’ll put on your car versus using an ebike. Check out my Himiway Escape Bike Review.
- Espin Sport Ebike – The Espin Sport is a good ebike for someone who is looking for an ebike that feels and rides more like a regular bike. There are many ebikes that are really only bikes in name. In reality, they’re basically electric mopeds. The Espin Sport, by contrast, is a bike you could probably ride without the battery and you’d feel like you’re just riding a regular bike. Check out my Espin Sport Review.
- Varla Eagle One Scooter – The Varla Eagle One is an excellent scooter that can make sense for a lot of people. It can work as a primary mode of transportation. You can use it to work on gig economy apps like DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub. And it can also be a recreational vehicle if you’d prefer to use it for that. Check out my Varla Eagle One Review.
- Varla Falcon Scooter – The Varla Falcon is an excellent scooter that offers a good amount of power at a lower price point compared to more powerful scooters. It’s not exactly an entry-level scooter, nor is it a high-powered scooter. I think it fits somewhere in-between those two categories – an intermediate scooter if I had to give it a category. Check out my Varla Falcon Review.
- Hiboy S2 Scooter – The Hiboy S2 is an excellent entry-level commuter scooter that's perfect for someone looking to save some money in transportation costs and improve their commute. Check out my Hiboy S2 Review.
- Hiboy S2R Scooter – The Hiboy S2R is one of the more interesting electric scooters I’ve been able to test out. It’s not a high-powered scooter, but for an everyday transport option, it’s very useful, especially given some of the unique features that it has. Indeed, for the price, the Hiboy S2R might be the best value scooter I’ve used. Check out my Hiboy S2R Review.
- Fucare H3 Scooter – The Fucare H3 is a fun scooter and I’ve enjoyed testing it out. For a daily commuter or quick trips or errands, the Fucare H3 is probably the scooter I’ll use. It’s portable and easy to maneuver, so it’s just easier to take on the road when I need it. Check out my Fucare H3 Scooter Review.
More Recommended Investing App Bonuses
For additional investing app bonuses, be sure to check out the ones below:
- M1 Finance ($100) – This is a great robo-advisor that has no fees and allows you to create a customized portfolio based on your risk tolerance. You also get $100 for opening an account. Check out my M1 Finance Referral Bonus – Step-By-Step Guide.
- SoFi Invest ($25) – SoFi Invest is an easy brokerage account bonus that you can earn with just a few minutes of work. Use my SoFi Invest referral link, fund your SoFi Invest brokerage account with just $10 and you’ll get $25 of free stock. I also have a step-by-step guide for the SoFi Invest referral bonus.
- Webull (20 free stock shares) – Webull's current promotion gives you 20 free shares valued between $3-$3,000 each if you open an account using my referral link. Here’s a guide I wrote about how to earn your free shares using Webull.
- Moomoo (15 free stocks) – Moomoo is a free investing app currently offering 2 different referral bonuses if you open an account using a referral link. Read my Moomoo referral bonus guide for more information.
- Robinhood (1 free stock) – Robinhood gives you a free stock valued between $2.50-$225 if you open an account using my referral link.
- Public (1 free stock) - Public gives you a free stock valued between $3-$70 if you open an account using my referral link.
More Recommended Bank Account Bonuses
If you’re looking for more easy bank bonuses, check out the below options. These bonuses are all easy to earn and have no fees or minimum balance requirements to worry about.
- Upgrade ($200) – Upgrade is a free checking account that’s currently offering a $200 referral bonus if you open an account and complete a direct deposit. These bonus terms are easy to meet, so it’s well worth doing this bonus as soon as you can. Here’s a post I wrote with more details: Upgrade $200 Referral Bonus – Step By Step Directions.
- Ally Bank ($100) – Of all the banks out there, Ally is, without a doubt, my favorite. At the moment, Ally is offering $100 to customers who open an eligible Ally account and meet the requirements. Here are the step-by-step directions to earn your Ally Bank referral bonus.
- Fairwinds Credit Union ($175) – Fairwinds Credit Union is offering a referral bonus for users that sign up using a referral link. Fairwinds has no fees or minimum balance, so this is a particularly easy bonus to earn. Since this is a smaller credit union, my gut instinct tells me this offer won’t be around long, so if you’re in a position to meet the bonus requirements, grab this bonus before it’s gone. Here is my step-by-step guide on how to earn your Fairwinds Credit Union bonus.
- Chime ($100) - Chime is a free bank account that offers a referral bonus if you use a referral link and complete a direct deposit of $200 or more. In practice, any ACH transfer into this account triggers the bonus. This bonus is easy to earn and posts instantly, so you’ll know if you met the requirements as soon as you move money into the account. I wrote a step-by-step guide on how to earn your Chime referral bonus that I recommend you check out.
- US Bank Business ($800) – This is a fairly easy bank bonus to earn, since there are no direct deposit requirements. In addition, you can open the Silver Business Checking account, which comes with no monthly fees. Check out how to earn this big bonus here.
- GO2Bank ($50) - GO2Bank is an easy bank bonus that I recommend people take advantage of if they have an easy way of meeting the direct deposit requirement. I like that it’s easy to open the account and that the bonus pays out quickly. Check out my step-by-step guide on how to earn your GO2Bank $50 referral bonus.
- Current ($50) – Current is a free fintech bank that’s offering new users a $50 referral bonus after signing up for an account using a referral link. Current is an easy bonus to earn and also gives you access to three savings accounts that pay you 4% interest on up to $2,000. That means you can put away up to $6,000 earning 4% interest. That’s very good and makes Current an account I recommend to everyone. Check out my step-by-step guide on how to earn your Current Bank bonus.
- Novo Bank ($40) - Novo bank is a free business checking account that’s currently offering a $40 bonus if you open a Novo business checking account using a referral link. In addition to being a good bank bonus, Novo is also a good business checking account. It has no monthly fees or minimum balance requirements and operates a good app and website. Indeed, it’s the business checking account I currently use for this blog. Check out my post on how to easily open a Novo account.
- Varo ($25) – Varo is a free fintech banking app similar to Chime or Current. It’s currently offering a $25 bonus to new users that open a new Varo account with a referral link. The bonus for this bank is very easy to meet, all you need to do is spend $20 within 30 days of opening your Varo account. Check out my step-by-step guide to learn how to earn this bonus.
Kevin is an attorney and the blogger behind Financial Panther, a blog about personal finance, travel hacking, and side hustling using the gig economy. He paid off $87,000 worth of student loans in just 2.5 years by choosing not to live like a big shot lawyer.
Kevin is passionate about earning money using the gig economy and you can see all the ways he makes extra income every month in his side hustle reports.
Kevin is also big on using the latest fintech apps to improve his finances. Some of Kevin's favorite fintech apps include:
- SoFi Money. A really good checking account with absolutely no fees. You'll get a $25 referral bonus if you open a SoFi Money account with a referral link, and an additional $300 if you complete a direct deposit.
- 5% Savings Accounts. I'm currently getting 5.24% interest on my savings through a company called Raisin. Opening a Raisin account takes minutes to complete, it's free, and all of your funds are FDIC-insured. I explain how it works, why I'm now using it to store my emergency fund and any other cash savings I have, and why I recommend everyone check it out in this review.
- US Bank Business. US Bank is currently offering new business customers a $800 signup bonus after opening a new account and meeting certain requirements.
- M1 Finance. This is a great robo-advisor that has no fees and allows you to create a customized portfolio based on your risk tolerance. You also get $100 for opening an account.
- Empower. One of best free apps you can use to monitor your portfolio and track your net worth. This is one of the apps I use to track my financial accounts.
Feel free to send Kevin a message here.
I love how you’re so honest about the challenges of balancing blogging with life, especially with two young kids. Your dedication to keep writing and sharing even in the face of changing algorithms is inspiring. Looking forward to more of your thoughtful posts, especially about biking!
I’m glad you said it, blogging is definitely different now. Some of those that you mentioned have not posted in months and some have gone away. I wonder how lucrative it was to sell one’s blog. I too used to blog for fun, and then for SEO, but it got to a point like you said where most people don’t like to read blogs as much, and instead consume video content or maybe listen to podcasts/audio books.
Do the weird things now is great advice. If only the youngin’s would listen… I’m sure we all got a lot of great advice when we were younger from the generations ahead of us, but without the context and life experience, it usually gets brushed off.
If I went back to college today, would do a whole lot better than my first time around. If I could be 20 again and knew what a Roth was, or the power of an HSA, I’d be all about it. If we realized how much free time we really had before having kids, could probably take over the world! Haha.
That said, hopefully by this point, even with such limited time, we’re better able to prioritize that which is important to us, and make it happen if it really matters.
Love the side hustle content, dumpster-diving/reselling, etc. You’ve surely built an audience, even if a lot of us are silent. Multi-year reader, probably first time commenter. The googles are tough these days, and on the positive side of ‘nothing lasts forever’, google will continue to iterate, hopefully to the future benefit of smaller pubs/blogs.
Thanks for the update! Frankly, your philosophical “thinking man posts” are some of my favorites. Glad to hear you’ll still be posting.
– Sean Gallagher (@TheKidKidDoc on the dumpster fire of a site formerly known as Twitter)
Thank you for the update and for intending to continue posting. Of all your posts, the side hustle ones have interested me the most because they help me stay energized about keeping a side hustle going. And, boy, are you right—do weird stuff while you are young, before life takes over! Thanks again for writing. As your kids get older, perhaps a post every so oten on how you are introducing them to money/finance.
Hey Kevin. I just made up my mind like 2 weeks ago that a personal blog/site isn’t really going to work for me either, and Medium was also my replacement choice! If you start a FIRE “publication” there, I will happily submit my own weird and wonderful experiments and thoughts on FI-related topics. I’m also exploring Substack in conjunction with Medium. So far I’ve found one FIRE writer who sadly paywalls most of their articles for paid subscribers, but I’d rather give away the articles for free and offer other things for paying subscribers. Anyway, I look forward to seeing you on Medium!
Great update and discussion of where things are. As someone who’s never monetized my blog (big props to you and all who do; it just hasn’t been sometning I wanted to learn how to do and then have to focus on and potentially worry about), it’s been interesting hearing the perspective of bloggers like you, Joe from Retire by 40, and Accidental Fire discuss the changed landscape (about which you all almost completely align). It’s kinda sorta made me more at peace with my decision not to monetize, even if over the years I’ve fantisized about the 1s of dollars I might’ve made with my silly ramblings ;-). And I’ve always considered my blog to just be a fun diversion. While I’ve of course hoped to reach, help, and motivate people, my own motivation is just as much selfish as anything: scratching an itch to write about something I’m passionate about.
Anyway, I look forward to reading your posts going forward, whatever direction(s) you go in!