About the Contributors

Simon, a 22-year old recent college grad, is a full-time editorial staff member at MyBankTracker and maintains his own personal finance blog, the Realm of Prosperity. Simon will be writing on a variety of personal finance topics from credit cards tips and tricks to saving money when you shop online.

Carrie hails from Kansas City, Mo., and is also an established personal finance blogger at her site Carrie…on the Cheap. In addition to bringing her personal experiences crushing debt and beginning to build net worth by age 26, Carrie is also in the final throws of studying for the CPA exam. She will be contributing great debt-reduction strategies, money-saving ideas, and oh-so-helpful tax tips!

Stan is new to blogging, but brings an impressive passion for investing. Before he even graduated from college, Y.S. was running his own investment fund for family and friends. He now works for a New York brokerage company and will be writing market commentary and how-to guides for young investors.

Look for their new posts next week!

Why I Got a “Real” Job

When I posted that I was looking for new writers and was going “back to work”, the questions started pouring in, mostly from other bloggers, who wanted to know:

• Why would I ever want to give up being a full-time blogger, especially so quickly?
• Did it not work out?

Quite the contrary, actually. In fact, I’m hiring contributors because things continue to go well, not just because I got a job again.

To understand why I took a job, you have to understand this: I didn’t start blogging full-time because it was my dream; I began blogging full-time because it enabled me to make a living in the city where my wife and I wanted to live. In fact, I hoped that my blogging would propel me to a new career that would take advantage of my interest of writing and Web publishing, which it did. I wasn’t out to take just any job; only one that put me to work in an area I’m passionate about.

I serendipitously saw a job posting for just such a job (I wasn’t actively looking) and said, “Wow, that looks perfect for me”. Fortunately, my new employer thought so, too.

Might I like to “be my own boss”, either as a blogger or as in another business, someday? Perhaps. But I want to do it when I have a financial safety net (which I don’t yet) and not at a time I may be starting a family in a matter of one or two years.

I want to continue to grow Money Under 30 into a substantial and useful resource for people in their twenties looking for answers to their financial questions (and earn a little something extra doing it). I have never, however, wanted to become a financial guru or “professional” financial writer (not that I wouldn’t consider writing a book someday, it just hasn’t been a focus of mine). Without a book or other product to sell with my blog, and without a professional service (like financial planning) to promote, my blog probably belongs as a part-time endeavor.

The fact that blogging supported me full-time (and could again, if I needed it to), is simply a sweet, sweet bonus.

Moving Forward

Ultimately, even though I am going to have less time to write new articles for Money Under 30, I am really excited to bring some new voices to the site. If things go well, I may add even more contributors down the road.

I hope you enjoy the articles that Simon, Carrier, and Y.S. will soon start publishing. Please give them your support as we all work together to share knowledge about managing our money and growing financial secure, one day at a time.

Thanks, as always, for reading!

David @MoneyUnder30

Related posts:

1. My Blogging Success Story
2. On Becoming a Full-Time Blogger
3. One Year of Personal Finance Blogging Mistakes

If so, consider applying to be a Money Under 30 staff writer.

Here’s the deal:

I recently accepted a full-time position managing Web content for a software company. Money Under 30 is certainly not going away; but with my time and energy focused on my new gig, I’m going to need a little help.

Who I’m Looking For

I’m looking for one or two talented writers with a passion for personal finance to write one or two original and educational blog posts a week.

My mission for Money Under 30 is to continue to build not just a blog, but a comprehensive online resource for personal finance basics. Ideally, I want young people with personal finance questions to be able to find everything they need to know about money right here.

With that mission in mind, the ideal staff blogger will be able to write about personal finance topics in a way that is entertaining, but also clear and educational. Posts should have clearly defined topics and answer a question or meet specific needs.

The specific requirements for this position are:

• Demonstrated personal finance knowledge (I am especially interested in expanding content on investing and real estate)
• Experience writing for the Web
• Ability to use WordPress to compose and/or format blog posts
• Ability to submit at least one 600-plus word post per week, on deadline

What You’ll Get

In addition to earning a few extra dollars (see below), you’ll also be able to grow your writing portfolio and gain exposure for your writing (and blog, if you have one) with over 75,000 monthly readers. Specifically:

• Articles will be published under your byline
• Posts may include a link to your own blog (if you have one)
• Compensation starts at $25 USD per post, paid monthly via check or PayPal
• Compensation will be reviewed after three months of contributions

How to Apply

To apply, please contact me and provide the following:

• A description of your writing experience and personal finance knowledge
• Links to two or three published blog posts or articles
• Links to any Websites you publish
• A few topic ideas for Money Under 30 posts

I will accept applications until Monday, November 30, 2009 and contact finalists with any follow-up questions. At this time I am only hiring one or two writers, but I will keep all applicants on file should I need more writers in the future.

Please contact me to apply.

Related posts:

1. MoneyUnder30 Acquires Personal Finance Page on MillionDollarWiki.com
2. Personal Finance Top 5 Lists
3. On Becoming a Full-Time Blogger

The new design you are seeing is the free WordPress theme Misty-Look by Sadish Bala. I saw it on one of my favorite non-financial blogs, StrongLifts.com. I liked it so much I decided to implement it here.

But I didn’t just change the theme because I was bored…

I changed the theme of Money Under 30 to simplify the site and put the focus solely on the content. As I continue to build upon the tremendous success I’ve enjoyed recently, I want to stop worrying about how custom design tweaks. I admit this new theme isn’t going to win any cutting edge design awards, but it does what a good theme should—it allows visitors to easily read my content and (hopefully) navigate around the site.

Two improvements I especially hope you’ll enjoy are:

• A site search feature that is easily accessible on the top navigation bar.
• Ads that now appear to the right of the main content instead of on the left, hopefully providing an easier reading experience.

This new design is the first improvement of several to come as I work to streamline and “professionalize” Money Under 30. Stay tuned for more. And, as always, please send me any questions, suggestions, or complaints!

Related posts:

1. Blogging for Profit Part Two: Starting Your Blog
2. One Year of Personal Finance Blogging Mistakes
3. MoneyUnder30 Acquires Personal Finance Page on MillionDollarWiki.com

Tamara Draut, author of Strapped: Why Today’s 20- and 30-somethings Can’t Get Ahead and Temple University Career Center Director Jennifer Brown are also on this segment.

Again, here are the links to listen to the entire program or the edited excerpts.

Related posts:

1. For Love or Money: How Much Should Salary Matter in Career Decisions?
2. The Colleges and Majors With the Highest Paid Graduates
3. Blogging for Profit Part Two: Starting Your Blog

Related posts:

1. Win $100 from Lending Club
2. How to Open a Lending Club Lender Account
3. Perks of Using a Lending Club Loan to Buy a Car

1. Will You Get Your Economic Stimulus Tax Rebate Check? — Those rebate checks seem like a joke now given what happened to the economy, but they sure were a hot topic the first half of 2008!

2. First-time Home Buyer Tax Credit Provides up to $7,500 — I see a theme developing here: People just want to know how to get free money from the government. Fair enough!

3. How Much Should Be in Your 401(k) at 30? — A perennial favorite of Googlers, this was one of my very first articles here at Money Under 30.

4. High Yield Savings Accounts Compared — Plenty of people are looking for the best place to save a few dollars for the future. How does your savings rate stack up?

5. How Much Do Olympic Athletes Earn? — Watching Michael Phelps swim one night, I wondered what he and other Olympians might earn from sponsorships–or even from their governments for winning medals. I researched the answer, and later learned that a lot of people had the same question.

6. Creative Yankee Swap Gift Ideas — For those of you outside of New England, a Yankee Swap is a group gift exchange in which everybody brings a small gift and then draw numbers. Participants pick a gift per the number they draw, and each subsequent recipient can swap the gift he or she chooses for any gift somebody has already chosen. The last person to choose a gift can essentially take anything he or she wants.

7. Free Budget Spreadsheet – Another oldie but a goodie! Lots of people make their way to the free spreadsheet I wrote a long time ago. Hope it’s helping some folks.

8. American Express Cards Do Have Spending Limits — It’s funny how so many people run into this problem and yet there is hardly anything else written about it. American Express charge cards (Green, Gold, and Platinum) advertise “no pre-set spending limit” as one of their perks. And yet, every month thousands of cardholders who pay their bills on time have their cards declined for mundane purchases like groceries or hotel charges. I did some research into why and unveiled what I consider to be AMEX charge cards’ biggest flaw.

9. 53 Inexpensive Christmas Gift Ideas — Perhaps a moot point until next December, but this list of frugal Christmas gifts drew a number of visitors looking for holiday bargains.

10. How to Negotiate with Car Salesman — Still a favorite since I wrote it in the fall of 2007, this brief mutli-step article provides the basics on how to avoid being duped the next time you buy a car.

Related posts:

1. Creative Yankee Swap Gift Ideas
2. How to Stick to Your Holiday Shopping Budget
3. Cheap Gifts: 53 Inexpensive Christmas Gifts

Tomorrow and Wednesday I’ll be posting a few “financial New Year’s resolution ideas” as well as some ideas for getting over the holiday spending hangover and off to a fresh financial start in the New Year.

Related posts:

1. 10 Easy Financial Resolutions To Become Richer in 2008
2. How to Make Your Financial Resolutions Stick
3. The Young Tightwad’s Guide to Holiday Tipping

Related posts:

1. BlackBerries: An Investment or a Splurge?
2. My Blogging Success Story

Email subscriptions changing
Instead of receiving an email every day that I post new articles to the site, subscribers will soon get a weekly digest of the new content on the site each week. This will cut down on the number of emails you receive and hopefully make the emails more valuable to you. However, in order to change the email subscription service, action is required on your part.

All current Money Under 30 email subscribers will receive a confirmation notice in the next few days. Please take a second to click the link and confirm your continued subscription. For anybody not subscribed, please sign up!

If you currently read Money Under 30 in an RSS reader, nothing will change.

Also: site updates
Also, I am going to be making some much need updates to the version of Wordpress I use to host this site. If the site is down temporarily in the next few days, that is why! Finally, I appreciate your patience with the changing themes on the site. I’ve been testing and a few and will implement a permanent theme after the updates are complete.

As always, thanks for reading!

Related posts:

1. BlackBerries: An Investment or a Splurge?
2. Blogging for Profit, Part Three: Traffic

Related posts:

1. $400 or $800 Making Work Pay Tax Credit
2. Will You Get Your Economic Stimulus Tax Rebate Check?
3. Thanks for the $600, America: I'm Buying Euros