I’m new-ish to the personal finance/weathly mind blogging and as much as I like some of the hugely known PF blogs I enjoy reading from perspectives of ‘smaller’ PF bloggers because they aren’t necessarily experts, but instead on a similar journey to mine. I thought I would share some of the interesting personal finance blogs that I have found so far for you to check out yourself:

• Automatic Finances – Writes about saving, ‘automating’ your finances so you don’t have to worry about certain things, personal finance and spending. I liked a recent post about how to follow the entire personal finance blogosphere through sites like Tip’d and PFBlogs.com
• Frugal Zeitgeist – Writes about saving, setting goals, finding happiness, and the realities of life with debt. Having just recently educated myself about what zeitgeistism (if that’s a word) even is, I am intrigued to learn more of what he has to say.
• Fiscal Fizzle – This blog offers a ‘spicy’ and very educated perspective on personal finance. He has a unique perspective of discussing principles, simplicity, critical thinking and ‘money paradigms’, or thinking of money through different perspectives. I recently found this blog and am very impressed.
• FreeFromBroke – A very honest perspective on saving, raising a family, and affording life.
• SteadfastFinances – Covers a lot of topics from banking to frugal living and real estate. Very insightful writer.

These are just a few fun ones to check out. Let me know what other blogs are growing in popularity in the personal finance world. Or better yet, submit your PF blog to me to check out!

Random Posts

• October 26, 2009 -- 365 Days to Financial Freedom
• October 26, 2010 -- 365 Days Marks 1 Year in My Journey Towards Financial Freedom
• January 28, 2010 -- Confidence, Purpose and Marketing: Ingredients for Success
• November 12, 2009 -- Who Am I Writing For?
• August 19, 2010 -- My Most Important Asset

Thesis Demo Site — See the Thesis Theme in action!

My Take on Why Every Blog Under the Sun Seems to be Using the Thesis Theme

When I first decided to start blogging about my financial journey a little while ago, I found blog after blog after blog (and I could keep going) that uses the Thesis theme for WordPress, developed by Chris Pearson. I was pretty sure I didn’t want to fork over the money for a premium theme. A free theme would work right? Sure, but not if you want to do anything slightly custom to the design without editing ALL of the code. And not if you want to stop wasting lots of time tweaking and not actually blogging.

After struggling with free themes, even as a web designer that knows some PHP, CSS, etc, I was getting frustrated trying to get all the plugins and add-ons that I wanted to use to play well together.

So, I purchased the developer license. Out of the box, its a nice theme. If you want to customize it, you do still have to put the work in.  I wouldn’t say its been simple to get it customized so far, and I have had a few “oops” I just crashed my site moments, however, I do agree with the masses that once you get the hang of using the hooks, Thesis provides one of the most customizable, well documented and supported blog (and content management website) shells or structures that I have been able to find.

Thesis takes out the guesswork for you with a standards compliant, search engine friendly, well supported theme.

I tend to agree with Ben Cook at WPBlogger who thinks that the Thesis framework could and should be the end of premium WordPress themes. Instead, what’s needed is skins or essentially, custom designs that are compatible with Thesis, whether they are free or paid or custom. (Of course people will continue to have healthy competition I hope!)

Theme vs Framework vs Skin – What Does it All Mean?

The word THEME is actually not accurate in describing Thesis, as a typically WordPress theme is specific to a certain use and is not often that flexible with structure.

Thesis provides a SHELL or FRAMEWORK, built using the php programming language. It has been developed to be solid enough that it does an excellent job of separating design from functionality. It lets you customize without changing the bare-bones structure. If you upgrade to a new version, (free to do) you simply replace the new files and you will maintain the integrity of your site design without headache. Thesis designers and free Thesis ‘skins’ are cropping up all of the place.

I’m not a developer, I am a designer, so I very much appreciate that myself and other designers have the ability to spend more time on aesthetics and design than on structure.

The SKIN, on the other hand, are free or paid or custom designs that make the thesis framework on the site unique.

Thesis takes into consideration search engines, browser compatibility, user-friendly navigation and design options, and is very very customizable.

Plugins & Widgets

I still use a lot of other plugins and widgets to customize my site. Some things you can do with the Thesis Hooks, and some things are just easier or more thorough to use a plugin. For example, you can insert your Google Analytics code in Thesis, but if you use a plugin, you can customize some of the outgoing links that will be displayed and have more options configured from within your Admin. So, all in all, I still believe its worthwhile to install plugins. (Social plugins, Database backup plugins, etc. I’m happy to share the specifics of these if anyone wants me to!)

Thesis-specific plugins that prove useful and are downloadable in WordPress include the Thesis Open Hook Plugin which allows you to paste custom hooks and code by section of the site as well as the Thesis Import/Export that allows you to transport your settings.

I’m not even close to done with the customization that I want to do with my site, but I am satisfied that I picked the right framework.

Buy the Thesis Theme

Thesis Intro Video

Random Posts

• March 19, 2010 -- Overcoming Fear of Failure and the Unknown
• November 14, 2009 -- Top 3 Barriers in My Journey Toward Financial Freedom
• November 12, 2009 -- Who Am I Writing For?
• November 30, 2009 -- How to Find Sustainable Happiness
• April 14, 2010 -- How to Rollover a Complicated 401K

Is It Truly Possible to Make Money from Ads?

Beyond my current income source and knowledge (web User Interface Design, Content Management, SEO and Online Ads), I admit that I do not have all the knowledge and expertise to make money online. In the end, I’m tempted to believe that its nearly impossible to make any sort of significant income from ads on your blog or website. Or if you do, it can be at the expense of solid design and usability, which I’m personally not okay with.

Instead, the most successful online business models focus on:

1. Developing a solid business plan with a unique, targeted offering – “free”-mium tends to work well these days
2. Work with others – You need to get other experts to help
3. Invest your own or other’s money into development – its nearly impossible to do anything significant without pouring some dough into it
4. Use social tools, SEO and the works to get your product out there. Don’t disregard traditional marketing channels

From my experience so far, this blog and my use of social media has offered me a way to connect with other like-minded people, focus my efforts, keep me on track, and helped to refine my writing skills.

All that being said, the following list offers some great starting points as to whether it is or is not possible to make and earn money online.

Resources for How to (or How Not to) Make Money Online with Your Website or Blog

• Daily Blog Tips – 28 Ways to Make Money Online with Website – From PPC to Paid Posts, this describes the features of many online paid options
• Steve Pavlina – How to Make Money On your Blog – This offers a no-nonsense approach and asks you to decide if you think it is Good or “Evil” to get paid from your blog right up front before you do anything else. (I’m still on the fence about this, guess I’ll have to make up my mind)
• Penelope Trunk – RealityCheck –  You Aren’t Going to Make Money from a Blog – This honest perspective suggests that you will waste a lot of time and energy trying to monetize your  blog, and instead you should focus on writing for a purpose that is important to you, not for income generation but for career building. A little bit of a downer, but thoughtful nonetheless.
• Conversation Marketing – 5 Ways Your Blog Can Make Money – This blog suggests you can’t make much with AdSense, but some affiliate options can work. Adds some humor into the list by suggesting you can ‘Steal & Cheat’ (Not recommended).
• Solid Blogger – Top 5 Ways to Make Money From Blogging -There are a lot of ads on this site, and Google Sponsored search and AdWords and the works! Wonder if it makes income for this blogger? Well, at least they are practicing what they preach.
• Sites that Pay You to Blog – List of some of the type sites that will pay for blogging
• Dosh Dosh – 7 Strategies to Make Money Blogging – A few unique terms, and helpful ‘advantages’ and ‘disadvantages’ for each
• Why An Ad Free Blog Rocks – Nice perspective on alternatives to ads on your blog

Please let me know of others and I will add them to this list.

photo by wa?.ti?

Random Posts

• October 11, 2010 -- Review of LearnVest – Personal Finance Tools for Women
• July 6, 2011 -- Best Goal Tracking Tools for 2011
• November 18, 2009 -- Budgeting for the Holidays and Avoiding Holiday Impulse Buys
• August 8, 2011 -- What Country Should I Live in? A Better Life Visualization
• December 4, 2009 -- Tips for Sticking to a Budget