Money Smarts Changes

Mike recently hinted at some upcoming changes and got frequent commenters intrigued. In the past, it’s often take us a couple of stabs to clearly convey changes to the blog, so this is my half of the description of what’s happening.  Mike should be providing more details tomorrow.

Mike recently called me up, reminded me that when I sold him my half of the blog we’d agreed that either one of us could opt-out of the paying me $20 / post agreement we’d made, and that he wanted to bring it to an end. My reaction was actually to laugh, because I’d been planning for a while to tell him I was ready to wrap it up as well, so we were completely on the same page (the official credit for the “dump” goes to Mike, but it was a very mutual decision! 😉 ).

My understanding of Mike’s perspective, which I’m sure will be explained further in future posts and be put into effect in September, is that he’s interested in making the blog more practical, with posts that explain precisely how to do things. I certainly have a “navel gazing” element to my take of personal finance, musing about what it all means more often than detailing alternative asset allocations.

My current plans are somewhat up in the air. Part of me wants to go back to blogging on my own, with a more experimental approach (incorporate pod-casts, shorter daily posts, longer essays, instructional videos and the like). Part of me is drawn to moving to a totally different area and starting to blog on something other than personal finance. Part of me is also drawn to using my “blog writing” time to move forward on one of my book ideas. The current twice a week, close-to-1000 word blog posting has gotten somewhat stale for me, and if I’m going to keep learning I think I need to move to something new.

At a conference recently I talked to a woman who said that she feels every grad student needs something outside their studies to “feed their soul”. She said she cooks gourmet dinners for a dinner party every Sunday night and that feeds her soul (and her friends’ stomaches!). In “Better“, Atul Gawande talks about something similar when he discusses how writing makes him a better surgeon (and he recommends to every surgeon that they have another activity that they’re passionate about outside the hospital). Blogging has served that role for me for the last couple years of my PhD program, so it’s time to find a new outlet for this part of my life.

At every step of the way, Mike and I have been of almost the exact same mind about most issues (joining forces, how to run the blog, advertising policies, investing philosophies, acceptable and unacceptable behaviour on the part of commenters, and when to go our separate ways). From my end, I really couldn’t have asked for a better partnership (if I can find a woman like Mike I better marry her immediately! 😉 ).

Thanks to the Quest for Financial Security / Quest for Four Pillars / Four Pillars / Money Smarts Blog readers and commenters and the Canadian (and International) Personal Finance bloggers for the last three years, it’s been a blast! I’ve LOVED the comments and trackbacks (responses on other blogs to my posts)!!!