Podcast Interview with Barbara Bryn Klare - Part 2
Monty Loree: What age group are you talking about roughly?
Barbara Klare: When you talk about retirement, I think I'll probably be addressing the 40 and up age group. I want to certainly address people who are just about ready to retire, and of course that depends personally for each person, at what age they're going to retire. But I imagine I'll be talking to a lot of people in their late 50s or late 60s, mid 60s.
Monty Loree: I was interested – I saw on your book, you talked about, I think one of the chapters was Saving Yourself Out of Debt.
Barbara Klare: Yes.
Monty Loree: Can you talk about that for a bit? I was kind of intrigued about that.
Barbara Klare: I think that as soon as you put your debt as a priority, as something you want to change and remove from your life, then it makes saving not so hard. My book really talks about saving every day and how you can make even just really small incremental changes. And I don't even mean, say, getting rid of your favorite hot drink or latte, but I have some other tips on how to do that. One of my favorite tips for saving and getting out of debt is rewarding yourself for something that you – a bad behavior you didn't do or a purchase you didn't make, something like that. So if I go down the street and I don't get my usual Scone at Starbucks, then I take that money that I would've spent and set it aside. So I actually reward myself for behavior.
Monty Loree: Excellent. That's good. I think again, this would be a relevant topic for this economy and I think more people have got through years when you start talking about that. They want to know about saving and techniques and so on, something that's really relevant. Another question I've got for you regarding your blog, upsideofmoney.com, what sets your blog different? What sets your blog apart from other financial blogs?
Barbara Klare: So I picked the name, Upside of Money, partly because I'm interested in technical analysis and I watch charting and patterns and trending in the market. So I liked the word ‘upside', most people do. I think you can really, no matter what your financial situation is, you can have a positive feeling about it and be optimistic and upward trending and kind of get yourself into the black. I do try to alert people to the downside, like scams or problems in the personal finance area as well. The other thing is I don't advertise on my blog. It's really an informational site. I don't have ads next to acredit card application, for example. Now I understand there's a lot of issues with that, when people try to monetize and they can't control the content but I think that bloggers out there really need to do a better job at kind of matching their content to the kind of ads they're running as well.
So I think people need to be really aware of that. That's something that I look at when I look at a blog myself. I kind of judge it by that. Yeah, just hoping people would kind of pay attention to that more. The other thing I try to do is I try to educate myself all the time and I try to keep some kind of journalistic standard as high as I can make it, considering I have quick deadlines. But I want to have my blog be based on knowledge and not just anecdotes. I mean I love a lot of the opinion I read out there and stuff, but sometimes I get frustrated when I can't find a source and I don't understand really where someone's getting that information. Let's see, I have graduate training in finance. I'm actually in the middle of another course right now. So I keep learning. I just feel like it's such a complicated subject area that we all need to kind of keep ourselves well-versed in it.
Part 1 of this Interview with Barbara Bryn Klare
Check out all of our personal finance podcasts
Monty Loree: What age group are you talking about roughly?
Barbara Klare: When you talk about retirement, I think I'll probably be addressing the 40 and up age group. I want to certainly address people who are just about ready to retire, and of course that depends personally for each person, at what age they're going to retire. But I imagine I'll be talking to a lot of people in their late 50s or late 60s, mid 60s.
Monty Loree: I was interested – I saw on your book, you talked about, I think one of the chapters was Saving Yourself Out of Debt.
Barbara Klare: Yes.
Monty Loree: Can you talk about that for a bit? I was kind of intrigued about that.
Barbara Klare: I think that as soon as you put your debt as a priority, as something you want to change and remove from your life, then it makes saving not so hard. My book really talks about saving every day and how you can make even just really small incremental changes. And I don't even mean, say, getting rid of your favorite hot drink or latte, but I have some other tips on how to do that. One of my favorite tips for saving and getting out of debt is rewarding yourself for something that you – a bad behavior you didn't do or a purchase you didn't make, something like that. So if I go down the street and I don't get my usual Scone at Starbucks, then I take that money that I would've spent and set it aside. So I actually reward myself for behavior.
Monty Loree: Excellent. That's good. I think again, this would be a relevant topic for this economy and I think more people have got through years when you start talking about that. They want to know about saving and techniques and so on, something that's really relevant. Another question I've got for you regarding your blog, upsideofmoney.com, what sets your blog different? What sets your blog apart from other financial blogs?
Barbara Klare: So I picked the name, Upside of Money, partly because I'm interested in technical analysis and I watch charting and patterns and trending in the market. So I liked the word ‘upside', most people do. I think you can really, no matter what your financial situation is, you can have a positive feeling about it and be optimistic and upward trending and kind of get yourself into the black. I do try to alert people to the downside, like scams or problems in the personal finance area as well. The other thing is I don't advertise on my blog. It's really an informational site. I don't have ads next to a
So I think people need to be really aware of that. That's something that I look at when I look at a blog myself. I kind of judge it by that. Yeah, just hoping people would kind of pay attention to that more. The other thing I try to do is I try to educate myself all the time and I try to keep some kind of journalistic standard as high as I can make it, considering I have quick deadlines. But I want to have my blog be based on knowledge and not just anecdotes. I mean I love a lot of the opinion I read out there and stuff, but sometimes I get frustrated when I can't find a source and I don't understand really where someone's getting that information. Let's see, I have graduate training in finance. I'm actually in the middle of another course right now. So I keep learning. I just feel like it's such a complicated subject area that we all need to kind of keep ourselves well-versed in it.
Part 1 of this Interview with Barbara Bryn Klare
Check out all of our personal finance podcasts
