Monty Loree: So being well-versed and upgrading your education, of course you're always adding that to your blog?
Barbara Klare: Yes, I am. The other thing that I should mention that makes me a little different is, that a lot of people – I've been in finance communications for a really long time. I've worked for eTrade, Melon Investor Services (a subsidiary of JP Morgan) and right now I'm working for Wells-Fargo Wachovia explaining very complex financial products and applications to, mostly internally and some externally. So I guess that's what makes me different.
Monty Loree: You've written the words debit and credit a few times and investment and savings. Again I'm talking to Barbara Klare here who's an award-winning author of The Daily Cash Machine and the Upside of Money blog. That's good. I've got another question here for you. What I was wondering was, what are three of your favorite personal finance blogs? Where do you hang out when you're looking on the internet for personal finance information?
Barbara Klare: Actually if I wanted to start to get my own personal finance hit, I happen to really like the journey style blogs. I call them the journey style because it means that the kind of blogs are where the person is talking about their own personal journey, whether it'd be getting out of debt or working towards buying a house or something like that. It's my prerequisite, is that the person actually puts a real number to their goal or to their net worth, say either using net worth IQ or some kind of chart and puts it right up front. I just respect that kind of honesty. And I find it really inspiring as well, so I find myself kind of cheering along with these people. So the top three people that I've been watching really, actually for years now, are mymoneyblog.com – I believe that's a man and his wife moving along. I've been also watching – I actually worry a lot about this person. I worry about debtsucksblog.com because he's got a lot of debt and I really, really feel for him.
Monty Loree: So that's debts…?
Barbara Klare: debtsucksblog.com. It's a pretty graphic name. No bones about that. Then another personal favorite I have is bostongals.com. She's kind of one of these open wallet types and she talks about what she's trying to do and her net worth and where she's going. I've been really enjoying tracking her success over the years because she sort of has this winning formula and attitude. I think she's going to make her goals, maybe even more than twice. Who knows? So anyway, those are my top three.
