The Simple Dollar - Interviewing Trent
| The first in my series interviews of other bloggers and writers is Trent Hamm from The Simple Dollar. Trent went through a financial meltdown in April 2006. He took matters in his own hands and took charge of his financial situation. After eight months of hard work he paid off his debts with the credit card corporations, paid off his car, and established an emergency funds. |
Trent writes in an open and honest way about his life and how he copes with today's pressure on the finances. Because it is all written out of his own experience and honesty, the blog read very easy and you can pick up a lot of best practices around personal finance.
The Simple Dollar:
The Simple Dollar is for those of us who need both cents and sense: people fighting debt and bad spending habits while building a financially secure future and still affording a latte or two. Our busy lives are crazy enough without having to compare five hundred mutual funds - we just want simple ways to manage our finances and save a little money.Read more about The Simple Dollar, peruse some of the best articles, or become a subscriber via a feed reader or by email.
My interview with Trent is below here:
Q: If you had to introduce yourself to someone using only a couple of sentences, what would it be?
A: I am a twentysomething, a parent and a writer, struggling to escape from the financial mistakes of my earlier years.
Q: If you had to describe yourself using 5 tags, which ones would those be?
A: Happy, writer, parent, husband, friend
Q: Who do you see as your heroes? Did you have/had any mentors?
A: Warren Buffett and Norman Borlaug are my two heroes, for vastly
different reasons. Warren, for showing how to live one's life by principles and still become a successful capitalist, and Norman for ever so quietly changing the world while no one noticed.
Q: On the "Simple Dollar" you describe in detail your personal journey towards better financial structure in your. Has the writing been part of that journey, or part of the recovery?
A: Definitely. Keeping up The Simple Dollar is a constant encouragement to research all sorts of topics and keep my eye on the ball.
Q: The Meltdown has made you open your eyes, and wanting to do better as an example for your son. What kind of lessons are you teaching him to handle finances?
A: He's pretty young (still under 2). Mostly, I've made a game out of
giving him some change to put in his piggy bank and I also show him that
I use that same money to buy things at the store. I don't know that he
gets the full connection.
Q: When was the exact point that you decided to start a blog about your financial situation?
A: I used to write a parenting blog but I gave it up because a group of
people were making some very inappropriate comments. I wanted to blog
about something else important that others could identify with and also
that I was passionate about. I was sitting on the couch reading a
personal finance book one day and suddenly it clicked.
Q: Are you running any other Internet business besides your financial blog? If yes, which ones?
A: Nope, no time. I have aspirations of starting other blogs, but The
Simple Dollar eats my time. My top idea is a cooking blog - I have some
ideas on how to really make that go, but it would take some serious
work. To tell the truth, I've been writing entries for it for a long
time, because cooking material is timeless. When I have a lot of
content ready to go, I may launch it to see how it goes. If it takes
off even half as well as The Simple Dollar, I would probably become a
full-time blogger.
Q: Only 11 months you have been writing on the Simple Dollar, you already have a pagerank of 4 and almost 15.000 readers in Feedburner, how do you market your blog? How do you attract more readers?
A: Honestly, I don't market it outside of submitting to carnivals and a few
submissions to Lifehacker when I was just starting. I focus almost entirely on writing the best content I can.
Q: Which blogs can you recommend to read/follow to understand the way you should structure a successful blog?
A: The only blog on blogging that I consistently read is CopyBlogger. I browse several others on occasion.
Q: Being on the Internet / having a blog, how did it help you in your business or offline live?
A: My "real" job is about as far from blogging as possible. The best thing
that it has done is open some doors for me in terms of a potential
writing career.
Q: Do you consider yourself successful? How do you measure your success?
A: No, because I consider success to be the point at which you could wake
up one morning and literally do whatever you pleased without worrying
about not supporting your family and those that rely on you. I'm far
from that.
Q: Is success expressed in an amount of money you have earned? How much is that?
A: In a way, yes. For me, success would be having enough cash in
investments that I could live off the returns on those investments.
This would free me to spend my time doing whatever I was most passionate about.
Q: How does a typical workday look like for you?
A: Starting at midnight? I write from about 12 to about 3, sleep until
about 5:30 or 6. Go to my real job by 7. Get off at 4. Get home, write until about 5 or 5:30, then spend the evening with my family. Go to bed by 9 or 10.
Q: If you can only give one tip, what is your advice that you can give to people who would like to start recovering from a financial meltdown?
A: Make your successes very small. Strive to not spend any money for one
day. Strive to go one week without eating out. Strive to go one month with an increase in your checking account balance. Then try to repeat that success. Then repeat it again.
Q: Where do you get your inspiration to write such long and insightful posts? Where do you get your knowledge from?
A: Usually, a life experience provides the seed. I keep a notebook with me to jot down inspirations. If needed, I do some research on the topic, then I draft the post. I usually let a draft sit for a few hours at least, then read it again. If it looks good, I post it.
Q: Do you write your posts all in one weekend, and then schedule these for during the week, or do you write on the fly?
A: I usually devote Sunday afternoon to writing. If things are going well,
I can write a good chunk of a week's posts that day. If not... well, then it's going to be a busy week.
Q: In 52 Personal finance books in 52 weeks you promise the readers to read and review 52 personal finance books in 52 weeks. That's one book per week, where do you find the time and still be a family man and have time to blog?
A: I usually read for 45 minutes or so in the evening and also while my son is napping on weekends. This lets me get through two or three books a week.
I mean seriously, with writing such a good blog, reading a book per week, selling on eBay and having a family
Q: If you would have to recommend your top three books on finance & investments at the moment what would this be?
A: Your Money or Your Life, The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing, and
probably The Total Money Makeover. The first two are clearly the top two.
Q: Which applications do you use to run your site(s) on the internet?
A: WordPress.
Q: How much time per day do you spend writing your articles? How much time is spend behind the computer?
A: Usually around 3 hours, all told. Outside of work at my real job, I
probably spend 4 hours at the computer on average.
Q: When would you like to retire? And how are you on track to accomplish that goal?
A: Depends on what you mean by retirement. If you mean "not working,"
never. I want to always have some sort of central project in my life -
I thrive on it.
Q: As I could read a lot of personal information on The simple Dollar, are you not afraid of the openness of the Internet? Don't you think people share too much information?
A: Not really. I just obfuscate a few key facts to protect the privacy of
people I write about. Writing is much more interesting when you can
feel the humanity in it.
One last question, which is a personal one:
Q: How do I keep my wife from spending?
A: Talk to her about your big shared goals in life and show her how small
commitments can get you there.
Trent, thank you for the interview, and your ultra fast response. I will continue to read your blog with a lot of interest in the future.
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