74 comments

Get Rich With: Blogging?

Well, there goes another million.

Sometime last week, this blog reached the “two million page views” milestone. It took less than three months to get that second million, compared to nine months for the first one, which I wrote about on December 10th. I remember we all thought we were pretty big business back then, but by any measure there are now more than twice as many Money Mustaches growing out there as there were when we blew past the first million mark!

Blogs that talk too much about blogging can get pretty boring, so don’t worry, I’m not going to write an article like this for every million. But today I thought it would be worthwhile because there are several interesting lessons that I’ve learned from this writing hobby that I’ve wanted to tell you about. Hopefully they will be useful for the many other blog writers that hang around here, as well as for writers of other stripes and even regular Mustachians.

Lessons Learned:

1 – It’s really hard to understand exponential growth.

Even though I occasionally like to write equations and draw graphs in my spare time, I still find that I have the natural human weakness of thinking in linear rather than exponential terms. When I check this website’s statistics page each night, it looks like readers are just trickling in at a steady rate, like guests to a nice party. But when you look at a graph that spans several months and divide out the numbers, you can clearly see that an exponent is at work. The exponent always surprises you.

This has applications in any internet-related business or creative venture, since the pool of people on the internet is effectively infinite. If you can get something started that has a positive growth rate, that tends to grow all by itself (by word of mouth, or search engines, or viral-style-forwarding), you can end up with some very interesting results. The Honey Badger video that we all like to quote from is up to 40 million views. A friend’s internet-based sales business is making tens of thousands of dollars per month in sales, just because of a bit of self-perpetuating exponential growth.

It also has applications in saving for early retirement. Beginner Mustachians are occasionally blown away by the numbers we throw around here. “Nobody could save hundreds of thousands of dollars!”, they say, “I’ve only got a few hundred bucks and it was damned hard to save that much!”.

I felt much the same way when I was younger. The problem is not with the numbers, it’s just with that tricky exponential function again. Today’s hundred-dollar-saver can invest his savings even as he improves his skills at efficient living and increases his employment income over his working career. When you combine all of these effects, you will see strong exponential growth in your savings. The hundreds of today can quite easily become many thousands per month in the future, until in the years just before retirement, many people are easily increasing their wealth by over $100,000 per year – sometimes more than their entire gross pay.

2 – People can actually make money with this blogging thing.

When I started writing these articles, I assumed I would only be entertaining myself and a few facebook friends until I ran out of stuff to say. The writing habit proved quite addictive, however, and the number of fun and enthusiastic readers grew. So I upgraded my goal slightly to “Saving the Entire Human Race from Destroying Itself”. But even at that point, I never thought I’d earn much more than the cost of paying the web hosting fees.

But one day, I had a look around at some other personal finance blogs. It turns out that these things are serious business. Sites that rank in the top 20 on the Wisebread list are routinely bought by internet marketing companies, often for over a million bucks. One clever guy named Pat Flynn who runs smartpassiveincome.com is an expert at generating income from websites. Last year he raked in over $400,000 from his carefully designed portfolio of sites. Get Rich Slowly, possibly the biggest blog in this niche, sold over three years ago although the sale was a secret until recently.

The most surprising part is that MMM already has a larger amount of traffic than some of the big-name websites at their time of sale. I don’t know exactly why this has happened, since we have done almost no promotion of the site. But I like to chalk it up to the fact that Frugality is the New Fanciness. This is an idea whose time has come.

In the right hands and with enough flashing credit card ads, a site this big could probably already earn more than my software job used to pay. You can tell from my feeble attempts at revenue-generation that income is not one of the main goals of this blog. But I will still proudly note that we earned $500 last month, and the income graph also has one of those sneaky exponents at work!

And don’t worry, I am not even thinking about selling this thing. Someone did send me an unsolicited offer once for something like $10,000, and I thanked him for the information. But it seems unlikely that anyone would want to pay in the millions for a blog, with the condition that the author can continue to write (or not write) whatever he wants and quit at any time without notice.. with anti-consumerism, political incorrectness, and swearing  being key parts of the message.

But I do love learning about this entirely new field, and I am pleased to see that writers now have a more democratic way of making a living than they did back in the old paper publisher days. Even big-time authors like Joe Konrath now publish exclusively in e-book formats, and they find they earn more money doing that then they could with big traditional book deals.

3 – It’s Time for Mr. Money Mustache to Get Off His Ass and Write.

The biggest thing I have learned from this Two Million Views business is that we are onto something big here. If this blog really is one of the fastest-growing things in the entire personal finance blogosphere, then maybe I’d better start taking it a bit more seriously.

So I’m going to set a couple of goals. I’d like to increase the amount of time I spend working on this site. Not to the point of burnout, but I’d at least like to get a chance to write up more of the 100+ draft article ideas that keep piling up, and  answer more of the emails that people send me. I’m going to talk to more people, take better pictures, start putting out the odd amusing educational video, do more science experiments.. stuff like that. I’ve even applied to be a speaker** at this year’s “FinCon” (financial bloggers conference) since it’s right down the road in Denver, and hey, I like talking.

I’d also like to set a goal of having this writing gig pay for my whole family’s living expenses. That’s about $2000 per month. Yeah yeah, we’re already retired and all that, but I think it would be nice psychological boost to be able to say that I’m supporting a family just with writing, and more importantly to share my thoughts on how easy or difficult it is to do without any soul-selling.

In reality, since we already have our consumption covered from other income and we have no desire to spend even more money, that means that 100% of MMM proceeds will in some way, over time, be used to improve the world. I’m not sure exactly how yet, but I still like the idea. Plus, as blog writing increases, my carpentry income has to decrease, which eats into my safety margin. By making a point of having the blog earn just a little bit of income, I can regain this margin.

We Mustachians are still a brand-new family. Most of the world has barely even heard of us so far. Truly big websites get millions of page views per week, or even per day.

That’s fine with me, since I’m here just to write to you and I have my own way of defining success. But if you do want to help out, here are a few ways to game the system a little bit:

Follow MMM on Twitter by clicking here.

Befriend MMM on Facebook by clicking here.

Become a RSS subscriber by clicking here.  Even if you usually read on the website (which is the way I prefer to read blogs), this helps boost the still-important Feed Subscribers number, and you might learn a thing or two about the convenience of RSS reading as well.

Hardcore readers can install the Alexa Toolbar* which will boost this site’s Alexa Rank.

Some generous people have actually asked me if they could donate to this blog just to say thanks. I have always said no in the past, but given the new goals above, I will now accept that generosity and see how it goes. This is of course fully optional.. if you just want to read for free, please continue to do so!

This Paypal Button

 

In the long run, the biggest fundraiser for this blog will probably be the MMM Recommends Page and the Commission-paying Rewards Credit Cards list. I like that method, because those things are tucked out of the way, useful, and non-spammy.

That’s enough of this behind-the-scenes stuff, it’s time to get back to the real world. Thanks again for reading and I’m looking forward to taking it all up several notches as the blog begins its second year of existence in just a few weeks.

Yee Haw!!

 

*The Alexa Toolbar is a browser add-on which displays the ranking of any site you visit in a tiny bar graph at the top of the browser. The toolbar sends anonymous stats to the Alexa web ranking company, which in turn determine the popularity of that website. The only weird part is, only bloggers actually use that toolbar, so your Alexa rank is really a measure of how popular your site is with bloggers. But yet many people haven’t caught onto this weakness, so your Alexa rank influences your rankings in the various top 100 blogs lists as well as how much you get paid for advertising spots.  If a significant number of readers could be enticed to run the toolbar… hoohoo, that would be funny. There are already blogger networks which do a good job of exploiting this loophole, although MMM is not a member of any, hence my less-good current rank.

 

  • Jimbo March 16, 2012, 6:42 am

    Alright, you can pile more money in your ‘stache if you want to, but please don’t change.

    I demand that my anti-consumerism rants remain profanity-filled.

    Reply
    • Mrs. Money Mustache March 16, 2012, 8:31 am

      Don’t worry. Mr. Money Mustache doesn’t change for anybody! I know this first hand. ;)

      Reply
      • Jenny March 16, 2012, 9:02 am

        nice pic mrs. mmm ha!

        Reply
        • Mrs. Money Mustache March 16, 2012, 9:17 am

          Haha! Thanks Jenny. I decided to finally come out of the closet. :)

          Reply
        • ice March 16, 2012, 11:22 am

          Ditto! I lol’d.

          Reply
  • Jennifer March 16, 2012, 6:48 am

    Just wanted to say thank you for offering flattr, I’m a big fan of your site and that is a great way to reward the articles I enjoy most. Keep up the good work, it’s a pleasure reading your thoughts and I hope to implement some of your ideas in the future. For now, I have to focus on college and building my stache, but I have already adopted some philosophies and realized I was doing a few things “right” even before I stumbled across your blog a few months ago.

    Reply
  • Poor to Rich a Day at a Time March 16, 2012, 6:55 am

    Congrats on 2 million!! People seem to know a good thing when they see it :)

    Keep on truckin on!

    Reply
  • AEBinNC March 16, 2012, 7:28 am

    I keep a mini notebook with me most of the time. I tend to write down books that I would like to read, interesting things I’ve read on the internet etc.

    On the first page I always, havemy new years resolution. My goal last year was to save 6600 by the end of the year. My wife and I were actually able to save 10,000, pay off a student loan of 3000.

    At the end of 2012, both my wife and I took new jobs with higher salaries. We now save 1000 every two weeks and put 10% in our 401k plans. When I saw the original goal of 6600, it looked so small. However, back then it seemed like it was going to be a real stretch to hit it.

    Reply
    • AEBinNC March 16, 2012, 7:49 am

      So what I was actually trying to say by that, is how once I have reached a goal, looking back on the goal, it often seems small. I too also request that the profanity be continued. Same with the face punching threats.

      Reply
    • Mrs. Money Mustache March 16, 2012, 8:33 am

      Awesome!! It’s great to see people setting goals and then completely SMASHING through them!

      Reply
  • rjack March 16, 2012, 7:34 am

    “… I’m going to talk to more people, take better pictures, start putting out the odd amusing educational video, do more science experiments.. stuff like that….”

    Awesome! You are my favorite blog Mr. MMM. Keep up the great work!!!

    Reply
    • Cubert April 3, 2018, 3:36 pm

      Ah-Ha! RJack is Mr. Freaky Frugal!
      Fun to scroll these greatest hits to see which disciples have moved on to spread the gospel themselves.

      Reply
  • Chris March 16, 2012, 8:11 am

    I’m happy for you in terms of the success of your blog and bummed at the same time. This thing is exploding! I remember in the “good ol days” when there might be around 15-20 comments per article and things were cozy!

    Keep up the good work MMM, just don’t sell your soul in the process.

    BTW, if you’re a guest speaker at fincon, will there be a surprise F-Bomb in the last paragragh of your speech!?:)

    Reply
    • Mr. Money Mustache March 16, 2012, 8:59 am

      I think the First paragraph might be a better place, just to make sure people are paying attention!

      Reply
  • Fu Manchu March 16, 2012, 8:48 am

    Congrats, MMM! I truly believe content is king. You don’t need viral campaigns when you write great, honest, hilarious & thought-provoking stuff all the time. I can’t help but share it with everyone I know, and no surprise, they end up doing the same.

    Keep on doin’ what you do MMM!

    Reply
  • PK March 16, 2012, 8:59 am

    Congrats on another million PVs! Figuring out how to monetize is a good problem to have, haha.

    At some point do you think we’ll see a MMM podcast?

    Reply
  • Dollar D @ The Dollar Disciple March 16, 2012, 9:19 am

    Congrats on all your success! Your message resonates with a lot of people, myself included, and you continue to be an inspiration!

    Reply
  • Danielle March 16, 2012, 9:30 am

    So glad that you would never sell the blog! It’s good to know that the badassity will always come straight from the source :) Congrats on the new milestone, and I look forward to the proposed videos and other media!

    Reply
  • Paul O. March 16, 2012, 9:50 am

    Awesome! I quit reading GRS about two years ago when something felt fishy about some of the run-of-the-mill new authors and the less personal feel. From the very beginning, MMM was leaps ahead. Well done y’all.

    Reply
    • Mr. Money Mustache March 16, 2012, 10:23 am

      Thanks a lot Paul! I agree about the downside of guest posts and staff writers. There are plenty of people out there, most of them actual readers, that I would be proud to post a guest posting from, because I know the other readers would enjoy it.

      But I also get emails from web companies every day saying things like “We would be happy to provide a guest posting for your site on the topic of your choice, the article will be unique and will be published only in your site. It would be great to be a part of a wonderful site like yours.”

      Those offers make me shudder. First of all, they obviously didn’t even read the contact submission form, where I said I don’t publish promotional guest postings that are just thinly-veiled advertising. Secondly, the posting would obviously SUCK, since there is no personality whatsoever in the offer itself.

      The same thing applies to staff writers. You don’t want some mild-mannered professional writer whose only qualification is good grammar or a pedigree of finance journalism. You need an actual badass Mustachian who is out there biking, composting, and swearing in his or her real life, and was doing so long before they started reading the MMM blog. The writing career should come second to the actual lifestyle-living if the writing is to be genuine.

      Reply
      • Paul O. March 16, 2012, 11:06 am

        You keep up that attitude and you might end up with what’s truly dangerous to non-mustachian society: something genuine, huge, and robust all at the same time.

        Reply
      • Jimbo March 16, 2012, 11:13 am

        careful what you wish for, MMM. I think a lot of your readers fit that bill, and would like to do guest posts. I know I do! but then again, I feel like guest posts should be kept to a minimum…

        Reply
      • The Money Monk March 16, 2012, 1:10 pm

        speaking of composting and swearing, I make youtube videos and earn about 1-5 dollars per thousand views. Which means right now my monthly earnings are about half of your last month’s blog earnings, and that’s with WAY less traffic than you are getting.

        So definitely look into the videos. A bombastic, entertaining fellow such as yourself, with a preexisting fan base in the thousands should do just fine.

        Reply
      • Bella March 16, 2012, 1:49 pm

        Having come her via ERE (which was via GRS) I know the whole GRS back story. Interestingly enough – I think a lot of your traffic is from ERE ‘handing you the torch’ – but I never really ‘got’ him. you’re far enough from me that I *should* think you’re crazy – but I’m just enough like you that I’m inspired. I do see some great parallels between your writing and the early stuff on GRS – the day to day, real life activities. I hope you don’t cash out – but if you do – you’ll have earned every penny of it, just like JD did.

        Reply
  • hoeves March 16, 2012, 9:58 am

    The quality of your writing, the thoughtful opinions, and the face-punching are what keep me coming back and telling my friends and family about you. Exponential growth with personal finance is all about having little workers in the form of investments. In the blogging world, these workers can take the form of readers, marketing away for you while you sit out back and enjoy a home brew.

    I’m really excited to see where you take this blog with more time devoted to it. I’m glad you’re being rewarded for your hard work, even if that’s not priority number 1.

    Reply
  • Poor Student March 16, 2012, 10:11 am

    I love the site and do not want it to change but if I could make the kind of money you could with it I would not turn it down. but your ‘stache is bigger than mine.

    You definitely deserve the 2 million readers you’ve had and many more.

    You have a lot of the same advice other less personal sites offer, but yours is cranked up like Spinal Tap. Keep it that way.

    Reply
  • James Petzke March 16, 2012, 10:11 am

    Congrats on the success! I hope my blog eventually takes off like this! Will we ever see an MMM book? It seems like something that would go over really well, and it would definitely help with your goal of making money off of writing!

    Reply
  • DC March 16, 2012, 10:16 am

    Beware of the dark side of the blog force you must be. One thing I don’t like on other personal finances blogs is that they pamper the widest audience possible which lowers the posts quality. I don’t find that in MMM. if you see yourself changing your style because you’re worried with some fall or rise on the visitors numbers, please don’t. Your blog is perfect the way it is:)
    On what to do with the blog money, how about making a pool of charities, ONG, etc. which your readers could suggest and/or vote and your blog earnings would be sent to those organizations?

    Reply
  • jlcollinsnh March 16, 2012, 10:36 am

    congratulations Mr. MM & Mrs. MM…

    …well played. well deserved.

    just based on the flow of readers from your site to mine, and assuming it had to be a small fraction of the total, I figured your readership had to be very large.

    Like you, I started mine as a lark; simply to amuse myself and as a way to stay in touch with my friends. It’s why I titled it as I did.

    It never occurred to me there might be money to be made. it also never occurred to me that some of my article would be popping up on Google searches. that’s a kick!

    Since you are doing such a fine job of breaking trail here, I hope you’ll continue to post the occasional article on how it’s done.

    Reply
  • Susan March 16, 2012, 10:37 am

    A huge congratulations! I second just about all the other comments. You’re my favorite PF blog, too. Keep it real!

    Reply
  • Cecile March 16, 2012, 10:39 am

    Congrats ! These are really impressive numbers !
    Like many here, I like the style of the writing, and the content of course. A few of my friends are really into retiring early, and use our time to improve the world after that.
    I try to bring the mustache spirit to France, hopefully we will get something started over there too.

    Reply
  • Andrew March 16, 2012, 10:39 am

    I agree with your exponential analysis. Early on in my post-teen life I realized that little things aggregate into big things. So I re-focused my life on maximizing the outcome by keeping my standard of living at the same level as college (or as close as I could reasonably get it). I find that in all areas of life this aggregate philosophy applies, including driving and paying for gas.

    For instance, you save $2 here, $2 there, it eventually adds up over a lifetime. Of course computing helps and that flapping wings of a butterfly thing shifted my thinking a tad, but ultimately even things like people driving too slowly in the wrong lane will annoy me because I know at what speeds I need to travel to hit all the green lights.

    Its a bit obsessive, but if you understand the exponential aggregate theory, everything adds up over time…from nutrition, exercise (e.g. health) to money, savings (e.g. wealth) and even reasonably speeding, buying/selling (e.g. time) all aggregate in a way that’s most profound when you look back on it over your life.

    So, kudos again for some well thought out prose. And congratulations on the success of your blog! May it grow to a zerohedge, and then a drudge, level :D

    And never forget…one definition, and my favorite, of wealth is how far into the future you can survive without income. So having the blog pay for your living expenses at this point in time will just increase your true wealth, quality of life, and, ultimately, your longevity.

    Reply
    • mike crosby March 16, 2012, 4:00 pm

      Andrew, thanks for your comment. Boy I wish I had my head screwed on properly when I was a young man.

      Reply
  • Mike Key March 16, 2012, 10:52 am

    Welcome to the world of professional blogging. Do be sure to set some cash aside for when it’s time to leave the cheapo shared hosting you have. :)

    And best of luck, I follow a few smaller bloggers who’ve gone down the same route, from sharing to realizing they where bringing in over $2K a month in web properties.

    I don’t personally blog, but I helped foot the bill and did the design work for my friends site comicbooked.com and I’ve been on the receiving end of a nice paycheck for over a year now from that web property.

    There is easy money to be made on the internet.

    Reply
  • markCB March 16, 2012, 11:03 am

    We’re taking over the world!!!!!!!

    Reply
  • christopher @ This That and The MBA March 16, 2012, 11:37 am

    I have been reading for a while now. It is a manly feeling blog. Love the feel and I hope you dont sell out like some other big sites have.

    Reply
  • Swedish chef March 16, 2012, 12:10 pm

    Nothing wrong with generating some cash flow from your blogging, and the content is fantastic and deserves your level of readership.

    Just please don’t start referring to us as your ‘Muppets’ behind our backs.

    Reply
  • Brave New Life March 16, 2012, 12:57 pm

    Cool stuff MMM, and well deserved. One of the things I’ve found to be nice about keeping expenses so low is that making little pockets of money online and other places is so much more significant. $500/month really isn’t all that much for people who are spending $5K-$10K per month. But when you’re only spending $2K/month, it’s a LOT.

    I think it’s time for you to take a lucrative trip to Wyoming. :)

    Reply
    • The Money Monk March 16, 2012, 1:31 pm

      yeah good point. Making a living from online ventures seems out of reach to the average American spender, but when you only need 1000-2000 bucks a month its not nearly as difficult. Especially for someone like MMM who doesn’t have the time constraints of a 9 to 5.

      Reply
    • Bella March 16, 2012, 1:39 pm

      And now I know why so many web based businesses are incorporated in Wyoming – besides the lack of income tax…
      This has been an educational day.

      Reply
  • Drew March 16, 2012, 1:07 pm

    Hey,
    A great resource for making money off of a blog is the business podcast Five Minutes with Jack. He has all sorts of great ideas for how to make money blogging and podcasting.

    Reply
  • Shanna March 16, 2012, 1:37 pm

    Congratulations!

    I think deep down people crave a good verbal spanking to counteract the cushy life we lead in this country. Sometimes we need in your face lessons and advice that we won’t get from USA Today-type articles that most media offers. I appreciate the way you don’t hold any punches and cause me extreme irritation, sometimes for days, because irritation forces my mind to learn and produce it’s own valuable pearl of wisdom tailored to my situation.
    The icing on the cake is some of your absolutely nitpicky commmenters with their valuble info and real life examples.

    Stay your non-PC, cussing, in-your-face, and I have to say MANLY, self because these characteristics are lacking in this society.

    Reply
    • Landor n Stella March 16, 2012, 6:29 pm

      Triple plus THIS.

      Reply
  • Dan March 16, 2012, 1:42 pm

    Right on MMM but don’t stop at $2k! We’ll do our best to make you rich. Good content leads to good compensation. Signed, your resident libertarian commenter

    Reply
    • Dan March 16, 2012, 1:43 pm

      And by rich I mean enable you to give it all away to the less fortunate. I guess you can buy a solar panel or two as well.

      Reply
  • Joe @ Retire By 40 March 16, 2012, 2:32 pm

    Congratulation! You’ve got a great growth chart. I’m sure you can make more money with a few more ads. Maybe target search engine traffic with some adsense?

    Reply
  • LukeG March 16, 2012, 3:13 pm

    Hey, MMM. Congratulations on your 2m mark! FYI, the PayPal button did not render in Google Reader, for whatever reason. Thanks, also, for the link to Pat Flynn.

    Reply
  • Pat March 16, 2012, 3:20 pm

    Hey MMM! Just saw heaps of traffic coming to my blog today, so I had to come over and AT LEAST say thank you for the mention – but beyond that, I’m really diggin’ the content you have over here, and the awesome community you’ve seemed to build.

    Just wanted to reach out and say hi, and that I’ll be back to read more. Congrats on the rapid growth, and I wish you even more success down the road! Cheers!

    Reply
    • Mr. Money Mustache March 16, 2012, 3:42 pm

      Right on, thanks Pat!

      Non-blogging readers who may not have heard of Pat should note this guy’s business model. He basically walks around with an invisible Cannon of Integrity and Niceness, and blasts everybody he meets with it. They are then forced to like him, and he lures them in even further by being completely honest all the time and always focusing on giving rather than receiving.

      It’s a very sneaky and successful method of running your life and business that I wish everyone would copy!

      Reply
  • mike crosby March 16, 2012, 3:51 pm

    Not only is your writing compelling, but it’s the commenters that make your blog most exciting.

    When you had the post about the Harvard Law grad and so many Harvard grads commented, I realized you had something special.

    My recommendation would be to make the comments as user-friendly as you can. For instance, being able to edit a comment like I can in GRS.

    As an aside, a great book I’ve read recently is The Rational Optimist and he talks about linear vs exponential growth thinking.

    As much as I like your blog now, it’s exciting knowing you’re working to make it even better. Thank you for that. (I wonder if ERE left the scene too early.)

    Reply
    • Mr. Money Mustache March 16, 2012, 5:01 pm

      Good idea! I definitely think people should be able to edit their own comments .. let me see if there’s a way to fix that.

      Update! Yes there is. I added the “WP Ajax Edit Comments” plugin, and gave it a little test drive as an anonymous commenter. It worked well! Let me know if you have any problems with it.

      Reply
      • jlcollinsnh March 16, 2012, 5:05 pm

        those of us who post first and then go holy crap I need to edit that thank you…

        Reply
      • mike crosby March 16, 2012, 9:11 pm

        Geez MMM, didn’t take you long.

        That will be an enhancement I’m sure the commenters will like.

        I would think any way you can enhance reader comments, will only draw more to your blog.

        Reply
  • Fawn March 16, 2012, 6:33 pm

    MMM–no need to get cocky,

    That was me checking 200 times/day to see if you had posted something new.

    Reply
  • BusyExecutiveMoneyBlog March 16, 2012, 10:08 pm

    2 Million page views! That is incredible. Congratuations on this success. I hope to duplicate someday.

    Reply
  • Kevin March 17, 2012, 12:08 am

    Thanks MMM, appreciate all of the awesome work you’ve put into this site and community.

    Reply
  • kris March 17, 2012, 1:47 am

    Congrats on the milestone. Another example of viral forwarding is the Kony2012 video, it got to 70 million views in less than a week.

    Reply
  • Eric March 17, 2012, 4:02 am

    You write great content and deserve to be compensated for it. Consider yourself tipped!

    Reply
  • Dividend Mantra March 17, 2012, 5:21 pm

    Congratulations, MMM, on the tremendous success you’ve received with your blog. It’s a great resource to the early retirement/frugal living/financial independence crowd and consider me, among many, a fan.

    I haven’t attained the viewership, or monetary reward, that you have but I still consider my blog a great success due to the friendships and relationships I’ve built and maintained. I think the community in which we consider ourselves a part of is a fantastic group of intelligent and self-sufficient people who obviously know that there is a road less traveled with a pot of gold at the end.

    Best wishes for your writing future!

    Reply
    • FreeUrChains March 22, 2012, 10:45 am

      Congratulations, thanks for your very important and fun work each week on saving the World!

      Reply
  • pachipres March 21, 2012, 4:43 pm

    Congratulations to both you and Mrs. MMM. You have changed my life and got me back on track. In 2000 I read Your Money and Your Life but for some years I lost my way. Since your blog, I am so determined now for dh to cut back on his work and spend more time with our younger two boys. Thank you so much again MMM!

    Reply
  • FreeUrChains March 22, 2012, 10:06 am

    Great Choice on Bluehost. it is the best webhosting service out there! You did your research!

    Also, Jacob passed the torch onto you when his attention took another avenue in his life, that has helped with pageviews.

    And, Since all those Yahoo Articles on Personal Finance Suck and give crap to anything MMM or ERE related, i like to promote your site and Jacob’s when the need arises (trying to change and challenge the Consumer-Worker Slaves)

    Consider it free promotion from me :) Hope it has helped!

    Lastly,
    Write a BOOK! Like Jacob has! I bought his and it was a wonderful guide book to my very very very intentionally small library, because i like to store things at my local library instead.

    ($1500/month is the goal from the book sales, that’s Jacob’s earnings so far)

    Reply
    • Mr. Money Mustache March 22, 2012, 11:28 am

      Yeah, the ERE blog has really contributed a huge amount to the readership here (at least 25% based on my best estimates) – especially among you active commenters. This blog owes its popularity entirely to people like you, Jacob, our resident Lifehacker Writer David G., and all the other people who have posted and forwarded it along to various places.

      Over the last few months, search engines have started bringing in more people and will eventually surpass all other sources, but that has only be made possible by the fact that there was first a base of people who helped out by reading often and sharing with others.

      Reply
  • Monevator March 23, 2012, 11:14 am

    You’re on fire, and your daily stats are extremely encouraging too (and better than mine, and my site’s older…)

    In particular you’re seeing a good number of views per page (in my experience anything over “2” for a big content site is good).

    What this may tell the uninformed glancer is that you have a dedicated community who are all reading a lot of pages, revisiting pages to comment, and so on. And it does.

    Sounds great, but there’s better to come.

    Because what it tells a hardened veteran like me that Google hasn’t really discovered your blog properly yet (even if it feels to you like it has).

    As you start to get more inbound links from the likes of Monevator as well as plenty of smaller sites and Likes on Facebook, and retweets, and so on, your standing in the eyes of Google will rise.

    Eventually your PV/visitor will come down, but that will be because so many more new people are coming to your blog every day, driving up your PVs.

    Bottom line, if this carries on I’m going to stick my neck out and say that if you don’t blow it you’re going to be the biggest personal finance site in a year or so.

    Remember you heard it hear first! :)

    Good luck.

    Reply
    • Monevator March 23, 2012, 11:39 am

      (Oh, just remembered you now have a forum. If that’s a big factor in the stats/surge, then I *slightly* tone down my rabid enthusiasm as that traffic behaves differently, and has a different value).

      Reply
      • Mr. Money Mustache March 23, 2012, 7:19 pm

        Thanks Monevator – bullish predictions are always welcome around here!

        Regarding stats and the forum – when I took that snapshot, the forum was still only a small part of the viewership – the articles-alone page views also passed 2 million just a day or two later.

        I don’t get a chance to link to other blogs as often as I’d like, but you ARE in my official blogroll, which is some of my highest praise :-)

        Reply
  • Steve June 30, 2014, 10:14 am

    I went over to Wisebread and it looks like MMM is currently 22!

    Reply
    • IAmNotABartender February 24, 2015, 1:57 am

      21 now – and my favorite blog, which obviously counts for more.

      Reply
      • Chris December 17, 2015, 5:16 pm

        #19 today, which is surprising. How the fuck isn’t this #1 with a bullet?

        Even tho this is an old post (I’m a laggard going from the first post thru to the top) I hope you still consider posting new comments.

        I hope, too, you keep us updated on your progress. Despite all your hard work, in the few short weeks I’ve been reading I’ve already saved / earned way more from your blog than you did in a few years. With plenty more (exponentially) to come!

        Over the lifetime of this blog, I’ll be very surprised if you don’t in fact save the entire human race. You’ll definitely save those of us that want to be saved. The others might just be a handy bi-product.

        Reply
        • Mr. Money Mustache December 18, 2015, 11:29 am

          Thanks Chris!

          The secret to that Wisebread table is that a) it doesn’t automatically update the inputs so they are years out of date, and b) the inputs are crap, so it’s a mostly-meaningless ranking system.

          Still, that consumerist.com site seems like a good, genuine site and I think it deserves to be #1 in the list – it very likely has more traffic than MMM even here in 2015. In fact, this article said it was at 10 million per month back in 2009. I’m at 7 million right now, so unless they have dropped, that is good evidence: http://consumersunion.org/news/cr-acquires-gawker-medias-consumerist-com/

          Reply
  • banyanbat August 8, 2016, 8:40 am

    I don’t know how many millions you have already crossed when I write this comment, but yeah ..its motivating…I am a relatively new blogger who is not sure even his friends are reading that stuff or not :) but yeah it feels great when I hit that publish button and I am excited to see my own blog as the scrollbar grows smaller (As the scroll increases the bar actually goes smaller and smaller).

    And whenever I read your posts, I get motivated to write. Thanks for the inspiration.

    Reply
  • EarningAndLearning May 8, 2017, 1:22 pm

    I’m reading through your posts from the beginning and it’s inspiring to read this older article because it’s now 5 years later and I know from a more recent article that you are now earning “bucketloads” of cash for this blog. Exponential growth at work indeed!

    Reply
  • Nichole February 20, 2018, 3:54 am

    I wanted to say thank you! I finally took all the advice all these years later and started a site, it’s a work in progress but it’s a start. It’s becoming a central point for all my thoughts and photos. Thanks again,
    nicholedid.com

    Reply
  • Freddy Freegan April 27, 2020, 9:31 am

    Hi MMM,

    I have been following your blog for years. I also write a blog against consumerism but am unsure if I want to monetize of not. I’m curious how long did it take you to start making money on your blog? And then how long did it take you to reach something like $1K a month?

    Thank you. PS probably my favorite mustachian phrase is Clown Sukkas.

    Freddy

    Reply

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