Thursday, May 10, 2012

Analysing PF Blogs: Bad Money Advice & The Barefoot Investor

SMG is going to be analysing and dissecting the other PF Blogs in the blogosphere. Other websites have started writing series so I thought I'd start a series too. It's going to be a series on 'Analysing PF Blogs'. Every week, I will try to dissect through websites and blog sites to evaluate the merits of the advice given and the background of the writer/s.

Bad Money Advice

If you've never heard of Bad Money Advice, written by a cranky dude going by the moniker of Frank Curmudgeon(who used to be a previously unemployed hedge fund manager), you should visit that site and read- I really recommend. He's recently gotten a job so fortunately for him and unfortunately for me, the delectably witty, insightful and sarcastic articles that he churns out has decreased significantly.

Bad Money Advice differed from mainstream sites because it doesn't exist to publish gardening and food drivel like SMG (had to confess that), it exists to solely point out the wrong financial advice given out in the blogosphere and on money management websites. I thought that would be an interesting slant for SMG readers to read about. SMG has dissected its first blog in the post, Australian Personal Finance Blogs where the blogger MJTED started her own SMSF fund with only $32k which is financially illogical(unless proven otherwise).

The Barefoot Investor



The Barefoot Investor, also known as Scott published a popular money management book a few years ago and have since then, gained a rather large number of followers in the Australian market. Over 18,000 people have 'liked' his Facebook page if that signifies anything. The screenshot above is a snippet of the interesting income, expenses and investments of the typical 'average couple' that Scott likes to write about.

He writes in a very casual manner. He likes to mix alcohol and trivial stories into his articles and he steers away from overly complex financial geek speak. His style is very casual. His target group would be beginners, intermediates and pretty much the average population in Oz.

While I don't agree with everything he's written, most of it is wise, good old fashioned advice. The only thing I'd like to caution readers who visit his blog is to be wary of the commenters. Quite a few of the comments are misleading and bad money advice. But that begs the question, do readers really take notice and take advice from commenters?



2 comments:

  1. The Barefoot Investor is certainly worth a read. I agree with you that whilst I don't always have confidence in everything he writes; it is accessible information for the average uninitiated Australian.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's a very popular site in oz. Hope the second property acquisition that you blogged about is going well.

      Delete