I’m part of a private investor group that’s relatively large and has a private forum. Most of my posts on there have been very well received (from the number of “likes” and personal messages thanking me for my insight and contribution). Our group hold annual conferences. I’ve only attended one of these conferences, and didn’t know what to expect. Honestly felt like a minor celebrity, with many people coming up to me whom I’ve never met before telling me how they specifically follow me and look forward to my postings. When each year’s conference gets near, I get messages asking me if I’ll be there and if I can meet with them.
So I thought, I spend a lot of time helping strangers, why not help people that I know as well. So Feb 2022, I started this blog with the intent of helping people I know get a better handle of finance, economics, and investing. I had no intent to monetize, nor gain readership beyond people I know. My initial goal was about 1 post per week. Over the last year, I averaged about 1.5 posts per week (about 80 posts total).
However, in evaluating the past year, I just get the feeling that not many people that I know are really benefiting from what I’m doing here. It’s actually a bit annoying for me to have taken the time to write a post on something, but then have someone who knows I have a blog about this stuff, ask me the same thing. People are still just interested in their quick one-off answer (Ex “What should I invest in now?” “Should I buy a house in this market?”) Since I’m about 1 year into this blog, it has caused me to reevaluate what I’m doing with this project.
On one hand, having these posts archived will be great reading/teaching for my kids in the near future, and I’m glad to have taken the time and write some thoughts down. But on the other hand, if the goal is helping people I know, but most aren’t interested to learn, then my time and effort is probably better expended elsewhere.
So this blog will take a directional turn. Over the past year, I was writing more to an audience. For instance, I would explain things that may be harder to grasp. From here on out, this will become more of a journal where I weigh the pros/cons of making a financial or investing move. I was thinking of doing something like for awhile. For instance, if I make an investment that didn’t turn out well, I automatically think I shouldn’t have made the investment. But it’s easy to forget the circumstances and my thoughts that was occurring at the time I’m making the investment, and instead just focus on the outcome. Having a journal, I can look back and go “ah that’s why I made it, and it wasn’t a bad decision, it was just a bad outcome”. Or “yea I totally should not have done it, what was I thinking?”.
I suspect most of what I write may not make sense to most people unless you are already well adept at investing and finance concepts. Also, the posts will be quite sporadic. For instance, with the current equity markets essentially trading sideways, with sellers of real estate still stubborn and holding out, there isn’t much to make a move on. So if you are still interested in my musings, I do recommend you opt to get a notification if/when I make a post as they will become much less regular.
