Bloggers open up about money matters

By day, Nicole Mladic is a 26-year-old marketing relations professional working in Chicago. But after hours, she lets it all hang out online in her blog.  On her web Web site, where she goes to spill her secrets for any random Internet passerby to read, and she shares her sins, vices, desires and aspirations freely with the entire world.

A recent passage:

“Today I updated my net worth, and I'm happy to say I've more than doubled it over the last six months! Today's net worth total checks in at $5,413. Wahoo! So how am I going to celebrate? Well, I'll admit, I already did. Yesterday I was at Woodfield Mall….and I managed to pick up new shorts ($40) and a pair of discount jeans ($40) at J. Crew. Yesterday I was a little embarrassed about the jeans, because they were a total impulse buy ... they were originally priced at $98! ... but today I consider them celebratory presents to myself for meeting my financial goals.”

Okay, so it’s far from a raunchy MySpace entry. But instead of dishing about sex and drugs, Mladic indulges in something almost equally taboo — talking about money. As the Budgeting Babe, Mladic pulls open the curtain and shines a bright light into every corner of her finances. She gives specific figures for how much she has in her savings account ($6,482.12), what she owes on student loans ($9,000) and how much she spent on her last shopping spree (a pair of pants for work from the Gap for $24.99, but they were originally priced at $50). 

But besides confessing her lack of financial assets, Mladic researches and writes posts about pressing financial topics of the day, like how to determine one’s net worth. She answers questions from readers, such as about taking out student loans, by giving her personal experience or asking financial professionals to offer their advice on the topic. Mladic also links to articles she finds financially relevant in any way, like a Chicago Tribune article comparing the cost difference between men’s suits. And she also offers non-related advice as well, such as making time during the workday to look out the window (“Summer is upon us, and even if us working gals and guys can't experience it fully right now, we can certainly appreciate it.”)

Musings like those are the reason readers keep coming back to her blog, or web log, which attracts several thousand readers a month. Mladic dedicates The Budgeting Babe blog to “all the young working women who want to spend like Carrie Bradshaw in a Jimmy Choo store but have a budget closer to Roseanne.”

“I strike a chord with young women my age who are having the same experience as me,” said Mladic, who started her blog in November 2004 after hearing her more financially established co-workers talk about their 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts and not understanding a word they said. “When [young people] look at financial articles in newspapers and magazines for advice, the heavy tone can be intimidating to them. They want advice from someone who is more experienced and helpful but who has also been in their shoes.”

Hers is one of a growing number of blogs that focus on the daily tasks of managing one’s money. Most personal-finance bloggers out there started their blogs as a way to lay out their financial goals, track their progress, and get encouragement and accountability from readers. Others are motivated by the educational aspects of teaching novices and sharing their advice.

One of the latter is financial-blog veteran Jeffrey Pritchard, a 36-year-old financial planner in Texas, whose blog AllFinancialMatters was one of the first of its kind when he created it in October 2004. In his latest postings, Pritchard explained how to calculate the remaining balance on a loan, and created a calculator to compare mortgages.

“My goal is to educate people about financial math,” he said. “I do try to answer questions, but not specific ones because that would be giving free advice and that would cause regulatory problems because of my financial planner’s license.” Readers with specific questions he directs to professional Web sites, such as that for the National Association of Financial Planners.

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