One of the decisions I made when I first started this blog was to remain anonymous. I wanted to have a network of readers, but didn’t necessarily want my friends and family to be among that audience. This was for two reasons: 1) I didn’t want to disclose my financial information to friends and 2) there’s something about anonymity that gave me the freedom to be more honest.
I love reading blogs–especially personal finance ones. They inspire me, give me ideas to write about and to practice, and I feel like I’ve gotten to be friends with many of the writers. I know that many other PF bloggers are anonymous also, but I’m wondering…
How many close friends/family know about your blog?
No one?
Just a select few?
Open to everyone?
Ever had anyone find your blog?
My Answer:
I’ve shown this blog to my boyfriend J and my younger sister (hi guys!).
Only my boyfriend knows about my blog…..I think he’s probably the only person I’ll tell (as long as I’m anonymous).
I’ve also considered just becoming public eventually…. Why not? I think if I ever do that, I’ll take down my sidebars and stop giving personal financial details and just blog about personal finances in general…
When I first started I spoke with my brother and his girlfriend (roommates) because they both have blogs. They are more personal journals. I really wanted/needed their advise on HTML and how to change things.
From the get go I also told my boyfriend.
Part of the reason I even knew about personal finance blogs was because of my mom who reads a lot of them. I knew that she would find me anyways because I started commenting a lot as well (she mostly lurks); so I thought, why not just tell her. I used her as my first audience, after I post I could call her ask her to read it and let me know if it was easy to comment or provide feedback in other ways.
I have a pretty open relationship with her about money regardless, so it wasn’t a big deal for her to know.
That said, I don’t want any other family to know and I certainly wouldn’t tell any of my friends at this point.
(sorry, forgot to click Notify me, so reposting so I can see other people’s comments)
Most of my friends know I have one, but they don’t know the name or URL. My fiance knows and visits every once in a while. My Dad found my blog once because I told him I was writing about a certain topic, but he didn’t know I could see who visited the blog, so after I busted him, I told him not to come back and he hasn’t since.
Nice post, I think about this quite a bit.
When I first started (ha ha like two weeks ago) I wanted to remain anonymous…just like you I wanted to be a part of a network and I felt like I could be more honest which would in turn help me in the long run.
BUUUUT….one of my co-workers (also a friend) caught a glimpse of my monitor when I was writing a post during lunch. :( Booooo He has now favorited my blog (which I hate) and I wish I could block him. But I’m not going to let him stop me and I suppose it was my fault.
The bf knows of the blog but not the address…he probably wont ever read it.
I have two blogs. One that my friends know about, and my anonymous financial blog. I keep waiting for someone/anyone to read my financial blog but it hasn’t happened yet!
My husband knew from day one about my blog.
Very few of my friends know I blog – that’s changing though, as several have started their own blogs, at which point it would be weird for me to be like “oh, yay you have a new blog” and not mention mine.
It’s a weird balancing act.
My parents don’ t know about it.
My fiance and a couple of family members know about my blog. I’m not really anonymous – my page links to my examiner.com page and ehow pages with my photo, so if anybody wanted to find it they could. I write about both my finances and my fiance’s finances but try not to be too specific with numbers.
I’m not too concerned about it, I just don’t post anything that I would be embarassed for my boss or future mother-in-law to read. :-)
My hubby knows about my blog and reads it every night after he comes home from work! :D I have told 3 of my friends, but only 1 of them was interested and actually reads it. I have 1 other PF blogger as a “facebook friend” – so she knows who I am. Other than that, no-one else knows. I have considered filling my parents in on the blog, since I am really close with them. But, we’ll see! :P
When I started I only showed my boyfriend and a close friend I talk about money a lot with. However after I was kinda outed on my blog I decided to hide some stuff (which still kinda sucks), but I let more friends/family know.
Right now my parents, sister, and a handful of close friends know and read my blog. There are some things that I no longer feel comfortable writing about, but I’m glad to have their input and to understand more where I’m coming from.
I’ve only officially told 2 people about my blog – my boyfriend has known about the blog since we started dating, and I showed him a few weeks afterward.
And then a few months ago, a close friend asked for financial advice. I trusted her, so I showed her the blog and she’s been reading ever since.
To the best of my knowledge, no other friends or family know about my blog. Although I’m almost certain someone from my work has found out about it!
That’s why I went and deleted anything remotely related to my job, just in case. But other than censoring a bit of my job-related thoughts, I continue to blog about everything I was blogging about 2 years ago. I think that if I ever had to compromise the content of my blog, I would shut down and stop blogging. Or maybe quit my current blog and start up again.
No one knows about my blog and I don’t intend to tell anyone. I never say anything on the blog that I wouldn’t say to my friends’ faces, but I like to have something that is just for me.
I am anonymous, mainly because I disclose too much information about my finances in my posts. I enjoy being up front with people about my journey, and the fact that few of my friends and family actually know about it allows me to do that more freely (much as you stated)…
That being said, there are only a handful of family and friends who know about my blog…
Everyone knows about my blog. Sometimes I am glad, but other times I hate censoring myself.
I’ve only told 2 of my friends. One is also an anonymous blogger, and one is a frugal, non-judgemental, best-friend kinda guy.
As you know… two others have found out, but I think I’ve taken precautions to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
A few people know. Husband knows (though I don’t think he has ever read it!) as do Mum and my two BF’s. That’s it. Any more and…well I don’t know what savings other people have got and so it would feel weird if they knew all about mine!
My bf knows about it and my close friends W and M. But, no one really reads it by any means. Which I feel comfortable with. It’s just one of those things I’m always doing and it helps keep me accountable. But since I do it anon, other stuff seems to always make it on there, lol. Love the blog by the way. :)
Serendipity
Everyone knows about my blog, and they have pretty much from the get-go. I wasn’t sure if I wanted my name associated with my blog from the start, but I figured that my first name is so common that I could use it without too much worry. Eventually I was nominated for a blogging scholarship, so my last name became associated with my blog, as well.
My friends all knew about my blog before they could “find it,” but I did have one funny incident: I was posting on a completely-not-blogging-related forum (for a webcomic, actually) and I added a link for “Poorer Than You” to my signature. Immediately someone responded and said “Hey! You write that?!? A friend of mine just linked that site to me yesterday!” Turns out that a friend of his from high school was a friend of mine from college! We never would have known about that connection if I hadn’t been open about my blog to both my “real world” friends and my online friends.
Only my fiance knows about my blog, and I’m a little nuts about privacy (not for safety reasons, just because) so I didn’t even tell him for almost a year. !!!
But I do write with the assumption that if someone read it, I wouldn’t be in big trouble.
Quite a few friends know about my blog.
Basically I have tried to keep the knowledge of my blog going in one direction, that is, if you know me personally, you can find my blog, but if you know me through my blog, you won’t find me. So that’s why on my facebook profile, I include my blog, but I wont include my facebook link (or too much other identifying data) on my blog. I guess I don’t want strangers starting to stalk me!
I don’t mind if my friends know what I write…in fact, some will talk to me about it in social settings! I write more to share information about pf and other topics than specifically about my exact finances. That’s also why I don’t link to my networthIQ profile.