279: Financial Independence - How to Be Efficient with Your Money with Anna Rider

Hello. Hello and welcome to the Food Blogger Pro Podcast. My name is Alexa and I'm part of the Food Blogger Pro team. And we are so excited that you're here today to tune into the episode because this episode is a bit different than ones that we've typically published in the past, but it's about a topic that affects us all as creators, as bloggers, as science side hustlers, and that is business and personal finance. So do you know how to manage your spending? Or do you know how to understand the value of business and personal purchases that you're making? Or do you know how to calculate the expected value of a blog post? You know, we're going to cover all of those questions and so much more in this episode because not only are you probably looking to maximize the return on the money that you spend on your business, but you're also probably working to save money for long term goals like retirement and other big purchases. So understanding your finances is a crucial first step. So if you ever wanted to learn more about budgeting or tracking your spending or understanding the impact of the money that you spend, this episode with Anna Ryder from Garlic Delights is for you. So without any further ado, Bjorke, take it away.

Anna, welcome to the podcast.

Hi, Bjork. Thank you so much for having me. And I feel so honored, having listened to this for years now, to be a guest on the show.

Yeah, it's always so fun to have a conversation with people who are familiar with the podcast, familiar with what we're about and who we're about, kind of the spirit of the work that we do. And so often we find that it's kind of folded into then the conversation. So really fun to have that background, but also really fun that you have a background that's a little bit unique in the food space in that you have a really deep interest in finance and personal finance, this thing called financial independence. And also there's this realm called fire. And we're going to talk about what that means and break that down and. And it's actually how we originally got connected. There was an interview that we did with Beth from Budget Bytes, and I messed. I think she mentioned it, or I mentioned this idea of Mr. Money Mustache, this blog and creator, and kind of this idea of financial independence, retire early and financial independence. And we made that connection and that's what we're going to talk about today. So let's hear a little bit about your story. You have a food blog, but you're also really connected in the. In the finance world, you have some meetup groups and, you know, kind of the finance, personal blogging world. So how did all of those things come together? Let's hear a little bit about your story, Anna.

Yeah, so it goes a little far back, so I'll ask the listeners to have a little patience. Sure, yeah. So I first started my career as a journalist and I met a friend, I remember, who told me, you know, you love food and it would be a gift to the world if you would have, you know, a cooking show or just teach people how to cook because it lights you up. This was about 2012, as I was getting done and wrapped up with my master's in journalism. And at the time, you know, I was really young, I had a pretty scarcity mindset. So I was like, oh, you know, the journalism industry isn't doing great. I'm going to get out of this and work in software where it pays much better. And, you know, the industry is booming. So Fast forward about 2015, I was working in software, putting in really long hours, as you do in Silicon Valley. And at some point I just had this weird slow back injury where I had a lot of back pain and it progressively got worse.

That's terrible. One of our best friends, I forget exactly what it is, but essentially it's like one of his discs is out of place and he talks about it and it's just the worst. It's all encompassing and it's all you can think about. And it's like you can't really sit or walk or do anything without being uncomfortable. So it hasn't happened to me, but it's happened to somebody who's really close to me and it's terrible.

Yes, that's exactly what happened to me. Actually, one of my discs got herniated. It was very scary. And, I mean, I could talk all day about this because I rehabbed myself back to health without having to do back surgery, even though the doctors were pushing opioids like nobody's business. But really what happened was it was the first time in my 20s I did not feel invincible. And I was worried, am I going to be disabled for life such that I cannot work? So, and this is a very common story for people in fi, it's often the death of a loved one that causes them to reevaluate life. It could be a layoff, it could be a really bad day at work. And in my case, it was, you know, a medical or a physical injury. So I Googled, you know, what, what do you do if you can't work. And, you know, like many, probably hundreds, thousands of people I've met now, they were like, I landed on this blog called Mr. Money Mustache. And his writing was so captivating. I just started reading and it opened the rabbit hole. And that's the same thing that happened for me. I landed on his post that was. It was about the math of early retirement. And at the time I was like, I don't want to retire. I just want to know what happens to me if I can't work. You know, because I was all worried about, like, health insurance and all these other things. My employer was super cool and unbelievably supportive, but, you know, nonetheless, it's like, I've still got decades to live, right? So what do I do? So luckily, I don't have the back problem rehabbed at. But it opened this world of, oh my goodness, am I doing what I need to to even save for retirement in my 60s, let alone today? Because I wasn't really thinking clearly about future and finances. I was very overwhelmed by the whole thing. Every time I listened to any kind of news report or cnbc, I would just switch it off and say, that's not for me. That's for finance people. That's for Wall street types. Like, I don't know what a bond is. I don't know what they're talking about. Of course, I had this driver behind me that was like, what am I going to do if I can't work? So I started trying to learn more and educating myself. And so that's my personal story of how I ended up there. And again, this was about 2015, and so I started joining meetups when I got healthier and I could walk again and all that stuff, I started going to meetups and meeting people who were. Some of them were personal finance nerds, you know, self professed. And others were just normal people like me who were like, oh, I got divorced, or I wanted to start a new career. I wanted to become a professional dog walker. I met someone like that who was like, I needed to figure out how to do this and not bankrupt myself. So then I started Googling it, and then Mr. Money Mustache popped up, or another blogger. Um, there's many out there. And. And so let's talk about FIRE then, right? I've been previewing it so much. So really. Fire, it stands for financial independence. Retire early. It's not a new concept. It just got new branding. Around the last Great Recession, when a lot of people lost their jobs, they were reeling from that economic Stress and just didn't know what to do. But of course, we know people who have, you know, retired, and we've heard about people who have retired very young in their lives before that. But really what it was was a group of people who came out and said, you know, I've either been laid off or I'm exiting the rat race. And I want to know how I can sustain myself financially so that this is not a catastrophic life event, but actually I can have a better time. Post corporate. You know, what they like to call W2 Employment?

Right.

W2 being the tax document that you get post W2 Employment. So that I can do what I love and what I'm passionate about without being anchored to a world where I don't have enough money to cover my expenses.

Yeah. One of the things that's interesting, you know, you said it's technically not a new concept, but just new branding. I think of. And I actually haven't read this book. I need to add it to my list. Your money or your life? And from what I understand about kind of the life of that book, it kind of existed in some form in a way that wasn't, you know, it kind of was maybe collecting the dust on shelves or, you know, on the Amazon shelves. It wasn't really selling. But as this kind of fire movement started to increase, this book also was like, oh, my gosh. There's this book that talks about this idea, like, your money or your life. And it feels like that phrase and kind of some of the concepts of fire or financial independence in general really make a lot of sense where people are saying, you know what, like, I'm giving my life to a thing that when I'm doing it, I feel kind of soulless. But I also feel like I have to do that in order to pay these bills that have accumulated in my life and to keep this certain standard of living or lifestyle. So there's a couple pieces that I want to dig into that, because I think it ties into the decisions that we make around work around, the decisions that we make with the businesses that we're building. But before I do that, I want to hear from you. Is there a difference between kind of the fire movement? Because there's definitely a group of people. Financial independence, retire early. There's maybe some core elements of that and general financial independence.

Yeah, that's a great question. And I'm one person, right. I don't speak for the movement, just my opinion. Meeting a lot of people. I would say that a lot of people are really into the financial independence concept as a whole. And everybody in the community is very welcoming and very excited. I would say there's a smaller group of people who are like, I really care about the retire early piece of it. And so they might spend more time getting in touch with each other to resolve some of the biggest challenges that do happen because of retiring early. And those are things like, you know, what do I do with the rest of my life? What do I do with health insurance? Right. If you're in the US and how can I access money in some of my retirement accounts, such as a 401k early? And so they will sometimes get together and have almost like a deeper discussion so that they can flesh out some of these issues. And there are just retirement or early retirement focused blogs and that's all that they talk about. And so sometimes it can feel as if the community is split off that way. But ultimately we still really care about being efficient with our money. And so a lot of what we're talking about is that general financial independence concept. And then there's other people who are high earners. Some of them are business owners, some of them are self employed lawyers or maybe physicians where they're making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and they just want to be efficient and know, how do I save money? How do I make sure that I'm putting enough aside for retirement and having enough money to put perhaps their children in college and still living my best life and doing that through financial independence. I don't know if I answered your question.

Yeah, yeah. I think that that idea of financial independence standing alone as kind of being this category of potentially like, what does it look like to be efficient was the word that you used, or intentional or aware of your spending. So often as you have a certain level of success, your lifestyle can just kind of creep up with that. And I was talking with a friend of mine the other day and I was like, we used to, there's this meal we would go and get at Perkins in Cambridge and the small town we grew up in. And it was like the best. Like it was such a luxury. And can remember back to how vivid that was to go out on a Saturday night with friends and, and get whatever would be lemon pepper chicken from Perkins. And then something happens in between where. And part of it is this is the space we're in. So we start to understand like how good lemon pepper chicken can be if it's made right. But something happens where it's like suddenly your lifestyle changes, things shift. Or like hotels would be a good example. Like, I remember as a college kid, if we'd go on a trip, like just whatever hotel it would be. It would be awesome. But then it's like you do a conference and they have super nice hotel rooms, and suddenly that becomes the standard. And you can see how your lifestyle can kind of creep up. And not that it's about not having nice things, but just you can see how you can, over time, start to spend more and to be aware of that and say, that doesn't actually need to happen. I remember an interview that I watched with Pete from Mr. Money Mustache, and he talked about, he's like, you know what? Like, I eat really, really good food. I go to Whole Foods or whatever the like, organic grocery store was that he went to. And. But I don't spend $100 going out for a meal. Like that being a decision that he made. So I think that piece makes sense. And then to draw a line and say, like, there's. Then there's the, like a retire early piece. And these people are oftentimes people who actually want to retire and, and to not work in the same way. So I think that kind of makes sense. Where would you put yourself? Like, if you look at kind of that spectrum of general financial independence and being efficient with your money all the way to, hey, I'm working to a place where I can retire early. Where do you land?

Personally, I love that you asked this question, because here's the interesting thing. I've met a lot of people who have retired early, and after they've had a break and they've traveled a lot and maybe even, you know, played a lot of video games and spent a lot of time on hobbies, they're back to working.

Yeah, totally, totally, totally.

And so there are very few people I've ever met through going to fincon or going to meetups who are actually early retired, they're always working on some project, whether it's makes money or not. You know, with the kind of energy that they're putting into, you know, managing their blog or volunteering, I'm like, I don't count that as retirement. You sound just as, you know, like a worker bee. Like I do, you know, working full time. And so I would say that most people end up, you know, taking that break. And really the difference is when they're in that retirement phase, if you want to call it that, they're working on projects that they're not necessarily doing for money. Not a survival mode job, if you will.

Yeah, yeah. And I Think at its core, so much of what we talk about on this podcast kind of ties into. Conceptually, it's not exactly the same thing, but conceptually the same thing, which is kind of these broad categories of opting into the work you want to do, doing work that you enjoy, autonomy in the work. So not having maybe a super rigid schedule that you have to follow. Exactly. Being able to be flexible in that, getting to work with people you enjoy, like that, being a big piece of it. And some people having jobs that not only do they not enjoy the work, but maybe don't enjoy the people that they work with. And for the podcast, I think we focus a lot on this idea of how do you build a thing that as much as possible, you're building a thing that you have a good relationship with, that you enjoy the work. And not that there will never be things that you don't enjoy or that you don't enjoy. There will always be that there are things that I don't enjoy about the work that I do and just have to get done, but it's about building a thing that offers you some of that autonomy and flexibility and freedom, which I think is fun to see. Kind of the overlap there for you. How do you overlap the ideas of financial independence with your blog? Cause you have a food blog, you have a. A site where you talk about food, you talk about kind of some of the philosophies you have around food and eating and kind of this hybrid of meal prep. Does that cross over at all into that world of financial independence? And does that help in your journey as you think about what financial independence looks like for you?

Yeah, it's a great question, and I love that we're bringing it back to the food blogger community just because I feel like it's a really important point to bring up that a lot of bloggers I've met over the. Over the years, they don't know about fire and they've never heard about a lot of the concepts in the financial independence community, but they're absolutely living the same lifestyle that a lot of FI people live, if that makes sense. So I'll meet bloggers who set their own schedule. They can work anytime they want, and they can work from anywhere in the world. And honestly, that's what a lot of people. People in the FI community are looking for. And I feel like a lot of bloggers get that already. And they're also. And if they haven't, they're building towards that. So, you know, you don't have to be like in the community, to enjoy the benefits of being in the community. And another thing I wanted to bring up was I was reading a post where recently someone was saying, I feel like I am just a hamster in a wheel. She said, I am working as a freelance and I run my own food blog. I make three to four videos a month and I make about 20. I take the photos of about 20, like recipe posts a month. And yeah, she's like, I'm burning out. What do I do? And people said, why do you feel that you need to do that? Right? Because she's saying, I don't have time for even my own website, let alone meeting all my clients deadlines. And I was thinking in my mind, like, I don't have enough time to go through what financial independence means in my comment back to her. But I was just thinking I probably would easily be one of those people who would push myself to the limit to see how much could I produce. But now that I've used these kind of personal finance principles in my mind, I start to think about, okay, if I were in her position. And I mean, how many of us have not been like, I've definitely been in that situation where, yeah, I'm like, I feel like a hamster in a wheel. I'm just producing, producing, producing for someone else. And like, I don't even get paid that much for it. So. So I was thinking, you know, if I could see myself in that position, you know, I would start thinking, okay, what do I actually need to do to cover my basics? And then I will do the client work to cover that. But then every other minute I have left, it's going to be working on, you know, garlic Delight, because that to me is my, you know, exponentially growing resource. And so that's how I think about it being very helpful for food bloggers. Because it's not just a concept for food bloggers. It could be anybody who is knee deep in debt because they have too many car loans or they have over leveraged themselves in their mortgage and they feel like they're drowning. I mean, how many of those desperate posts have we read over the years, right? And so whenever I see that, I'm like, it's the same thing, just different name, different industry, different business, right? And so I start thinking immediately about, you know, how could all of us as bloggers be reminded about the concepts of, okay, are we really able to pare back what we're doing so that we can, you know, I mean, let's just be more precise, right? Like in my own scenario at Garlic Delight, I have definitely burned out. Like I told you before, I used to do YouTube videos. And I was like, why am I doing this and is it necessary for my growth? And I looked at the numbers. In some ways, traffic to me is almost like money in the real world, if you know what I mean. Where I was like, it's not necessarily pushing my numbers higher and it's actually impacting the time I can assign to making really beautiful photos and writing long, detailed posts that help my audience. And so is it worth it for me to be over extending myself or over leveraging on YouTube when I haven't even solidified my presence on my blog, if that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah. There's a James Clear quote. So he's the author behind Atomic Habits. And I came across a quote of his and. Or this isn't going to be exact. This is like one of those friends who quotes movie quotes but then doesn't get them entirely right. This is going to be me quoting James Clear. But the ultimate productivity hack is saying no. And I think of that as it relates to content creation in our businesses. And I think some of us feel overwhelmed and feel like we're not making any progress. And I think a lot of times the answer is just to say no to things in order to focus on the thing that truly does matter and to do it well and to do more of it. And it sounds like in some ways that was true for you, where there's this thing that could have been important or could have made an impact, but due to the resources that you had, in this case being time, it didn't make sense. And so saying no allowed you to not overextend yourself, to focus more, to do the thing that really mattered. And that being a really important kind of variable in your relationship with your work, feeling better about it and kind of being able to dig deeper into it. One of the things that you said was what do I do to cover my basics? And using that as kind of a decision making question as it relates to the amount of work that you're doing and not just working to work, but saying especially when you're in the early stages and maybe you're doing that kind of like freelance or job split and then working on your side, hustle on the side. It's really what Lindsay and I did. We kind of made this really slow transition. We were 100% full time employed and then doing our businesses on the side and then it was kind of like 75%. So we were part time and then it was 50% and then it was like 25% employed and then working on the site and then eventually made the transition. How do people know what their basics are? And what would your recommendations be for making sure that those basics aren't actually like basics plus non essentials. And any advice for kind of trimming down unnecessary spending?

Absolutely. And that's part of why I've always loved your and Lindsay's story, because it's such a realistic and I would say, you know, low risk way of approaching it. Right. Because you're not just. And it's perfectly fine when people feel that they can safely just quit their job and go all in. And I know bloggers who do that and it works out. But I also know bloggers who have broke out into hives after doing that. And there that there's that panic, especially when, you know, I do have a family. And so it's not always possible for some people to do that.

Uh huh.

So I would say there's two approaches. It just like anything in financial independence or even in life, there's more than one way to do it. And so depending on your personality, I would steer you one way or the other. The first way I would say is you just cut ruthlessly on everything that is non essential and see how that feels. Most people I know, they can do it for probably a month. It's not sustainable.

Totally. It's like, I'm going to cut back on all this stuff and then it's like, wait, maybe it is kind of nice to have Netflix or whatever it might be.

Exactly. And then it allows them to see how their lifestyle feels and what does it mean for them to be down at the bare essentials. Of course, they should be tracking their spending and their budgeting at this time so that they can see, okay, I'm actually spending like three or four thousand dollars a month before cutting. And then for one month I was able to get by spending 500, a thousand, or for some people it might be 2000, 3000. I don't know how much it is, but that's the minimum for me. And you'll hear a lot of entrepreneurs have done this apparently. I remember reading, I think, a Business Insider story about Elon Musk where he tried to live on a dollar a day. This was before he had started any business because he said, I wanted to know if I reach rock bottom, could I survive? And he thought that in any developed country he could make $30 a month. So he was like, if I can live on A dollar a day. I know that no matter what happens to me, I'll be okay.

Yep.

And that's kind of that approach. Right. And then the second approach is less extreme, but it requires more tracking and that's more that your money or your life approach. The Vicki Robin approach, where she writes, you need to start thinking of your life and the money that you spend as life energy. Which means if I'm buying this sweater and I really like it and it cost me, let's say $100, how much do I make in my job or as a professional blogger or, you know, how much do I make in income generation after taxes, after the expenses it costs to do the job? So, you know, like, we have to sometimes drive to work. And so that means like a car costs part is part of the expenses for us doing a job. Right. So after all of those expenses, how much do I make per hour and therefore, how much life energy is it costing me to buy this sweater for $100? And that can be a less extreme way, but no less powerful way than the first method where it awakens people. It's, it's like people, you, you read about their weight loss journey, right? And they're like, the first time that I understood, you know, what kind of ingredients were going into the fast food I was eating, it opened my eyes, it changed my life. This is kind of similar, except a financial diet as opposed to actual, you know, food diet.

Yeah. What a great concept. And I think what it does is it shifts it from an intangible thing, which is money, which seems tangible, but to me, the more tangible thing seems like an hour of my time or life energy. One of the ways that I've been thinking about it recently is around decisions that I make is like, we have our two year old daughter, Solvi. Would I be willing to. Is this worth me trading an hour of my time with her and using that as kind of the, the quantifiable value thing in my life when I'm making decisions. And it's like, great, there's endless opportunities and you can work forever, but realizing that at some point you're trading your time, your energy for those dollars. And I think that helps not only on the earnings side, but also on the spending side. Is it worth it for me to, you know, buy a really great, huge tv if that means working, you know, an extra week in order to get that and it starts to impact how you think of things? How do you, how would you recommend that people track their spending and budget in order to understand that kind of, you know, hey, an hour of my time is worth this much. Do you have any recommendations for that?

Yeah, and there's whole books written about this topic, so there's a lot of resources out there to help people. I did it really simply. I just started a spreadsheet and then looked in my bank accounts and saw, you know, how much do I get paid and how much does my husband get paid. And then what are we spending on? Things like Internet, rent, food, and then just tracking our spending for a month just to get a baseline to see what we're starting with. And then there's lots of different tools that people can use if they want to get more automated or more advanced. There's a lot of smartphone apps that will help you automate this process where you can connect them to your bank accounts and they automatically pull the data. I really like even something as simple as a pen and paper because a lot of it is really awareness and it's a lot of understanding opportunity costs, which, again, is one of those scary economic words. But I love the story that you told because it's a perfect illustration of that. Right. And it could be anything. That's the alternative choice for people. Right. So bring it back to food bloggers. One big example I had in the past was I was like a course junkie. Like, I kept buying digital courses and. And I always thought, well, if this one thing helps me grow my business, it's worth it. And that's to me, to me, sometimes even more insidious than the big tv, because we can look at the big TV and say, oh, you know, like, that's just entertainment or status symbol. There's some things that are, you know, either like a digital course where I'm like, oh, but maybe it would help me with my business, you know, or, oh, do I need, like a new camera? Maybe that would help me with my business where suddenly, if we can just say, okay, but I'm giving up this amount of time to spend either hiking or doing something else. I love. Is it worth it for me to have to produce another post in order to pay for this course? I'm not saying courses are bad, but really it comes down to just a value judgment because we can't all live like paupers. And definitely, I'm not advocating, but sometimes there are things where it is that trade off. And so it really helps to get me in that hab of asking, would I actually enjoy this thing more or do I appreciate, like, spending more time with my husband more?

Yeah, that's Great. And those are hard decisions to make and also hard ones to be methodical about and aware of. I think sometimes we're, we're so unaware of our decision making. Do you feel like there are filters that you have in place or kind of mindsets that you've developed that allow you to look at decisions in with that understanding and kind of that framework before you decide on something?

Yes, I have two. And then I can explain a couple others that I know my friends use. So one is I frequently ask myself, what is the environmental impact of my consumption? Because a lot of times I can't actually afford it. And that's the thing. It's like you were saying about a creeping lifestyle. I can't afford it, but do I want to afford it? And what's the environmental impact? So, for example, food props. Perfect example for food bloggers, right? Because it's so easy for us to spring on that one plate or get another teapot or another cup that we're like, this would be amazing. But the thing is, after a while, my shelf gets really big and I have to start throwing things out because I have so much clutter. I cannot find the props I need for my next photo shoot that goes to the landfill. That's an environmental impact, right? And so I started to ask myself, hey, okay, I can afford it, but do I actually want to afford it? And do I want to bring it into my home? Do I want to clean it, do I want to maintain it? And eventually, if I'm going to throw it out, can I find another home for it? Or does it have to go to the landfill? How do I feel about it sitting in the landfill with all the other junk I've thrown out throughout my life? So that's one way I do it.

Yeah, that's great. And I think, you know, it almost has kind of tie into, it's not minimalism, but it's our relationship with things as it relates to their, their impact. Like as a, as something that we need to care for and something that's there or something that's potentially thrown away. So I love that. What's the other part of it? The second question that you ask?

Yeah, so another technique I use really frequently is I ask myself, does this make me feel more or less like I'm getting closer to my goals? And that also is something that requires a lot of reflection. That's why, you know, this is not really an overnight transformation. This is like a multi year long journey. I mean, some people would say it lasts for your whole life. Right. Where every year I sit down, I figure out what kind of person do I want to be? And you know, some bloggers, like, I believe it was the Frugal Woods. They misses Frugalwoods. She even said, go ahead and write your obituary and like, ask yourself, what do you want to be remembered for and what are your achievements? And then read it once a year, you know, on your birthday or on New Year's Day or something, and ask yourself, are you further or closer to those goals?

Right.

Or what you wrote about your story and your obituary. So that's another filter where if I'm not sure about a purchase or I'm not sure about a big life decision, whether it's related to finance or not, but more likely than not, it is tied to finance finance, because money touches everything in life, just the way like food touches everything in life. I always just say, hey, am I getting closer or further? And that can sometimes be the filter because we're all very wealthy, living in a developed country like the U.S. right? And so it's like, more likely than not, we can find a way to justify or we can find a way to afford something, but the question is, do we really want to? Are we willing to pay the price?

That's great. And I think some of that intentional processing around those decisions that you're making, whether that be things that you spend money on, activities that you do, things that you spend your time on, one of the things that I appreciate is there's certain elements of that, and you actually referenced this as we had kind of some back and forth conversations before this podcast. Certain elements of that that seem like they kind of come from the financial independence community or financial bloggers. You actually mentioned somebody and the obituary example of writing that out, do you find that your connection to the finance world informs some of the decisions that you make from a business perspective with your food blog? And if so, what does that look like?

Oh, yeah, I have so many I can tell you about three already come to mind. One is the concept of FU money, and it's a big thing in the FI community, which is what? What amount of money do you need so that you can say F you to the situation or F you to this?

Like, it's kind of a mic drop moment of don't need to take your feedback, don't need this job. I can walk from it. And reaching that level of financial wealth, how do you get to that number? How do you know what that is?

You know, I love that philosophical question you asked, because now that I Think about it, especially the way you framed it, it's really more like a mindset than it is a fixed dollar for each person. But I think everyone can reach that mindset where they feel enough security because of the money that they have to cover their needs. That if someone is in an abusive situation or finds themselves in a, you know, in misery where they're working on a project they don't want to, you know, ask yourself how much is it that you could step away from that scenario and feel safe. And you know, for some people that could just be a three month emergency fund. Some people it could be a three year fund, you know, to cover the again those basic expenses like we talked about, if you go through the process of budgeting and figuring out what your essentials are. But I definitely find a few money really helpful. And that's also allowed me to start thinking more about, you know, what kind of content do I want to make. So I'm not constantly chasing trust, right? And how can I figure out what my readers want to read but also cover things that I care about. And I don't feel like I slavishly work towards covering things, you know, I don't want to cover. Of course, within reason, because, you know, I need to write content my audience.

Like wants that there really is a balance. Lindsay talks about that in the content that she creates for Pinch of Yum, where there's kind of a category of pure interest in alignment and then there's a category of pure performance alignment and then there's a spectrum in between that. And you know, Lindsay talks about every once in a while, like maybe let's say 25% of the content, it's like, hey, I'm gonna kind of think about performance for this. What's the potential for this to rank, to get traffic. But if you do that all day long, it can be, it can feel like empty work. And so you have to have that right balance of content that you feel like is more passion content. Maybe it doesn't have the opportunity to rank really well on Google or you know, to have a high earning potential or to be sponsored, but you know that it's something you love and you want to do that. And Lindsay talks about, you know, hey, let's kind of try and do like a 75, 25 balance with that around content. And I kind of hear you saying the same thing. And one of the things you had also mentioned was this idea of, you know, the expected value of a piece of content. This was a conversation that we're Having what does expected value mean and how does that fit into the decisions you make around the content that you're producing?

Yeah, expected value, it can have a lot of math behind it. So for podcast reasons, we'll skip that piece of it. And actually that's not even how my brain works. My brain works in a more storytelling way. So the way I like to interpret it is expected value is thinking about what's the likelihood of something happening and then what is the, in financial terms, like what's the dollar value associated with that. So one way I could think about it is when I look at my posts, what is the likelihood that I'm going to rank on page one of Google for this post? And approximately how much do I make from, let's say, display ads for each post? And so it allows me to figure out, okay, well, if I've got this kind of recipe, and I think I have a pretty good chance about ranking on the first page, I can calculate my expected value. You know, that's the value I expect to produce if I go ahead and do this action. And what it allows you to do is start to think about different things in a more, as you would like to say, a tangible or like kind of metric driven way so that I can start to make trade offs easier in my current life. So let me give you a practical example because I know we're talking in a lot of abstract terms. So I have a pretty clear idea of what my expected value is per blog post that I produce because I know approximately what my rankings are and what my RPM is from my ads. So I ask myself, okay, that means that my expected value for producing one blog post is this. Let's say it's $250 or let's say for some people it might be $5,000. Now if I want to invest a lot of time in a new social network, that's not proven, but I heard it's like the next big thing that's going to be like as good as Pinterest. I can do the math on that probability, right? What's the probability that that social media platform is going to take off and if it does, like, how much am I making on, you know, let's say Pinterest right now or on ads? And like, how much is that going to increase my traffic by? If that dollar amount is more, I'm going to spend my time investing on learning this new social media platform and not on producing a post. But if you, if I figure out that I can not have a higher expected value from investing time in that social media platform, then it makes sense for me to keep producing more posts because it has a higher expectation that is going to bring me more value, if that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah. I love the idea of building in some type of way to guide decision making because I think one thing that can be so overwhelming in, in the content production world is knowing that you have a hundred different options and each one of those options has, you know, positives and negatives. But putting together some type of framework to say, okay, if I spend my time here, here's kind of, if I'm estimating and thinking this might be the potential outcome, here's what, here's what I could see from that. And I think it's important to point out like it's by no means prophetic, like you're not going to put that in there and it's actually going to happen, but it allows you to get better at attempting to predict things and that then becomes a skill that you have. It's, it's similar to, you know, after doing a blog for 10 years, you kind of start to understand if a piece of content will do well just because you've produced so much content that you get a feeling that, like, hey, this in the past, I kind of have this inkling that this is going to do well. I think that's our internal, you know, that's our brain kind of getting accustomed to certain things doing well or not as well. But what you're saying is, hey, why don't you actually put some numbers to that? You can kind of calculate that. You could put a little basic spreadsheet together and make some calculations on the potential return of something. So is that something you're kind of doing in your head or are you actually going through the process when you're thinking of, let's say writing an article or developing a recipe and saying, here's what I think the actual return on this could be.

I mostly do it in my head and I don't necessarily even put really precise numbers around it. I sometimes in a kind of lazy way just think like probability of success, like, you know, super low, medium or sorry, super low, low, medium, high or like, absolutely, it's a no brainer, you know. And then I kind of put like a dollar amount approximately, but in a rough term like, oh, it's probably about 200 or something like that. What's funny is my husband's a physicist and so he will sometimes explain things to me where he's already done the actual math in his head. And I'm like, I don't understand what you're saying. Can you please write this down? And then he's, he will actually spreadsheet it for me and I'll be like, oh, I get it now. Yeah, that number for option one much smaller than number for option two. Yeah. Okay. Option two is a no brainer. So, you know, for me again, because I'm not very math heavy, I like to think of it in more like, like categories and buckets. But yeah, he will sometimes do the math and, and you know, it works as a great communication tool. But yeah, yeah, it's a great, I think like whatever works for the person is the best strategy. But the main point I wanted to take away is that I do think about things with this level of strategy.

Sure. Yep. And it sounds like some of that comes from, you know, you'd mentioned this before fincon, Financial Blogger Conference and picking up kind of some of the norms from finance bloggers. Are there other things that you notice that exist in the financial publishing world? You know, conversations that are happening in places, places like fincon or in communities where it's personal finance bloggers that you feel like could be applied to food blogging that you don't really see happening in the food blogging space?

Absolutely. And there's two big ones that I really want to talk about. Number one is compound interest. And number two is the way that personal finance bloggers link to each other. In the SEO term you would say backlinking. So let's talk about compound interest. I mostly came to this concept as a reader of personal finance blogs, not really participating necessarily in fincon and those personal finance bloggers. So the concept of compound interest is hard for humans to grasp. We don't really think in terms of exponential growth. And now we are actually having to learn to think like that because sadly COVID 19 has has trained us to think like the way the virus spreads Right. In compound interest or exponential growth ways. So what I mean is if you look at the exponential curve, you know, some people call it the hockey stick. It starts off really slow, but then it just takes off, you know, and it's the same way with investments as it is with traffic. You know, the first probably a hundred thousand dollars of savings is the hardest for most people because it doesn't feel like it's growing very much and you're contributing a lot, but you're not seeing very much growth. Growth. It's the same way for blogging in the very beginning is the hardest to get traffic Numbers because it also follows an exponential growth curve. Understanding compound interest for me was really helpful because it allowed me to see that the same numbers are applying to my exponential growth on my traffic. Now I look at Google Analytics, I'm like, hey, I see the hockey curve. But when I first started, I did not. I, I saw every individual traffic number bump. Like I saw myself go from 5 to 10 to 50, and I saw myself growing, it felt like linearly. And you know, it wasn't until quite a while that you actually really start to see that exponential growth trend. And a lot of people quit. Just like they quit, you know, blogging, they quit investing because the payoff doesn't come for, I mean, probably years, you know, like not even months.

Yes, it is such a long term game. And it ties in well to the name of our company that we run, tinybit, which comes from the phrase that we talk a lot about on the podcast, 1% infinity, which is getting a tiny bit better every day. But that's in essence, it's a version of compound interest.

It really is.

It's 1% better every day. It can be applied to finances, it can be applied to traffic, it can be applied to your personal life. I think it was Albert Einstein who had that pulled it up here compound interest quote where he said, compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it. He who doesn't, pays it. And it feels like there's a lot of application in that in the finance world for sure. But also with working on something improving and seeing the gains of that over time and seeing the true gains of that, you know, 8, 9, 10 years in, where you make a 4% improvement and you really see it, whereas a 4% improvement in the first year, you're not going to see it as much. So a huge light to be pointed at sticking with it and patience and perseverance as being so important. I'm thinking that's that second one, the idea of backlinking, or was there something else that you wanted to add to that?

Yeah. One thing I want to point out too about personal finance that applies absolutely to blogging when it comes to exponential growth, is that eventually you will make more money from the growth than the actual amount you're contributing. So that's a very interesting concept. And it's very hard for beginners to believe because they think, how can the amount that I've put in in the past actually start to earn me more money than I put in? So, for example, let's say you're putting in $1,000 a month, eventually your money will start to gain and grow more than a thousand dollars a month. So that's actually more than you're putting in. I find the same way with traffic. It's like I'm fighting tooth and nail for every last visitor right now. And then once my traffic starts to grow exponentially, I feel like because Google rewards me and I'm doing on Pinterest and all these other places that I'm attracting more people than the people I'm actively trying to push to the website, if you know what I mean. And same with backlinks and so on.

Yeah, it's interesting. If you were to do an investment calculator, you can see that you can enter in. If I'm entering in here, age 34, plan to retire 67 and let's say have zero saved for retirement, contribute monthly, let's say a hundred dollars and 8%. I don't know. You'd know better than I would if that's realistic. But if you plug those numbers in, you can see, you know, if you are, you contribute 39,000 over the lifetime if that's what you're doing. But the growth, the stuff that you haven't put in is 153,000.

Exactly. It's even more than what you put in.

You've only put in 39,000. But the compound interest, the work that's been done by the money that you've put in, or in the case of traffic, the time and energy that you've put in grows exponentially. But you don't really see that until the end, which is just such a great point. And what about backlinks? That was something that you talked about being important in the financial blogging world. How does that look different than it does in food blogging?

Yeah, and I'm going to make some gross generalizations, but one thing I really love about the fincon community is that they have a rising tide floats all boats philosophy in life. And they are very much focused on how can I have an abundant mindset? Which means that they think that if they link more to other bloggers and hey, you know, some of them are going to be competitors, right? They don't see themselves that way. They think if I link more, then you're going to grow in authority and you're going to link back to me because we're friends. And we also think that there's value in our audiences getting to know each other and learning advice from each other. And suddenly there's this, you Know, number of backlinks is part of the ranking factors, right, for Google and they all grow together. And so sometimes when I have been at food blogging conferences and I've talked about he, hey, you know, do you do guest posting or you know, what's, what's your backlink strategy? Or like, how did you feel if I, if I guest posted with you? I've literally heard answers of like, I don't want to post on someone else's website because then they get the added revenue and I don't. And that kind of zero sum thinking to me was very surprising because after having interacted with so many personal finance bloggers who are more than happy to just say, hey, you know, I went to fincon and I talked to my buddy Anna and like, she's not a personal finance blogger, but she's a food blogger. Check out her blog here. Like, looks yummy. It's like, you know, like there's nothing in it for them, but they just want to like, share the love and like generously link. And honestly it helps their readers, right? Because who knows, maybe they're interested in my garlic bread recipe. That kind of philosophy. I am always trying to instill more in the food blogger community where I'm, I'm always trying to drop links to people. Like, I will actively look for other bloggers who I respect, but I know they're beginners, so to me they're up and coming. But they're not like the biggest, biggest, biggest bloggers who frankly don't need my help anymore, you know, to give them a link, to like, give them a boost, you know, I really want to pay it forward because a lot of people have done that for me. And I also think the more we link to each other, the more our industry will grow. Because, you know, personal finance bloggers, they always see themselves as like, we could always grow bigger. And maybe that's just the finance, like, mindset and philosophy, you know, but like, to them it's like personal finance is, it's an industry. But like fire blogger specifically, they're like the small fry in the personal finance industry as a whole, right? You've got like insurance and like, you know, retirement accounts and stuff. And like, there's a lot under that personal finance umbrella that fire bloggers are not always the biggest group of people. And so they're like, hey, the more we can grow each other, like, the more we can be a bigger and bigger thing.

So yeah, it's interesting when you look at the overall market and finance being the example there's huge finance sites and venture backed, a bunch of money, millions and millions of page views. And when you stack that up against, you know, collectively a group of smaller, in comparison finance bloggers, it's like, oh, it makes sense for that, for almost that group to view themselves as kind of a collective unit and not necessarily competing against each other, but definitely competing against these huge sites with a ton of resources. So. So I can see that.

Big guys. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, absolutely. Yep.

So many takeaways here. I know that people are going to be really excited about different pieces of it and would be interested in connecting with you personally, Anna. But before we wrap up, I'd be, I'd be curious to know, for those who want to get started specifically on the financial independence piece, if they want to take those first steps and saying, you know what, I want to understand my finances a little bit more. I want to have a little bit more control. What does that look like and how do you move forward with that? And I know you even have some meetup groups that you do. Obviously probably not in person right now, but if somebody's interested in learning more about other people they can connect with, what's the best step forward for somebody who's interested in learning more? And then the second piece of that is, is how can they connect with you personally?

Sure. So if people want to do the meetup, I still host the meetup and it's all virtual, so we do it through Zoom. I would be happy to share the link with you and we could drop it in the show notes. And another way that I recommend people kind of understand personal finance is actually, you know, it's. You're going to find it really funny. It's not Fire Resource, it's a book I stumbled upon actually before I even landed on the fire community. It's a really short 14 page PDF and it's called if youf can. And it's written by this, this like financial advisor who wrote a book for millennials to explain to them what they need to do to retire. And the reason I like it is because it's very clear. It's not intimidating. It doesn't have all these acronyms and all like all this whole subculture you have to dive into. But it has the same tenants, which is, you know, how do you save more and you know, don't spend as much as you earn and what to do with the money. And I find it super non intimidating and it's free. So, you know, it's like, what's better than Free. So I'll drop a link for you for that resource. And from that point, the book is really like, here's five different books you should read. And so if someone is so inclined, they can do that. If they're not, they can definitely look at some of the resources that I'm sure we'll share in the show notes of my personal favorite fi bloggers that I think would really help get folks, you know, comfortable and understanding what is the first step to working on that journey to financial independence. If that's what they're interested in, that's great.

Yeah. And I can see that. If you can, you can get it on Amazon as a free Kindle if you're part of Kindle Unlimited or there's just the PDF, it's like the first thing that shows up is a link to the PDF, which is so great that it's free and available. So we'll link to that as well. But you can also just search if you can. Anna, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Really, really appreciate it. And it's fun conversation for me because it's an area that I'm interested in and I know that it will be interesting for podcast listeners as well. So thanks so much for coming on.

No problem. And if anybody has any questions, the easiest way to get in touch with me is actually through email. So you can email me@anagarlicdelight.com and I pretty much respond to all of my comments and questions and stuff. And so you can ask me anything about blogging, you know, food related or even personal finance. And I would be happy to email you resources or, you know, offer any advice.

Awesome. Really appreciate that. Anna, thanks so much.

Great. Thank you so much for having me.

And that's a wrap on this episode of the Food Blocker Pro podcast with Anna from Garlic Delight. We hope you enjoyed it and we hope you learned something. I know I learned a ton. Finances is something that typically stresses me out to think about, but it's such an important topic, especially, you know, as a business owner and as somebody who wants to set themselves up for success in retirement age. I just was reminded of so many great things and Anna mentioned a ton of resources. So we have all of those linked in the show notes for this episode and you can find that@foodbloggerpro.com279 so if you have any other questions, we would love to hear about them in the comment section of the show notes@foodbloggerpro.com 279 or on food Blogger pro in the forum. We're always having discussions there about business development and growing your blog, so that would be a great place to drop any questions if you have any additional ones. So that's that. That's a wrap for this episode, and we hope you enjoyed it and we'll see you next time. And until then, make it a great week.

Sam.