What up, y’all!
Your boy J. Money here… I’m the blogger behind the site and lover of all things money, biz, lifestyle design-y, minimalism, and most especially skateboarding (got into it last year at 41 y/o and it is amazing!! I feel 20 years younger and meeting all kinds of new friends!).
I started this blog back in 2008 in my 20s with no real budget or idea what I was doing, and over the past 14 years it ended up completely changing my life, my money, my community, and quite honestly my entire mindset. I went from chasing the money just to be able to call myself a Millionaire one day (hah!), quickly realizing it was more about the FREEDOM the money brings than the dollar signs themselves. Plus, when you’re a Millionaire it means you’re good at *saving* money, not *spending* it! 😂
Now in my early 40s and “early retired,” I get to do what I want from sunrise to sunset and it’s a beautiful thing – all because of Past Jay’s hustle and persistence! Thanks dude!! And hopefully you’re well into your own financial journey here too.
Some other things about me:
- I’m married
- Father to 3 beautiful (feisty) boys!
- Proudly live and rep the commonwealth of Virginia
- Have a rare autoimmune disease called Pemphigus Vulgaris (and a non-rare disease called ADHD ;))
- I collect rare coins and books from my hometown (love local history!)
- Been practicing minimalism since 2010
- Been a professional full-time blogger/entrepreneur since 2010
- Became a Millionaire by 40, then financially free shortly after that
- Have created, sold, shut down, re-acquired dozens of online projects over the years – including this very blog here! (I sold it in 2019, then re-acquired it in 2022)
- Have also FAILED a lot over the years as well → Failure Resume
- Have won 12 industry awards, including Lifetime Achievement in 2016
- Became a money coach, blog coach, fintech coach, and even judge!
- I work out of coffee shops every day – the BEST!
- Like mustard on my mac n’ cheese
- And was once turned into a bobblehead 😂
You can read more of my “story” here: jmoney.biz/story
Or sign up to get my weekly personal newsletter and get the scoop of all the projects I’m working on, as well as my favorite reads and tools from around the community I collect each week (goes out on Fridays): jmoney.biz/newsletter
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About The Blog
This blog all started out by accident. One fateful day my fiancé at the time and I were on a drive to check out a 2 bedroom apartment to rent, then quite literally took a wrong turn and ended up in front of a 2 bedroom townhouse for sale where we proceeded to buy it within 48 hours, on a whim and without a budget, handing over $350,000 and officially becoming “homeowners” (and by official, I mean debt owners as, a) the bank owned the house! And b) we put down exactly $0.00 on the deal right before the big market crash of ‘08 – oops).
Days later I realized I should probably start a budget and get my finances in order, so I googled “budget” or something to that effect and stumbled into the magnificent world of money blogs! I didn’t even know what a blog was, but was absolutely ENTHRALLED by normal people talking about normal money things, with some even sharing their entire savings and investing and debts and Net Worth for the world to see!! (Shout out to My Money Blog) MIND BLOWN!!
Bored at work a few months later and wanting something fun and productive to do, I decided to start my own blog even though I’m not a writer in the least!, and with Justin Timberlake’s new song buzzing in the background (“I’m bringing sexy back – yup!”) I had the perfect name for it:
Budgets Are Sexy
A couple of months later advertisers started showing up and asking if they can give me money to display an ad (and I was like Hell Yeah! I didn’t even know you could make money sharing your thoughts?!) and two years after that this little blog here became a full-fledged “business” and allowed me to do it for a living and I haven’t had a “real” job ever since. Much to the dismay of my mother (and my college degree she paid for!).
But it’s a brand new world out there, and the possibilities for online projects and businesses are endless, so if you’re sitting on anything you’re super passionate about and are constantly wondering “what if?”, I challenge you to put it out into the world this weekend and find out once and for all!! Maybe it’ll go on to change your entire life as it did mine? And worst case at least you DID SOMETHING about it and learned something in the process… You never truly *lose* going after your dreams.
These days I no longer track every last dollar that comes in, nor do I even budget for that matter (*gasp!* I do track my Net Worth every month though as I got my cash flow/expenses on lock), but I still very much love the confidence budgeting and tracking your money gives you, which ultimately goes on to affect your entire life in the process.
Budgets = Confidence = Sexy
And that’s the basis of this blog. Pay attention to your money, grow as a person and feel more comfortable with yourself and your decisions, and every day work towards living your Best Life because you’re confident in your finances and what you want out of life.
You got this!!
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[Blog design from 2015 – early 2022]
More about the blog:
- Launched Feb, 2008
- Over 3,000 posts written (not all spectacular! lol)
- Over 130,000 comments from the community!
- Over 30,000,000 views from around the world! 🤯
- Named “Best International Money Blog” in 2017 (SHOMO Awards)
- Named “Blog of The Year” in 2012 (Plutus)
- Named “Best Lifestyle Blog” in 2011 (Plutus)
- Named “Most Humorous Personal Finance Blog” in 2010 and 2011 (Plutus)
- Named “Best Personal Finance Blog for Generation Y or X” in 2010 and 2011 (Plutus)
- Named “Best Microblog” in 2011 (@BudgetsAreSexy)
- Named “Best Multi-Part Personal Finance Series” in 2011 (Side Hustle Series)
- Named “Best Designed Personal Finance Blog” in 2010 (Plutus)
- Featured hundreds of times in the media – both in print and online: Forbes, New York Times, TIME, LA Times, US News & World Report, Kiplinger, Entrepreneur, Mashable, Business Insider, Yahoo! Finance, Huffington Post, and dozens more
- Sold the blog to The Motley Fool in 2019, then re-acquired it in May of 2022 – yay! My man 5AM Joel held down the fort while I was away, and I’ll forever be grateful for it 🙏
- I’m back and ready to continue the party!
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[Screenshot of the blog circa 2008!]
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Say Hello!
Poke around the blog, join the comments and community, and feel free to reach out anytime if you think I can help with something! Or just say hi!
I respond to all emails, even from the haters ;)
- Email: j [at] budgets are sexy [dot] com
- Twitter: @BudgetsAreSexy
- Insta: @jmoneyyyyyy
- Facebook: @budgetsaresexy
[If you have any juicy stories or tips/hacks/article ideas – pass those over too! We’ll make you famous if we end up sharing them ;)]
Yours in finance,
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did you ever check out T Harv Eker? I have done a lot of stuff with his company (Peak Potentials) – amazing. Changed my financial life forever!
i read up a little on him but nothing too in depth as yet…possibly one day :)
I am saving so I can quit my job of 31 years and take on a new one, at the airlines. I have decided only there I can work, and travel free for the rest of my life. The way I look at it I am going up and not down!!
Yeah! Go for it! As someone who’s worked for the airlines before, I can tell you that the travel benefits are KILLER. The whole world opens up with possibilities, you will love it :)
Love your blog J.Money. Saving is definitely something that I need to do more of. With that said I guess I have a great topic for tonight’s blog post. I’ll mention ya. Definitely in order!
Going into 2011 saving is one of the things El Manzo and I have been talking about. Saving up enough to buy a house next year. That’s huge considering the economy and cutting back, but I know it can be done.
I’ll be using your tips ;) Thanks for all the tips and such. I’ll be here on the regular!
– Q
Cool! So glad you like the blog :) Will poke over to yours too after this comment. Here’s to a successful year!
Love this blog. I’m setting up my own PF blog (for my own reasons) as we speak. I will teach you to be rich is a book I’ve seen a few times, but wondered about. Now I think I’ll have to get it.
Awesome! Will go check it out as soon as I drop this :) Thanks for the kind words.
Love the fact that you’re J. Money. The end!
Love the fact that you’re cursing without actually cursing ;) Friends keep telling me to go check out your stuff – looking forward to getting to know more!
Can I just say? Which I will I’m pissed off man at you ( not really) and also laughing with envy at the same time. I too plan on starting to blog and such about my journey from debt to life etc. blah haha and being a financial coach. The problem I can think of a good name for my site. Why I’m ranting you ask. The Point! My name is Jason and I’m Loving your J Money setup. Id love to steal the idea which I won’t unless I add a hyphen then it’s okay right (ask Apple) since they steal shit all the time. Anyway. Find me on twitter let’s chat I too read the millionaire next store it was the First one I actually picked up when I started loving this shit.
Later bro!
Haha, nice to see my “J. Money” still holds up in the awesome department after all these years :) You should totally start that blog!! It’s done more for me than just being a fun hobby, and hopefully it will for you too. Maybe you can go as J. Dollar? Haha… when I first started this site I used to go as J. Savings but eventually realized it was pretty lame ;) You’ll find your voice and niche, everyone does once they get started for a while. Good luck!
Want to make
Money doing blogs and websites. Have the ability to do both, but need direction. My site has not been set up, and was meant for something else. Just need some expert direction.
I think the key thing here is about finding what you’re passionate about first vs the money. I’ve never seen anyone start a blog strictly for that and then succeed – not to say it’s not possible. Just a billion other ways to make money (and faster!) than blogging :) So my advice would be to find something you genuinely love to think about, and then start a blog around that. If it takes off, great! You can make money while having fun and building a community around it. And if it doesn’t, well, at least it was still fun and nothing wrong with sharing thoughts as a hobby anyways. That’s all I did here for the first 6 months – just had fun talking about money and didn’t even realize you could get paid for it – hah!
I wish I didn’t need money to make my kids happy. Society has made it impossible to have a great Xmas when times are hard. People hate money CiA they don’t know how to budget
Sounds like a good time to start changing their perspective of money/gifts/society :) Plenty of awesome stuff you can do/give that’s not the norm…. I don’t even bother to try and convince people against their will anymore of the merits to financial management. You have to really WANT to change in order to get your $$$ growing, just like other things in life (weight-loss, stop smoking/drinking/etc). It’s not easy, but if you care enough it’s do-able.
Hey Money, I just read your last comment and wanted to say you are truly right! I am a perfect example. I lived in debt for many years and it wasn’t til I decided to change my life that things changed for me. No one could get me to do it, I had to do it myself. Once I learned to use positive thought and believed in myself I completely changed my life financially in a short 3.5 years.
Great site J. Money- love it!
Rock on man – way to go! And now you’ll be set FOREVER too. You’ve figured it out! :)
I saw you at FinCon and thought you were off your rocker. This is a great blog. I really appreciate your transparency. You are so right — without having your finances under control it’s impossible to manage any other area of our life, including our passions! Thanks for creating such a great resource.
Hah! I do what I can to keep things interesting around here ;) Next time come on over and say hi @ FinCon!
You are so right about budgets. How we do money is how we do everything! I appreciate your blog and often share it with my teenagers.
Awww, that is so cool! Hopefully the “sexy” in the title excites them enough to actually read it, haha… Thx for the kind note!
Love the blog and seeing all your updates!
Not sure if I have seen it anywhere, but have you disclosed how old you are as a reference point? Would love to be in your position someday!
Happy to hear man!
I’m 36 now. Started the blog when I was 28 :)
Bad ass blog J. Have had mine for almost 5 years and am still trying to figure out what is going on with my traffic. I have some authority on my blog but need to iron out the leaks. Appreciate what you do and thanks for answering your comments.
It’s always a process, my man! Everyone’s trying to do their best and grow their blogs – I don’t think anyone’s “figured it out” :) I tend to focus on the community and just doing my best to put out decent content though than worrying about the rest… I find you get luckier the more you do that.
Great blog! Easy reads while keeping it interesting! I see how long you’ve been tracking your detailed net worth as well as writing this blog; your persistence is very impressive!
I have recently launched my own blog teaching young folk how to become millionaires! Upon hitting the big milestone, I knew it was time to help others do the same :)
Bryan
Nice!! Congrats man! I’m getting closer by the month but still a ways away :) All about the journey though, eh?
What’s up J Money! I love what you do my man and thanks for serving. I regularly bump into your blog and being a veteran myself, we definitely speak the same language. I did a post on the top money saving blogs and I just had to add you to the list. you can checkout the post below if you’d like and keep up the awesome work. Cheers!
https://brokeveteran.com/best-money-saving-blogs/
Nice to meet you, my man! Thank YOU for your service! I inherited mine from my father who was a Marine so I just lived the lifestyle without putting in the work ;) I admire all y’all who gave your time to our country – thank you!!
J. Money…great to see you are doing so well…You and I were in touch a long time ago when you got started and I was trying to do something similar with FinancePuzzle….obviously you have had much more success than I have at the blogging thing as I have hit some personal challenging times that took me away from maintaining that site…I am back at it again with Shakethemoneytree.com and really look to you and your blog as a form of motivational on what can be accomplished…great work and keep at it, not just for yourself but also for smaller players like me that you influence in a positive way
Heyyy – welcome back!!
So much has changed since then, and yet so little has changed :)
The community still needs as many people as it can get spreading the good word though, so we need you! Thx for stopping by!
G’day Mate! Great to discover your blog. I have ADHD too, strangely enough, hyperfixing on personal finance and blogging has been pretty therapeutic. Look forward to binging hahaCheers
Hah! Agreed!! It does have its benefits 😁