Jami Park · Follow
Published in · 9 min read · Apr 8, 2018
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On my quest to learn personal finance, I’ve started to look for a personal finance tribe for me to learn from. The benefit of finding and joining a tribe is that it gives you a group of people who share your values and goals. A tribe gives you mentors to look up to, peers to discuss with, and newbies to teach.
The first tribe that I joined, my robotics team in high school, taught me a lot about my abilities and interests. For 5 years, my team and I poured our elbow grease into competition-winning robots. Throughout that time I was able to answer questions about myself that I hadn’t considered before: how I behave in crunch time, what technical problems interest me, and what roles I play best on the team.
In hopes of learning more about myself with respect to money, purpose, and finance, I’m looking for a tribe of my own. I have questions about my life that I need to answer now, like:
- What is my relationship with money?
- Where do I fall on the ikigai chart?
- What parts of my life are a priority? Do I value work over leisure? Time on projects over family?
Right now I’m having trouble finding a tribe that I easily fit in. I’m in a period of awkward transition from teen to adult — financial puberty if you will. As a 19 year old, the world of adult responsibilities has opened up to me: I can file taxes, buy insurance, start investing, and more. At the same time, I don’t know which of these tasks a 19 year old is supposed to focus on. I’m lucky enough to resolve most of these issues (taxes, tuition, insurance, etc.) by relying on my parents, but how do I make that transition away from them?
To help resolve this dilemma, I decided to dive deep into the jungles of Reddit to discover what personal finance communities existed inside. I documented my exploration within Reddit through a mindmap as I went, noting the different clusters of topics I found.
I’m hoping that by mapping the values of other personal finance communities, I can figure out what appeals to me, and so can other readers. The sooner I can do that, the sooner I can commit myself to working towards a set vision.
With that out of the way, here is the map. (Don’t worry, I’ll break this map down into the highlights that you should check out.)
Who is it for?:
Anyone really; The community here is large and general, so whether you just got your first paycheck or you’re preparing for retirement, you can find something that will help you out.
Highlight posts:
The wiki of /r/personalfinance is a great place to start. My favorite part of it is this flowchart for what to do with your money. I love the idea of progressing through the chart as if it was a skill tree in a video game.
My opinion:
As a bare minimum, subscribe to /r/personalfinance. There’s a ton of great questions and ideas for this subject.
Who is it for?:
This sector of reddit is for anybody interested in Financially Independent / Retired Early (FIRE). If you haven’t heard of FIRE, it’s one of the hottest topics in personal finance. FIRE fans commit to a frugal lifestyle focused on saving more than half of their paycheck so that they can retire at an early age (30–50) and spend time pursuing their passions.
Highlight posts:
The Six Stages of Finanical Freedoms — Provides a great framework for me to understand some of the finance goals I should be working towards.
I lost the love of my life because of FI. Don’t be me. — Provides a sobering warning on the risks of getting stuck in dogma. Learn by counterexample.
My opinion:
Personally, I don’t know if I’d be able to go the full FIRE route — I think I’d enjoy my career/work enough to be okay with retiring later than 40. If I did do FIRE, I’d lean towards /r/fatFIRE, which focuses on gaining independence early on without compromising on spending.
Who is it for?:
If you’re looking for community of people focused on using a tool or methodology together, these subreddits are for you.
/r/YNAB and /r/mintuit are subreddits dedicated to budget software like “You Need A Budget” and Mint, while /r/DaveRamsey focuses on following the advice of personal finance author/speaker Dave Ramsey.
Highlight post:
I began my YNAB journey 3 years ago this month; for the first time I will end the month with zero debt! — This post is a great example of the power of having a tribe around you. YNAB has a huge community focused towards getting organize and responsible, and seeing your peer’s success really helps motivate you through tough times.
My personal opinion:
I like the idea of using YNAB in conjunction with the subreddit. They all seem very friendly and exciting to help others out, and it always seems to be active with interesting content and questions.
Who is it for?:
If you’re the cheapskate of your friend group (or you want to become one), these subreddits are for you. Each of them takes living as low cost as possible to its extremes.
/r/povertyfinance is like /r/personalfinance but focused on the poor. It’s full of good advice whether you’re poor or not, I highly recommend subscribing.
/r/frugal, /r/dumpsterdiving, and /r/selfsufficient all focus on minimizing cost and waste either through tips/tricks, dumpster diving, or farming.
/r/almostHomeless gives redditors a chance to find last minute housing when they’re in dire situations.
Highlight posts:
I was about to buy the bigger bottle until I noticed the difference in concentration and the directions! — Quick tips like these pop up a lot in these subreddits. Good to know for your next grocery runs.
The Cost of Food — Nice diagram on the cost per calorie of different foods; wouldn’t have come accross this otherwise.
My opinion:
For me, frugality isn’t a huge priority — the time spent hunting for savings could be used for learning and improving, which I think will pays off more in the long run. If saving money gets in the way of earning it, then you’re just wasting your time.
I split these subreddits into 3 different subcategories:
“Easy” money:
Focuses on little bits of money that you can earn online through filling out surveys (/r/hitsworthturkingfor, /r/swagbucks), watching ads (/r/perktv), and doing odd jobs online (/r/slavelabour, /r/beermoney).
Side businesses:
These give you a community to learn and ask questions about running a small side business, either for generic businesses (/r/smallbusiness) or selling things online (/r/dropshipping, /r/flipping). I’m planning on using this heavily for growing Growthfolio!
Exploiting deals:
These focus on teaching you how to find shortcuts around systems. /r/churning focuses on exploiting credit card reward programs into easy miles/rewards, while /r/giftcardexchange lets you sell your gift cards for cash or buy gift cards at discounts.
Highlight post:
Who here has an interesting small business that just ticks over with a profit each and every month? — Fantastic compilation of inspirational stories to read a learn from. This is the power of reddit right here — you get a diverse set of answers and perspectives from one simple post.
My opinion:
Personally, I’m most interested in the side business subreddit; even though it’s take the most effort, I like the idea of starting your own business and being able to call something your own.
I think the “easy” money subreddit is a bit of a waste; just like frugality, a lot of the effort you put into farming money could be better used for learning new skills and improving your value.
Who is it for
If you’re looking for going beyond maxing out your 401k or index funds, this subreddit will give you a great place to get started. This one was the hardest to compile; investing could’ve been a whole other map to explore. For this map, I listed out the ones that I thought would be best for a beginner starting out.
REMINDER: I want to remind you to take all Reddit posts with a grain of salt, especially within these subreddits. Anybody can post anything on reddit, so don’t fall for advice from the “know-it-all” herd.
The best posts are full of high quality comments that let you skim different opinions easily, instead of listen to just one “know-it-all” redditor.
Highlight Posts:
All these posts are good resources for beginner investors:
- Does anyone know any good online resources which teach the basics and terminology of options trading?
- A beginner’s guide to investing
- High school student interested in investing but not sure what investing medium to go through
My opinion:
I’ll be honest, I haven’t dipped my toes into investing enough to have a concrete opinion on most of these subreddits. I wouldn’t rely on these for golden advice; their value lies in letting you know about outside resources and fielding for different opinions.
If you made it this far, you might be overwhelmed by how many communities there were; I know I was at first. Don’t give up though! My suggestion for getting started would be to make a reddit account, pick one or two subreddits, and read their top posts.
Once you find your a subreddit that interests you, don’t be afraid to dive in and start participating in conversations. Write newbie questions, make mistakes, and learn!
The tribes that resonate with me:
Personally, I there are 3 subreddits I’m going to work hard to join and participate in:
- /r/personalfinance — one of the most solidly helpful subreddits out there
- /r/finanicalindependence — I don’t know yet if I want to commit to full FIRE, but I want to learn their principles and see how I can leverage them at a young age
- /r/smallbusiness — I want to learn to create my own side businesses for passive income and extra challenge, and grow Growthfolio too!
With these 3 subreddits, I hope to learn about my finances, what I want to do after retiring early, and understanding if I’m cut out for the entrepreneurial lifestyle. Even though my journey to solidifying my values hasn’t ended just yet, I feel like I’ve made a solid start to discovering my personal finance goals.
Final note: Do you agree with what I have to say about these tribes? Do you have any tribes that you’re a part of that I haven’t mentioned here? I’d love to hear what you have to say — let me know what you think about these tribes in responses below. Thanks! Also, consider following if you enjoyed this content ☺️
