Interview with Trent Hamm of The Simple Dollar

I believe most of you know Trent Hamm and The Simple Dollar so I will not bore you with the usual questions. You can read more about Trent on his About The Simple Dollar page and Getting Started With The Simple Dollar. Without further ado, I will launch into my interview.

Pinyo: Trent, first thank you for giving me the opportunity to interview you. I don’t believe you blog full-time, can you share with us how you can write so many good posts every day without having the blog interferes with your job and family?

Trent: I segment that part of my life. When I write, I write — when I’m not writing, I simply let it be and do other stuff. If I didn’t do that and compartmentalize everything, I would go absolutely crazy.

Pinyo: You recently gave an interview at Startup or Bust where you mentioned that you are a regular contributor at MSN Money. Can you tell us how you landed the gig at MSN Money and what is your take on deal?

Trent: An MSN editor contacted me in April about a post on The Simple Dollar and requested some material. About once a month, they request an article usually closely related to something they spotted on The Simple Dollar. My primary benefit from writing articles for MSN Money is the traffic to The Simple Dollar, which can be substantial. I don’t think they accept unsolicited contributions.

Pinyo: Can you share with us your current investment portfolio and what drove your decision?

Trent: I have about $50K total in two separate tax-deferred retirement accounts, both in Target Retirement 2045 funds. This money is completely untouchable by me, so I started building it before my near-meltdown in 2006. Until recently, I had a small portfolio that I built to help buy a house, a move I went forward with in July. This was a very short-term portfolio, built mostly out of selling things I didn’t really need after my meltdown and, eventually, earnings from MSN and The Simple Dollar.

I really, really believe in spending less than you earn and I went pretty rapidly from spending more than I make to most of the time spending far less than half of what I make.

Pinyo: Before I ask the next question, let me say congratulation on baby #2. With a 21 months old son and a baby girl coming this September, can you share with us your savings goal for their education and how are you investing that money?

Trent: I have a strong 529 for each of them (yes, I have one already for the baby who hasn’t even been born yet). This is through College Savings Iowa, which is backed by Vanguard. I am investing an amount each month into an age-targeted portfolio (a bit riskier now, moving more conservative as they approach college).

Pinyo: I am expecting a baby this December, any advice?

Trent: My general advice is to get started as early as you possibly can, even if it’s just in a savings account for now. Research 529 programs available to you (Google will help with this) and make a reasoned choice.

Pinyo: What are your favorite finance books and non-finance books?

Trent: My favorite personal finance book of all time is probably Your Money or Your Life. My favorite book of all time is probably The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon.

Pinyo: Who are your favorite financial gurus?

Trent: Out of the well-known ones, I like Dave Ramsey the best. His philosophy makes a lot of sense — while it might not maximize your dollar, it’s very psychologically powerful and you can’t ever go wrong with being debt free.

Pinyo: Now let’s talk about blogging. Have you run into any issue in your normal life being a successful and widely regarded blogger — e.g., at work, friends, etc.?

Trent: I largely isolate the blog from my “real” life. Several family members read it and occasionally tease me a bit about the entries, and it is sometimes discussed. I don’t believe my coworkers are even aware of the site.

Pinyo: You gave a lot of good tips on “10 techniques I used to go from 0 to 12,000…” posted at ProBlogger. But can you share with us some of the breakthrough events that helped you and The Simple Dollar reach this well-deserved cream of the crop status?

Trent: Early on, I had a post on free and open source software as a money saver that made it very big on Digg and Lifehacker. This attracted my first little clump of readers and it grew pretty organically from there.

Pinyo: Any plan to become a full-time blogger? If so, when?

Trent: Here’s the scoop. I am writing some posts in advance for a cooking blog as we speak. In several months, I’m going to launch it using all of the posts I have stored up. If this takes off (and I think I have some interesting stuff that can really help it out — I think it will be attractive to an internet-reading audience), I will probably make the leap.

Pinyo: I am sure you will do great, thanks for the scoop. Now the last obligatory question. Can you give new bloggers like me a couple of pointers?

Trent: Write good content! Focus on writing a few true home run posts that can really attract attention, then bring those posts to people’s attention. Make sure they’re good, though, or else people will be annoyed. Content is really the king of all of this.

Well Trent, thank you for your time. I am sure my readers and fellow Personal Finance Bloggers appreciate you being so candid with us.

If you want to see more interviews with Trent, here are a few more:

• The Simple Dollar - Trent Hamm Interview
• Bloggers Face-Off: J. D. Roth vs. Trent Hamm
• The Simple Dollar - Interviewing Trent