Our 8 Favorite Personal Finance Blogs for Millennials

At XY Planning Network, we love any resource that helps Gen Y and Gen X do more with their money. We believe in the power of financial education, and love when financially savvy individuals use their knowledge to help others.

That’s why we’re honoring 8 of our favorite personal finance blogs for Millennials. If you need some inspiration, motivation, and education on how to make your money work for you in order to achieve financial success, start right here with our list.

1. Afford Anything

“My mission is to help you break free: launch a business, start a charity, travel the world. The world is overflowing with opportunity.

To achieve it, you have to overthrow all the myths that society teaches us about money. Affording Anything starts with your mindset. You have to break free from the misconceptions that buying junk equals happiness while also avoiding the common trap of getting fixated on the “saving” side of the equation. Frugality keeps your focus on consumption, and this website is about creation.

Building wealth and creating cash flow are more important than pinching pennies.”

Paula runs Afford Anything, a personal finance blog dedicated to helping readers leverage their money to fund their biggest dreams and goals. She means “afford anything” in a literal way.

This blog is a strong wake-up call for Millennials who aren’t sure how to effectively use their money to pursue their passions. As Paula states, “you can’t afford everything. But you can afford anything.” For Afford Anything readers, it’s all about ruthlessly eliminating expenses that don’t matter in order to spend freely on the few things that do.

Paula is strongly anti-cubicle, and believes we’re not meant to sit in offices and rush hour traffic day after day after day. Instead, she’s all about building wealth so you can use your finances to create freedom. And her blog serves as her platform for sharing exactly how to do it.

Must-Read Posts:

• The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Financial Awesomeness
• The Essential 4-Step Guide to Escaping the Ordinary
• The Easiest Budget Ever

2. Broke Millennial

“Since my fateful first lesson in economics I’ve become fascinated with building wealth and understanding money.

Unfortunately, some of my fellow millennials don’t find money so empowering. I started this site to increase financial literacy — mostly through telling funny financial tales from my own life and sneaking in an actual money lesson.

Now that I’m no longer on parental welfare, I’m trying to survive the financial burden of living in New York City and simultaneously develop a respectable net worth on my meager salary.”

Erin is a no-nonsense Gen Yer determined to educate her fellow twenty-somethings on how to spend less, save more, and avoid money problems that crop up where financial literacy is low. She shares sound financial advice, and tips while injecting her writing with dry wit and sarcasm — which makes money lessons for Millennials that much more engaging.

She’s learned how to make the most of a meager salary and start saving for her retirement while living in one of the most expensive cities in America: NYC. Erin knows how to find a deal and often shares her strategies in her Friday series, Frugal Finds.

She’s relatable and speaks honestly about her financial experiences.

Must-Read Posts:

• Traditional IRA: Saving Broke Millennials Hundreds of Dollars
• How I (Financially) Handle a Long Distance Relationship
• The Financial Ramifications of the Quarter-Life Crisis

3. The Empowered Dollar

“Personal finance changed the way I view the world.

When I graduated from college, I was making barely minimum wage with over $30,000 in debt to my name. I knew something had to change so I took control of my finances and started helping others do the same.

I started the Empowered Dollar to chronicle my journey of paying off almost $35,000 in student loans in under 4 years and bring a little more doodling into the personal finance world.”

If you just can’t get through an article on personal finance, try reading one with doodles thrown in. Stephanie Halligan writes — and draws — The Empowered Dollar, where she talks about money through her comics.

Stephanie shares personal experiences and is extremely open and honest about both her successes and her failures. She provides a fun and unique way to think and learn about money, and has a knack for sparking conversations about finances.

Must-Read Posts:

• When Finances Hurt: How I Survived on Minimum Wage
• How to Ron Swanson Your Life and Save $100 a Month
• Stop comparing yourself to others. Be the cream of your own damn crop.

4. Making Sense of Cents

“With my MBA included, I had around $38,000 [of student loan debt] altogether when I graduated (these [loans] are now all paid off). I worked full-time the whole time during my undergraduate and graduate degrees as a manager and then as an analyst.

I used to work in the financial services industry as a financial analyst, but now I am fully self-employed as an online freelancer.”

Michelle of Making Sense of Cents isn’t just an online freelancer — she’s an entrepreneur who has created an insanely successful business. She documents her progress in monthly income reports and shares how she makes $13,000, $14,000, and even $15,000 per month from her self-employed career.

She also blogs about a variety of topics within the world of personal finance, from debt and budgets to saving and earning. Look out for a number of fundamental “how to” posts and articles with tips to get you started.

Making Sense of Cents is a great resource for those just starting to explore their finances, and can serve as an excellent springboard into further research on how to do more with your money (and make more of it, too).

Must-Read Posts:

• How I Graduated From College In 2.5 Years With 2 Degrees AND Saved $37,500
• How to Save 50% or More of Your Income
• The 5 Best Financial Tips We Received as Newlyweds

5. Young Finances

I started Young Finances at the end of 2010 after a conversation I had with a co-worker. At the time I was working part time, had two degrees and I was pretty frustrated with my life.

Since then I’ve started a full time job in my career and started a profitable part time business as well. I decided to start this website to put to use what I had learned.

I figured I could put my Finance degree to good use and maybe help some people along the way. My goal is to help the beginner become better at managing finances.

LaTisha has created a great resource for college grads and young professionals who are just starting out and need to understand how personal finance works “in the real world.” She has a wealth of videos along with written posts, which gives her audience a nice break from endless blocks of text.

Her site focuses on “simple finances for young people,” and she shares her wisdom gained through experience to help Gen Yers get off on the right financial foot.

Must-Read Posts:

• How You Can Build Wealth Using This One Simple Technique
• How Millennials Can Use Credit Wisely
• How to Use Travel Rewards Credit Cards to Travel for Free

6. Budgets Are Sexy

“Budgets = Confidence = Sexy

My goal with this blog is to get people to stop and *pay attention* to their money. Especially you youngin’s.

You won’t find any long in-depth instruction manuals or anything else that bores me to death here, as I really want this to be a fun place to share and interact with each other.

I think this comment from a random passer-by sums it up perfectly, ‘he’s the Miley Cyrus of finance.’ … I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a compliment, but I’m taking it as one anyways.”

Blogger J. Money, the voice behind Budgets Are Sexy, is one of the best-loved personal finance bloggers in the industry — and that reaches across all age groups. His humor and genuine interest in both readers and fellow bloggers makes him and his blog stand out.

But he’s more than a great guy. He’s also financially savvy and shares his thoughts, experiences, and perspective on money with others in order to help his audience set and celebrate their own financial goals. And some of his quick reads offer a much needed break from long-winded posts.

The ideas he shares cover the ground between budgets, debt, family finance, net worth, saving, and side hustling. When he’s not busy writing up a storm at Budgets Are Sexy, he also curates awesome financial  content (while supporting other financial bloggers) at Rockstar Finance.

Must-Read Posts:

• Do the Best You Can, Dummy
• How to Save Money
• 50+ Side Hustles (and Counting)

7. Frugal Rules

“Growing up, I was always provided for but never taught the financial principles I view as foundational to wise living. Free t-shirts from credit card vendors on my college campus and impulsive spending landed me in a mountain of debt that I had to methodically climb my way out of.

I’ve learned that money is a powerful tool that, when managed appropriately, can help you accomplish your goals and provide for the people you care about. Through budgeting and frugal choices, we can live free of financial burdens.”

John runs Frugal Rules, a site that focuses on financial education and the power of making wise choices with money. Many of the posts on the site provide tips and ideas on how to get out of debt, create budgets that work, and make frugal lifestyle changes to reduce your expenses.

The blog is a perfect introduction to frugal living for those who aren’t familiar with what frugality really means (or who think being frugal is the same thing as living in an Extreme Cheapskates episode).

According to John, frugal living “starts with living on a budget and ends with financial independence. [It’s] about not paying more when you don’t have to but it’s also about having confidence in your purchasing decisions.”

Must-Read Posts:

• Do You Have a Third-Grade Financial Education?
• How to Climb Up When You’ve Hit Rock Bottom
• Don’t Blame the Credit Card, Blame Yourself

8. The College Investor

“With this site, I want to be as transparent as possible and highlight both the good and the bad.  I also want to make sure that I’m helping and not hurting.

I don’t consider myself some sort of investing ‘guru,’ my ideas are not necessarily new, and my techniques aren’t secret. There are no ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes here. Making money through investing takes hard work, patience, and time.   My goal is to showcase a variety of personal finance and investing ideas, and hopefully some prove useful to you.”

Robert runs The College Investor, an impressive financial resource for young adults and professionals. He believes in the power of developing multiple income streams while you’re in your 20s and 30s and in wealth accumulation mode.

In addition to blog posts, he also provides guides and trainings for Gen Yers who want to learn how to invest and get on the right track to financial success.

And because he’s focused on helping students and new grads, he also provides information and education on how to repay student loans and work your way to being debt-free.

Must-Read Posts:

• The College Student’s Guide to Investing
• 5 Things Your Millionaire Neighbor Isn’t Telling You
• The 5 Worst IRA Mistakes Made Everyday

Who is your favorite personal finance blogger for Gen X and Gen Y?

Please note that XY Planning Network has no affiliation or relationship with any featured blogger. Some of the bloggers we have linked to via this site share content with affiliate links and make money off commissioned sales of products. Each blog has a disclosure page that we encourage you to read for more consumer information and details about how these independent sites are monetized.