How to Get the Most out of This Publication
MOAM is much more than a newsletter or a blog, it's a resource to improve your financial life
I’ve been doing my readers a disservice, which I aim to correct in this post.
After chatting with some long-time readers, I realize I have done a poor job of explaining the different ways subscribing to Making of a Millionaire can help you on your financial journey.
Many of you look at this publication as a blog or a “newsletter.”
This publication has never been a newsletter, but it did start as a blog, and the blog aspect of MOAM remains the most visible feature. At 2-3 times per week, I publish a deeply researched long-form article to help you improve your finances and decision-making.
BUT…
Over the past year, I’ve added more resources and tools that not everyone knows.
So, here is my overview of all the benefits of subscribing to MOAM.
The blog
Over the nearly two years I’ve been building MOAM on Substack, I have added a number of different sections of the blog, each exploring a different aspect of personal finance.
Calling Finaniclal Bull$hit—The goal of these articles is to debunk terrible financial advice that goes viral online. One of the easiest ways to be successful with money is to avoid devastating mistakes, and to do that; you must learn how to sniff out Bull$hit you read online.
Money On My Mind— A series of articles helping you understand and overcome the cognitive biases we all face that, if left unchecked, prevent us from confidently making smart decisions with our money.
The Rational Investor—Reviewing the research that shows, in simple terms, how anyone can win as a long-term investor.
Buying Happiness—Happiness is about maximizing the amount of time you feel good and minimizing the amount of time you feel bad. In these articles, we look at the research that shows how to use your money to live happier.
The Lazy Millionaire—The best financial advice is the advice that makes a difference but that you can actually follow through on. Yes, you’d have more money if you sold all your possessions and lived in a van down by the river, but nobody will do that (nor should they want to.) These articles review the small changes you can make in your finances that have an outsized impact.
Dollars & Decades—My newest series which is dedicated to helping you master money at every stage of your life.
You can find most of these sections of the blog pinned to the top of the Homepage here.
Books
Every stand-alone section of the blog listed above will have one or more books that I will publish on that topic.
All of my self-published books are available for free to paid subscribers to Making of a Millionaire and can be downloaded here.
Courses
I have three video-based courses with custom spreadsheets available to MOAM subscribers.
#1—How to Track Where Your Money Is Going
#2—A Crash Course On Passive Investing For Beginners
#3— Retirement Savings 101 Crash Course
Look for more courses on other topics coming soon!
The Monthly Savings Club
The idea of the monthly savings club is based on research that shows how savings groups, where like-minded people meet up and talk about their financial goals and struggles, can help people significantly increase their savings.
Other research has shown that you don’t need to actually meet with people to get this benefit. An online forum can have the same impact as meeting in person.
Here’s how the Monthly Savings Club works:
Every month, you will complete six simple exercises designed to help you improve your financial decision-making.
In the first exercise, you’ll list out your top savings goals for the month and reflect on whether you achieved your savings goal last month.
In the second exercise, you’ll be given prompts and space to write about the stand-out “money moments” from the previous month.
In the third exercise, we focus on the positive and reflect on your favorite recent “money win.”
The fourth exercise is a monthly money checklist to ensure you are on top of your financial “to-do” list.
In the fifth exercise, you’ll perform your monthly financial audit, where you give yourself a score between 1-5 for different financial categories ranging from spending to investing.
Finally, in the sixth exercise, you’ll complete a “start, keep, and stop” exercise where you’ll identify financial decisions you want to start doing, keep doing, or stop doing next month.
More info on the Monthly Savings Club is available here.
I want everyone to have access to all of these materials
The only way to access all of this material is through a paid subscription to Making of a Millionaire.
The subscription costs $50/year, and I believe the value of everything that exists here today and what I will build in the future is well worth it.
If you’re ready to go paid, you can do so here:
If you’re on the fence, you might be interested in the MOAM referral program.
For every person you share this publication with—and who signs up as a free subscriber—I comp you a month’s paid subscription. This is a great option for anyone who wants a subscription but is unsure about the value—Share with a friend and try it for free.
Also, I give anyone who has recently suffered a job loss or is experiencing financial hardship a free one-year subscription—Just email me at info@benlefort.com
I hope this orientation post has been helpful. If you have more questions or can think of other ways I can serve you, send me an email or leave a comment.
Ben, MOAM is a gold mine of personal finance knowledge. I was looking at your Substack the other day - you cover so many individual topics it'd be a missed opportunity not to subscribe to you. Keep doing what you're doing. You're doing us a service.
I agree with Dennis here, and I’ll add that you make it easy to turn my attention to a topic I often readily turn away from 🫣