Thanksgiving is done, the leftovers are probably gone, and the internet has shouted itself hoarse about Black Friday and Cyber Monday. So, rather than talking about what our audiences are spending, I want to talk about how we are earning. Most personal finance creators do not have “a business” in the singular. We have a stack. A slightly wobbly pile of income streams that might include: - 1 to 1 services or coaching - Digital products and courses - Memberships or communities - Ads and brand deals - Platform revenue share (YouTube, TikTok, podcasts) - Affiliate deals Some parts of that stack are under our control. Some belong to the algorithm gods. Some are there because they made sense two years ago and we have never quite had the heart to kill them. I have my own version of this. Certain pieces are overweight, others I have been “meaning to build out properly” for far too long. December is my annual excuse to stare at it and ask a very simple question: If I could redesign this from scratch for 2026, what would I actually want it to look like? I would love to turn that into a group exercise. ***YOUR 2026 REVENUE STACK CHECKUP** Copy paste this into the comments and fill it in: - Niche and main platforms: - Current revenue stack: - One stream you want to grow in 2026 and why: - One stream you would happily shrink or kill and why: - One action you will take in December to move toward that 2026 stack: You do not need to share exact numbers if that feels uncomfortable. Percentages or rough ranges are completely fine. The point is to see: - Where you are overweight on fragile, platform dependent income - Where you are underweight on owned, compounding assets like products, email and memberships If you are earlier in your journey and only have one stream right now, that is perfect. Just write: - What you have today - What the “dream stack” looks like 12 to 18 months from now I will go first in the comments. What do you want your revenue stack to look like by the end of 2026, if it is doing its job properly for you and your audience?

This week I'm at the Chiang Mai SEO Conference in northern Thailand. Great people, great food! I've been coming to this event for a while. The digital nomad crowd is a lot of fun. Many built their businesses in their basements. Plenty started as side hustles. Some in the crowd are seriously $$$. What began as trying to game search engines has turned into real companies with strategies and teams, investors and buyouts. This week, all the talk is about visibility not in search engines, but in LLMs. If you've been blogging for a while, you know traffic ain't what it used to be. Those AI overviews are stealing the long tail where all the juicy stuff lived, and a lot of your potential audience isn't just searching on Google anymore. So, how do you get traffic from LLMs like ChatGPT or Perplexity? Most of it is an evolution of solid SEO practices from the last few years. On top of that, it's about how you show up not only on your own site, but across other important platforms. I'll be posting more on this soon. How's your recent experience with your search audience? Up? Down? Stable?

Hi! I'm Suzy and I help moms and families financially plan for slow and long term travel! I host the Wander Worldschool and Slow Family Travel podcast where I feature traveling families and worldschool creators. Our family lives half the year in Denver and the other half in Spain! This was my first FinCon and I loved it! Can't wait to learn more.

I'm so excited that we have over 70 new members signed up in just 2 days. A particular shout out to my new favorite people (those who have introduced themselves and posted): @Larry Tuch @Cecil Williams @Kathy Cuevas @Rachel Duncan @Starr Carter @Reni Odetoyinbo @Eric Hughes For those who haven't introduced themselves yet, we're really looking forward to hearing from you!