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Brip Blap – Best Of The Best Blogger Series

by on February 20, 2011

Best Of The BestThe first in our inaugural “Best of The Best” blogger profiling series is BripBlap.com.   I first stumbled across BripBlap.com about six months ago while researching some of the top blogs in the personal finance category.    While BripBlap.com might be considered a personal finance blog, it’s much, much more than that.

What distinguishes BripBlap is the quality of the content.  BripBlap’s creator, Steve Schoenly, covers a range of subject matter that is diverse yet compelling and he tends to go very deep on his topic selection, covering his personal thoughts on losing weight, how to broaden and diversify income sources outside of your job, and my personal favorite, how and why you should live a soda free existence.

BripBlap has a decidedly holistic and integrated viewpoint on self-improvement and speaks to how truly interconnected that success, family, health, money and career truly are.  The bottom line is that BripBlap might be the very best blog you’ve never heard of.

I had the opportunity to interview Steve and ask him some pretty pointed questions about life, his work and sources of his inspiration.

Q: What was your inspiration behind creating BripBlap?  Be specific.

A: “When I found out that my wife was pregnant with our first child, I decided I needed to read up on financial planning for new dads.  My quick search turned up Rich Dad, Poor Dad, which of course is not really about financial planning for new dads, but the description caught my interest and I bought it and read it.  It was a wake-up moment for me.  I was already a successful professional – debt free, with a high salary – but I was paying for it with crazy amounts of business travel and long hours and lots of stress.  So I decided to start redesigning my life, which led me to start reading blogs – Zen Habits, The Digerati Life, Lazy Man and Money and others.  Then – I’m sure a lot of bloggers have this moment – I thought “hey, I could do that, too!”  I had been writing a little personal blog called brip blap for years, but the focus was mainly politics.  I re-launched the site as a personal finance blog, although over the years it’s evolved into more of a self-development and career blog.”

Q: Your post on “101 Thoughts on Losing 100 Pounds” has some of the most practical weight loss advice I can ever remember finding.  How many of these tips were acquired from personal experience and how many did you adopt and integrate into your own philosophy along the way?

A: “The post took a long time to write – it was a file I opened once in a while to add a point or two as they crossed my mind.  Most of those ideas are my thoughts, based on my own weight loss experience.  I went from over 300 pounds to about 185 over a couple of years.  I credit the low-carb movement, which is now regarded as a bit of a fad, with the tools I used to lose weight.  But most of those thoughts were simply things I observed during (and after) that time.  I would say all of those points remain part of my personal philosophy today, although today I eat a lot less meat than I did then.”

Q: Loved your recent post “Should You Have Children?” … in what ways has having children made you a better human?  In what ways has it made you worse?  Be honest…

A: “Having children, first and foremost, has made me learn to be less selfish.  I was a very selfish single guy – my life (understandably) was more or less arranged around my own personal whims and desires.  I didn’t bother much with other people’s wants or needs, although I was close with my immediate family.  Having children has made me learn to focus very intently on other people’s needs.  I learned that a little bit when I first got married, but that was NOTHING like having a child.

How has it made me worse?  Irritability and it’s hurt my focus.  If you are a short-tempered guy – and I tend to be – you really have to choke it down after the 500th dirty diaper you change on a Sunday afternoon while the Jets are playing.  That choking down surfaces – for me, at least – as irritability.  And focus:  I was intensely focused and disciplined on a number of activities pre-kids that have fallen by the wayside – training for races, writing, reading.”

Q: What are your top 3 “low hanging fruit” financial tips for 2011? (Easy things that have a high return)

A: “I have the same 3 every year:

  • Tip 1:  Stay healthy.  More bankruptcies are caused by medical conditions than job loss or any other reason.  You can do all the financial planning in the world and it won’t matter if you don’t mind your health.
  • Tip 2:  Expand your income streams.  This is hard, but you need to have income from more than one source.  You can’t count on a job for 100% of your income – you need to work on developing side income.
  • Tip 3:  Wait before buying.  I’ve found that 99% of the purchases I’ve made that I regret were impulse purchases.  Keep a list.  Put an item in your Amazon cart and leave it for a few days.  Wait until you actually need things rather than just want them.”

Q: How many credit cards do you have? We assume you pay them off every month (which we endorse), but do you have any credit cards you like, or other credit tips for our readers?

A:  I have three credit cards and my wife has three – one is shared, so five total between us.  90% of our purchases go on an American Express Blue Cash card – and if you put 90% of your purchases on a cash back card, you get a nice fat refund every March.  We both keep one in our names only, just for credit reasons (two Visas) and then we each have a Costco business American Express card for our small businesses.  We also have one Rooms to Go card that was used one time.  I think credit cards are great – I know a lot of people think they are horrible but I lived in Russia for three years – having to pay for everything everywhere all the time in cash is pretty annoying, too.  Get a good rewards or cash back card and pay it off every month.  If you can do that, it’s better than cash.

Q: You are debt free (congratulations), but what’s your overall view on debt? Is there such a thing as “bad debt” and “good debt”?

A:  “Debt-free is a misused term, really.  I’m technically not debt-free because I do have a mortgage – if that’s not a debt I don’t know what is!  I have no other debt (cars are paid off, no student loans, no consumer debt) so that usually seems to qualify someone as ‘debt free’.

I guess a student loan is good debt, although I think it’s only good if you didn’t have a less expensive alternative school.  I guess I could see taking out a loan to start a business as a good debt.  But I’ve had this argument on my blog and with other bloggers – almost any time someone tells me about good debt it’s possible to come up with an alternative that doesn’t involve debt.  A lot of times people convince themselves they NEED debt to get things they NEED – but it’s usually things they WANT.  My grandfather always quoted Hamlet to me:  “neither a borrower nor a lender be.”  That phrase has stuck with me.   When in doubt, make sure it’s a need, not a want!”

Thanks so much to Steve for this great opportunity.  Look out for the next great interview in our Best of the Best blogger series next week.

Bio: Steve Schoenly is the author of bripblap.com, where he blogs about success, family, health, money, career and almost any area where self-improvement comes into play.  In his real life, he’s a corporate finance consultant and part-owner of a bookkeeping business, Sunflower Accounting.  He can be reached on Twitter @bripblap. 

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