August 5, 2022

Millennial Money Acquired by MMG Media Group

Grant shares why he bought back Millennial Money and why he’s doubling down on its mission.

I’m excited to announce that I’ve re-acquired Millennial Money from The Motley Fool through my holding company MMG Media Group LLC. This has been a whirlwind 20 months for me. While selling the site was a dream come true from a business exit and financial standpoint, it was also emotionally challenging.

After selling Millennial Money for many millions of dollars, I was done with it. The reality is that most of what I’ve written about on Millennial Money I accomplished in my 20’s and now I’m 37. So in internet years I’m like 225 years old.

I thought that phase of my life was over. I thought that I wouldn’t write about money again. I thought I would actually retire early and move onto something else. I thought I’d given as much as I could to this topic and said everything I had to say. I swore to my publisher and agent that I’d never write another money book. Ever. This was it. But it’s often hard to let go of who we once were.

After I sold the site, I rented a house in Palm Springs with a pool and tried to put all the pieces of my mind back together. Last year I tried to do as little work as possible. I spent time mowing my yard, reading a bunch of books I’d been meaning to read, and spent a lot of time meditating.

While there is so little that we can control in life, our relationship to money is one thing we can. We can control when we’re willing to trade our time for money, what money means to us, and define success for ourselves.

But I gotta admit that last fall I was feeling a bit lost. I realized that I was selling myself short. That I was thinking too small. I’ve always been open about how money has diminishing returns, but I never expected to start drifting so much.

One email brought me back

But then the email came….Even though I had sold Millennial Money I still had access to my grant @millennialmoney email address, which I’d negotiated to keep. In January, I got an email from a woman named Sarah, who is 37 years old, the same age as me.

She poured her heart out, sharing how she’d grown up in Missouri with very little. How she’d slept in her car for a few years. How she stumbled on a random article about my story while using a free computer at a public library. How something I said and something she read stirred something in her. She was inspired.

Over the next three years, she got a new job and then a promotion. She invested her money, bought a house, started a side business, and now she’s saved almost $250,000. All in 3 years! Sure this is an incredible story and an exceptional example, but I realized something that day.

No matter how hard I wanted to run away from being Grant at Millennial Money and leave him in the past, he will always be with me. I will always be him. I can’t take my book off your shelf or remove it from your local library. I can’t erase all the interviews I’ve done or the podcasts I’ve been on. I can’t remove myself from someone’s life that’s read my work.

I realized I can’t outrun myself. I thought about how cool 30-year-old Grant in 2015 would think all this is. How he’d be so stoked it all worked out. That all the blogging was worth it. That he’d finally built something. That he’d had an impact. That he’d made a small dent in the universe.

Money conversations, side hustles, and FIRE are mainstream

May 27, 2015, 2:39 am. I remember staying up late that Tuesday night into Wednesday morning trying to perfect it. I was so afraid when I published my first post and to be so vulnerable on the internet. I was literally shaking, putting my real name on a post about money.

Up until that point, I’d never shared anything online. Nothing. I never felt like I had anything to say or share until I’d reached financial independence. Then I wanted to share it with everyone I knew, as so often happens with ideas that radically change our lives.

I wanted to start a blog, but everyone said that blogging was dead. But it wasn’t dead then, and it isn’t dead now. I’m more bullish on blogging as both a side hustle and full time business than I’ve ever been. Check out this post if you want to learn how to make money blogging (and come back to it in the next month because I’m already working on an update).

When I started this site, money was so taboo that hardly anyone talked about it. Now money conversations are everywhere. People are sharing their salaries with their co-workers. They’re being open about money with their parents and in their relationships. Employees are no longer settling for crappy salaries and crappy jobs. There is more salary transparency than ever before.

When I started writing about side hustles in 2015, only 200 people a month were searching for side hustles on Google. Now there are over 250,000 searches for side hustle keywords, and side hustles are mainstream. This all fills me with so much joy. Life is too short to settle. Life is too short to not own your time. Life is too short to not make money on your own terms. The side hustle success stories that get shared with me and I stumble on continue to blow my mind. People are so insanely creative.

In addition, financial independence is now being talked about everywhere. I’ve always had a complicated relationship with the FIRE movement, but I’m happy to continue supporting and being a part of it as it spreads worldwide. There are more blogs, podcasts, TikTok accounts, and YouTube channels about money than ever before – with people from all corners of life sharing their stories and experiences with others. Sure there’s still a fair amount of scammers out there, and impersonator Instagram accounts, but I feel like we’re winning the fight. That the culture has changed.

While many people in my generation are rapidly accelerating their journeys to financial independence, unfortunately recent data shows that 75% of millennials are now more than $100,000 in debt. This is a crisis and one I’m committed to doing all I can to help with. And I know I’m not alone in this mission.

A small ripple into the universe

Since launching Millennial Money in 2015, I’ve spent over 10,000 hours working on this website, and over 20 million people have visited my small corner of the internet. In addition, tens of thousands of readers have emailed me sharing how this site has impacted their lives. Every single email fills me with so much love. It’s overwhelming and to still be getting them over seven years later is unbelievable.

It’s had a bigger impact than I could have ever imagined. It’s also taught me more about money than I could have ever expected. Here are 50 of the most surprising things I’ve learned about money.

Millennial Money is my home. It has made my life incredibly rich. It’s helped me meet so many of the creators in the money world that I’ve looked up to. It’s started countless friendships that I know will last for the rest of my life. It helped me get a book deal with Penguin Random House and led to the international bestseller Financial Freedom, which is now in 13 languages. It’s also led to a follow up book deal for a book I just started writing.

But this is much bigger than me. It’s about making financial freedom available to everyone. Everyone deserves a life they love. As we continue to live in increasingly uncertain times, having enough money so you have options, having enough money so you have choices, and having enough money so you can build resilience in your life are all important.

There is also no way I could have built this site alone. Over 50 people have written for Millennial Money since it started. I also get to work with my incredible team again on not only Millennial Money, but on other websites in the MMG Media Group portfolio including BankBonus.com. We’ve taken everything we’ve learned about building, acquiring, scaling, and selling personal finance sites and built a company around it.

Now that I’ve got the site back, I’m doubling down on its mission to make financial freedom available to all. Here are a few of the things we’re up to:

Topia – FI Tracking App (Free)

I launched a completely free FI app called Topia, where you can track and accelerate your journey to financial independence. Over 200,000 people have used my FI calculators, so I built an app that’s even better. Download on iPhone | Android | Website

Financial Freedom Podcast (New Episodes)

I relaunched the Financial Freedom Podcast and will release new episodes more regularly. I’ve already recorded 15 new episodes, so more are dropping soon.

Here is the latest episode where I share more about re-acquiring Millennial Money and bring Jordan Grumet on to talk with me about identity shifts, the paradox of money, legacies, as well as the most important lessons in his incredible new book Taking Stock: A Hospice Doctor’s Advice on Financial Independence, Building Wealth, and Living a Regret-Free Life.

Writing Book #2

I’ve started writing my second book and just signed a follow up deal with Penguin Random House/Avery to publish it.

It’s an entrepreneurship book designed to accelerate your journey to financial independence and a life you love. It’s unlike any business book I’ve ever read, and now I just need to finish writing it!

Financial Freedom in Uncertain Times (Course)

I launched the Financial Freedom in Uncertain Times course in February. I put my heart into this course. While the course is still closed for now, I will be opening it up to new students in September.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I’m so happy to be back and excited for the next phase of the journey. To all ahead!

This article was originally published on Millennial Money.