College is a great time for learning — inside and outside of the classroom.
Particularly when it comes to personal finance, the college years are integral to setting a good foundation for your future.
If you’re a finance major, you might be learning about money in school, but money skills are self-taught for most students.
Fortunately, the internet is a wealth of information as long as you know where to look!
Whether you’re looking to learn about investing, student loans, scholarships, financial aid, or general financial literacy, these are the best money blogs for college students.
Best for learning how to invest
The College Investor focuses on the financial topics that are most relevant to college students. This includes resources on how to pay off your student loans, how to start investing, and much more.
The blog covers both basic and advanced topics, but everything is written in a way that makes it simple to understand. And there’s even a forum on the website that you can use to discuss your financial goals with like-minded readers.
This blog has been around since 2009, so there is a huge amount of great content to enjoy. To help you navigate the site’s massive library, everything is broken down into basic categories: saving for college, student loans, investing, earning more money, and general personal finance.
Plus, this is one of few money blogs for college students that offers audio versions of many of their best posts. The College Investor Audio Show is a podcast-style daily show that highlights the best content on The College Investor blog. If you prefer to consume content while on the go, this is a great option.
Best for early retirement (FIRE)
Mr. Money Mustache is an unconventional blog.
The site’s tagline is “Financial freedom through badassity.” The author, Mr. Money Mustache, is a proponent of frugal living and passive investing. The focus of the blog is on saving money, investing in low-cost index funds, and retiring early — or at least getting to the point where you could retire if you wanted to.
Mr. Money Mustache himself retired from traditional work at the ripe old age of thirty. And his blog is all about how you can follow in his footsteps, pursuing financial freedom and enjoying a world where work is optional.
The majority of posts on this blog focus on simplifying complex topics like how much you need to retire and reframing what it means to live a happy, successful life.
Mr. Money Mustache (MMM) was one of the major proponents of the now-popular “financial independence, retire early” movement, better known as the FIRE movement. If you want to know how you can retire early or achieve financial independence, MMM is required reading.
You won’t find hot stock tips or complicated investing strategies. But you will find refreshingly contrarian thinking about the financial decisions Americans make and how we can choose a different path than what society tells us we should do.
Best for real estate investing
Afford Anything is a popular finance blog (and podcast) hosted by Paula Pant. The blog poses readers a simple yet powerful question:
“You can afford anything… but not everything. What’s it gonna be?”
In other words, you can afford the life you want to live if you reframe your ideas around money and focus on the things that truly matter to you.
The Afford Anything blog serves as a primer on saving money, breaking free of debt, investing, and more. One of its major focuses is on real estate investing. The author covers how to evaluate investment properties, how to get financing, and how to build your wealth through real estate.
Of course, most college students aren’t able to invest in real estate — but this blog has powerful lessons for anyone. Just start with this super-simple, super-powerful way to master your money to get a taste of what you can find on Afford Anything.
Best for a little bit of everything
The Penny Hoarder is one of the most popular financial blogs on the internet today. The blog covers a wide variety of financial topics, from budgeting to managing credit to investing.
There’s so much content that it can be overwhelming at first. Fortunately, the site recently rolled out “The Penny Hoarder Academy,” which features deep dives on common topics, including credit cards, home buying, budgeting, job hunting, credit scores, and more.
These resources are organized to provide comprehensive knowledge on the given topic, so you don’t have to bounce around to a bunch of different blog posts to find what you’re looking for.
Apart from the highly useful Academy feature, The Penny Hoarder is famous for bite-sized listicles and “quick hit” guides on a variety of money topics. It’s a site that you can browse briefly for some inspiration or spend many hours on to brush up on your personal finance knowledge.
Best for making money while in college
Side Hustle Nation is all about making money through side hustles, freelancing, and investing. It’s quite useful for college students, as many students don’t have enough time in their schedules to take on a full-time job.
Side hustles like ridesharing, freelancing, eCommerce management, and more are all covered in-depth on Side Hustle Nation. There are in-depth “how-to” guides, but the core of Side Hustle Nation is personal stories of people who have found success in their own side hustles.
Side Hustle Nation has a weekly podcast called The Side Hustle Show. The host interviews people from all walks of life who have interesting side-hustles — from social media marketers to belly dancing teachers and everyone in between.
Each episode is also transcribed and turned into a blog post on the website. So whether you prefer to read or listen, you’ll find the inspiration you’re looking for on Side Hustle Nation.
Best for student debt information
Young Adult Money is all about helping younger people (read: students) get a handle on their finances. Topics cover three broad categories: Make More, Save More, and Live Better.
In Make More, the blog explores how to start a side-hustle, how to start blogging, how to make money online, and more.
In Save More, the blog covers using coupons, finding free or cheap entertainment options, and much more.
In Live Better, the blog explores goal-setting, lifestyle design, credit card churning, travel, and more.
A major focus of the blog is on paying off student loan debt and how students can break free of that debt to start building wealth. But that’s just the beginning — there’s a wide variety of educational materials to explore, all geared around helping students get more financially savvy.
Best for financial independence
Our Rich Journey is a personal blog all about a young family who achieves financial independence, meaning that they have enough money invested to live off investment profits. The couple, who have two young children, retired at 39 with a net worth of $2.5 million and moved to Portugal.
What started as a personal blog to share their own journey has turned into a useful guide on how to follow in the bloggers’ footsteps. Like Mr. Money Mustache, they cover the fundamentals of the Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) movement, plus how to save more money, how to get started investing with free investing apps, how to start a side-hustle, and much more.
And for folks who already have the basics down, Our Rich Journey hosts in-depth workshops and online courses (some free, some paid), which you can use to grow your knowledge further.
Amon and Christina also have their own YouTube channel, where they share video updates and informative guides.
Best for general personal finance
Money Under 30 is a general personal finance blog that covers just about everything 20-somethings need to know about money. From credit cards to investing to insurance, Money Under 30 covers it all.
The site features dozens of in-depth guides on various financial topics. But one unique highlight of Money Under 30 is the product reviews and round-ups they produce. They create in-depth guides to the best financial products on the market, from credit cards to insurance plans, to help readers choose the best option for their needs.
If you’re looking for a credit card, a new bank account, or any other financial product, you can read “best of” round-ups for each product category. There are also in-depth reviews on many individual financial products.
Finally, Money Under 30 has a library of tools and calculators that you can use for free. There’s a loan payoff calculator, a rent vs. buy calculator, a free budget spreadsheet, and more.
Best for frugality and extreme budget living
Frugalwoods is a unique blog about a young family’s journey to financial independence through frugality. It’s part personal blog, part guide to frugal living, and part case study in what it’s like to live a simple, self-reliant life.
There are several unique aspects to the Frugalwoods blog. The family does a lot of homesteading-style activities, like growing and preserving some of their own food and fixing their own damaged items. It has an old-timey feel, with powerful lessons for the modern world.
Another unique aspect of Frugalwoods is extreme transparency. Each month, the couple publishes detailed expense reports showing every penny they spent in the preceding month. This vulnerability and transparency goes a long way in lending credibility to the bloggers — and it’s quite interesting to compare your own spending figures to those of the Frugalwoods!
Finally, Frugalwoods produces Reader Case Studies, which provide detailed glimpses into the lives of everyday readers of the Frugalwoods blog. If you’re looking for a more personal approach to the world of financial blogging and frugality, Frugalwoods will be right up your alley.
Best for getting your financial life together
Broke Millennial is a blog about getting your financial life together (or #GYFLT, for Broke Millennial fans). Written by author Erin Lowry, the Broke Millennial blog discusses all the relevant money topics that are most important to young people.
One unique aspect of the blog is its brief, bite-sized takes on financial topics. In the 3-minute guide section, you’ll find quick hits on topics like budgeting strategies, how to handle money in relationships, and much more.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, you’ll find full-length books from the blog’s author, distilling all her financial knowledge down into a series of three paperback books. You can read a ton of Erin’s work on her website (for free), but if you like her writing style and prefer a physical book, it’s nice to have the option.
These personal finance blogs for college students can help you brush up on your money management. And thankfully, this is one area of school where you won’t be asked to sit a test.
For more actionable advice, check out our ultimate savings guide for college students.