Do Financial News Websites Really Help Your Finances?

The Internet is overflowing with tips and advice of all types, but possibly one of the most popular forms of advice given online is related to personal finance and bank accounts. There are a number of places to find information on finances, including financial news sites like Wall Street Journal and CNN Money. However, many personal finance blogs have also cropped up with tons of valuable advice – so many in fact that one could wonder if financial news sites are really as useful for day-to-day financial assistance as the blogs.

To explore this idea, let’s take a look at what financial news sites – as well as personal finance blogs – have to offer to determine whether reading financial news every day really helps your finances.

What You Could Gain from Financial News

Receiving regular updates on financial news via sites like CNN Money is a great thing. There’s so much going on in the financial sector that it’s important to know the people and decisions affecting your bank accounts, credit cards, auto loan rates and more.

There’s no doubt that learning about changes being made is incredibly important to your personal finances. However, the benefits of receiving updated financial news are not usually immediate because news by design is created to give you as much notice about an upcoming event or change as possible, meaning that the news may not be relevant for days, weeks, months or even years.

Also, news is created to tell you what’s going to happen, more so than give you advice on how you should react to it. This means if you are looking for ways to save money the next time you visit the grocery store, the news probably won’t not help you.

How People Benefit from Personal Finance Tips

Many personal financial blogs are very different from financial news sites because they focus on offering personal finance tips. But how do these personal finance tips benefit you? They give you specific, step-by-step tips on how to change your financial situation for the better.

Whether you’re getting tips on how to create a family budget, how to save for retirement after the recession or how to know if you need a broker, the information is specifically geared toward showing you how to make precise and immediate decisions or changes to your financial situation.

A Closer Look at Financial News Sites and Personal Finance Blogs

In general, financial news sites focus on financial news, while personal finance blogs focus on offering hands-on tips you can use in the moment. Lately, however, both types of sites have evolved somewhat, so now you may find a little bit of each on both.

For instance, in addition to receiving updated deposit rates, mortgage interest rates and “up-to-the-minute” news from very reputable sources regarding changes occurring in the financial sector, financial news sites often offer blogging or advice sections with tips written by experts on how to manage money.

A down side to the complexities of financial news sites, however, that you may have to dig through a zillion categories if you are looking for these personal finance tips.

Personal finance blogs like Get Rich Slowly and FiveCentNickel typically focus on offering great tips on how to manage your money on a daily basis. For instance, by visiting a blog, you might find a post on ways to save by buying second hand.

What’s great about these blogs is that they are often created by regular people who relate to your personal situations. So in addition to getting tips and advice, you may find personal stories from the blogger that make you feel that you’re not alone in your struggles.

Also, to keep the blogs interesting, financial news is also sometimes included (usually with an interesting or personal twist) to keep readers engaged while informing them how not just how to manage money now, but what they might expect from the financial system in the long-term.

What Are You Looking for?

When deciding whether a financial news site or personal finance blog is the best choice for you, it’s good to think about what advice you’re really looking for. Sometimes financial news, like updated prices in the stock market, is very beneficial. Sometimes you’ll find that you really need step-by-step investment advice.

In the end, there’s no doubt that both types of sites could offer great information to help you save, manage and grow your finances. However, since financial news tends to help you manage your finances for the long-term, if you’re looking for specific guidance on how to manage your money, financial news may not be the first place to look for help.