The Most Popular Personal Finance Podcasts of 2019

The live stats of all our poll data from this report can also be found at any time here, which is continually being updated. And if you're a blogger who'd like to jump in and still take our podcast poll, feel free to do so any time here: Podcasts Poll (also continually stays open). Thanks to everyone who participated in this! Now onto the report!

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Rockstar 360 Report: Personal Finance Podcasts

Here's our report after 199 awesome people from our blogging community took our poll (as of this past weekend). The image below links directly to our stats page, and if you click on any of the pretty icons while there you'll be sent right over to the bloggers' profile pages to check out. We couldn't have done this without them! , if you'd like to take a closer look._

The Top 3 Most Popular Podcasts!

While we think most of our polling results are pretty fascinating, we'll hit you with the juiciest - and most expected - results right away here for anyone with major A.D.D. :) Below are the top three most popular financial podcasts as rated by our community, along with a quick bio of each and a note from a blogger who recommends them. ChooseFI was the clear winner coming in at 28 votes, followed closely by the next two at 21 and 20, respectively. ** -- Jonathan & Brad explore the world of financial independence. They interview thought leaders in the FIRE community, as well as the passive income community, and discuss reducing expenses, crushing debt, building passive income streams through online businesses and real estate, and more. Every episode is packed with content and actionable tips, and the podcast is crowd sourced with community members getting involved on the show as guests and sharing their own life hacks.

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"Brad and Jonathan are wonderful hosts and work off each other beautifully. They ask all the questions I would ask myself and they tie in themes from multiple shows to drive home concepts. They are very caring people and treat guests with the utmost respect." -- Freedom Is Groovy   ** -- The Mad Fientist dissects the brains of some of the most well-respected personal finance icons in the field to discover their techniques and strategies for achieving financial independence. Topics included are investing, saving, entrepreneurship, and all things relating to money and early retirement!

*****

"This was the first FI-related podcast I found and it's still my favorite. I think it's the only one I'm actually subscribed to. I like Brandon's relaxed tone and the easygoing conversational style of his interviews. He doesn't come across as super slick or as someone who has all this mastered - though he clearly knows his stuff." -- The Graying Saver   ** -- Meet the show Kiplinger named best personal finance podcast of 2016! Live, from Joe's mom’s half-finished basement comes the parade of financial headlines, personal finance experts, creatives, and stories that inspire us. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, hosts Joe Saul-Sehy & OG meet at the card table and bring you guests, trivia, your letters, and a big “so what?” to end each show.

*****

"Who doesn't love Stacking Benjamins? They won a major award, fergoshsakes! (I really hope it was a leg lamp.) But seriously, it's another lighthearted general-interest podcast that helps make the commute go by in a flash. You can tell Joe, OG, Doug and all the guests genuinely enjoy what they're doing. They aren't afraid to go deep when a question warrants, but they don't get so technical that they lose the listener." -- I Dream of FIRE

The Top *10* Favorite Financial Podcasts

No report would be complete without the Top Ten list, so here are the rest of the favorites:

As For Shows Bloggers Were Disappointed In?

Surprisingly there really weren't any runaway winners (losers?) here, which means by and large the community has a lot of good love for podcasters out there! Here's the top list though, which you can see is pretty sparse w/ complaints:  

T/N/L (Time/Number/Location)

Ah, you'll forgive us that old A/S/L joke from the early days of the web, but as we discovered in our last poll, most of our community is super old ;) What we're actually talking about is Time Spent Listening To Podcasts:

The Love of Blog Posts vs. Podcasts

We thought it'd be interesting to ask the question of *which format* our community prefers: blog posts or podcasts? We were certain that blog posts would be favored (after all, we're polling bloggers!), but the results were actually surprising. Blog posts only won out by a margin of 10%! to bring us all to a more "natural" state of interaction? We don't have enough data to answer these types of questions, but what we can give you are some thoughts from current financial bloggers on why they prefer one method over the other.

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Comments from those who preferred blogs: "I love podcasts, but blogs are simultaneously more prolific and easier to search. If I read a blog post, it's pretty easy to go back to it and find the one line or idea I want to readdress. With a podcast, I can't just go to the episode and search for the word of phrase... I have to try to remember at what point it was discussed (in what is typically about a 60 minute episode), then skip to that part, listen for awhile, see if I hear it, maybe go back a few minutes, etc. There's no way to easily find the exact statement I'm looking for." -- Military Dollar "While a podcast is a life talk being recorded (it could get lengthy and irrelevant sometimes) a blog post is a usually well crafted concise piece of information. Somehow I tend to be able to learn and memorize more by reading and seeing images than by listening to people." -- Financial Imagineer "This only applies to finance subjects, I prefer podcasts overall. I think blogs work better for finance because it's easier to communicate numbers with a written form. Also, if there are actionable steps, like setting up a certain account, that is better to have in a written form." -- Married and Harried

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Comments from those who prefer podcasts: "When seeking answers or direction, I feel like it's harder to fake it on a podcast. The blogging world seems to be saturated with those chasing income." -- James @ Sufficient Fundz "As a busy father, I'm not able to sit down and read as much lately. Listening in my car or while I'm on a run is a lot easier for me in this stage of my life." -- Andy @ Marriage, Kids and Money "I enjoy receiving information through my ears :) That being said I do love reading. I just think podcasts can deliver more information in a faster manner just by the nature of speaking/listening. It also adds another level of personality since you are actually hearing people speak and interact as opposed to reading something that they wrote down." -- Andrew @ Shift Upwards