Frequently Asked Questions

    Here are some often asked questions that we get. Hope they are helpful! Let us know if you have any other questions that we can answer.

    Who are the Three Thrifty Guys?

    Started in 2010 by friends, Charlie and Aaron (who were both blogging at the time) – their goal was to keep each other accountable in their financial lives and get out of debt with the hopes their journey might help others out as they wrote about ways to save and make more money, becoming financially free and offering various reviews of products and services.

    Charlie is an IT professional by day (who is now debt-free), Aaron is a full-time graphic designer and publisher and our current “third guy”, Matthew, is a high-school math teacher.

    The guys do not work for any financial institutions / or other companies. On occasion, we will enter into a content partnership only if we have direct experience with the product or service. (More in sponsorships)

    All the guys have positive net worths. And, more importantly, are followers of Jesus Christ.

    How do you make money through the site?

    We primarily earn money for the website in these three areas: affiliate income, content partnerships and advertising.

    With affiliate income, we may earn a commission when we recommend a product or service to readers. So, if you visit our article on Republic Wireless and decide to visit their website via the link on that review and end up purchasing their phone service, we earn a commission on that. Since we really only recommend products and services we have personally used (or are using) – we feel comfortable in earning money through this avenue.

    Content partnerships happen when a company approaches (sometimes, we'll approach) us with a desire to write about a certain topic related to personal finances and their marketing initiatives. We then craft these articles around their goal to educate others about their product or service, but ensuring these pieces are helpful. We also make sure we disclose to the reader any relationship we may have with the company in the article.

    You may notice that we have very few advertisements – and we hope this enriches your experience at the site. We personally don't like a lot of ads when we visit other websites – so don't wish to force that on our readers. But we do put a Google Adsense banner in the sidebars and footers and on various articles to help support what we're doing. This is not a major source of income for us. We are also approached by various advertisers individually about placing banners or ads on the site (but we turn down 75% of these requests).

    Why are you guys anonymous?

    When we first starting blogging, a lot of other bloggers were writing anonymously. But, with trust being so important on the web – this has changed, causing many more bloggers to “come out” and share photos of themselves and families.

    We have shared some personal photos and video from time to time – but we still (largely) blog anonymously for a couple of reasons. One is job-related. Currently, one of us works in a government position that requires us to keep our personal life, private. Another reason is that our anonymity is important to us. Our main goal for the site is to share our experiences in the hopes that others may benefit from it. Not to gain notoriety or fame.

    Are you all financially free?

    Charlie has shared more of his personal finances with readers and more recently (2018) made the last payment on his mortgage to become totally debt-free.

    Aaron is still paying off his wife's student loan and home. But, his hopes are to build enough business income to become financially free.

    Matthew was debt-free, but has since taken out another mortgage to purchase a larger home for his growing family.

    Where did you come up with the name of your site?

    One of Aaron's favorite burger joints is Five Guys. When we first started the site, there were three of us thrifty guys – so we put two and two together and the name stuck.

    What products do you guys recommend?

    Here's just a few products and services that we recommend and use:

    Mobile phone service

    Bill negotiators

    Blender

    Landline (VOIP)

    Life insurance

    Healthcare cost-sharing plan

    Savings account

    Website hosting

    Do you read any other personal finance bloggers and writers?

    Most of us guys have learned a lot about personal finance via Dave Ramsey. So, we appreciate and adhere to much of what he espouses in terms of getting one's finances in order. We also recommend books like the Treasure Principle (Randy Alcorn), and some of the PF bloggers out there (Get Rich Slowly, Seedtime, Bible Money Matters, Matt About Money and others).

    Do you accept guest posts?

    We love getting offers to write for us from our regular readers. Here's a review that one of our readers did for us on a cell service that he uses. From time to time, we will accept guest posts from other bloggers and writers – but it is rare. We value our readership and do not want to present them with information that we don't trust or that are too salesy.