Weld Community Credit Union

Bobby Hoyt:

Millenialmoneyman.com

Bobby Hoyt gets it: Personal finances for millennials can be tough. There’s home ownership to consider, a career path that’s still somewhat undefined, and a staggering amount of student loan debt to pay off. What’s a cash-strapped millennial to do?

Hoyt is here to help. The teacher-turned-financial blogger offers struggling millennials solid financial advice and tips on his blog, millenialmoneyman.com, and on his Facebook page. Hoyt makes it clear that he is not here to judge anyone’s choices. The philosophy behind Millennial Money Man, or M$M, is simple: “I’m going to teach you how to make more money, save more, and pay off debt … and make sure you have fun while you do it.”

Hoyt is not your typical financial guru. In fact, he’s had no professional training in the field of personal money. Instead, he brings readers and followers tips and ideas from his own journey toward a debt-free, financially healthy life.

When he graduated college in December 2011, weighed down by a whopping $40,000 in student loan debt, Hoyt was determined to get rid of it as quickly as possible — on a teacher’s salary. The high school band director took the extreme step of moving in with his partner’s parents and living as frugally as possible until the loan was paid off. There were no vacations, no fun nights out, and absolutely no privacy. But after “living like a monk” for 18 months, the debt was gone.

Liberated and inspired on the other side of his debt mountain, Hoyt became newly passionate about responsible money management. He started teaching his high school students all he had learned about personal finances, and blogging about it in his spare time. Soon after, he launched MillennialMoneyMan.com.

Six months later, Hoyt had made only $3 from display ads on his blog.

Frustrated with the blog’s slow growth and eager to leave his day job, Hoyt started moonlighting as a digital marketer. He taught himself how to manage websites, oversee email campaigns and run Facebook ads for local businesses. Finally, in 2015, he quit his day job to invest all his time in his blog and side hustles.

Things were looking up, but they only started taking off in a big way when Hoyt’s debt payoff went public. In September 2016, CNBC featured Hoyt’s story of how he dedicated most of his teacher’s salary toward paying down debt and then quit his job to make money online. Traffic exploded on his site, and the ad revenue was finally steady and reliable.

Hoyt spent the next few years building a tight group of followers on M$M. He quickly noticed many of them were looking for a way to side hustle while paying down debts.

In January 2018, Hoyt set out to teach his audience how to do just that. Together with his friend, Mike Yanda, he launched the Facebook Side Hustle Course, an online course that teaches everything you need to know about making money through Facebook ads. In the first weekend after its launch, the young business pulled in a staggering $120,000 in sales. Later in the year, the pair started Laptop Empires, where they teach people how to make extra money online.

Today, while running his online businesses, Hoyt helps the M$M audience of over a million people each year pay off debt, build side hustles and save for long-term goals.

You can check out millenialmoneyman.com, follow Hoyt on Twitter and find out why the private Facebook group is 45,000-plus members strong. You’ll find loads of useful content designed to help you live a more financially responsible life.