25 Personal Finance Subreddits For You To Find ‘Your People’

Personal finance is so… so… BROAD, isn’t it? We come from all kinds of backgrounds and have all types of interests and go through all sorts of life circumstances. Looking for specific answers can be tough.

To make it more complicated, sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know – not even the search term for it. I have suggested Reddit as a resource page before, but the sheer amount of available information can be enough for some people to go, ‘nope’ and close off the tab.

That’s a shame, because one of the best ways to learn about personal finance is to learn from the Reddit community. The most useful information get the most upvotes – so you get to save time by reading only the best of the best as determined by those personal finance subreddit community members themselves.

Even though r/PersonalFinance has a lot of members and contributors, I wouldn’t really recommend it and some other subs to Malaysians as many topics are specific for the US crowd. The r/MalaysianPF community, on the other hand, would be great if it wasn’t, um, dead.

BUT. There are other personal finance subreddits that you can explore. They will help you save, spend, invest and manage your money better – for a variety of occasions. Here are 25 of them.

Personal finance subreddits and what they’re for

1. r/BikeCommuting. Tips for people who use bicycles as their primary mode of transportation. Great for those of you  contemplating buying a bicycle to get to work/school/shops and reduce transportation cost. Plenty of bicycle recommendations. Link
2. r/BudgetFood, r/EatCheapAndHealthy, r/CheapMeals, r/MealPrepSunday, r/SlowCooking. Subs compiling recipes for meals that don’t cost a lot of money. Not much Asian meals, but helpful for food combination ideas. Combine with meal-prepping and bring food to work – cook in bulk to save money as well as time. The slow cooking sub uses slow cookers, but you can easily adjust for rice cookers, something most of us already have. Links: r/BudgetFood, r/EatCheapAndHealthy, r/CheapMeals, r/MealPrepSunday, r/SlowCooking
3. r/BuyItForLife. Recommendations for high-quality products. In the context of this sub, high-quality doesn’t mean they have to be expensive. The idea is to buy things that last a long time, so you save money and time looking for replacements. Ranges from clothes, tools, furniture and more. Many of the products are hard to find in Malaysia, but you get to learn what makes it good quality. Link
4. r/DIY and r/SomethingIMade. A place where people post DIY projects and ideas, with slight humblebragging. It’s great to browse through if you like arts and crafts and/or handy with tools. Some people practice leatherwork, woodwork, metalwork and more, get really good at it, and turned it into a side business. Links: r/DIY, r/SomethingIMade
5. r/Entrepreneur. LOVE this sub! A great mix of tips, inspirational posts, guides, business ideas, business growth ideas, and more. When I feel like I’m not growing my business, I visit here. It has never failed me yet. Link
6. r/FinancialIndependence. For people who want to get out of the rat race and get back the most precious thing – the control of their time. Great if you ever dream of early retirement (who hasn’t), and ready to make specific steps and yes, sacrifices towards it. They share strategies to achieve the lifestyle that you want. Link
7. r/Flipping. Flipping is when people search for low-priced items (via clearances, thrift-shopping) with the intention to re-sell them for profit. An interesting way to generate side income for some people. Link
8. r/Frugal. Master sub for getting the most value for your money. Great resources and sharing by community members. Highly recommended. Link
9. r/FrugalBeauty. When you wanna look good but hate that some companies charge waaay too much for essentially a few cents’ worth of chemicals. Link
10. r/Gardening, r/Hydroponics, r/Aquaponics. The gardening sub is full of pictures of members’ gardens, ranging from full on farms to tiny balcony plants. Best for those with green thumbs. If you’re not as great, check out hydroponics (growing plants with water). Aquaponics is a system to grow plants and keep fish at the same time. Links: r/Gardening, r/Hydroponics, r/Aquaponics
11. r/Minimalism. Tips and ideas to reject consumerist culture and achieve the clutter-free life, which helps us to focus on more important things like our passions and loved ones. Link
12. r/Shoestring, r/OneBag and r/Backpacking. Tips to travel on a very low budget, including where to go, flight hacks and much more. The Onebag community is interesting – they’re all about maximising things you bring on your travels so you never have to bring excess items ever again. Links: r/Shoestring, r/OneBag, r/Backpacking
13. r/TinyHouses. Part of the small house movement, where they view big houses as wasteful because it encourages unnecessary spending. It’s true – the more space you have, the more maintenance you have to do, the more furniture you have to buy and generally the more space you feel you need to fill. Link
14. r/VanDwellers. Because I romanticise this lifestyle, sigh. A sub for people who lives and travels in vans, cars and other types of automobiles. I like the idea of travelling to beautiful destinations and always having accommodation with me. Link
15. r/Vegetarian. One of the best way to quickly cut back on spending is to cut back on meat. This sub makes it fun to try out new recipes. It’s also funny to see how white people get overly excited about tofu and tempeh. Link
16. r/ZeroWaste. An environmentally-conscious sub that promotes buying in bulk and bringing own water bottle, among others. And they save money at the same time. It’s amazing how little trash some of them generate. I must learn more from this subreddit. Link

Tips to make the best of these personal finance subreddits

Step 1: Don’t worry about reading ALL of them. Let your own interests guide you. Pick a sub that sounds the most interesting, then click on the link.

Step 2: You’re automatically in the ‘Hot’ section in the subreddits. That means there are some conversations going on at the time. Browse through.

Step 3: If you want to read the top posts of the sub, which I highly recommend, click on ‘Top’. A good place to start if you just want to read the best parts.

Step 4: Rinse and repeat for the other subs you find interesting. I can almost guarantee you’ll learn something new in each of them.

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Step 5: Make a Reddit account. Now you can also upvote, make new post and reply comments

Step 6: Help contribute your own personal experiences to r/MalaysianPF and make it less dead.

Conclusion

Reddit’s awesome. I hope you find ‘your people’ there, like I did.

Any other personal finance subreddits that you like? Please comment below 🙂