the Wealthy Canadian

Today I am writing a review of ShareYourNumber.com

First I’ll start by explaining  What ‘your number’ is; well it seems to be based off of Michael Mastersons’ Seven Years to Seven Figures‘ book (a decent book, by the way, I should really review it sometime) where you determine what level of lifestyle that you’d be comfortable with.  You then calculate how much that lifestyle will cost you annually and what date you would like to be financially free.  Once you know your financial freedom date and your annual lifestyle cost it is easy to determine how much money you will need to attain financial freedom.

That is Your Number (well, really it is two numbers;  how much and when).

ShareYourNumber is a social network where you go to publicly declare ‘your number.’  After you’ve shared your number the community is there to help you get there.  Forum discussions, blog posts different groups that you can join, etc.  Seems to me to be sort of similar to a personal finance blog directory.

The Good
The best part of the whole exercise is that it forces you to sit down and consider what your life’s purpose is.  From there it is a matter of setting one giant SMART goal, i.e., your number and when you will achieve it.

The second good point is that this is a community of like-minded individuals all located in the same place.  Everybody gets their own space, you can blog join discussions, etc.

The Bad
This site it confusing, in fact it is not really one site att all but a collection of sites.  While trying to find information I was redirected (from ShareYourNumber) to ning, kickapps, ShareYourNumber.org and several subdomains under ShareYourNumber.com.  I’m guessing this started as a ning community before  eveloving into a space of its own.

The Summary
This social network is a great idea to get people to publicly announce their goals – which I’ve read is the most important thing is setting the goal because then it becomes an accountability.  It is also a community so you can lean on others to help you along or provide your own advice.

If you are already a blogger on this subject then I’m not sure if this is the site for you (other than promoting your own space).  Bloggers tend to build their own communities plus they are generally the masters of their own domain.  There are plenty of ads on ShareYourNumber but, I’m sure, none belong to the members.

All in all, I love the idea but am lacklustre on the implementation.  If anyone has signed up and is using it then I would love to hear your comments.