If you are looking for personal finance advice, chances are that you have read something written by Liz Pulliam Weston. According to Nielson/NetRatings, Weston is the most-read personal finance columnist online and easily the most prolific of the Top Money Gurus.

Not only is she widely read, but she has also won awards for her personal finance writing. Many readers identify with Weston’s easy-to-understand writing style, and her no-nonsense approach to money.

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There are a number of smart, savvy and young financial gurus gaining ground right now. One of these Top Money Gurus is Farnoosh Torabi.

Torabi was born in 1980, and grew up in Philadelphia. She is one of the more dynamic of financial experts today. She is a TV personality as well as the author of two popular financial books, one of them an Amazon bestseller.

Farnoosh Torabi has a degree related to finance, as well as a journalism degree. She has a degree from Penn State in Finance and International Business, as well as a Master degree in Journalism from Columbia University. As a result of these degrees, she is considered a qualified financial journalist and expert.

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In world of personal finance bloggers that insist that cutting costs and saving money is the way to go, Ramit Sethi is a voice that offers a different choice. Sethi is known for his lavish lifestyle, and his insistence that it’s important to earn more money than it is to cut back on the things that you love. He’s one of the youngest Top Money Gurus on our list and one that connects with the young professional crowd.

Ramit Sethi’s Brief Biography

Ramit Sethi is known as a gifted writer, speaker, and entrepreneur. While he doesn’t have formal financial training, Sethi does have a degree from Stanford University. He has bachelor and master degrees in technology, psychology, and sociology. He often jokes about his upbringing as a person of Indian descent.

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Dave Ramsey is one of the most well-known names in personal finance today, perhaps one of the most well known in our Top Money Guru poll, especially when it comes to debt reduction. Ramsey is known for his no-excuses stance on getting out of debt and living a life without debt.

One of the reasons that Ramsey resonates so well with many of his listeners is due to the fact that he has experienced financial trouble — including bankruptcy. Additionally, Ramsey isn’t shy about his identification as a born-again Christian. He has become increasingly vocal about the intersection of faith and finance.

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When one thinks of Top Money Gurus, sometimes those with the big personalities get a lot of the spotlight. However, there has been one financial journalist who has been around for quite some time — and who has long provided consumers with practical advice.

Jane Bryant Quinn is one of the most well-known financial journalists, writing a biweekly column for Newsweek for 30 years and offering thoughtful advice in her Washington Post Writers Group “Staying Ahead” column, which ran for 27 years.

She is also one of the old guard of personal finance and consumer writing. She was born in Niagara Falls, New York, in 1939. She has been writing for decades, and is one of the most trusted names in money. Her first job was with Look, which hired her to cover money. She began learning about money through a subscription to American Banker. After Look folded, she was asked to write a newsletter for McGraw-Hill. Some of her credits include hosting shows on PBS, as well as working for CBS (including with Dan Rather).

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One of the things the cool kids are doing these days is a tweetchat. It’s where we pick a topic, everyone gets on their computers, and we have a good ole chat via Twitter. We’re going to start a tweetchat every other Thursday, starting June 6th. We’ll be using the hashtag #pfchat, with the Tweetchat being held at 4PM Eastern, and we hope you’ll join us.

We chose that time because it’s right after Wisebread’s awesome Tweetchat – which is every Thursday at 12pm Pacific, 3pm Eastern.

Each week, you should start with Wise Bread’s Tweetchat and maybe stick around for ours.

You can see the schedule of topics here but I’d like to poll you all for what subjects you’d like to see us cover. We’ll try to get a special guest each tweetchat but sometimes you may just have to settle for me.

So for today’s Your Take, I’d like to know what topics you want us to cover! I thought about just picking relevant topics for the season (think: taxes in April, that kind of stuff) but it’d be far more useful if you guys shared what was on your mind these days.

In our brief profile of Robert Kiyosaki, I said that few people on our Top Money Guru poll generates as much emotion as he does. Suze Orman is one of those gurus.

Suze Orman is a very strong television host who uses a lot of “tough love” when it comes to dispensing financial advice. Personally, I think some people respond better to her brand of personal finance and many have gotten themselves back on track because of it. Her style can be abrasive but you can’t smooth a piece of wood unless you use sandpaper, right?

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Say the name Robert Kiyosaki and you can generate some pretty strong feelings from people. I can only think of one other person on the Top Money Guru poll that does that (maybe two). Most people know him from the Rich Dad Poor Dad book (and subsequent books) and know him as a fairly active real estate investor. Some have pointed out some inaccuracies and inconsistencies in his book, his various bankruptcies, and even that he may have made up his Rich Dad (or his Poor Dad, it really depends on who you talk to).

That said, the main idea from the original Rich Dad Poor Dad is a powerful one. The idea is that you should try to own assets that generate passive income, rather than assets that cost you money. He introduces the idea of good debt versus bad debt. Good debt is when you take on debt to buy something that appreciates. A mortgage is good debt. Bad debt is when you take on debt to buy something that depreciates. A car loan is bad debt. There are wrinkles in this, as there is in any financial advice, but the basic idea is sound.

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