A year ago to the day, I hit publish on my first-ever post as a personal finance blogger. The year that followed has been full of unbelievable ups, downs, twists, turns, saving, spending, goal-getting and incredible friendships.
If you’ve ever wanted to dive into what your first year as a personal finance blogger will be like, oh boy is this ever the post for you – and it’s a bit of a novel, so grab a coffee and settle in, friends.
Getting started
As I’ve admitted several times, starting this blog was the definition of a half-baked idea, hence the name.
I opened a spreadsheet, decided to save half my income, and decided to write about it on the internet – all within the span of about an hour.
Because I have a bit of a history of starting blogs, only to abandon them after a grand total of four posts, I made myself a deal. I wasn’t allowed to spend any money on the blog until I was sure I’d keep going with it. That led to a WordPress.com blog and a free theme, and here’s what Half Banked looked when I hit publish on my first post one year ago today.
People (very kindly) assumed it was me in the photo, but all credit goes to Unsplash on that one. Also, see how stellar I was at the whole anonymous blogging thing back then, with my real face live on the blog for the world to see?
“So Desirae, tell me about your strengths.”
“Anonymity. Definitely anonymity.”
I broke my spending rule to get a $5 cartoon of my face – which was instantly recognizable to anyone who knows what I look like in real life. Since I was on a such a roll (ahahahahaha omg no) I also sprang for a $17 domain name, and halfbanked.com was officially born.
Then it got hard
It was probably mid-fall when I started to feel the first twinges of blogger burnout. At that point, I was publishing two posts a week and even though I was connecting with some amazing blogging friends, I felt like I was treading water. It felt like I could have easily stopped blogging, deemed this another failed blogging experiment, and found a different hobby.
If we’re being entirely, totally transparent here, one of the biggest reasons I got through this slump was that I had a post featured on Rockstar Finance for the first time. So dear J$ and C$ – thank you for thinking my post about the two ways you can squeeze your budget was worth featuring, and I likely owe you my blogging firstborn.
The other main reason that I kept going was the amazing support of some incredible other bloggers. I’m not kidding when I say that this community of money nerds has been the most open, welcoming, incredible group of humans on the internet that has ever existed, and I’m so grateful to all of you for keeping me going this year.
Also, to everyone who isn’t a blogger but has taken the time to tell me that my blog has in some small way impacted your real-life finances? You are literally why I do this thing, and I appreciate the time you took to tell me that more than you know.
I’ve learned so much
Let me tell you, if you start writing about money every week on the internet, you’re going to learn a few things.
Scratch that.
A lot of things.
Early on, I was taking on monthly challenges to make sure I had something to write about, and to see which ones would help me hit my savings goal of stashing away half of my income. I spent a month tracking my spending down to the penny, which became the most impactful thing I’ve done for my money all year. Another month, I went through Cait Flander’s Mindful Budgeting Program, and learned how to balance saving with being grateful for the experiences I was able to buy with my money.
Along the way, I was adding to my list of fantastic personal finance blogs, and learning just as much – if not more – from the unbelievable humans who also share their money know-how on the internet. From early retirement, to millennial money, to non-traditional money management and more, I have learned an unbelievable amount about my money just from reading blogs.
As my OG blogging friend Penny wrote recently, it’s important to have a variety of perspectives, and there’s no easier – or cheaper! – way to do that than to add a bunch of money bloggers to your Feedly account, or following them on Twitter.
We blogging types don’t always agree, on money or video games, but if you find enough perspectives you’ll be able to find the ones that fit best with your life – and use them to make informed decisions about your own spending.
I’m the first to stand up and say I do things a little differently, and what works for me might not work for you. I’m a big advocate of the fun budget, but I’d also be the first to tell you that you can save more than you think, and that you should only spend on things that really matter to you.
Maybe you need a more tough-love approach, or you want a place where it’s OK to talk about your True Money Confessions with people who do the same. Whatever your happy place is when it comes to managing your money, I guarantee there are bloggers out there who offer exactly your brand of money management advice. You just need to find them.
Worked with amazing people and companies
If you had told me at the beginning of this blogging adventure that I would have done all the things I’ve done in the past year, I straight-up would have told you that you were nuts.
Remember, this was the blog that I was writing “anonymously,” that I hadn’t even decided I was going to stick with beyond a few posts.
Since then, I’ve written guest blog posts for Millennial Money Man, Northern Expenditure and Canadian Budget Binder. I’ve worked with two of my favourite Canadian fintech companies, Lowest Rates and Wealthsimple, and I’m writing a weekly column for GenFKD about fintech. I was in the freaking Globe and Mail that one time, and Rob Carrick – the Real Canadian Personal Finance MVP – linked to two of my articles in his newsletters.
I’ve had Twitter conversations – multiple Twitter conversations! – with the authors of personal finance books that are sitting on my bookshelf right now, like Kerry Taylor and Preet Banerjee. Yes, none of them are ever going to speak to me again after this nerdy paragraph, but it’s TOO COOL. I own their books! They are big deals!
I’m sorry, but for a self-confessed personal finance nerd, those are some pretty big-deal line items. I can’t even believe that this year happened.
The numbers
I wouldn’t be a very good personal finance blogger if I didn’t sneak at least a number or two in here. While I’ve gone back and forth on which numbers to share, and how to be transparent without giving you access to my entire bank account and my SIN number, I will say that I’m always down to share percentages and goal numbers – so here we go.
2 (the number of months I’ve hit my savings goal)
Since I started tracking my spending in September of last year, I’ve hit my 50% savings goal exactly twice, in March and April of this year. This might seem like a failure, but to me it’s a massive win.
Since I was tracking my spending the whole time, I can pinpoint exactly why I wasn’t hitting the goal, and each month was for a reason that was more important to me than saving half my income. Think “important birthday for a loved one” and “travel to see family” and “insurance for my luxury dog.”
47.34% (the percent of my income I saved in 2016 so far)
Holy shit friends. That right there is why I don’t consider not hitting my savings goal for 9 out of 11 months a failure – because every month I knew I wouldn’t be hitting the goal, I didn’t use that as an excuse to bail on the intention behind the goal.
I set the goal in the first place because I have a lot of big goals I want to hit, including funding an emergency fund for me, saving up a separate emergency fund for my dog, and saving for a house downpayment someday. I knew that unless I upped my savings rate, it would take me way too long to hit any of my goals, so I decided to turn it up.
Before I set that goal, I was saving about 20% of my take-home income every month. So while sure, I didn’t quite hit a 50% savings rate consistently, I more than doubled my previous savings rate – and came within striking distance of a 50% overall savings rate for the past six months.
That’s a win.
1438 (how many comments the blog got this past year)
Some people look at comments as a “vanity metric,” that doesn’t drive “real results” when it comes to blogging.
To those people, I just have to say, you must not know my blog friends.
I’ve connected with so many amazing people through this blog, and commenting back and forth on their blogs. I can’t even name them all, because I’d be too scared of forgetting someone, but if you’ve ever commented on a blog post of mine? Just know that I am so glad we connected (but of course, you probably already knew that!)
The message
When I started Half Banked, I had convinced myself that I was going to be the Queen of Epic Frugality, and completely eschew my previous consumer-driven ways. I read basically every article FrugalWoods has ever written in a single sitting, and charged forward with all the finesse of a Tyrannosaurus Rex trying to reach something on the top shelf.
If you want to see how misguidedly crazy I went with it all, please observe this deeply embarrassing post in which I made coffee using paper towels, in order to avoid buying a French press. That attempt at frugality is not recommended. Buy the freaking French press. (We got this one after The Boyfriend convinced me that maybe there was a better way to spend my weekend mornings.)
As the months went on and I got into the groove of trying to hit my savings goal, I realized that maybe hardcore frugality isn’t my money sweet spot. Sure, I’m still all for spending intentionally, and making my coffee at home most of the time, but I’m also not going to be over here telling you never to spend money on things that make your life great.
I also realized that a lot of the joy I get from this blog comes from the unexpected moments where people tell me that something I wrote really helped them get a handle on their money, too. If you happen to be one of those people, just know that there was zero chill and much happy-flailing on the other side of the computer screen when you sent those messages – yes, even more than I told you about at the time. Zero chill.
Those two realizations – that I’m more about balance than hardcore, bootstrap frugality, and that my favourite part of this whole project has been the unexpected ability to help people – are what has been guiding Half Banked and the stuff I’ve been writing over the past few months.
Also, I’m never going back to making coffee with paper towels again and you can’t make me.
What’s up next
While I’m always going to be sharing my personal stories, because I do enough hilariously embarrassing stuff to make it funny for me, in year two of Half Banked I want to focus on building tools and content that are actually, genuinely useful for you guys.
I fell in love with the personal finance community because we fit in this weird gap between “I know nothing about money” and “Omg I need to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars for financial advice.” There’s so much room in between those two ends of the money spectrum, and that’s where I’ve found the information I needed to handle my own millennial money situation.
If I can help fill in that gap for people, with stuff like the One Minute Budget and Zero to Investing Hero? I’ll be a happy camper. Plus, who can forget my unfortunate but also entirely accurate How Not To series, in which I share my biggest money blunders to help you avoid doing exactly what I did wrong? If you missed them, here’s how not to…
On that note, I’m working behind the scenes over the next few months to bring you guys a new resource to help you juggle all of your money goals without losing your mind (or having to make coffee using paper towels.)
This was actually one of the most common responses to the survey I sent out a few months ago, and it makes perfect sense to me because hi, story of my life. Trying to save for multiple goals at once, and figuring out how to balance them, is one of the hardest and most important money challenges we’ll all face in our 20s.
There’s only so much money, and it needs to help us pay down debt, buy a house, get a dog, take awesome vacations, stop wearing sweatpants to work, and so much more.
You’ll hear way more about that in the next few months, and I am so excited to help you tackle that challenge! Expect to see it launching sometime in January.
You know what else you’ll hear more about?
Housing. Specifically, to share a personal update, the timeline on our house goal has moved up, and I’m aiming to have my half of a down payment saved up for…. drumroll please…. this spring. I’m almost halfway there, but that also means I’ve just set myself an aggressive, five-figure savings goal to hit in the next 9 months.
It won’t be as hard as some other things people do over the course of nine months, but trust me when I tell you I’ll be keeping you well-informed about how it’s going along the way.
Lastly, to end this massively long blog post (I can’t believe you’re still reading this, for real) I just want to reiterate that I am seriously, unbelievably grateful to every single person who has ever laid eyes on the blog. Thank you for making this the best hobby in the whole wide world. (And a very special shout out to The Boyfriend, who puts up with me working on Half Banked most evenings and weekends.)
Here’s to another year of being a money nerd on the internet.
Do you have any questions I didn’t answer in this novel about what it’s really like blogging about money on the internet – or do you have stories of your own to share? Cool things you never expected would happen from starting a blog? I’d love to hear them!
Congrats Des! Your blog is beautiful and your style earthy and convivial. I love reading your stories because it reminds me of the mistakes and blunders I made (I’m in my thirties, so a bit older than you). Thanks to MMM, Frugalwoods, and others I’m farther along on the FI road, but I still read along in case I can contribute something useful to you or your reading audience. Keep up the great work, one day you’ll reap the benefits while helping your readers reach a brighter financial future.
Here’s to another great year. 🙂
Thank you so much – and thank you for contributing! I do like the idea of tackling financial independence as a goal once I get a few other goals (emergency fund, house) off my plate, inspired by exactly those blogs! Always open to hearing your thoughts and suggestions on getting there 🙂
Congratulations! Happy blog birthday! Happy blog anniversary! All the happy and all the confetti! It’s been just the best connecting with you as a friend and as a financial resource. I learn so much from you and your blog all the time. I cannot wait to see where year 2 takes you, your wonderful storytelling ability, and your financial insights.
YOU! I learn so much from YOU! YOUR wonderful storytelling ability! YOUR financial insights!
Sometimes, when I’m drunk, I just go around screaming at people that I’m SO GLAD WE’RE FRIENDS and I feel like this is the sober, blog-comment version of that.
Congrats on the blogiversary! The community is what I didn’t expect. We have met so many PF bloggers online and offline, all of whom are amazing. On-going support from everyone we’ve connected with is truly what keeps us going. Here’s to year two! 🙂
Right?! Like, isn’t blogging supposed to be competitive and hard and aren’t people supposed to be intimidating?! That is what I was told anyways, and it was all lies. Horribly inaccurate untruths, the lot of it. I am so so so glad we’ve connected, and you guys are a continual inspiration for me when I’m creeping house listings and realizing I really don’t need all that space (or remotely want to clean it or heat it.) I’m so inspired by your side hustles and business acumen and house stuff and general awesome!
Des! You are too kind. 🙂
I really think it has to do with this community. We happened upon the right place at the right time (or least that’s how I feel about it).
Congrats Des! I love your style of writing (so casual, but informative!) and so I plan on reading as long as you keep writing!
Can’t wait to see what the next year has in store for you. Thanks for all the help you’ve provided along the way plus the inspiration for me to continue saving/paying off debt/retiring early, etc etc. :]
Thank you so so so much Samantha – it seriously means the world!
Huge congratulations on your one year anniversary and that killer savings rate! ? Looking forward to following along for year two!
Thanks so much Matt! It’s not quite quit my job and travel the world money yet, but oh my god your photos make a VERY compelling case that this should be on my radar as a goal someday, lol.
Congratulations on the first of what I hope will be many more wonderful blogging years! The landscape is always changing in PF blogging and it’s awesome to have new voices sticking around to become seasoned voices.
(And the thrill of knowing you helped someone is just incomparable, isn’t it?)
Thank you so much Revanche! It’s really wonderful finding new and established blogs to add to my list, and connecting with people – I’ve actually been reading (ahem, lurking) your blog since your episode on Jessica Moorhouse’s podcast, so it’s really fun to be connecting now over dogs and blogs and stuff!
And oh my god. NO ONE TOLD ME. It is the best feeling in the whole world. Zero chill.
Yay! Happy anniversary!! I love this post. Also I love your site revamp – so pretty. You are so, so right about the community, that was something I never expected. There are so many seriously great people out there who share a love of personal finance. On top of that, yours has been one of my favourite resources for tips, info, and inspiration, so thank YOU for continuing with your blog and sharing it with the rest of us out here in the world. Your investing course especially is something I know I will keep going back to for the information … and the jokes. I love the jokes. AND congratulations on that insane rate of savings for 2016!! That is huge!! I want to be like you when I grow up.
KATE OMG I cannot, thank you so so so much! You know I love your blog too, so hi, the feeling is mutual! Please tell me you’re thinking of / planning on going to CPFC this year so we can hang out and be IRL friends?! I mean, anyone who can put up with my obnoxious email jokes is clearly someone I need to hang out with for real.
Congrats, friend! You’ve done amazing things both financially and with your blog! When my blog grows up, it wants to be like your blog. 🙂
Awwww Maggie thank you so much! And please, I am THE MOST honoured to have been given the opportunity to write for your blog! That is no small thing, my friend, and I am as touched and honoured as could be. (And um, speaking of amazing things, congrats on that $100K mark! *That* is hardcore, and your mortgage is basically toast. I’m so excited for you!)
Happy anniversary! I’m so glad you started blogging. I totally consider you one of my blog friends. So excited to see where you go from here!
Yayayayayay BLOG FRIENDS! I seriously consider you one of my blog friends too, and I’m so sad FinCon isn’t in the cards for me this year! (Also, I literally am realizing as I type this that I haven’t listed your blog on my list WTF DESIRAE GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER ok it’s on there now, crisis averted!)
Congratulations Des! As a totally newbie blogger, I admire all your efforts and the time commitment you make to help other people. This is an amazing online community – always giving, sharing and encouraging! Here’s to Year 2!
Thank you so much Vicki! It seriously is – I’m so happy to be part of it!
Happy blog birthday!!! It’s so exciting you made it to the year mark and will certainly have many more to come. I’m not sure what your defunct blogs were about, but I’m thrilled this is the one that stuck. Also, props to your boyfriend for making you get the french press. 😛
Oh my god Erin this one time, I thought I could be a lifestyle blogger. It did NOT work out for me, although somewhere in my Google Drive is a draft post where I tried to make a flower crown and the third step is “Realize you are not the kind of person who can wear a flower crown and accept your fate.”
Also, I’m going to be adding you to the list of people whose books I have on my shelf in the next year – how cool is that?!?!
OMG CONGRATULATIONS!!! I am so happy to have been reading your blog, and continuing to hear your hilarious and relatable stories about finance. You truly know how to make money interesting, and also encourage people (me, specifically) to be unafraid to push their financial boundaries to new heights. Because of you I have started investing, owned my *fun budget*, and learned a lot about my spending habits. Not to mention, I actually love your newsletters and look forward to reading them each and every week.
Cheers to many more. I will always be reading. I promise.
Thank you so so so much Alyssa – that means the world coming from a blogger (and GIF maker, let’s be real, that thing is an art piece) who I respect so much and could say the exact same things about! I absolutely adore your blog and writing style, and I CANNOT wait to meet you in real life!
Also, with this always-be-reading thing, can we just agree that you can never stop blogging because I would miss you too much? Fact.
This – “47.34% (the percent of my income I saved in 2016 so far)” – is amazing, congratulations!
Really enjoy your blog! It’s one of the ones that has helped me zone in on what the hell I’m doing now after hitting some big goals and feeling like I’m kind of aimlessly wandering. You always make me think and look at things from a slightly different angle than I have been coming from. Thanks for making me look at my dog numbers a little more closely and the random twitter chats 🙂 Happy blogiversary!
Katelynne! Thank you so so so much! I love our random Twitter chats, especially because they so often feature exchanges of dog photos, aka my literal favourite thing. I’m so honoured that you take the time to read the blog, and I’m just so glad we’re internet friends!
It’s great to read about your wins and revelations throughout your first year, Desirae. I’ve got 5 months and 3 days until my first blogiversary. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, and this experience has exceeded my expectations in so many ways.
The term “community” gets tossed around an awful lot, but the term is perfectly appropriate in this corner of the internet occupied by personal finance and FIRE bloggers.
Keep up the great work!
-PoF
Thank you so much – your blog looks awesome and really well established for not even having finished your first year! I love that you’re sharing the perspective of someone who is financially independent by the technical measures of the term, but isn’t retiring yet. Your post about why you didn’t retire at 39 is so fantastic, and they’re all such good – and transparent! – reasons. I’m thrilled for you that you like your work (most of the time, which I think is what most of us aim for!)
You rock Des!! This blog is an awesome read, and while I may not have followed all your instructions, I’ve definitely learned a ton of things from reading it. Plus, I’ve gotten to know you better! So keep it up! You do an awesome job, are an awesome person, and it’s wonderful to see you killing your goals, and helping all of us do the same 🙂
Matt
Awwww Matt! Thank you so much! That has been such a perk of the whole blogging thing – people who I know in real life becoming super great money friends (and regular friends!) because they realized I am totally down to nerd out about this stuff! I’m so glad we’re friends!
Congrats on your 1st blogiversary, and on the great progress you’ve made on your savings goal! Wishing you continued success in the year to come.
Thank you so much Gary!
I really love the site redesign. Everything is so organized and the blog posts are easy to read. Reading your blog is what got me to FINALLY start investing! I’m using the robo-advisor Wealthfront and love it! Your blog really showed me that robo-advisors can be great things depending on your investing personality.
I never would have imagined when starting my blog, how welcoming and cool PF bloggers are. It makes me really bummed I can’t attend FinCon this year.
Ahhhhh Colin that is so awesome, thank you so much for telling me (and for the ultra-kind words!) Yay investing! Do you like Wealthfront? It (and Betterment) are the two I always name drop for roboadvisors in the States that are similar to my beloved Wealthsimple, but I’ve never actually used them – have you written about your experience? Send me a link if you have, I’d love to read it!
And I’m with you on the being bummed about FinCon thing, the Canadian dollar is just too sad for me to justify it. So you’re 100% not alone! We should all have a big Twitter hangout that weekend instead.
I’m writing an overview of it right now! Should be out soon! A lotttt of people recommend Betterment (mainly because they have no account minimum to invest). I went with Wealthfront (which has a $500 minimum) because I can get my first $15,000 managed for free! Then the fees go to 0.25%, compared to Betterment’s 0.35%. Worked out better!
I always wonder how it must be for you being Canadian since several of the resources PF bloggers recommend (Personal Capitol, Betterment, Digit, etc.) are US-only. Is it a struggle? haha.
Hahaha it can be! Our fintech is finally starting to catch up and we’ve got some fun services coming out now.
It’s a beautiful thing!! Keep pouring out your heart! 🙂
Thanks J! And thanks for all the support – you da real MVP.
Congratulations on your first year! Sounds like it’s been as good for you as your readers.
Thank you so much Emily!
Happy, happy blog birthday!!! As a newbie myself, I loved this! I can relate in so many ways – I think I hit blogger burnout weekly, but the community! Oh, the pf blogging community is so supportive and amazing. And, even though I’m pretty frugal and thought I was saving as much as I could, I am saving more than ever! I’ve enjoyed your posts immensely and wish you the best for the coming year!
Awwww thank you Amanda! And omg the blogger burnout struggles are so real. If you ever need a pep talk or someone to talk to, PLEASE hit me up on Twitter, I am always around and would be happy to chat!
Congratulations bud! You’re like my blogger role model. If I can build something that’s as valuable to other people as your blog is to me, I’ll be in blogger heaven!
PIA omg thank you so much! I am flattered and honoured and all the things – you’re way too kind. And your blog is so gorgeously designed and consistent – that SIDEBAR! I die. So good.
As a blogger writing under a pseudonym (who has so far succeeded in not putting her face/name on her blog… that gave me a great giggle mostly because it’s a paranoid of mine), have you faced any flack from people in your non-virtual life about your blog?
Surprisingly no! If anyone has had anything negative to say about it, they’ve 100% said it behind my back – everyone, from family to coworkers to my boss, have been super supportive and interested. If anything, I find that being open about it has encouraged people to come to me as a sounding board for money stuff, which I l-o-v-e because talking about this stuff is my jam. I was so so so so worried how it would go over, but it has been smoother than I could have anticipated!
And the look on the sales’ guys faces at work when they find out I run a personal finance blog is literally the best thing ever. One guy spent a whole evening being like… “A PERSONAL FINANCE BLOG?!” and shaking his head. I love it.
This is so great to hear! I suspect I would receive a similar response from most people in my life if I lowered the pseudonym, but I don’t know that I’m ready to do that yet. 🙂
Yes, I have sometimes dropped the personal finance blog into conversations where I don’t care if the person knows who I am and yes, some great reactions. It’s a good place to be. 😉
Happy 1 year! I can’t believe its only been a year! You’re killing it Des! Keep your zero chill. It might be my favorite.
Now to more serious topics… Paper towels and coffee. My heart swelled when I you told me I wasn’t the only one. You made me feel like I was not alone in this coffee colored paper towel world…. and then you turned on me. YOU TURNED ON ME. … Maybe I should stop doing that too. Ya know… upgrade. I’ll have to think about it.
Thank you so much Kate!
And omg buy yourself a french press. Send me your address and I’ll get you one for Christmas. IT’S THE BEST THING THAT HAS HAPPENED TO MY CAFFEINE FUELLED LIFE.
Congrats! Loved reading about your first year of blogging and how far you’ve come! Looking forward to year two and the progress on all the big plans and goals you’ve set for yourself.
Thank you so much Matt!
Happy happy anniversary! Love your voice and the perspective you bring to the PF world.
Awww thank you!
Well, I have just stumbled across your blog, so your first anniversary is my first read! Very much looking forward to going back over your journey over the past year and picking up some tips – I am so impressed, 47%, that’s huge! If I can replicate anywhere near that level of saving I’ll be thrilled, I’ll be following you as you go into year 2. Congrats!
Thank you so much Sarah! And honestly it was a surprise to me too, lol. The beauty of keeping detailed (ahem, obsessive) track records of my spending, haha!
Happy blog anniversary! 🙂
Thank you Francesca!
This was great to read. I have posted a whopping ONE blog post and mine is probably the slowest blog start up in the history of blog start ups because I keep thinking I need to know more and basically know EVERYTHING before any of my posts are useful. I need to just write as I go and admit my shortcomings along the way. You rock chick, glad you tweeted me.
Ahhhhh no omg you should totally post about where you are! The best advice I ever heard about it was that people are way more interested in learning how to do things from people who are only a few steps ahead of them – it’s like the difference between talking to your best friend about money or listening to some old dude who’s been a CFP his entire life tell you why you’re doing it wrong. I can’t wait to read more from you and I’m so glad we connected too!
Congrats Des! You’ve done SO much in the past year of blogging. I am envious of the awesomeness that is Half Banked. It’s pretty cool seeing you start and seeing it blossom. Here’s to many more years of being blog friends! 🙂
Awwww thank you so much Vic! And damn right – MANY more years!
Congrats on a year of blogging! you’ve done so much great stuff! Here’s to another fantastic year!
Thanks Janine!
Your savings rate is amazing. Will be interesting to see where you end up. Keep up the good work!!
Congrats on one year! It’s the most exciting time that I wish I could relieve. But the joy will still be there if you keep on going. Sooner or later, great things and more great things will happen if you stick around long enough.
The most unexpected thing to happen on my blogging journey is actually being contacted by so many companies to consult for them on how to grow their own blog and brand online. It is a serious X Factor of extra income I did not anticipate AT ALL.
You just never know!
Best to you.
Sam
Thank you so much Sam (which, now that I think about it, must be an abbreviation of Samurai and not your real name? Or a fantastic coincidence with your real name?) Your blog is hands-down one of the best ones out there, and the most successful ones, so you’re my inspiration for continuing with it! I especially love your posts about career stuff – pure gold.
Oh yeah, and great job being so public and open! That takes courage! I might join you in 2Q2017 after my final severance payment is paid in 1Q2017. Why rock the boat when the funds haven’t hit my account yet right?
Or maybe not. It’s fun to focus 100% solely on my writing and let people think what they will.
Sam
Hahaha and this is what I get for commenting in reverse order – thanks WordPress. I think you’re really, really open with your numbers already! You definitely share more than I do when it comes to specifics (And let’s be real, it’s easier to be brave when you’re not intimidating *anyone* with your numbers, haha.)
From a half baked idea to an awesome resource. Congratulations on keeping it up for so long, you’re an inspiration to someone like myself just starting out!
Thanks Ben! Your blog looks great – keep it up!
It is embarrassing how long I’ve had the tab with this post open, meaning to comment. But better late than never, right? Right??
Des, you are awesome, and I’m so glad you’re in our blogger community. From the early days (I remember your real face and name the first time around! Yay anonymity!) your honesty and hilarious stood out, and it has been super fun to watch you grow into a blogger extraordinaire with resources coming out left and right. So glad we’ve “met” online, and hope to meet for reals one day soon!
Congrats on the first of many blogiversaries. Can’t wait to read about your big new adventures and misadventures in year 2. 😀
Awwww thank you so much – and I’m so sorry for the ultra-delayed reply, I have been so far off the ball this week due to illness! You guys were literally one of the first blog friends I remember making and I am so so glad to have connected, and to be cheering along from up here in Ottawa as your blog and your goals have gone so well this year! Once you’re retired, I hear there’s a super cheap (read: free) guest room available for you when you make your way to Ottawa for Winterlude 😉