What We’ve Learned from Blogging for 6 Months

I was flipping through our posts the other day… just scanning to see what it looks like.

I came to realize,

It’s been 6 months since we started!?!?

Yup, our first post went up on Oct 23rd of 2016.

Hooray!!!  We’ll celebrate with half a waffle!!!

Half a Waffle for Half a Birthday!

We’re definitely still learning, and trying to find our voice and place in this crazy FI/RE world.  Let’s run through some of what we have learned, what surprised us, and what we see as the future.

The Good:

1. Blogging is a lot of fun.  – This is actually something that I had an inkling about but wasn’t really sure if it was going to pan out.  I’ve never really been a maestro of the written word, but I had a bunch of stuff to talk about, and figured I might be able to share our story.  It’s turned out to be a great outlet and it’s a fun creative release.
2. The FI/RE community is awesome! – While we haven’t met too many people in the FI/RE community in person yet (this will change, see Future section) the ones that we have, have been amazing .  Even the people we’ve only met through the pixels on the screen have been really cool too.  I met Tonya from Budget and the Beach by chance, and we got to talking one day.  She mentioned that she had a financial blog, so I started talking to her about it, as I had been reading bunches of them for quite a while.  That was our first introduction, and we’re super excited to meet more and more. (I got to meet the folks behind 1500 days & Monetary Musings at a brewery in Fort Collins back in March, as well as Mr & Mrs Need2Save while I was in Baltimore this past April.  It was great to meet such interesting and like-minded people. – Mrs.Wow)
3. You actually get free stuff. – Chalk this up as one that was never expected, but apparently when you write things on the internet, people give you free stuff.  Who knew?  We are supposed to go to a BeerFest this weekend, and asked for Media passes… Sure, why not?  Or you can ask publishers to send you copies of books you want to read, or any variety of other things.  Weird. (I even won a copy of The Simple Path to Wealth #winning!- Mrs.Wow). 
4. It’s brought us closer as a couple.  – So, we’ve also had a pretty good relationship (yes, sappy I know), but now we find ourselves constantly working together on this.  (Now I find when something interesting happens in our day-to-day life, one of us mutters the words, “This would be a good blog post!” – Mrs.Wow)  It’s just something to do and if it fails miserably and no one reads it… who cares, we had fun doing it!

The Bad:

1. It’s a lot of time and work.  – Blogging is actually a lot of work.  It’s one of those things that’s fun, but it takes a bunch of time.  This is something that I didn’t really anticipate.  Having a full time job and a full time life, where is the time to spend on blogging?  I find myself doing things for the blog late into the evening or early in the morning.  Originally I just figured I’d post some stuff and let it roll.  I kind of still do, the Mrs definitely writes more polished things, because she takes the time to edit.  I get itchy on the trigger to publish something and just do it. I need to work on that.
2. You actually have to be pretty tech savvy.  – So, I work in tech, I’m not a developer, although I’m pushing in that direction.  But still, I’m on computers all day every day and it definitely helps.  But, I’m actually shocked at how tech savvy you have to be to use WordPress, set up hosting, and get all these things working.  I mean it’s not super difficult, but it really took more tech knowledge than I originally thought.  (Good thing he is the tech guy! Not sure where this blog would be if it wasn’t for his technological knowledge. -Mrs. Wow). 
3. Some expenses.  – Goes without saying, there are hosting expenses, and email list expenses, and plug ins and what ever else.  I’m starting to think we’re going to have to upgrade our internet speed, between the streaming and all the time we’re online blogging.  I’m sure at some point if we continue this we’ll want to get a professional design, because our site looks… well… look at it:

The Future:

1. Keep on Trucking. – At this point, we’re just going to keep on trucking.  We’re trying to get on a more regular schedule with the posts, but time is getting away from us.  See The Bad: #1 above.  We’re also going to be doing some traveling among other things.  But, we’re going to keep posting with the hopes that our voice resonates with someone somewhere.  That’s all we can really ask, right?
2. FinCon will be our 1 Year Anniversary!! – Looking at that date above, I realized that our 1 year anniversary will actually be right around FinCon this year in Dallas.  I was fortunate enough to go last year and really liked it.  This will be the first time for the Mrs.  We’re both super excited!  If anyone is going to be there and want to meet up, let us know.
3. Chautauqua, Chautauqua, Chautauqua.  – Another thing that we are both super excited about is going to Chautauqua.  It just so happens that it is in the town Mrs.Wow did some volunteer work in two years ago and we have always wanted to go back.  This was just too good to pass up.  Not only is it in Ecuador, but we will get to meet more people within the FIRE community.  We can’t wait!

I can’t believe it’s been 6 Months.  Who knows where we will be in 6 more months.  It’s exciting!  We’re pushing closer to our financial goals, and this blog and the community is a huge additional benefit.  Yes, it’s additional work and some added expense, but at this point we can’t see stopping!!!