We are an online community based on conscious spending and finding the best value so every newbie out there is going to be asking themselves this question at one point or another…“Should I go to FinCon?”

I honestly didn’t think FinCon’s worth going to before, to be honest. I only went this year because I got a scholarship from the Center For Financial Services Innovation that covered everything. My day with CFSI was really eye-opening and long so I’ll write a separate review to that.

Right now = FinCon.

My total trip cost was not exactly cheap at $1,239.50 total for just me.

But I wasn’t trying to be very frugal. I was there for 6 days and I wined and dined pretty well. Not to mention I took a Lyft everywhere I went I’m including the actual complete total – ie. using our flight miles from credit hacking, all my flights were technically free but the price still includes as if I purchased the ticket.

To kill some suspense, YES I thought it was worth going to but I’ll only tell you why last – use the content menu below to navigate to that section near the bottom of this post. The middle parts of this post = me being a chatty cathy.

My Goals for This Trip

This was a complicated trip so let me run through my itinerary and goals for the entire trip.

1. First of all, this trip was sponsored. Large portions of my entire trip were covered by a scholarship I received earlier this year. I attended FinX which took place before FinCon opened. CFSI runs this scholarship so remember to enter next year!

(At the scholarship dinner, people ask me what I wrote about…and I…totally forgot because it was 9 months ago LOL. Embarassing…so pro-tip: don’t forget what you wrote your post about. x_x)

2. Secondly, I was excited about attending my first FinCon. I didn’t read or keep track much about who was coming or what happened at FinCon in previous years. I was only eyeing the workshops because they could be useful to my deep life projects down the road.

No, I did not go to further my growth with this blog. In fact, when I was there, I almost killed this blog. My job was to attend as many workshops as possible, not to make friends…….or so that was the plan.

3. I wanted to scout out Florida as a home location for our post-FIRE plans. Staying in Washington is plan A but I didn’t want to be close minded. Florida fits the bill for a lot of things on our dream FIRE location checklist: international city full of food, sights, family friendly, cultural diversity, business-friendly and tax friendly.

It was my job to see if I could picture myself living here. My husband did not want to come with me for this particular FinCon trip because of Florida’s hot and humid weather. (Yes, my husband loves the cold weather of his popsicle ancestors.)

4. I have never traveled alone on a flight longer than 2 hours. I wanted to see how I handled a long plane ride.

5. this trip happened to coincide with a trip we were planning back to California. My husband decided to fly straight to California first while I will fly out from Orlando to California after FinCon. Technically my vacation continued after FinCon. My husband and I regrouped to catch up with family for a few more days. Now it’s back to Seattle to hang out with old schoolmates who are visiting!

6. Wanted to see once and for all if FinCon was really worth going to…because as a casual loner…what the heck is everyone even raving about??? Who is dealing out this kool-aid? If we’re all anonymous online then why are we paying money to see each other face to face…

My Result from This Trip

Holy crap I had fun.

1. With this scholarship came duties that needed to be fulfilled so I arrived a few days before FinCon officially started. I didn’t want to miss anything and I wanted to be well rested. I wanted “earn” my scholarship by making sure I fulfilled the full syllabus.

Good thing I planned to come early because some other things delayed the trip (from transportation to hotel etc.) I basically spent the entire first day sorting it out which meant I got no catch-up sleep. I know for the first 2 days I was running on 6 hours of sleep in total. I was there for 5 days and I averaged about 30 hours of sleep for the entire 5 days I was there.

I thought it was going to be a vacation…FinCon was more like a marathon. Everyone was there and everyone wanted to hang out with everybody else…like a tsunami of excited people.

Sorry to any blogger who caught me falling asleep or semi-delirious hahaha.

2. The workshops are what I (foolishly) believed was the core value of FinCon. Nah. If you wanted workshops then you’re better off just buying the virtual pass and skipping the ever expensive hotel and flight cost. The virtual pass will give you access to all the workshops filmed at FinCon.

See, these workshops take place in the SAME timeslot (BOO!) so if you wanted to go to two different workshops…you can’t. Plus some of these workshops started are as early as 8 AM….and I needed to get ready, eat, Lyft there. There was no way I could get up before 7 AM jet lagged.  7 AM was my 4 AM west coast time! Hell to the noooooo!!

I’m too spoiled to wake up before 10 AM! Hopefully, your experience will vary from my spoiled lazy ass…but I just couldn’t get up.

But here’s the thing about FinCon that made it worth the hotel and flight cost…

MEETING OTHER PEOPLE YAAAAAAAY!

I’m super asocial so I’m surprised to hear myself utter those words…but it’s true. I met some COOL ASS KIDS.

And by “cool” I mean my definition of cool…which actually means fellow dorks. Money dorks.

3. NOooooooooooOoooooOOooooooope. We are not moving to Florida. The weather is just…absolutely weird. I stepped out of the airport and the air was so thick from the humidity. It was 9 pm and somehow still 78 degrees outside. For a random 10 minutes or so a day, heavy rain showers randomly appear.

Florida rain is different from Seattle rain. The droplets from Florida rains is WARM. The rain droplets are big and when drops hit you, you feel it. Seattle rain is cold, sometimes goes on all day, and the droplets are tiny like a mist.

Orlando has super sweet and VERY social people (compare to Seattle) which is a great thing for most people but…it freaked me out. I was standing at reception, checking in at the hotel, and people come up to start a friendly conversation like it was nothing.

I had some trouble with carrying my luggage and this guy was just like (in half Spanish) “oh here, you can hook it on mine until your ride gets here. Is this your first time in Orlando? :)” This exact situation in Seattle wouldn’t happen. People would NOT come up to you to start a convo. Some will offer help but it’s cold and distant. They’re definitely not going to pretend like they know you after or even try to start a conversation during. NO EYE CONTACT EITHER, it’s great!

It made me realize how much I ADORE the Pacific Northwest in general. I think Seattle has some super intelligent people up here. Quiet and smart types like my husband. Not overly friendly or social. If you haven’t heard of the term Seattle Freeze…yes it’s definitely real here.

4. Even though I was on a scholarship, I decided to be economical with their money. I took a frugal red-eye flight thinking I could just sleep for the entire duration…nope that did not happen. I couldn’t sleep a wink.

I was stuck in a tiny seat with nowhere to put my head. When I ask the stewardess nicely for a cup of water for my antibiotics medicine she said “no” and…walked off. The same thing happened again on my return flight too and my fellow flight takers sitting next to me offer me help instead. Maybe I should have filed complaints or something because I’m pretty sure it’s their job as “attendants.”

Let’s just say…if this is what traveling is typically like, I’m staying put in Washington or just hoping for driverless cars. How do people do this with kids on international flights??? I felt like a chained cattle.

5. That was basically this post: Two Different Ways in Approaching a Fulfilling Life (Asian Style)

6. Yes, it was worth it. Beyond just a convention, it’s the connection you make. I didn’t get much out of the brands or monetization part but that was secondary to me anyway. Frugal Gene = Diary blog of my life.

FinCon was a great experience.

If you think FinCon ends when the convention ends then you’re wrong. I flew to California right after Orlando for a mini vacation with hubby and I meet Greg from Greg Chats Cash, another FinCon attendee/podcaster who recognized me by my buckets of stolen FinCon swag

Jump below for more…Is FinCon Worth It? 6 Things I Learned/Notice.

Programs I thought were awesome…

I am not affiliated with these 2 companies at all. I was introduced to a lot of companies and these two stuck out to me as ingenious ideas.

Once again, not affiliated, haven’t tried them, just thought they were really good ideas and deserve the attention

1. CollegeBacker – Save for college with help from family and friends

The easiest way to get everyone in the family involved in saving for college. I was sooooo impressed with this idea I made a mental note to tell everyone. Instead of physical consumerist gifts from grandma, uncle, auntie etc. this program + app lets you invite family and friends to save for your child’s 529 plan. Plus, it’s free!

2. Greenlight Card – The Debit Card for Kids

Parents can give their kids a Greenlight debit card so they can teach kids good spending habits and while giving them allowances to manage etc. Lots of features and parents get control and tracking on their kids’ money. Super clever!!!

3. Playing With FIRE (a Financial Independence Doc!! :O)

Oh my gosh, the early retirement community is going to get their OWN documentary!!! Seriously! It’s a project on Kickstarter right now but it’s already filmed – they need to edit it.

I had my CFSI dinner with the creators AND then I had dinner with the rest of the crew members the next day. Talk about rubbing elbows with stars, that’s how I felt!

I asked them some hard questions on how they will address the question of privilege etc. Yes, this documentary will go into those topics and many other complaints lodged against the FIRE community. For that, I’m super interested in seeing how they will try to dissolve the misunderstandings/misconceptions others hold.

Hint: we focus way too hard on the early retirement thing and not enough on FI.

(Almost) Everyone That I Met

Note: Don’t grill me if I missed anyone, just let me know if I missed ya:) Nothing is really in order, I’m literally a month late to write this up so nothing is fresh up in my head and this is all from memory haha.

Overachieving Cats

Well, to be honest, I don’t think it should be named FinCon. I mean, FinCon is a great name. But a more reflective name would be…The Gathering of Chronic Overachievers Un-Anonymous. I can’t even recount how many doctors, lawyers, engineers, financiers, CEOs, CFOs I’ve met around one dinner table.

More than 80% of everyone barely in their 20s and 30s. Little ol’ me was just…hanging out with them. Total imposter syndrome.

Do you what these people do when they come home from their super impressive day jobs?

Apparently, they write up blog posts for you and me to read the next day.

Like…take a break already goddamn. When do you people sleep?

You’re already a Rockstar Millionaire Cowboy Ninja PhD at age 23 – and now you want to make Internet history by 25 and get on the front page of Business Insider or something? (cough yes…)

I didn’t come up with the overachiever realization – THAT was Accidental FIRE – whom I also had the pleasure of dining with.

After he said that, I took a look around the table + room we were in…and thought to myself…holy crap, he’s right.

I put almost everyone under overachievers even though most didn’t give off that vibe. I believe overachievers are all on a spectrum and these people are all functioning overachievers (ie, don’t stop, it’s working for you!)

Janet from My Twenty Cents

Janet needs to give herself more credit. She’s doing her PhD like it’s nothing.

I met her first and we talked for a long ass time about life. I think I was being too chatty when I should have been sleeping for my sanity the next day instead haha.

I can’t even remember what we talked about exactly but it was Asian girl stuff. Boyfriends, parents, PhD, citizenship stuff, career plans and lots of life stuff. I do remember I thought her citizenship situation was soooo unfair. Janet’s very independent and robust in her approach to life, in comparison to me. She has more strength than she lets on.

For some reason, talking to her made me miss my husband SO MUCH since she’s away from her boyfriend too.

I felt really grateful for my husband because…once again…winning the husband lottery…I haven’t been away from him for more than a week ever. We’re always together. When we’re away from each other, we video call each other for hours, doing absolutely nothing…like a bunch of stupid teenagers in love.

I thought that was normal for a couple until I realized Janet and Olivia don’t do that… They’re both more independent than me I suppose. My husband is needy too. He wanted to call and see me etc. My roommate back in college…she would fall asleep while on the phone with her boyfriend for the whole night. That’s who I learned it from hahaha. >_<

Olivia from Birds of a FIRE

As I feared, she’s the scary kind of smart. She might rule over the world someday so I would…suck up to her now. L0L!

Ha……like I’m actually dead serious though…..

We talked about something..something…robotic arm she wanted to make after she FIREs. I was falling asleep hardcore but she does have a very interesting brain to pick I don’t even remember what I said to her now back then because I was 75% asleep. But I think she likes me and we’re in a super fancy mastermind group. Boo-yeah!! By age 40, I imagine she’ll be on the cover of an Inc. issue about female entrepreneurs and I’m going to be very proud to tell people I knew her! :))))

Don’t forget the little people Oliviaaaaaa, someone (me) needs to help her seal her potato chip bags when she’s ruling the world.

Oh I ran into Pete from Do You Even Blog too. Of course, Pete’s industry genius has never been lost on me (remember the podcast Me and Ms. Frugal Asian did together with him?!) but now, I’m more or less 100% converted to taking Pete’s course because Olivia said it was good. If Olivia says it’s good then it’s probablyyyy really good – because she knows a crazy lot already! Can’t wait until the course opens back up.

Speaking of Olivia Recommendations, I spoke to her favorite bloggerrrr Early Retirement Now (ERN) over dinner. I’m terrible talking to smart people but but but it was kind of exciting to know we have similar FIRE plans in Washington state =)

Makes me feel like I know what the heck I’m doing…(when I don’t.)

Doc G from DiverseFI & David of Accidental FIRE

These thugs cornered me in a dark hallway and mugged me with hugs. That’s basically what happened from my PERFECT memory. I love these two so much!!!

It was like 5 pm on the second day when I met them…by then I was running on about 3 hours of sleep so…I was dead delirious. Doc G was so sweet and offered to shy light away from by putting a shirt on me while I was falling asleep on the roundtable. Talking to him was like…therapy I would actually pay $$ for.

Both spectacular humans to talk to but they give me too much credit. David teaches me a lot, believe it or not, his blog is informative and funny. I suspected he was a super intelligent guy before and couldn’t ya know it, he was. He was wearing Early Retirement t-shirts he designed himself. Design isn’t an easy thing, I remember talking to Susan from FI Ideas about her Twitter logo. I immediately recognized it because the colors and strokes registered with me.

The Index and Chill shirt would make an Xmas good gift for my brother in law and his new girlfriend baawaahahah.

Kevin from Financial Panther

Financial Panther made the entire FinCon trip worth it for me. I told Zach that it would be AMAZING if I could shrink Panther down and put him in my pocket so he could forever drive me. I *literally* *LITERALLY* have never…EVER met anyone like him. He’s like…I don’t even know…!!!

You know the law of physics where it says energy cannot be created, only exchanged?

Well, science hasn’t studied Financial Panther because this guy has BOUNDLESS energy. Loved talking to him, even if I was acting retarded and trying SO hard to impress him.

Loved him. Totally look up to him now.

(Unless he is on DRUGZ or something but I don’t think so)

I stalk his blog now…and you should too.

Zach from Four Pillar Freedom

Meeting him was SO funny. I was just coming out of an auditorium full of people and I see him standing in front of me. My eyes travel down to his name tag and it SAIIIID:

Zachary Powers

Four Pillar Freedom

I basically sucked all the air out of the room when I saw him being such a fan of his blog and all.

FYI, he’s a total BABEY. Babey = baby babe. Like a junior Jason Statham. He’s like 24…?? Or 17 or something…but SO smart and successful already. He has bigger plans in the works (don’t we all…overachievers). I was on the phone with my husband while I was talking to Olivia and Janet. We were all gossiping about Zach.

My husband thought it was so funny. He said, “Interesting, so this is what girls talk about in their spare time.” LOL!

Meeting Dr. McFrugal’s Clan

The most ADORABLE Family Award goes to the Dr. McFrugal Clan!!!

They’re overachievers because 1) they’re smart 2) they’re pretty 3) their baby is pretty 4) and their baby is smart.

I think there’s a certain feeling of privilege that being able to meet people like the McFrugal Clan because he is anonymous. If you check out his blog, all you’re getting is epic pictures of perfect decor, clean shots, and the back of his wife’s head!

I think bragging rights should be included in those who come to FinCon and can now put a face on the blog of the many of us who blog anon. It’s a really special feeling – they’re a very good “let’s go on a double family date” kind of family.

Ethiopian Food!!

Oh wait, LOL, I meant…Adam (MinaFI) recommended Ethiopian food hahaha. I didn’t meet a blogger named Ethiopian food.

Everybody needs to read about what happened to Adam!!! It’s like my hubby’s story.

He’s the guy heading our mastermind group too and UGH this dude is so sweet!!! He reminds me of my husband = intelligent, reserved, hardworking, and soft-spoken.

I cannot do wrong to thy Man who sat me on a long table with Ethiopian food and other people who loved money. Aaron from PF for Beginners and Michael from Financially Alert were also at the table on the last night of FinCon. We had our photo taken at the booth together :)!!

My stupid ass can’t recall half the table, I was focused on basically Ethiopian food + PF blogging DAYDREAM coming trueeeeee in one place (and encouraging Zach to navigate through his Ethiopian menu) — is this real life?? Or just fantasy?!

Elusive Cats

Oh my god, I didn’t have the chance/time to say pick their brains, wah wah wah!!!

Laurie from Three Year Experiment – We had to text AND email each other to find each other. I think I walked by and missed her until another blogger said “oh she just walked by” omg talk about elusive!! Meeting her was too brief because I had so many questions! Ugh!

OMG OMG got to meet this girl!! @TheFrugalGene Need to work on my surprise face! ??#Fincon18 #fincon #bloggercrush #xenialmillenial pic.twitter.com/S4AYlbO9I7

— ThreeYearExperiment (@LaurieThreeYear) September 29, 2018

Othala Fehu – I was pretty social-ed out on the third day of FinCon but I did meet Othala Fehu for a split second. He didn’t want to stay and chat though! 6 months ago, he sent me a Norwegian black metal song and I’ve been SUPER addicted to the entire album since.

I soooooooo wanted to thank him for recommending this song to me:

What do you guys think? I made my husband listen but he didn’t like it at all – “it’s super…depressing.”

He likes power metal but I like a few inches darker.

I also met Sunburnt Saver who was into metal music but we didn’t have enough time to pick each other’s brains :(!!!

P.S. Anytime someone is into personal finance + metal music  = we should chat. Haha!!

Think Save Retire – I saw Steve like 5x but he was busy talking to people or on his laptop so I didn’t go up to bother him. TOO SHY. Then I FINALLY caught his eye in the hallway but he had somewhere to go so we just said hi. >_< I forgot to…I don’t even know – just wanted to meet him is all.

ESI Money (John)

Ummmm, somehow my buddies Janet and Olivia met ESI like 5x times before I met him once. How unfair is that!!!!

I only saw him 2x during the entirety of FinCon – a 4-day event!! ESI is a straight up family man who has it all. He’s on Marketwatch every other day yet finds the time to CONVERSE with small shrimps like me. I believe ESI is high on the overachiever spectrum because even HIS GENES somehow figured out how to defy aging. He looks age 36 max when he should be gray and in his 50s.

I’m not joking, ask ANYONE who has met him. He’s like the Keanu Reeves of blogging, doesn’t age!!!

I also had the pleasure of running (well he snuck up on me hahaha) into Josh Overmyer for a little bit too before we went out to dinner.

Please don’t ask me why I have a picture of Physician on FIRE’s backside…

Like…I think I was working up the courage to ask him for a selfie with me (KIDS THESE DAYS) but that’s when he got up to ask Mr. Money Mustache a question during the closing debrief and…I don’t know but I ended up taking a photo of his shirt/pants instead. Good enough?

I swear it’s Physician of FIRE!!! Not some random guy… :\ I swear.

It was also really cool to hear Dave Ramsey’s daughter Rachel speak. I didn’t even know he had kids, much less professional speaking kids. I also met and spoke to J.D. Roth and snuck peeks at Wallet Hacks. Great guys, a hilarious presentation involving mostly….Taylor Swift.

Cool Cats

To be jolly and fair, there are exceptions to our overachiever crowd. I briefly encountered: J. Money (too chill to be chronic anything), Apathy Ends (he’s the Devil), Mad Fientist (yes, I sat and had dinner with THE Mad Fientist and his stunning wife, vomit out your jealousy now mortals :P), and of course Mr. Money Mustache. These guys are just too cool for school. These people are smart, cool, super bad-ass and they don’t care about anything which means they’re not going to read this because they’re drinking it up, jet skiing across Bali as we speak.

Mad FIentist

I actually had the final CFSI dinner sitting one over from Brandon and his wife!!! I didn’t even notice until he started talking about Edinburgh and my mental bell went *DING* I KNOW THAT STORY!!! They are both unbelievably down to earth and I was getting scared talking to them/being in close proximity.

I think total awe would have been a great way to describe it. I did gather the balls to ask why he posts so little….but it totally makes sense because…THE GUY’S RETIRED. He’s FI man!!!

Apathy Ends

OK, I don’t think he’s a chronic underachiever but he was definitely one at FinCon compare to me.

I kept asking him what seminar and workshop he was going to go to (because I wanted to hang out with him in a super gay way) but that bum just hung out by the hotel pool or chilling out in the hallway, skipping class. Even his baseball cap was on backward haha. Honestly, he does extremely well for a TOTAL slacker! You know Shaggy from Scooby Doo? He has a 10% likeness to Shaggy.

Mmmm actually…I’m thinking AE is more like Ferris Bueller.

Yes yes Bueller!! Because 3 out of the 4 times I ran into him, he was either ditching something and/or holding a beer.

MMM

The legend himself. I did not encounter MMM directly (but Mr. Accidental FIRE and Apathy Ends did. Go ask them how chill MMM was!!) I’m honestly glad I didn’t run into him because it would have been too much for me. I would gather up the balls to ask why he posts so little….but it totally makes sense because…THE GUY’S RETIRED. He’s FI man!!! x2

J. Money

He’s soooooooo sweet!! Awwwww, yes, of course, J$ would be haha. Yes, J. Money really does have a mohawk. He’s a lot skinnier and taller than I thought too! What a total sweetheart! Amy of Life Zemplified had to drag me over to say hi, but I’m so glad I did. We saw pictures of J. Money’s kids. The only word that comes to mind when I saw pics of his kids…VERY squishy. Hahahaha. Plump babies are the happiest babies and those are some lucky kids.

Is FinCon Worth It? 6 Things I Learned/Noticed

1. “Should I go to FinCon?”

Can you afford it? If yes then yes. What if you’re “too new?” EVEN HARDER YES.

I thought FinCon was for older, established bloggers to meet up and chug a beer but it’s probably a lotttttt more helpful for new bloggers. That to me was a surprise. If you’re an older blogger…still yes. Although I’m not that old of a blog (1.5 years) so I can’t tell you for sure past this point I would go personally though. When you are new and young, you have more blood and determination to flush out your clique. It’s scary to go up to senior / big-time bloggers but from what I’ve seen – FinCon has a lot more baby bloggers so you will find your clique, don’t worry about being new.

Focus more of what you want to do/get out of it than being new or old.

2. It was 4-days long in a barbell style.

The convention from start to finish was 4 days. I was in Orlando for 6 days because my scholarship event took time in advance to prepare and I wanted a day of rest beforehand…(which sadly I didn’t get thanks to flight delays and other mishaps.)

I don’t know why FinCon was spread out for 4-days but this year, they did it in a barbell style so it’s not just one monotone event. There are LOADS of things on the first day, less on the second, less on the third, and the LAST day was the best day with TONSSS of things.

My last day of FinCon was basically perfect. =) Perfect day for me!!! I met almost everyone I was supposed to meet (universe destined), ate Ethiopian food, had yummy convention dessert, had some funky photos done with Janet, got free shirts. Life is ever so gooooooooooooood to me!!!!!!!

The girls and I didn’t leave the convention until almost midnight and I was exhausted after essentially a 5-day marathon of socializing.

3. Workshops overlap.

OK, I didn’t like this one and I didn’t piece that together until I saw the schedule of the FinCon workshops for bloggers. (Apparently, FinCon 2018 has a mobile app with the schedule and speakers published.)

Anywhoo, let’s say if you wanted to go to 2 workshops but those workshops are booked for the same time slot…then you have to choose which one to go to. There are no repeats or reschedules, choose it or miss it. If you want to get it all, you have to get the virtual pass for $99 more.

If you don’t want to socialize or meet anyone at FinCon, just get the virtual pass. I don’t think people should buy a ticket, hotel, flights, rental car etc. to go to FinCon for the workshops. That’s a waste of money.

You should go to socialize and hang out with money nerds like yourself!! 

How taboo is the subject of money? Think about it? How often are you allowed to talk to everyone openly about $$$? Well, you can chat about it openly with the best at FinCon. Everyone is super friendly and open.

4. Bunk Up for Friends Not Just to Save $$

Saving money shouldn’t be more than 30% of your goal for your FinCon trip. It happens once a year and for just a few days…that means it’s special. The media market’s pros are here to help answer your questions after each workshop. You can make friends and weirdos like yourself from across the country too.

What’s most valuable on the table is the possibility of using FinCon to get more OUT of it, not the $$ you spend into it.

I’m not saying to not travel hack or bunk up. You should bunk and find a fellow attendee to bunk with but….not just because of the money $$ saved – more so because you get a buddy to go to the events with and plan out things together! I notice people tend to be more productive in groups because of the accountability buddy thing.

5. You don’t need a blog to attend FinCon!

This was such a random one! I thought everyone needed a blog in order to be allowed in…? I mean most of the attendees had blogs or worked for financial companies etc. I did meet one woman who didn’t have a blog and was simply a fan of the community going “ga-ga” over all the bloggers she followed.

6. It’s what YOU want to get out of it (x100)

Cannot stress this enough!! There’s no universal answer but some indicators. Did you want to grow as a writer? Drink up a lake of beer? (There wasn’t much drinking don’t worry!) Meet your heroes? Find a mentor? Watch the ever gorgeous Montana Money Adventures dance? (I saw her drunk dancing from 30 ft away and I laughed my head off omg!!)

Personally, that $1,239.50 is what I’m willing to pay to get into the mastermind group I’m in right now AND for meeting Financial Panther alone.

I couldn’t have been able to do those 2 things without going to FinCon sooooo…you have my answer.

I also had a mini chat session with ESI Money on the last day = sweetest, most mentor-sage-like-man ever!!!!

I got so much out of it but I’m not sure if that’s going to be the case for everyone? It depends on how social you are with this community in the first place and if you find your little clique. I found mine super quick. I ended up with lots of new friendships and finding FANTASTIC genius people with similar master plans.

That was freakin’ exciting. I almost spilled out of my seat talking to Babey Zachary about projects and the future. Financial Panther was amazing…I think I said that 20 times already but he is like…smart, down to earth, fun, exciting, whole package.

I got inspired by so many other amazing bloggers that I’ve only visited in the blog world. Then I met them in person and went…wow, this person IS AMAZINGGGGGG. How did I know?

I hope my new projects this year (working on it) go well so I can be there to see everyone in Washington D.C. in 2019. I would love a good deep dish pizza w/the PF crew :). Ohhh and to bunk at Ms. Frugal Asians house if luck has it in the cards for me. Finally, this time, bring my hubby along too since D.C. won’t be too hot for him!

Annnnnnd that’s it.

Here are the poll results! We had a total of 148 votes from different individuals on the Twitter platform.

The poll isn’t officially closed yet but the percentages are not moving very much now because of the volume of votes so we’ll just report the percentages now since none of them are that close to each other.

Question: Do you think financial illiteracy is an excuse?

43% of Twitter voters voted for “No, we all gotta work it.”

36% of Twitter voters voted for “Depends on each case.”

20% of Twitter voters voted for “Yes, we all make mistakes.”

Responses

My response? I’m very surprised! I am also surprised the responses weren’t any closer to each other. I thought “Depends on each case” was going to be the clear-cut winner.

Winner: No, we all gotta work it.

Very interesting and definitely won’t be my last poll on Twitter – that was fun!

The most popular (determined by twitter hearts granted) poll responses:

ZDF at 8 hearts and Guy on Fire at 4.

Finance Stoic at 7.

Accounting for Freedom at 6.

Recommended Reads:

• Top 14 Reasons Why Some People Don’t Save Money
• 13 Sensible Defining Characteristics Of Upper Middle Class People

Promise You Won’t Get Mad…?

OK for the rest of this post specifically, I wanted to talk about exactly why I think some personal finance bloggers are most likely…very ineffective despite I’m preassuming, good intentions. For most of us, it’s just a second writing gig that doesn’t pay.

I’m including myself in this (poster kid for least effective in fact!) as well so don’t throw tomato sauce on me.

I grew up thinking rich people held their money secrets from poverty-stricken, stupid people of the world. Some part of me still kind of think like that.

By all logical standards, someone like me shouldn’t have known about compounding or bonds or mutual funds. That’s for the presidents, the astronauts and the kid whose parents could afford to buy him Apple products.

But the most likely reason is simply that really we’re just stuck in our own social bubbles.

There ain’t nothing more to it than that for 99.9% of us. And don’t say you’re not affected. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, if what you see makes up the majority of what you internalize then you are going to be a byproduct of your environment.

OK, no throwing tomato sauce now, remember?

For us, I often wonder…how many of us who are aware of the growing wealth divide and the financial ignorance among people with lower income truly reaching them?

I’m going to be honest…

The most vulnerable people that need to be reached?

None of them are here.

Or not enough of them. Not by a mile. I sometimes think…maybe most of us would be more effective offline. It shouldn’t just be about spending time online blogging about personal finance. Blogging is really good for awareness to a specific audience but not directly effective to the people being addressed.

Life is a number and percentage game (thanks Olivia). How many will waft over that would be as effective as going to find a direct point of entry to the source?

I mean there is value in the trickle-down of information but that happens in an unfiltered world. We live in an extremely filtered world.

We got our social bubble, our own cliche, and echo chambers.

Without that bottom line, there’s less to the point. We should go to the source for maximum effectiveness.

Those people are hard to reach because their environment is pervasive. I know this because I was there!

Brother, I couldn’t even afford a computer back then. $29.95 a MONTH for web surfing? HAHAHAHAH!

And I didn’t see ANYONE (teacher, mentor, community volunteers, blogger) come to my low-income high school in the inner-city to teach about the basic principles of saving and investing. We needed that information the most. Those bastards…(totally kidding! They were just OK with how meh the education system ran.)

Sorry to be blunt but…most of us…sitting at that desk, having the privilege (time, energy, knowledge) to blog can be seen by actual working people that are not like us…as pretentious. Just like what I’m doing right now, sitting behind a computer, type, type, typing away in a cushiony chair with a meeeeeeellon dollars.

Related Reads:

• 7+ Companies That Will Pay You To Lose Weight
• How To Make 6-Figure Income Reselling & Flipping Furniture

It’s Super Effective!

Go to the source. Youth centers, church, set up a class with the local middle school, community college, go out to the real world and turn that financial passion into action. Walk up to some 19-year-old cashier and strike up a conversation. If it was me, back then, I would have appreciated it; I would have thought you were a little random/weird/not applicable…but will appreciate it and maybe that will have sew the seed to me investing my own savings sooner.

It’s also more effective to reach out to some media people you can trust to deliver actually helpful information. Organize something with them because blogging is the most passive activity for this stuff. 0% of people (like a young me) who actually needed and probably would have appreciated the knowledge, badly, will even hear it or read it unless someone broke through.

The people who truly, desperately need financial education are not usually the ones who read personal finance blogs so MOST are wasting breaths.

The people who need financial education don’t read personal finance blogs in any way shape, or form familiar with “personal finance.”

 Recommended Reads:

• Why ‘The Millionaire Next Door’ is a Myth to Most Millennials
• Saving Money For College Does More Than Pay Tuition

OK – something actually helpful now…

A friend of me and my hubby’s is a tax volunteer called VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) and elderly tax assistance. I remember reading a few PF bloggers in our community are already volunteers. You sign up online then the IRS partners with a local organization to offer training (1 or 2 days) and they pair you to help with someone that needs assistance filing so they get the most of their money back.

He doesn’t have time for a blog so I wanted to give him an appreciative shout-out here. You know he wasn’t even born in America! He immigrated here a few years ago from Russia to work for Ooooogle and he’s already making a difference to real Americans like you and me. You go Andrii~! 

~

Guys, what did you think of the Twitter poll results? Am I still allowed to go to FinCon next year or will there be an ambush…?

Hello, I’m on time with my blog update this time! Things are going. Last month was just too good to set as a proper baseline. This month was boring actually. I was wondering what it would be like when the dust settled.

Past Blog Reports

May 1st Month Blog Report – 1,110 Pageviews

June 2nd Month Blog Report – 6,603 Pageviews (+494.86%)

July 3rd Month Blog Report – 8,616 Pageviews (+30.49%)

August 4th Month Blog Report – 9,833 Pageviews (+14.12%)

September 5th Month Blog Report – 15,457 Pageviews (+57.2%)

October 6th Month Blog Report – 28,850 Pageviews (+86.65%)

November 7th Month Blog Report – 24,216 Pageviews (-16.06%)

My first ever red…

November Blogger Report

I’m joking ^_^

Google Analytics says the 30-day average is 24,216 pageviews which is a 16% drop from last month. That’s not bad at all for a tame month considering I had the 80% jump in the 6th month. I heard November was slow around the holiday season (and it was) but if that’s the number to expect from here on out, I’m a happy girlchild.

How is that…how does that work? Honestly, I thought the Internet would be more random…

I had days where I didn’t touch the blog or even look at the stats because I was suffering from burnout and deadpan inspiration. Traffic is pretty stable, day in and day out.

Mommy Pinterest has been giving me the cold shoulder for a few months now. Daddy Google has been good to me.

Feeding The Fire

Regular fire, passion – not FIRE – but I guess why not both. No one in real life knows about this blog that I am aware of. My husband doesn’t even read this blog (is that bad? ?) So it’s just me. This is my diary, this is my portfolio and I am who I am.

That’s a rare thing in this world.

I don’t think I’ve ever been outspoken with anyone or show emotions. I remember my best friend Valerie, 5-6 years into our friendship, turned to me and said: “why is there so much to you I still don’t know?”

When I was little, my parents use to tell me to keep shut unless I was being spoken to. Children shouldn’t speak first as it’s considered rude. So it’s freeing to exercise that ingrained thought and express an opinion. I don’t really like discussions though. Like usual, this is not the culture I’ve grown up in and I’m not good at it.

This blog is improving that missing part of me with an actual voice.

The Struggle

I struggled to find inspiration and drive for parts of this month. Not surprisingly, being burned out at the 6-month mark seems like a common enough phenomenon.

I’ve mentioned before that November was an odd month for a lot of reasons that were self-induced. It was mostly brought on by friends (and their personal lives) as well as our personal lives. Nothing really exciting to report. It was just a lot of introspection. Unless I’m trolling myself and I’m actually having a quarter life crisis…that would make more sense…

I’m not a naturally cheerful person, believe it or not. You know clowns that can be funny but inside there’s this detrimental amount of sad stuff? I wrote How to Comparison Shop for Happiness for myself. Some people are naturally happy and it comes easy. But I know there are people like me who have to fight a little harder to feel happy. Damn inner demons.

Blogging About Blogging

The biggest discovery this month was how wonderful it is to let loose on some of the emotions that happen behind blogging. After I finished what I considered an emotional outlet and a Thanksgiving break, I felt much better.

I guess you have to learn to look at the bigger picture. Blogging is like the principles of finance, which is something I find absolutely humorous. You have to be concerned about profitability, scalability, all the while remaining true to yourself and your readers who brought you here.

Top Posts

It’s funny because you can almost see the transition in each November post where I went from an uninspired/goofy mood to a more serious tone.

The most popular post of November was The Fight That Made Me A Better Wife and then a follow-up to that post was The Conversation The Fortunate Few Gets To Have at #4 spot. Why ‘The Millionaire Next Door’ Is A Myth To Most Millennials landed in the #3 spot and The Cost of Raising a Kid (Frugally) filled everything else in at #2.

Marketing & Social Media

Commenting

I stopped leaving as many comments in November. I think it’s down to about 2 comments a day on average instead of 3 a day.

IT DOESN’T MEAN I LOVE YALL ANY LESS.

I started dog sitting again for a longtime client of mine. More on that next time. Being a dog nanny is a sweet gig if you can find an effortless puppy dog with generous owners. I sometimes wonder how wealthy the puppy dog’s family is…is that creepy? Excuse my plebeian blood. I’m a rich person’s dog nanny!!!

Pinterest

My Pinterest has been giving me the cold shoulder lately. I started Tailwind (use my referral link to get $15 off your trial) and deleted my Board Booster account. Maybe that’s why it’s been slow?

I don’t know what I’m doing wrong exactly. I didn’t keep track of Pinterest enough (didn’t realize I needed to…) to analyze if there has been growth but it’s been stable enough.

I’m currently holding 616 followers hostage.

A lot of MALE bloggers complain that Pinterest is not their audience. I’m going to chime in and second that as well. See, I’m a girl but…I’m weirder than the average girl…which is unfortunate. I would be more successful if I was less odd ?

Pinterest is also visual – personal finance is not visual. We’re not even a category on their menu! Anywho, I’m not one of the Pinterest cool girls, don’t mistake me for one, ’cause this girlchild is growing very slowly.

Twitter

I socialize on my Twitter and I use ‘Followers’ app on Android to check new followers from time to time. I’m at 2,340 followers!

Instagram

I started getting being active on my Instagram on Nov 29th so Instagram only referred me about 9 clicks the entire month. I don’t have a real reason why I left it. It’s an addictive app and I was already too stuck on Twitter?

The debt-free community is full of real people – sharing their lives and their money journey. It gives a different perspective away from the ivory tower of personal finance where pretty much everyone here can kill off $50,000 in less than a fortnight.

Facebook

Probably needs dusting…

MailChimp

I’ve crossed over 340 subscribers.

*Blink*

Wasn’t last month like 255?! My email list beat Pinterest follows…wow…if our investment portfolio mimicked these returns…

Summary

Traffic isn’t the main concern, I’ve addressed this with my blog sister twin creature friend Frugal Asian Finance who agreed with me. After the burnout (or perhaps another side effect of it) pageviews ceases to be as important for the both of us. The level of engagement and growth trends are the real invaluable measures. So what is there more left to say? Write on!

Woot woot! Please ignore how late this blog update is. I’ve put it off because there were a lot of things I wanted to say for my 6th month. It was surprisingly complicated to write. The original blog report had over 5,000 words. I finally trimmed it down because most of it was rants and blogging lessons I’ve learned. Those would be much more helpful if I took the time to organize them better than laying it all out there. Some topics deserve a chapter all on their own.

I’ll give a quick index of the list of blog topics that I want to get into – would any of these be of interest?

Biggest pet peeves of blogging itself.

Tech issues make me want to vomit.

How blogging evolved my marriage.

Is it sad that blogging changed my life?

How to prevent ticking other bloggers off by accident.

Possible reasons why some blogs do well and others don’t.

How many times you can refresh your page views before crashing your website.

How to kiss Google’s ass.

7 blog things I know I’m failing at and why it’s important.

How a donut like me survived the first 6 months of blogging.

Do I actually like blogging or do I just like my niche?

That’s just the partial list of what I wanted and been wanting to say for months. FOR MONTHS.

Unfortunately, it’s not personal finance related so I’ve refrained. I like writing about money. I like reading and writing storytime and money diaries. But I have to get some blog rants out there because it’s just not natural to spend 20-30 hours a week working on something (i.e. blogging) and not say a word about it.

Finance and Airbnb may consume a good portion of my life but blogging has eaten a chuck out of it too! Blogging is as much social interaction as I care to get from people these days. Blogging about blogging is basically what happens when feelings get bottled up and your life becomes consumed by it. It’s a pretty fair and common occurrence. It feels weird to have blog advice on a personal finance blog but I have nowhere else to put my thoughts.

Maybe once in a while, I’ll sprinkle that in because blogging is a life changer. If I wrote out the things that I’ve learned about blogging then it would be an epic rant of nothing less than 30,000 words by the time I’m done. If you have no interest in blogging, please skip these posts.

I should have copied my blog sister over at Frugal Asian Finance sooner. The girl knows what she’s doing. She has sprinkled in some of her content on blogging and I love reading them. I never thought to write any myself until her post about blogging and marriage that got to me. It felt so relatable. I share a lot of the same points of view as her.

Monetization

I get almost spammy requests about product testing/putting links on my site/advertising etc. I’ve not taken any of those requests seriously. I also don’t want to put ads on my website. They are ugly and not worth it unless you have 50,000+ pageviews.

I signed up to be an Amazon Affiliate last night just to recommend those Amazon sample boxes that I get. I have all of them (except the fitness box) and they’re definitely worth it for the credit back. The only downside is they’re not eligible for Prime shipping. BlueHost reached out to me again recently and I’m in talks with Wesley (he’s so nice!) Lastly, I added my referral code from Airbnb (where you can get $40 off if you book a trip costing more than $75.)

There’s 8% of me that wanted to wait for Ms. FAF to monetize together. I guess I can be the guinea pig by dipping my toes in first. If I get more of an idea of what to expect then it’s less confusing for her later on.

Expenses

My year of Tailwind and Michelle’s affiliate course were my biggest expenses. The rest was just BlueHost, domain, and domain privacy. Ms. FAF and I are pretty frugal about blogging. I know for a fact that you do not need a lot of money to blog successfully. Me and Ms. FAF discussed this briefly on Pete’s podcast.

Past Blog Reports

May 1st Month Blog Report – 1,110 Pageviews

June 2nd Month Blog Report – 6,603 Pageviews (+494.86%)

July 3rd Month Blog Report – 8,616 Pageviews (+30.49%)

August 4th Month Blog Report – 9,833 Pageviews (+14.12%)

September 5th Month Blog Report – 15,457 Pageviews (+57.2%)

Blog Traffic

October was my best month ever. We got 28,850 page views in 31 days. It was like Christmas came early. The successions of traffic jumps are all thanks to fellow blogger love. It was like one right after another. Here are some of those who gifted me the gift of blog traffic.

1) That story about my husband’s remarkable dumb luck was featured in the good doctor’s Sunday Best series. Along with Physicians on Fire, the lovely Gen Y Money also threw me into her blog roundup. My husband’s dumb luck is my favorite post. It was a completely impromptu write-up.

The reception I received was surprising. I didn’t know it was good until other people told me they loved it. To us, it was just a succession of things that happened. It is sort of crazy when you think about it. I have my own version. I believe we all have our own version of that story if you sat and pieced it together.

2) I wrote a guest post for Mr. AE. The post is on my husband’s side of the family that I wanted to keep away from this blog. It’s a personal dive into why some parents withhold financial information from their children.

3) Christmas definitely came early! Mr. Groovy wrote a post that totally made me blush. He addressed the perils of Asian Americans and the odds some of us / our parents had to overcome. It was an honor being featured and cherry on top was being there with Ms. FAF, RetireBy40, and Financial Samurai too!!! Mr. G got 3 out 4 right haha. One may have snuck by with just dumb luck.

4) Married with Money featured one of my least popular posts in October in his blogroll. Hey hey, I thought it was clever! *Crickets*

I made a very bad celebrity pun. To my surprise, it was featured. Thankfully I think the joke went over better than I thought and reading it over, it was pretty funny and clever. I am also thankful no one tweeted it at Nicolas Cage on Twitter; although, personal finance knowledge would do the guy some good.

I can’t beat Ms. FAF’s rockstar feature though! I said to her…”did you get just featured for writing about pee?!” LOL.

AND AND AND AND…

SLAY GIRL SLAAYYYYY!!!

I’m up there in the Rockstar Finance Directory with the BEST of ’em. Mr. Apathy, Luxe, and Bitches Get Riches!!

If you told me at the beginning of October that I would get so much love from other bloggers, I wouldn’t have believed you. It was a perfect month of gentle rolling traffic and the support was overwhelming. I don’t know what else to say/whimper except…

Top 5 Most Popular Posts

Don’t (Nicolas) Cage Yourself In Financially

How Dumb Luck Made My Husband A Rich Man

8 Frugal Reasons To Have Two Phones

How We Keep Our Food Costs So Low

September 2017 – Family Income Report

New Post Count

Talking to Ms. Raggedly Riches.

The honest to goodness part of blogging is seeing the page views of your daily post count go up. I went from posts getting 100 views to the majority my posts hitting the 200 views mark. It’s still small fish compare to most bloggers but I’m thankful for the jump. I don’t know why or when exactly but I remember the jump was sudden. It’s like being on a seesaw, you’re either up or you’re down. Since you can’t really control it, it doesn’t matter. You gotta do you boo.

Read this: it’s better to grow your blog your own way.

Marketing & Social Media

Commenting

I try to comment on 3 different blogs daily. During my 1st and 2nd month, I was better about commenting. Now I’m just late because I listen to it on my screen reader hands-free, then tell myself I’ll leave a comment later (but forgets.)

Since I am on the West Coast, the publish time for a lot of blogs on the East Coast happens at 4 AM for me. Sometimes I miss it and sometimes I’m still up at 4 AM. It’s a bit exhausting. I still think commenting on other blogger’s content is extremely important although I wish I had the time to do it more often than 1-3 times a day.

Pinterest

I had one of my pins go viral for a few hours before it died down. It received 600 individual visits within an hour and went dead from there. Pinterest is confusing as heck. Who in the world is spreading the rumor that I know what I’m doing on Pinterest?! I would have more than 500 followers if that was true. Some new bloggers that have just started already have 2,000 followers. I have no idea what gathers followers on Pinterest.

Pinterest is just perplexing to me, I’ll figure it out eventually. There are days I get 0 new followers and then suddenly, bam, 7 new followers without executing even a slight change. I started Tailwind (use my referral link to get $15 off your trial) and deactivated my Board Booster account for now as a test. I can see there might be occasions where having both Board Booster and Tailwind would be helpful but I need a better reason than “there might be occasions.”

Twitter

I’ve crossed the 2,200 follower mark! My Twitter is where I socialize with other bloggers. It has a terrible ROI in terms of time put in but the platform is fun. Do not use Twitter to build your traffic. It simply does not work. Twitter dropped to 4th and 5th place in terms of referrals. I’ve become accustomed to direct messaging other bloggers on Twitter so it’s really a place you should start, not the place where you end.

Instagram

I have not touched Instagram in a long time. I forgot about it the entire month of October.

Facebook

I have not touched Facebook in a long time. I forgot about it the entire month of October.

MailChimp

I’ve crossed over 265 subscribers! The open rate is bad. Every ProBlogger says to hone your subscriber’s list but I don’t really believe that. I have to look into how as well. I don’t see how email sign-up numbers are related to traffic. Maybe a giveaway or something would improve open rate? I should start marketing my freebies tab a little better.

Google

I love Google and Google loves me (sometimes.) Thank you hubby, whatever you did to my SEO game. If any, I have no idea, we did these 3 things all at once. I switched my old theme to this one, downloaded a free WordPress optimizer to load the blog faster. Lastly, hubby switched my blog from HTTP to HTTPS.

Goals For November

I heard it’s really easy to get burned out so I’m not too rushy-rushy. October was a total fluke. If I can even get 25,000 page views for November then I’ll be really happy because there is no way I’m going to beat my 6th month miracle.

There’s a lot of pressure on me and Ms. FAF to grow. We’re one of the few bloggers out there who actually put our pageviews out in monthly blog reports. She and I have talked about this before. For the first few months, both of us were really nervous about having a bad month and having to put negative numbers out. It’s embarrassing. Thankfully, we’ve both lightened up. She’s burned out and I’m like ‘eh.’

I was only able to cheer her up by verbal abuse.

Ms. FAF told me I have a pretty mellow personality. She compared blogging to school and I suddenly got a flashback of me being in school. It IS exactly like how I treat blogging. I was a mellow student. I’ll study for an exam last-minute, go in half-assed, take my B grade and make it up later. I’m not the type to go out of my way to pull an all-nighter or go to tutoring unless someone forced me. I just hope for the best. So here’s to November! I hope to somehow come out OK! >_<;;

Byyeeeeeeeeee!

No TV and no beer make Lily go something something.

All the details are kind of hazy now. It’s like I was born drunk except no one’s ever that lucky.

May 1st Month Blog Report – 1,110 Pageviews

(…holy…re-did the stats just now…I think it was actually 2,023 pageviews for my first month…I GOT THE FREAKING PAGEVIEWS WRONG LOL. Classic Lily.)

June 2nd Month Blog Report – 6,603 Pageviews (+494.86%)

July 3rd Month Blog Report – 8,616 Pageviews (+30.49%)

August 4th Month Blog Report – 9,833 Pageviews (+14.12%)

I was back to regular posting schedule in September and slugged out 12 posts in total. In addition to that, I finally stopped putting to-dos off and started loading up the Pinterest boards. I’m still in cahoots with my blog sister.

I put in about 20 hours of blog work a week in September, including writing everything and making the graphics. It’s not great and I can stand to be more productive…

I started tracking my productivity hours on my spreadsheet in Google Docs. Because of the nature of my side hustles, I need to hold myself accountable. If I don’t track the hours spent exerting actual effort then I slip back to being productive no more than 2 hours a day but telling myself I did double that. I need to reinstate having some semblance of blog goals as well.

If I don’t track my hours: I reply to emails late, I forget things, I put off things – all the time. Nothing personal, just how I am (just being honest!)

It takes me 2 days on average to reply to comments and it took me a month to get my Pinterest boards straightened out. It’s taking me 2-3 months to jump off the Board Booster bandwagon. If you are aware of my dizzy bird brain-ness already then thank you for putting up with it.

As some of you may know, I’m also started thrifting in addition to the Airbnbs I was doing. The rest of the day is dance/exercise and enjoying the modern domesticated life I was blessed with for whatever reason.

Blog Traffic

My pageviews for the month of September was 15,457. It would be much lower without my Rockstar feature. It always makes my heart pound when I see the traffic jump.

I always, always wake up my husband to tell him (usually around 3 or 4 AM PST) and he gives me a pat on the head and a kiss. SO NICE!!! EVERYTHING SO NICE YES YES!!!

BY THE WAY.

That feature of our totally beautiful money maps was a group effort. Thank you everyone on the chain-gang especially Apathy and Budget on a Stick for nailing down the anchors. Although technically it was supposed to be me and Apathy first!!! If I hadn’t gotten lazy and put the post off and off…and off until I forgot. See, I really need to track my productivity!!!

In September, I published 12 posts in total. Between you and me, September was a month of lackluster inspiration. I had to cure my writer’s block / boredom by making a horribly seizure inducing money map.

The post I appreciated the most (and felt proud of myself after writing) was Brodie’s debt and suicide story. The story was written for Dear Debt’s 2nd annual campaign as part of their Suicide Prevention Awareness Month.

I’m still going the extra mile to get that post more exposure. The message is good. I spent over an hour designing the Pinterest image hoping it will continue getting attention.

The best thing about the Internet is nothing dies. I’m still very happy to have shared that story, I never even told my husband and I just told him to read it after I published it because I didn’t want to repeat it.

Technical Issues

SEO

In September, my husband became more and more involved after I complained to him about my lackluster SEO scores. I had a composite SEO score of 28 out of 100 when the norm was actually around 40 or even 50.

Because SEO strategies cannot give immediate reports – we were just shooting in the dark for the most likely culprit. As of right now my DA is a 31, which is pretty good! David at Zero Day Finance did a quick peep for us so a shout out for that! Jared also took a peep at PA which is in it’s 40s right now. I was happy with the new numbers.

We did a variety of things so I’m not sure which ones were effective; remember SEO can’t give immediate feedback.

1. Towards the end of August, I switched my blog theme from Design Labs to Juliet by Lyra. Lyra seemed better optimized for SEO and it was free! I completely regret spending $20 to purchase Design Labs. I’m still a little grumpy when I think about it. I should have Googled the designers. Since it is an open, free for all marketplace, you really don’t know what you’re buying.

:\

2. Jared installed a new plug-in called AO. Auto-Optimize tries to combine CSS and JavaScript to lessen the request per page load. He also changed two settings in WP Super Cache. For WP Super Cache, he enabled page compression feature and he also enabled the 304 Not Modified feature. All of these things help improve site speed but may potentially cause errors with your blog. Jared spent time testing after enabling each feature to see if there were issues, so far so good.

(That was literally a ton of mumble jumble to me. I just wrote what he said out word for word.)

3) Jared keep saying he didn’t do much but I think these little things helped. He also switched us from HTTP to HTTPS. I don’t think the ladder is SEO related but it’s more of a security protocol.

4) Jared populated some of the Airbnb articles with more internal links and it reduced the bounce rate immediately. Why didn’t I think of doing that before…

Referrals

I did notice a small increase in organic search to the tune of 10ish referrals per day after Jared implemented the things mentioned above. Coincidence or science? Now, almost all of the drop-ins were for free Airbnb swag so I wouldn’t consider it a personal finance audience – but it does get people through the door, so good enough!

Organic search became the 3rd highest referrer (from like #11?), Pinterest at #2 and Rockstar Finance holding the champion title.

My bounce rate is dead though. I think it’s around 74% but Jared said bounce rate doesn’t count for much anymore in terms of ranking (these things change depending on other factors.)

Marketing & Social Media

Commenting

I try to comment on 3 blogs a day but am kind of failing at it. It takes a long time to craft a comment on mobile that isn’t riddled with spelling errors. I just listen on my screen reader and stalk/comment on Twitter, it’s good enough.

Pinterest

We’ve got 489 followers since the end of September. I set Board Booster and I pin other bloggers pins manually every night. I still haven’t been keeping up with my Pinterest but I’ve got a plan for October now. I’m happy for any growth because it’s passive. Things seem pretty automated so there’s not much I can do.

Twitter

I’ve crossed the 2,000 follower mark! But my Twitter impressions are down and so are Twitter referrals in general. Twitter is consistent though. It’s my #4 or #5 referrer for the last 2 months and I suspect most of that is other bloggers.

Instagram

I had 750 followers on my Instagram as of the end of September. I’m still not very active on this Instagram, let me bite off Pinterest first. I do enjoy the debt-free community there though. They’re honest and supportive. It restores my faith in humanity.

Facebook

I got a sudden burst of traffic from Facebook towards the end of September for some reason but I have no idea why…I still don’t. How does one find out? I rarely log on…

MailChimp

I AM SO DUMB. I accidentally paused MailChimp for 1.5 MONTHS. AHHHHHHHHH. Thanks to Luxe, Grounded Engineer, Married with Money and Frugal Asian for telling me.

Why did it take 4 different people to tell me on separate occasions before I realized something was wrong???

Subscribers

I had about 168 or so email subscribers at the end of August. Not only am I surprised at that number – I’m also surprised not a lot of people unsubscribe. I figured they subscribed by mistake you know?

Shhh…don’t tell them.

Dumb Lily, they weren’t unsubscribing because you weren’t sending any OUT.

I have 250 subscribers right now. Let’s see what that number drops down to…

Goals for October

Too sleepy. Need sleep.

My only goal is to beat Septembers pageviews. I’ve been fortunate enough to have seen months of small upticks so that’s all I want right now. Maybe when I write something worthy. C’mon Yahoo Finance, notice me senpai!!!

Random Stuff

Now I’m just blabbing. So me and Ms. FAF were chatting and she sent me songs sang by Arden Cho. It’s not my music style at all but it was really cute so I saved it to my YouTube playlist. Have a listen!

It’s “Ms. FAF-y!”

Then my song auto started and it was Rammstein. Jared started laughingggg at the stark contrast between Ms. FAF’s music vs. my angry German music. And yet we get along!

Which song do you guys like more?

Also, did anyone else know J Money is a member of Rammstein? Yup. Robbing that bank. BAD A$$.

We’re half way through September so I thought this would be the perfect time to reflect back on August ?. Truthfully, these blog reports are becoming less and less interesting to me so I didn’t rush to whack one out. I’m just hoping this will be helpful to some of you. Shoot me a DM in Twitter if you have specific questions – don’t be shy.

Any who, there’s nowhere to fit my blog report because it isn’t finance related and TFG isn’t making a dime yet. I wrote out half of the important things on the first of September because I knew I was going to forget some things if I don’t. The first 3 months were interesting because…well they’re the first 3! But now all of my reports just sound like they’re repeating themselves, especially in August.

• 1st Month Blog Report
• 2nd Month Blog Report
• 3rd Month Blog Report

I didn’t implement much of anything in the month of August. My parents were away until the 12th and when they did fly in, my mom stayed another week and she finally left on the 20th. I was back to regular schedule by the 20th. If you notice I only published 2x post a week but I started posting 3x a week again on the last week of August. A new side hustle (I’ll give an update on that in my next income report) has started to take over the remainder of my time so I’m spread a little thinner.

New Calendar

I started this blog on April 22nd and I use to just count backwards which is…really dumb now that I think about it. I guess it was more accurate before but 4 months in and it’s like…this is pointless. I rather look at Jetpack + Google Analytics and it’ll give me the numbers per month without me adding or subtracting anything. I can just look at the posts published and take that number as well instead of what I use to do which was navigating it backwards. I’m back on the official calendar starting now.

What I Love

On a scale of 1 with the intent to blog for profit to 10 for blogging for fun/break even – I’m at about a 8 right now.

You know you’re a loser when you start calling people you’ve met online ‘friends.’ The personal finance community is wonderful and wouldn’t ya know it, we all like to talk about my favorite topic $$$.

I thought in August I wouldn’t be able to find much time to read any blog posts. My eyes and hands were always busy with AirBnB or side hustling. BUT my ears were completely free so I went to the app store and downloaded a screen reader. I started downloading blogger posts onto my screen reader and listening to them while I ran my errands and chores.

I’ve listened to a bunchhh, like sets of audio books worth. I didn’t comment on much though – takes too long for a coherent comment. If humans were so fit to survive, why didn’t we grow more arms to multi-task?! Anyway!!! I’ve been pretty much freeloading and enjoying myself with your posts and you guys don’t even know it. Cheers!

Have you met every awesome blogger on my “Smarter Than Me” Twitter list?

Technical Stuff

My husband was working on solving the mystery of why my PA + DA was so low. It’s really low. I’ve met bloggers that’s been into it for less than 2 months with a higher page authority and domain authority than me. Organic search makes up less than 8% of my overall traffic and after talking to other bloggers – I learned mine was definitely on the low side.

Hubby installed a Lazy Loader plugin for me. It seems weird that my social & traffic are both ranked in the top #200 but my SEO is a super low (#590) especially when I’ve already read and implemented the basics of SEO and everything has the green light on Yoast. I even have a sitemap, HTTPS and all that jazz.

There’s not much to know about SEO really. As Ms. FAF said: good SEO is just good content.

I must have ? content ???!!!

Part of the reason could be my not-so-SEO-friendly theme. The biggest pain was that I paid for it. The UX builders of a wordpress theme doesn’t have to know anything about SEO to make a good-looking theme. It’s an open marketplace.

I can’t see the back-end but a quick search told me my WP theme builders probably didn’t know jack…

GRRR.

I switched to Juliet of LyraThemes which is a sister theme to (my blog sister) Ms. FAF’s Kale. If I wasn’t so cheap and unsure of which one to pick – I would have converted to Genesis already like I told Cory.

Theme rant: can I have more than a stupid generic preview???…like seriously, for $150 smackaroos w/o a return policy I want a trial of what my content will actually look like.

Google doesn’t like me. The irony is of course, my husband works for Google, just not on the team where they keep the secret krabby patty formula!!! Hubby said that formula is top-secret except to those on the team actually actively working on it. I asked him if he wanted to do an internal transfer for me hahaha.

Anyway, hubby saw how much I was struggling with Google so he said he will spend some time running tests for me. I’ll update that next month because we’re still waiting on results (if any). I think he said it takes 2 weeks. My husband has no prior knowledge to what SEO is and he’s learning it from ground zero right now. It makes me so much more appreciative of his attempts…it’s not hard to see why I love this guy.

I remember staying up late (as usual) one night to finish up a post. Hubby suddenly mumbled to me from the dark of the bed, “you are my wife and I love you and I want you to feel fulfilled.”

Naturally, I started crying, then I cussed at him for being sweet/making me cry and we both laughed. A good marriage is made up give-and-takes. I’m so happy I’ve inspired my own husband to broaden his own scopes and skills. He’s being more active in managing investments, he’s trying to learn the technical side of blogging and he’s thinking about his own plans after FIRE.

Site Traffic

My total pageviews were 9,833 for August. My pageviews for the month of July (3rd month blogging) was 8,616. The only goal for me coming into August was to come close to 8,616 number knowing I would be a lot busier. I was surprised to see that although August didn’t offer as large as a traffic bump as the previous months did that I still manage to beat out 8,616. WITH HALF THE EFFORT. Hmm, maybe posting 2x instead of 3x a week isn’t so bad.

I didn’t do anything to boost my traffic because I wanted to see what happens if I just…let it ride on it’s own.

I only checked my traffic once every 2 days or so in August. The entire month for me was relatively passive. I had a fun time making a podcast with Pete from DYEB with Ms. FAF. Other than that, I didn’t do much except write posts and play around on Twitter. Every entry in August was written by me – they were longer than before and they were (in my opinion) just better. A lot better than the first 2 months actually.

Hubby cares about our traffic and pageviews too. On the nights we do go to bed at the same time, I see him on his phone reviewing the website stats for the day. He wants his wife to do well and succeed after all…???

In August, I published 9 posts in total. I like the ease of only 2x a week, it gives me time to just relax and enjoy the content of other wonderful bloggers but because I get the jumps on days I do publish, it makes me want to constantly pump out material. It’s exhilarating to see and it’s horribly addicting. When I switched over to 2x I did notice a 25-30% decline in traffic – yes I still beat last months – but had I published 3x a week instead, I would have cleared the 5 digit mark for sure.

Towards the end of the month (like on the LAST DAY in the LAST HOUR) I was like…ohhh I’m so close to the 5 digit mark…if I only spent some more time on this or that blah blah blah, basically beating myself up for it. I think Cory gave me a few pity views  but was 30 minutes too late LOL!

God, I love this community.

All of my posts were well received, I’m happy to report that! I wish I took more notes but I just didn’t pay that much attention to the exact numbers. These were taken from JetPack –

Top Posts for August:

July Income Report (I’m so shocked that this was the most popular post…voyeurs much!!! Hehehe.)

At What Age Does Being Broke Stop Being Cute?

3 Profound Things I Wish I Knew Before Adulthood

How Any Millennial Can Become A Millionaire

My Life & My Cast of Characters (Yay, I was hesitant writing this but I’m glad it made the list. I updated it a bit.)

Marketing & Social Media

Google

Pinterest

Currently have 420 followers – yay! Sorta haven’t been keeping up with my Pinterest. There’s a lotttt of group boards that I haven’t even touched or set up in Board Boosters. I don’t think the number of boards matter anyways. It’s like organized chaos in there so I can’t say I recommend Boosters anymore for anybody with more than 20 group boards.

The delightfully whimsical Ms. FAF has continued to help me with my Pinterest game. She wrote a great Pinterest tutorial here. A lot of people say they don’t understand Pinterest and I totally get that. The concept is basically a virtual mood board; the key is just using Pinterest itself. It doesn’t have to be finance related or with the intent of gathering traffic. JUST ENJOY YOURSELF AND PIN STUFF YOU LIKE. Happy to say my Pinterest seems to be growing slow but steadily on its own so just being active and pinning stuff definitely works. #NoobAdviceProbably

Twitter

I think I had about 1,760 followers around the end of August. Twitter is really bad at converting to hits but it’s also very fun so it’s OK haha. Twitter is growing itself as well.

The blogger that I stalk on Twitter is Mrs. Adventure Rich. If she doesn’t retweet it, I don’t read it. Everyone should turn Twitter notifications on for her!

Instagram

I had 700 followers on my Instagram as of the end of August and I got that number without much effort. I am familiar with the platform because I’ve built up an Instagram foodie account organically before. But I’m not very active on this Instagram account (for the record, I have 4).

I delete half the things I post anyways. I don’t know why…just hated the way they look. I’m trying to find an aesthetic to go with but…there’s nothing in my life that’s interesting to post. I’m not like Luxe or Tub of Cash who have content to put up. I have nothing but bad foodporn and pictures of my dog…which doesn’t translate to personal finance at all.

A couple of people from Instagram ended up in my suggested followers tab from Facebook (not sure how exactly, it’s not connected in any way) and I blocked most of them. Some people I kept and followed because…they’re chill enough. But yeah. Thanks Instagram (owned by Facebook by the way) for ratting me out.

Facebook

Anonononononymity =/= Facebook. It’s a work in progress…

Commenting

I stopped commenting as much as I did before because of the aforementioned lack of hands. The screen reader plays on a loop so sometimes and I read a blogger’s content twice – especially if it’s good or long. I listen to everything by Financial Samurai twice because his stuff is usually really dense and well written. And FYI, each one of you sound like an automated female robot to me because that’s the only audio option available hahaha.

MailChimp

Hubby also straightened out MailChimp for me in August after Ms. Luxe told me something was wrong with the formatting. One of these weekends, I’ll ask hubby how to customize a campaign.

(P.S. if you are an unlocked member of the Rockstar Forums and using MailChimp, please check out this very useful thread on e-mail authentication.)

Subscribers

I had about 168 or so email subscribers at the end of August. Not only am I surprised at that number – I’m also surprised not a lot of people unsubscribe. I figured they subscribed by mistake you know?

Shhh…don’t tell them.

Future Plans

Mommy blog in..3…2…hahaha no. Not yet.

TFG will be a blog that grows with me throughout the years. I’m really shy in real life so getting to know me via this blog is probably more telling than if you actually knew me in real life.

I don’t work a desk job, I don’t have many obligations and I early retired myself. I needed an outlet to work on my writing (sub-par if I wanted to go pro but comprehensible for now) so I’ll start by creating thousands of entries that are worth reading.

If for no one else but to leave a trace of my existence on a little footnote of the internet.

If for no one else but to practice for the book I’ve tried to crank out for years.

And if for no one else but my husband, friends and (someday) kids can read my ramblings and learn the things I would never actually say out loud.

This blog is ingrained into our biology now. Not only has TFG given me a sense of purpose but it’s also where I go to seek social interactions and friendships. This blog has my own husband excited. Plus, whenever I have a good traffic day, he’s proud of me. Thank you for reading

Hi! I can’t wait so I’ll just do my 3rd monthly blogging report right now. My first and second month reports are below and the first two months are more exciting than this one, I think. Check them out if you haven’t yet.

First month, woot woot!

Second month, yay yay!

This was a month of miscalculations and mistimings.

Let me perfectly summarize how I feel as a blogger, how I feel I did this month and how I feel about myself in general…

Goals For July:

Let’s review the goals last month for this month…

• 5000 Pageviews

• Twitter – 1,000 followers

• Pinterest – 200 followers

• Write 10+ Entries

• Create Downloadable content

• Instagram – 50 followers

July Results

I started my blog on the 22nd of April and I write my blog reports on the 22nd instead of rounding up to a new month (which would be smarter but here we are.)

I screwed up in Google Analytics during the installation and Hubby and I were tracking our own clicks throughout the month.

Hahahaha, fail.

You have to turn off that function manually for the Google Analytics Dashboard for WP (GADWP) plug-in. I think most bloggers are using MonsterInsights and MonsterInsights automatically sets it to off whereas GADWP does not.

To turn off self-tracking in Google Analytics Dashboard for WP

Click GADWP in your WP bar and select ‘Tracking Code’ and it will say ‘Google Analytics Tracking Code’ on the top. From there click the tab ‘Exclude Tracking’ and select administrator (and any of the other ones if it applies) and voila! Thank Gym.

According to Jetpack – 8,616 Pageviews (Passed)

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO……”

(Secretly screaming to myself…because I couldn’t break the fifth digit.)

Last month I said “I’ll be happy with even 5,000 because chances are I won’t get another Rockstar feature to save my rump again!” But what I was really thinking was “I want more and more and another Rockstar feature and another one and another one and more RIGHT NOW.”

My husband is smirking at me right now because he has to live with me and knows exactly how I am. I tend to do this with everything. And it’s usually something impossible because I’m an extremist. I think by the 3rd month we were together, Hubby screamed at me something like “WOMAN THERE’S NO PLEASING YOU.”

But it’s true. Hubby bends over backwards to make me happy all the time and I don’t really deserve it. I want to write a marriage post like Ms. FAF but I’m afraid I would make everyone hate me by the end and want to rescue Hubby.

–nervous chuckle–

Back on track…

June I had a little over 6,000 pageviews but that number was really probably 3,000 if I didn’t get lucky with that Rockstar feature. This month, I hit my safe goal of 5,000 page views a little over mid-month. Good right?

Nope.

That means I have to up my goal and decide what I really want now. I’m an extremist so now it needs to be 10,000 page views…just because that’s how it’s suppose to be.

Well it’s already past mid-month. Hard goal but I can do it if I push out some good content!

Nope.

Found out Analytics was counting our own clicks so chances are even lower now but I’m still over 5,000 pageviews according to Jetpack. I should have set my estimate at probably 8,000 but since I already wanted 10,000 anything else now is a disappointment.

Now what?

No surrender! I’ll just push EVEN harder! I can reserve more time to pump out more content!

Nope.

My dad had to fly back to San Francisco to fix some paperwork mess-up. He’s gone for the entire month.

*Side bar: Thanks to collected points from our habit of churning credit cards, his round trip ticket was only $20 even though we booked his flight in the middle of July with only 2 days of advance notice. Frugal win!*

My dad handled the grocery shopping, cooking, house chores and taking care of Grace and Bunny.

For the past week and a half, I have been running around filling in the household blanks, AirBnBs x3, Grace, Bunny and blogging. Car-free! Plus my usual tradition of dancing and exercising 2 hours everyday or every other day until I pass out. Good for the body…but not so much for productivity which leads to me another point…

My blog is not monetized.

The formula is different. The feel is different. And so are my priorities.

For now, I choose time with my husband over a “hobby” like blogging. He’s already gone 12+ hour days and I only see him on the weekends. Weekends are what bloggers use to catch up and write their posts for the week…I have no posts lined up. I never do!

Everything I have ever written was written the night right before, just like how I’m writing this now.

My mom offered to fly out to Seattle to help me but I’m not drowning in work. I can get it done – it’s just more time-consuming but it is getting done.

I told her no, don’t come. I’m not 100% sure if she is going to listen to me. There is a 22.95% chance she will show up on our doorstep unannounced. She is mom after all.

I notice a surge in pageviews during those publishing days and it makes me happy. I still can’t believe people would read this.

Subscribers – 80

I didn’t think this number mattered but it’s actually way more important than pageviews. Personally I “follow” blogs but I never really follow blogs and definitely not through e-mail. I just hop on the website and check manually from time to time to see what I missed. I hop around Twitter like a hyperactive monkey and click on whatever I feel like I want to read from people I know that deliver the good-good content. –Shrug–

(Also, I’m extremely addicted to Twitter. It’s everything now.)

Twitter – 1,169 Followers (Passed!)

My Twitter is starting to slowly growing itself now and I’m spending more time socializing with other bloggers than adding them. I don’t have a goal from here besides using it as a place to be happy, socialize and catch up on posts. Is it me or are PF bloggers extra funny and witty? I feel like a teenager grinning into my phone again!

Engagement rate – 3.8%

Pinterest – 185 Followers (Half Fail!)

My very optimistic and near impossible July goal for my Pinterest was 200. I didn’t think I would make it past 150 followers to be honest, so I’m quite happy with this number.

But it’s not even the following that makes me happy. It’s the kindness of Ms. FAF (Frugal Asian Finance) and Cory (Dollars from Cents) who saved my sad as f- Pinterest game. I have a total of about 30-ish group boards now. Two of my pins went semi-viral on their own without much help. It gave me about 800 extra pageviews in 2-3 days.

Holler at me if you want to exchange group boards babies.

Not all group boards are created equal. Some boards anyone can invite and others only the creator.

My Pinterest advice is to get at least 100 or 500 followers first, add a showcase gallery, have 10 of your own boards with some pins, and install Rich Pins before requesting into other’s group boards. You don’t want to come off inexperienced like I did. It’s already really hard to crack and clique-y so come prepared.

The lucrative boards are usually closed or they’re extremely selective. It’s definitely clique-y and it’s naturally set up that way to protect itself. Pinterest is darn freakin’ powerful when done right. But I don’t want to depend only on Pinterest forever. I can dream about being Financial Samurai or Frugalwoods someday, right? Puppy eyes Sam doesn’t do an ounce of marketing and people still flock to him.

My goal is just to have something of value to contribute and for people who want to hear it to visit me directly, always and forever Remember I’m an extremist! Love me – love me!!!

Write 10+ Entries – (Half Win!)

I did publish exactly 10 entries if you round up what I half wrote before June 22nd but half finished and published at a later date…half win?

Here’s another reason why I hate this month: I haven’t written anything I thought was noteworthy.

I may be painfully self-aware but it doesn’t make it not true: they just weren’t good.

They were all boring with the exception of accepting money from in-laws. That piece was a spur of the moment thing.

I have plenty of heavier topics in queue that I can dig into but they take a lot of research and time to kick out. I want to defend the topic properly. They’re not easy hitters like “X ways I did to save” or my blog/income reports. I’m jealous of Matt’s work because he’s pushing great stuff out that I’ve wanted to talk about since forever. I discuss this stuff with my husband all the time and sometimes, the conversations we have are actually intelligent! Nothing I’ve written this month has been intelligent.

Create Downloadable Content – (Half Win!)

My e-book is completed. As I read it over, I still see a lot of potential so I think it’s only 70% done actually. If I add and tweak 2-3 things, it might be valuable enough to jump start another project. I’m deciding what to do with it.

I wonder just like Budget on a Stick if frugal recipes are OK or is that too different from personal finance. I have to update my freebies tab soon and I have some of my mom’s frugal and authentic Chinese recipes.

Podcast – (Passed!)

I completed my first ever AirBnB podcast recording at Rental Income Podcasts and that will be published in 2 weeks. Thank you Ms. FAF, my darling sista, for the hook-up as always! If you’re a real estate investor, it’s a good quality podcast to add to your listening list.

Oh and somehow, I will be set for another podcast in a few weeks. Totally not sure how or why BUT I’M NOT CHALLENGING IT, yaaaaaaaas!

Instagram – 180 Followers (Passed!)

I had a low goal of 50 followers but I forgot this was Instagram and Instagram is the definition of POPPING! Everyone’s so social, thanks to Tub of Cash for the heads up.

Instagram = Pinterest, 5 years ago. I remember when Pinterest was just born, everyone went frantic adding each other trying to set up their clique. I was temping as a SEO writer at the time and I thought what in the world…is going on. How do I have 200 followers in 3 hours with no boards?

OK that’s it. The end…

Lol nevermind…something tells me I should write longer. OH fine, fine, no sleep. I’ll go into other stuff by shamelessly copying Ms. FAF.

Time Blogging

I didn’t keep great track of time this month with dad gone, I can’t even find my socks. I think I’ve probably spent less than 30 hours this entire month writing posts. Not good. I don’t consider the time I socialize with other bloggers (on Twitter for example) as time wasted/working so I don’t track those hours.

Twitter has been super helpful, more thanks to David (Zero Day Finance) for setting us little knuckleheads up.

Hiccups

#1 Analytics

Google Analytics tracking our own clicks, woops. Also the load time Analytics is spitting out has to be wrong. It says my average load time for the website is 16 seconds for the month of July?! It is not right? The other speed tests I did said 2 seconds!

#2 Theme

I’ve been told my theme looks nice by several other bloggers (and strangers) but the real back-end coding is sloppy so please don’t get my theme. It was a total waste of $20. I think it might have actually done more harm than good with it missing a hCard and all. I don’t recommend cheapening on one. I’m debating if I should change themes but it does take time to reset things and I’m already running a little behind.

#3 Dad’s gone

I didn’t realize how much he was doing. It’s like 3 hours of work every day from trimming the bushes to emptying the potty box to sweeping the deck to removing Grace’s fur from…everywhere.

#4 Mailchimp mess

I didn’t have a campaign but I somehow punk’d myself thinking I did. For the first 2.5 months of blogging I was not sending anything out to subscribers. I also had a broken email sign up widget on the bottom of my website.

I had to enlist Hubby for help. It took my husband almost 3 hours to set up a Mailchimp campaign. Hubby works in tech for God sakes. He’s a genius when it comes to computers and it still took him 3 hours!

On the bright side, I’m finally in your inbox now! –Grin–

Going Forward

I had a few spin-off ideas that I want to dig into. Unlike TFG, I wanted to put some real planning into them. Everything I’m learning now is applicable so this is all a long-term plan. I have pin pointed this as something I want to do, that fits my lifestyle and can help with where I want to go 10-20 years from now.

To reference back to my first month when I stated why I started:

I started blogging because I realized my privilege was being wasted and there’s nothing more ungrateful than wasting privilege on the self. I am an individual with a functioning wallet, mind, and body. Plus I live in a great country with free speech and fast web access.

The most important thing about blogging is simply finding the time it takes and the effort necessary to push yourself.

And always…

Carry on.

The Other #2

On a more (much more) positive note, today 2 days ago marks the end of our 2nd official month here at TFG! You can see the first month here.

I came into this blog thingy fresher than Febreeze. I should have queued up some posts before I launched TFG. Based on what Ms. FAF’s (Frugal Asian Finance) wrote – I’m #3 pure and true. I just jumped right in. I think I brought & install WordPress when I was half asleep.

But that’s good! Because I have spooky good instincts. I’m totally ESPN.

Whenever I “blackout” about doing something, it tends to turn out better than if I did it using my brain knowingly. How did you think I met my husband? I just need to trust myself on auto-pilot (which is harder than it sounds.)

Goals For June: Expectation vs Reality

• 2,500 views  (6603 views) – literally more than half of that from Rockstar Finance! ? Totally saved my rump – what a rockin’ miracle!!! ?

• Re-compress images – Done!
• My Twitter: 1000!!! (Spicy!) (775 followers) – that’s not bad +500 in a month. I followed the advice of The Grounded Engineer but I only started two weeks ago (but it does work!)
• My Facebook “Likes” – So neglected that I consider it a win +4 followers thanks to Othala Fehu and Steward and Slave.
  
• My Pinterest: 100 (Um…..^) (76 followers) – I started being kind of active on Pinterest 2 weeks ago. It’s a hard egg to crack but Ms. FAF and I are teaming up. I started Board Boosters but Tailwind is still a mystery. Ms. FAF won’t but I don’t mind panhandling for group board adds ?!

• Guest Post – I wrote 4! One about FICO score, another about PAYE, and of course my RedFin review over at Mr.MSM.
• Write 15 Entries – FAIL. In fact, I failed so hard I even miscounted last month’s entries! I wrote 14 last month and 14 again this month.
• Create downloadable content – FAIL. I don’t have any excuses. If I don’t get it set up next month, I’m just going to do a giveaway!
• Post everyday on Rock Star Finance –  Yup! Visited and/or stalked everyday

• YouTube! My husband thinks I’m “TV cute” so… – FAIL. I recorded a few clips. Ms. FAF can attest! I just can’t post them. They’re so bad. I had a pimple the size of a softball on my chin. IT’S PROM ALL OVER AGAIN.

Goals For July:

• 5000 views
• Twitter – 1000 followers (try, try again!)
• Pinterest – 200 followers? (Not optimistic!)
• Write 10+ Entries – (I want to focus on length and detail)
• Create downloadable content
• Thanks to Ms. FAF now I might be in a podcast now! Funsies! ?
• Instagram – 50 followers? (I have a foodie Instagram account with 400+ followers but it has 5 or so casual high school and college friends. I blog anonymously and would prefer to keep being private.)
• Follow my blog with Bloglovin.

Some Hiccups:

• Um, this one is kind of big. I was not uploading anything onto the Rockstar Finance feed for a good 2-3 weeks until Ms. FAF came along and asked me if I was showing up on the feed. I was like, “wait, what feed?” ? Oooups. Install WP Super Cache if you’re having this problem!
• Being in the PF community…it’s is like being submerged into a warm, clear pool of information and it’s sooooooooooooo good. Mid month in, after being in Passive Income MD and Zero Day Finance’s reading club, I thought “hey I should do that!” Then I forgot… So that’s coming up in July!
• Some new post alerts (like from the Groovies among many others) goes into my e-mail’s “promotions” tab (which I never check because it’s spam) and some post alerts goes into my Bluehost e-mail but doesn’t get forwarded into my main g-mail account. I have no idea how to correct it. Mr. MSM, BoaS, OF etc. comes into my main g-mail account no problem. This then brings up Twitter which is basically how I track new posts from bloggers now. I made a list a few days ago called “Smarter Than Me” and populated it with sexy people fellow PF bloggers.**[Update] PoF brought up a possible solution!

Summary:

This month has been all luck with the Rockstart feature. So I’ll be reasonable with next month. I’m still getting the hang of things but it’s loads of fun Nothing even feels monotonous yet!

I really want to make another blog too but I have to get a hang of this one first! I think the key here is to use the weekends to schedule out posts in advance. Unfortunately, AirBnB hosts don’t get weekends off. I practice dance 2 hours everyday too. Hubby and I like to zombie out in front of RuPaul’s Drag Race (it’s his favorite show) for 3 hours but that needs to give now.

 Love and respect you all , the rockstar PF community is amazing and I’m not just saying that because I have no real life friends (kinda).