Ok, seriously, what the fuck is time? I swear I took this blog public like 5 seconds ago, not 3 years. I still remember the terror I felt that first week when everything seemingly went wrong 🙂 . Anyway, somehow time has passed and I can now celebrate 3 years of this weird blog being live.
To commemorate the occasion I thought we could go through all the wild things that happened in the past year and then answer some of y’alls blogging questions since that’s not a topic I touch on very often here. So let’s get into it!
Blog Highlights
The biggest thing that happened in the last year is that I won Best FIRE Content at the 2020 Plutus Awards. I was also a finalist for Blog Of The Year and People’s Choice. It’s been almost a year and I still can’t believe it. I’m so glad y’all like my work enough to nominate me. Thank you so much again!
I also created and completed the first PurpleMas where I posted articles two times a week in December 2020.
In addition, I was featured in 9 media articles after they reached out to me for a quote or an interview. Check them out below:
- Business Insider – A blogger who retired at 30 shares 2 strategies that helped her leave full-time work in just 5 years
- Real Simple – 9 People Who Retired Before Age 45 Share How They Did It
- Yahoo (Reprint) – 9 People Who Retired Before Age 45 Share How They Did It
- Business Insider – 7 Best Personal Finance Blogs That Will Teach You To Retire Early
- Business Insider – 4 Ways To Save Enough Now To Retire In 10 Years
- Business Insider Spain (Reprint) – 9 Personas Que Se Jubilaron Antes De Los 45 Años Revelan Los 4 Pasos Para Lograrlo
- Plutus Foundation – 10 Best Personal Finance Blogs in 2021
- Business Insider – Workers Are ‘Epiphany-Quitting’ Their Jobs
- Business Insider Japan (Reprint) – パンデミックで｢大切なものは何か｣を考えた…仕事を辞めた人々の証言
I was also asked to be a guest on 11 podcasts. Here’s a sampling:
I was asked to take on many random opportunities and accepted some, such as being:
- Interviewed by a Toronto journalist for upcoming book about love and money
- A special guest at a Women’s Personal Finance Chat (If you sign up when their next round of spots become available, feel free to use promo code PURPLE and get 10% off your first month 😉 )
- Featured in a Making Sense of Cents Guest Post
- Interviewed twice to help create a Goodreads competitor
- Quoted in an article of the 21 Best Early Retirement Tips To Help You Retire Early on Making Sense of Cents
- A special guest at a virtual ChooseFI Meetup
- Featured in an ESI Money Guest Post
- Interviewed by a masters student in Amsterdam about FIRE for a research project he’s doing
- A guest on a Facebook Live chat for the WPF Facebook Group
- Paid to write a freelance article: How I Used Financial Independence to Opt Out of Sexist and Racist Corporate Culture
- Interviewed by a college student in India for a research project about anonymity online
- Part of the beta test of my favorite FIRE calculator cFIREsim
I also declined some cool things, such as:
- Speaking at a FI conference
- Being on an ABC talk show to discuss why I’m never getting married
- Being part of a Twitter chat to promote the show Going from Broke by Ashton Kutcher
Questions & Answers
I have no idea 🙂 ! I’ve always just written what I feel like writing for myself and thought if people end up reading it that’s cool too. Shockingly that can apparently be a good strategy 😉 .
I’m not a people person so I say SURE! Hardcore introvert over here.
No. I didn’t start my blog social media accounts until after I was writing for 3.5 years.
I started writing my blog January 1, 2015 and decided to monetize it in July 2019. My reasons for doing so are laid out in this post. I breakdown in my annual savings posts how much this blog makes.
Nope! My blog is just whatever I want to talk about so since I’ve retired, I’ve talked about that and anything else I find interesting over here.
This question was asked over and over. I’ve always shied away from writing the standard “How to start a blog” article because the ones I’ve read have all been the same and seemed like just an excuse to push affiliate links. But based on everyone asking, maybe I’ll write one if I can think of something unique to say about it.
Technically, the first step is to write. There are countless random rabbit holes you can get sucked into with blogging (because it’s WAY more than writing), but to me the writing is what matters most so I say focus on that. Then if you want to get your writing out in the world, I’d suggest setting up a WordPress site. They have step-by-step instructions on their website for how to do that.
Why did you choose WordPress over Medium, Tumblr, Blogger etc.?
Overall, I use WordPress because it was recommended to me by everyone I knew. I’ve used Blogger in the past and found it complex to use and I didn’t feel that way about WordPress when I set it up. And I didn’t know until this moment that you can use Tumblr or Medium for a personal blog 🙂 .
It depends on the length. My posts range from about 800 to 10,000 words. I think I can write about 800 words in an hour, so extrapolate that for those longer posts. I write those over the course of several weeks usually.
I do have an editor and it’s my Mom 🙂 . She doesn’t usually give content changes though – just commas I missed (I hate commas 😉 ). After she sends back those missed commas, I make the changes and then read the post 1-2 more times before scheduling it to go live. However, almost all of my posts have 30+ revisions saved so take from that what you will 🙂 .
Basically, I edit as I write (hence the revision number), but once it’s all written, I don’t really change it before posting. Declaring that I post every Tuesday has helped with that. If I didn’t have a quick deadline, I suspect I’d tweak posts forever before putting them out there…and as a result never publish them 🙂 .
When I was working, I spent way more time on the blog than I do now…and it was usually during work hours 😉 . Instead of scrolling my personal social media feed in those 5 minutes I’d have between meetings, to refresh my brain I would work on the blog in some capacity, whether that was:
- Writing
- Editing
- Comment Responses
- Interview Responses
- Podcast Requests
- Photography
- Photo Editing
- Design
- Social Media
There’s always something to work on if you want to. During my career, I think I worked on all of the above for 5-10 hours a week.
Absolutely. One of my goals in retirement was to be on screens and social media less so I’ve drastically cut that down. Instead, I focus on spending present time with the people I love, traveling and exploring. Now I spend 1-2 hours on the blog a week and just focus on writing, editing and responding to comments. I basically never scroll on social media.
It has to a shocking degree. Logistically, it’s amazing to ask on Twitter, for example, where I should eat in a city and get dozens of awesome recommendations. Emotionally, being a part of the personal finance community has given me countless new online friendships that I’ve transferred to real life. That also includes new people to visit in fun locations 🙂 .
Mentally, having that promise to y’all that I’ll post every Tuesday has ensured that I document every bit of my early retirement to show what it’s like. I’ve always loved documenting things, but have never done it consistently – until now. Blogging has added shocking value to my retirement. I never expected any of the above.
Not even a little bit. As I touched on previously, I barely spend any time on the blog now and the time I do is spent doing what I enjoy more than anything: writing and talking with y’all. If this ever starts to feel anything like work, I will stop writing the blog.
In fact, I’m planning to assess exactly that in October since it will be a full year of retirement while writing weekly. I’m going to decide if I want to keep writing weekly, change my schedule, or shut the blog down all together. I never want this to feel like a job or something I have to do.
Shockingly: Not really – no. My inspiration ebbs and flows as in some weeks I might not write anything and some I might write 3 posts in one afternoon. I just wait for that urge to write to hit me and luckily so far, the cadence of those feelings have allowed me to keep a weekly posting schedule. Overall, I think my sluglife style has helped keep that creativity flowing.
Here are some of my favorites – feel free to give them some love 🙂 :
- Bitches Get Riches
- All Options Considered
- Rich & REGULAR
- Millennial Revolution
- Modest Millionaires
- Tread Lightly Retire Early
Conclusion
And that’s it – a year of accomplishments in a nutshell. I hope answering some of your questions here helped illuminate some of what happens behind the scenes.
Next, my 1 year retirement anniversary is coming up in October and I will need to decide if I want to keep my posting cadence the same, reduce it or stop writing all together to focus completely on my early retirment. It’s going to be a wild time and I hope to see y’all then 🙂 .
Do you have any other questions for me? If so, drop them in the comments below!
Get it, girl!
🙌🏾
Way to go Purple, congrats on your success! p.s. I had no idea you were an introvert. You’re so lively and fun to chat with on twitter! 🙂
Haha thank you! I can be quite lively in person too – I just need to take a nap after 😉 .
Oh my! Look at all the things you did over the last year!! 🙌 That is awesome. Most importantly though, the fact that blogging has brought so much value in your life, feels easy and makes you happy is the best part of this big milestone! I’m proud of you friend and do hope your joy around this hobby continues in the future for us all to keep enjoying your writing on a regular basis.
P.s: I feel honored to see my blog on your list of favorites 🥺🤗💜!! Thanks lady!
Yeah it’s surprising when it’s all laid out like that – I could have sworn I just napped 😉 . And you’re completely right – that’s the real story here! Thank you so much lady 🙂 and of course!
Congratulations and happy blog-iversary! Love that “Questions & Answers” section! Also, your mom does a great job with comma editing. I would never have known you hated them! 😂
Thank you! And haha I’ll let her know we have everyone fooled 😉 .
Hey congrats!! This is so great! I also wanna hear about that book you’re reading 🙂
(I don’t think it’s a stock photo?) lol
Thank you! And haha – not a stock photo, but I’m honored it made you wonder 🙂 . As for the book, it’s phenomenal. I did a mini-review on my Insta here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CReNRhiHpS4/
Congrats on three years public!
It’s a lot of fun seeing all the places you end up staying, keep on keeping on 🙂
Thank you! I’m glad you’re liking the record of my travels – I’ll keep them coming 🙂 .
Wow, congratulations. That’s pretty amazing. You stayed true to yourself and you have a real voice. I think lots of blogs lose that “real” feeling after a while, (due to monetization??).
Thank you Joe so much for your kind words! I’m so glad my voice shines through. I have to say I agree with your assessment and have been wondering why that might be myself. It might be that I simply don’t need or care about the money this site generates. Based on my observation: when someone is hung up on that aspect (understandably if they’re trying to make it into a business or something) they can lean on others for methods of how to hit those goals and in the end all those blogs start sounding eerily similar as they follow the same advice. Anyway, just a theory I’m working on 😉 .
Time flies when you’re having fun! So glad that you are not only still writing, but continuing to enjoy it as much as your readers love reading it. Selfishly, I’m sure none of us want you to shut down the blog or write less, but you have to do the right thing for you! Great post as always. Thank you!
True story 🙂 . And that’s good to hear – if y’all are sick of me that would definitely go in the column of “reasons to slow down/stop”, but hearing you’re not is music to my ears! Thank you 🙂 .
It’s amazing when you write it all down! Congratulations!
I always look forward to your Tuesday posts but I think you should do what would allow you to stay passionate about the things you write about. Just like you said in our of your posts which I paraphrase as “good things happen when you don’t care”. If you are free to do whatever you want, then you will continue to enjoy it.
Thank you Charlotte! It makes me feel warm and fuzzy that you look forward to my posts. And I appreciate that so much 🙂 – I’ll assess what’s best for me and keep moving towards that.
Congrats on 3 years of blogging!
Thanks for sharing your experience with blogging. I love that you said you are writing for yourself – sometimes I feel like I’m thinking too much about ‘what do people want to read about’ and get stuck.
Btw – can’t believe your posts are only 800-1000 words! It does feel like the right amount. Maybe mine are too long – the existing ones all have 2400+ words lol..
Thank you! And yeah in my experience if you don’t concern yourself with other people the ideas and words keep flowing. If I was trying to guess what people wanted I would be stuck too 😉 .
And I think you missed a 0 there lol. I said 800-10,000 words. I get lengthy when needed 🙂 . I think posts should be as long as they are. Don’t overthink it 😉 .
Happy three years! For someone who self described as lazy, you sure have done a lot! 🙂
I’m glad you went public three years ago and hope you’ll keep wanting to share your fun for many more to come.
You…make a good point 🙂 . I should do less! And I’m glad I did too – thank you.
So you didn’t make your blog public until 2018! So THAT explains why I didn’t know about your blog in, say, 2016…
Yep – like everything I had to join the blogging world in the most convoluted and confusing way possible 🙂 . To have read my stuff in 2016 you would have had to be my Mom or myself lol.
LOL glad you were able to open your writing to the world, even if the process wasn’t quite as straightforward as you’d like 🙂
That’s a lot of accomplishments in just one year. Congrats on the 3 years! You should be very proud of yourself!
Yeah it’s more than I thought all written out and thank you! I’m working on it 😉 .
Congrats on the anniversary! I am excited to follow along your journey. I am planning to retire in about 8 years (I’ll be in my mid 40s) and it’s so funny to hear from all the people who think I am crazy. Can’t wait to do it and show them it’s possible! Thanks for inspiring me.
Thanks so much! I’m sorry people aren’t receptive to your goals – I had yet to have someone call me crazy to my face, but I imagine it’s not a nice feeling. I can’t wait until you show them how it’s done! And anytime 🙂 .
Miss, I like how you casually talk about quitting your blog, if it ever feels like work. It shows the things you write, comes from your love of writing. I feel the same way too about writing. One has to write about what one is thrilled about, to enjoy the freedom and true self-expression that comes with writing. Hence, writing can’t be forced.
I have observed whenever it is forced, it loses the exhilarating feeling that comes with it. It starts feeling like taking out the trash in the middle of the night. One knows one doesn’t have to do it, but one does it to avoid problems.
What am I trying to blab here? Hahaha….
It feels great knowing there is someone out there, who does not conform to the blogging norm. You know- the whole blogging multiple times a day or everyday advice given by professionals. May work for some, but I can tell you it sucks the Holy Spirit out of me. I agree a consistent schedule is necessary, however it has to be in a way one is comfortable with. I like how you prove this to be true.
Furthermore, I like how you were able to stick through for three years before monetizing your blog. It is inspiring, because you actually did what you love- put in the work and time in the absence of blog income in that timeframe. Been an avid reader for awhile now, but today after coming across this post, I decided to be brave and leave a comment.
Kudos for being an inspiration. Kudos for being yourself. Kudos for setting what you want out of life, working hard for it and getting it. Above all, thank you for sharing your story and taking the world along your life journey. You are a reminder dreams do come true, despite the constant barrage of life’s challenges.
Keep up the good work, Miss.
Thank you! That’s an interesting observation – I’ve found the same. Thank you for stopping by and leaving a comment – they’re my favorite 🙂 . And I’ll do my best!
Congrats on 3 years! I think you stand out because you are true to yourself and so authentic (even tho we don’t see your face).
Good luck!
Thank you so much 🙂 !
Congratulations on 3 years! Let’s turn that into 30 years!
Blogging is such an amazing venture and truly WAY more fun than doing a day job. Maybe I should start blogging during my day job and follow in your footsteps.. You’re giving me some ideas.
Thank you David! And woah – even with my love of advanced planning I can’t plan that far ahead 🙂 . I feel like that would be a world record though haha. And oops – my apologies in advance to your employer for giving you the idea 😉 .
Love it Purple! Congrats on 3 years
Thank you Bob!