I need your help

When I started this blog, it was to help me get my mind around my money. We didn't have much, and I had to work hard to make the numbers work, and I had so much to learn.

Then at some point, I didn't have so much to learn anymore, and so I got bored. I felt like I was repeating myself, like it had all been said, like anything I wrote on here was just so obvious.

But now I'm realizing it's only obvious to me.

In the past few days I've had a few really dear friends tell me that some money advice I gave them - which after all these years seems intuitive to me - was life changing. And I can't think of anything more gratifying. So I would like to start writing here again, and to use this blog as a vehicle for sharing what I've learned and what I know, for helping other people to get their money under control. And to be perfectly honest, I could use it too, to get my fired up again and make some real progress on our money goals.

But I need your help. Because I don't know what to write. So here's what I need from you:

• Questions - what do you need to know about money? We can have an "Ask story's money" feature, or a longer series on specific issue.
  
• Challenge ideas - want to do a challenge with me? Like a grocery challenge, or an extra income challenge, or a savings challenge?
  
• Guest posts - Got a financial success, or even a problem, you want to write about? Send it over.
  
• Any other ideas for what to write about?
  

Let's get some pep back in this blog and talk about our money.

Rethinking the blog

When I first started blogging, I thought I knew exactly why I was doing it. I wanted to write. And help people. And be part of the frugal blogging community. And be accountable for my finances. And make money.

In my experience, when I have to come up with 5 completely different reasons why I want to do something, it means I'm trying too hard to convince myself.

For a long time, I liked blogging, and I especially liked blogging about frugality. I made lists, I waxed philosophical, I linked to other bloggers, I joined carnivals. I was having a lot of fun. Until I wasn't.

At some point along the line, I just stopped feeling the blogging love. When I was teaching full time, I often didn't have a lot of words left at the end of the day. And at some point, after writing about all things frugal for a while, I felt like I'd said it all. I felt boring. Sure, I could post deals, but other people did that better than I do. I could write money saving tutorials, but really? It's all been done. So I stopped.

But I have an underlying desire to keep writing, or to start writing again. I want to put things out in the world, to be really honest, to write as if no one is reading (because let's be honest here, most days no one is). And probably, there will still be some money involved with this because I'm still a pretty frugal chica. I love coupons. I unplug chargers. I turn my ketchup bottle upside down.

I think, however, for a while at least, there's going to be a lot more life here than money.

Pondering PayPerPost

I got an email yesterday that my blog had been approved for PayPerPost. I had honestly forgotten that I had even applied. When I first signed up a month or so ago, I got a message that my blog was ineligible because I had to maintain it for at least 90 days, but now I suppose I have overcome that burden and qualify.

For those not in the know, payperpost is a company that pays bloggers to post about various products and services (a marketing scheme known as astroturfing). I'm not sure how I feel about it now. When I signed up I saw dollar signs, but now I've become much more zen about my blog and see it more as a way of interfacing with the world than a way of making money (really, the two cents or so per day from adsense is not paying my bills). I'm wondering if implementing paid posting would in some way damage the integrity of my blog, and am relatively certain that it would hurt the readability and in some way annoy my loyal readers. On the other hand, if I can pick and choose what to write about and limit paid posts to once a week or less, I could maybe minimize those issues while still picking up some (much appreciated) extra money. I'll have to think about it some more.

Some much deserved Link Love

When checking my stats, I realized that the following really amazing bloggers have my blogrolled! I had assumed no one was actually reading most of the nonsense I wrote, and it is an overwhelming compliment to be linked by such fun and talented writers as these:

Fabulously Broke in the City has an amazingly prolific blog on everything from fedoras to portfolio diversification strategies. She will inform and entertain you for hours.

Piggy Bank Raid is the pfblog of a freelance writer trying to get control of her spending. If you get a chance, go read her blog and then tell her why she should keep blogging!

Messing Around is the blog of Robert and Erin, a Christian military family, seeking simplicity for its spiritual rewards. Much of their blog is heartwarming and inspirational.


Please, if you have my blogrolled and I didn't mention you here, it means I don't know!! Leave me a comment so I can give you some link love too!

Addicted to saving money?

I think I have a problem. I spend hours every day at my computer, reading and writing about money. I keep a blog and I write about money. I read about 6-10 blogs a day, all about money. I participate in 2-3 forums, all of which are about money. I listen to podcasts about money, I watch video clips about money, I read books about money, I search for articles that will tell me how to save money. I click and click and click.

When did it all become about the money?

I am saving money, it’s true. I’m making some money too, between the clicking and the writing, but the truth is I don’t feel like I’m a very interesting person right now. A lot of it, I know, is the anxiety, but I’m just tired of walking around all day thinking about saving money. I want to play, I want to read a book that has nothing to do with money, I want to write poetry again.

Does this mean I want to stop saving money? No, of course not. But the truth is, the reading is not what is saving me the money, it’s the doing. I may find one or two more little tricks to save money, but the truth is I already know most of what I need to know to save money. I just need to get off my rear end, shut off the computer, and do them. I need to have more time in my life, more life in my life. I’m saving money so I can afford to do things I love, but I’m not doing things I love.

It seems like anymore, I don’t save money to be able to afford what I need or want. I save money to save money, for the thrill of saving the money. After a while, it does become like an addiction, where my tolerance level rises. The same amount of savings stops being enough, stops providing the thrill. I need more, more, more. That’s not healthy.

It’s pretty easy to lose perspective. I think a lot of us have a tendency to fixate on one or a few things that are important to us. It’s important, though, to remember to balance that with other things.