10 Things I’ve Learned in my First Year of Blogging (WITH A GIVEAWAY!)

The end of this month marks the first year of blogging over here at Simple Life of a Frugal Wife. It’s been a year full of learning, new adventures in blogging, and of course, if I’m being honest, some frustration as I discover what working from home and blogging is really like.

In celebration of my first year of blogging, I thought I’d do two things. First is a giveaway. I mean, who doesn’t love a giveaway?

To mark one year at Simple Life of a Frugal Wife, I’m going to give one lucky winner my PRINTABLE Home Management Binder, regularly priced at $19.95, for FREE. This binder is great for helping managing the chaos in our homes. Or wait, is that just me who has chaos to manage?

Anyways, if you want to read more about the home management planner, you can read about it HERE.

To enter the giveaway, be sure to COMMENT on this post, as well as fill out the form below at the end of this post. 🙂  I will announce the winner next Monday, the 24th of February on my Facebook page, Instagram, and through my e-mail subscriber list, as well as personally contacting the winner, so lots of places to not miss finding out who won!

This is a downloadable, printable file.  Once the winner is notified they will be sent the home management binder file to print at home.  No waiting in the mail for this prize!

The second way I want to celebrate my one year of blog-a-versary, is to share ten things I’ve learned in my first year of blogging.

If you’ve read some of my previous posts you will learn that technically I have blogged before, which means technically I have been blogging for longer than a year. However, those blogs were all very short-lived, and did not go very far on account of me giving up way too soon and not giving it my all.

I’ve since learned a few things, and I wanted to share them with you! If you’ve ever wanted to blog I hope these things I’ve learned will help you, but even if you don’t want to blog, there are some great lessons here when starting any new adventure!

10 THINGS I’VE LEARNED ABOUT BLOGGING AND WORKING FROM HOME

It is not a “casual” way to make money. If you want to make money blogging, it’s going to take A LOT of hours. Most likely you will blog for months before you even see a paycheck. There is SO much more to it than just writing up a post, though of course that is a big part of it. If you have kids, a day job, home school, have a homestead, or anything else that takes up a lot of time you can expect a lot of late nights or trying to cram in blog work any extra hour you get.  You will quickly discover you have to start saying “no” to some social outings if you really want to make this blogging thing your job.

Blogging creates community. One of my absolute favorite things about blogging is receiving emails and comments from you, my readers. Sometimes my readers follow along on Facebook or Instagram and comment there as well. I never imagined how much it would brighten my day to hear from others all around the world who read this little ole’ blog. Basically, I am so very blessed to have you all read my blog and be part of my tribe. 🙂

You may be surprised by the different people that read your blog. While every blog has a common crowd who reads their blog depending on their niche, there are always people outside that common crowd. I have heard from various ages, male and female, and all different walks of life when it comes to my readers.  I absolutely love this part about blogging as well!

It is not all sunshine and roses. Just like any job, no matter how much you love it, there are things that are hard. There are days I am at my computer trying to figure out how to do something and I can’t figure it out because technology can be SO complicated! I have been known to cry in frustration at my keyboard. And while I LOVE to hear from my readers, there are times I hear from people who aren’t too happy with me. Those are hard days too. However, anything worth doing isn’t easy, right?

People raise their eyebrow when you tell them you are a “blogger.” When some asks what I do for a living, I tell them I work from home as a blogger. That’s when I usually get the look. People are surprised to learn that you can make income from blogging, and while some start asking questions because they are genuinely intrigued, others picture me spending ten minutes writing a post and getting paid for it and they question whether blogging is actual work.

I still can’t believe I get to do this. Guys, ever since my daughter was born, over 11 years ago I had tried to find a way I could make money from home. No matter what I tried I didn’t succeed. I was beyond discouraged, and we were always struggling financially. One year ago when I started this blog I decided I was going to go all in and treat it like a business. When I started seeing those first paychecks come in I could barely believe it. A year later and I still feel like I have to pinch myself from time to time. I can home school my children, build up my little homestead, and yet still make income from my couch. No matter how tired I am trying to balance it all, I still can’t believe I get to do this and feel so utterly and insanely blessed.

There is no such thing as balance. Speaking of balance, I have yet to figure out how to do it. While working from home is an insanely awesome blessing in my life, I am the worst at work-life balance. Trying to home school, homestead, be involved in church commitments, and renovate our home all while working has me pretty exhausted some days. Things get missed.  Balls get dropped.  I know I am not alone in this, because, nobody is superwoman.  If there is anyone out there who actually has figured out how to balance all their responsibilities, I’d love to hear from you! 🙂

I learn a lot from my readers. When I share posts about how to save money, or a recipe, or how to do something on the homestead, I’ll often have readers share what they do and what works for them, and often it may be something I’ve never thought to try. I love that it goes both ways – we learn from each other.

You don’t need all the fancy bells and whistles to succeed. In the world of blogging there are so many courses, classes, webinars, programs, eBooks – you name it – to help you. When I started blogging I really had to think about how much money I was willing to invest in it because as you know, I like to be frugal. Many people believe you need fancy courses to get ahead in blogging. While there is value in many of the resources offered, you can still succeed without them. In the past year I did invest in a few resources, but they were not that expensive. It just wasn’t in my budget to pay too much. There is still so much for me to learn but I have been able to have a successful first year without all the fancy bells and whistles.

We all have a story someone can learn from. In the beginning it was hard for me to believe I had anything to offer that could be of value to someone else. I’m not well-educated, I stayed at home with my kids which I loved but it meant I had no career, and I’ve spent more years struggling to figure out how to “do life” properly than I haven’t. Yet, our past experiences, the good and the bad, can be used to help others. Even if the only thing our story can offer is the comfort to someone else that they are not alone. There is so much value in that.

WORKING FROM HOME HAS BEEN A BLESSING

Blogging for me has been an amazing experience and I hope to be here at Simple Life of a Frugal Wife for years to come. If you’ve ever wondered if blogging might be for you, now might be the time to start! If you want to start a blog as a business, I recommend self-hosting.  This is so important if you want to make income from your blog.  You can get 12 months of blog-hosting right over at Bluehost for $3.95 per month.  You do pay for the 12 months up front, but totally worth it!  Check out my post, Blogging for Beginners, to help get you started on some of those first few details!

Don’t forget to enter the giveaway!  Comment below, and be sure to enter your name in the form right here.

One Year Blogaversary Giveaway!