Announcing Changes; Requesting Feedback

Happy Tues­day, everyone.

I’ve spent the past few weeks pon­der­ing the role of this blog in my life and the direc­tion I want to take it and whether I want to even take it in any direc­tion at all.

I’ve come to a few con­clu­sions but I still have unan­swered questions/uncertain feel­ings too.  I’ve decided to move ahead with the ideas and let the rest of it sit and per­co­late for a while longer.

This blog’s direc­tion and purpose:

At the time that I started this blog, I had another “daily life” type of blog that I con­sid­ered my main out­let for thoughts, feel­ings, and philo­soph­i­cal pon­der­ings about life, par­ent­hood, life after health crises, and mar­riage to a terminally-ill husband.

The Daily Dol­lar Diary was sup­posed to be just that — a sec­ondary blog record­ing my daily expen­di­tures – sort of a social exper­i­ment allow­ing every­one and any­one to see how one sub­ur­ban house­wife spent the family’s money.  I intended to be as trans­par­ent and anony­mous as pos­si­ble and  I really hadn’t thought either way about whether I’d write addi­tional finance-related posts.

Then, in the shuf­fle of mov­ing from one host to another rather sud­denly, some­thing went ter­ri­bly wrong.  Long story short – my main blog got lost.  I stopped blog­ging but after a while I really start­ing miss­ing the out­let.  Not yet ready to pick up and start all over again with my main blog, I revived my Daily Dol­lar Dairy.  Just for the fun of it.  I cer­tainly didn’t start out to become a Per­sonal Finance blogger.

Why?  Well, for one thing, per­sonal finance was some­thing I’d never really thought about.  The Hus­band and I enjoy fairly tra­di­tional roles (at least out­wardly) in that he makes the money and I spend it.  He bal­ances the check­books, pays the bills, and knows how much we have and where it is.  I know who wears what size and likes what color, when a birth­day is approach­ing and who to ask for gift ideas, and what needs to be replaced or what can be repaired — and who to talk to to get it done.

Beyond the fact that per­sonal finance isn’t a sub­ject I’d pre­vi­ously spent much time think­ing about, there’s also the fact that I am by no means an expert and have no spe­cial orga­ni­za­tional or finan­cial skills.  I’ve had a lot of fun, so far, post­ing my daily expen­di­tures, writ­ing the occa­sional main­te­nance tip or prod­uct review, and read­ing lots of per­sonal finance blogs.  But, at the same time, I’ve been floun­der­ing try­ing to find a place in the Per­sonal Finan­cial blo­gos­phere that feels like home for me and my blog.  I don’t fit into the journey-out-of-debt cat­e­gory because I’m not in debt.  I don’t fit into the I’m-rich-and-here’s-how-I-did-it cat­e­gory because I’m not and I didn’t.  I cer­tainly don’t fit into the amateur-investing-advice or credit-card-arbitrage-game cat­e­gories since the sum total of my invest­ing expe­ri­ence is buy­ing GE stock on Share­builder and the clos­est we get to credit-card arbi­trage is to make all of our pur­chases on a credit cards and then pay the bills in full before the due date, occasionally get­ting div­i­dends or other rebate incen­tives as a result of our credit card usage.

Mainly, I feel uncom­fort­able giv­ing advice because I’m just an aver­age Joe mud­dling my way through life and money and the last thing the world needs is another self-important, pompous aver­age Joe — the world and the blo­gos­phere are full of peo­ple like that.  Who the heck am I to tell you what’s a good use of your money or how much to save?

Although I am loathe to blog from an “advice” stand­point, I do enjoy shar­ing my expe­ri­ences and view­points.  Like­wise, the blogs I enjoy read­ing and find myself return­ing to again and again are the ones in which the author sim­ply shares sto­ries and per­sonal per­spec­tives.  In my expe­ri­ence, self-proclaimed experts are full of hot air and not worth my time and energy.  I’d much rather hear how half a dozen dif­fer­ent fam­i­lies have dealt with the issue of allowance than read what what one bloated blog­ger with a 2-year old thinks is the best way to teach kids how to be money savvy.  I, too, was once a fore­most expert on chil­drea­r­ing — until I had kids.  In my book, humil­ity goes a long way.

So, after weeks of pon­der­ing and read­ing and soul-searching, I’ve decided to make my Daily Dol­lar Dairy the type of blog that I love to read — a per­sonal record of my jour­ney through all things related to money and per­sonal finance from my own unique per­spec­tive.  I will tell my read­ers how I spend my money and why I spend my money but I will not advise them how to spend theirs (and if I cross that line, dear read­ers, I ask that you call me on it).  I will share when I save money and where I save it and how much it is or isn’t earn­ing in inter­est but I will not pre­sume to tell you how much to save, what type of fund to save it in, or whether or not you could get a bet­ter deal elsewhere.

Upcom­ing Post­ing Changes:

I’ve decided to cre­ate a basic sched­ule of top­ics on which I’d like to post in addi­tion to my daily expen­di­ture reports.  I’m a lit­tle afraid of doing this and a lit­tle reluc­tant to announce it because quite likely I’m bit­ing off more than I can chew and will faily mis­er­ably at main­tain­ing the sched­ule.  But, noth­ing ven­tured, noth­ing gained, right?  Besides, in cre­at­ing this sched­ule, I’ve given myself full per­mis­sion to get off-track if my real-life sched­ule gets in the way or my health sit­u­a­tion makes keep­ing up difficult.

Here’s my planned post­ing schedule:

• Mon­day — Main­te­nance Mon­day: tips, reminders, etc.
• Tues­day — Day of Dis­cov­ery:  self-reflection, philosophical pon­der­ings, or just some tid­bit I learned recently
• Wednes­day — Kids & Money: need I say more? 
• Thurs­day — The Art of Shop­ping:  the zen of find­ing good deals, being a wise consumer, and prod­uct reviews
• Fri­day — Car­ni­vals and Link Love

Upcom­ing Blog Changes:

I’ve gone around and around on the issue of mon­e­tiz­ing my blog.  Mon­e­tiz­ing blogs is an issue on which I am more than a lit­tle torn.  For me, the line between a blog­ger mak­ing a lit­tle side income on affil­i­ate links or Google Adsense ads blurs very quickly into feel­ing like rev­enue is the main pur­pose of the blog and the text and arti­cles a sec­ondary effort.  Yes, I’m admit­tedly a lit­tle cyn­i­cal but doesn’t it strike you as a lit­tle crass for a site about dig­ging your way out of con­sumer debt to dis­play ads for pay­day loans and credit card offers?

After much thought, I’ve made two deci­sions about mon­e­tiz­ing my blog:  1) I’m going limit my blog’s adver­tise­ments to hand-picked affil­i­ates that will be listed in the left-hand col­umn and a sep­a­rate Affil­i­ates page and 2) 50% of all affil­i­ate income gen­er­ated on my blog will be donated to a char­ity of my choos­ing and the other 50% will be divided between my children’s col­lege sav­ings accounts.

The com­pa­nies that I choose as affil­i­ates will have to meet cer­tain cri­te­ria — they will either be com­pa­nies and/or prod­ucts that I have pos­i­tive per­sonal expe­ri­ence with and per­son­ally rec­om­mend or they will be com­pa­nies and/or prod­ucts that have a good rep­u­ta­tion or have been rec­om­mended to me by a trusted source.  I give you my solemn promise that you will not find ads for Pay­day loans or get-rich-quick schemes on my blog.

Request­ing Feedback:

If you are so inclined, I would truly appre­ci­ate any feed­back you might have to offer on my blog.  My read­er­ship isn’t huge and is, at the moment, fairly sta­tic.  I’m not blog­ging to become famous nor do I have any type of sub­scriber­ship, but I’m def­i­nitely inter­ested in pro­duc­ing a qual­ity and read­able product.  I’m am curi­ous as to why vis­tors are here and why they come back.  If you have any­thing to say about the type of posts you find inter­est­ing or any com­ments on my writ­ing style or sug­ges­tions for future top­ics, please con­tact me — either in the com­ments or via email (see the graphic in the upper left column).

Related posts:

1. Wel­come Gather Lit­tle by Lit­tle Visitors
2. I’m back? Yes. I’m back!!
3. Dear Read­ers — don’t give up on me just yet
4. A New Look