How I Will Be Rich

I have not given up on my blog or my readers. I’ve been involved in multiple other online endeavors. One of them is another blogging project that has multiple writers. I am waiting until there is more content on the site before I unveil it but I really think everyone who has enjoyed this site in the past will really enjoy the new site. The other project that I am involved with is a social networking site. It is a big project that will probably take months and months before we really start beta testing it. We are currently in the planning and initial development stages. It is a huge endeavor and I really think it will benefit everyone who reads this site, as well as all of the fans of Be Healthy and Relax.

I’m still knee deep in school work and I’m really trying to use my time wisely. Once our other projects are unveiled, this site will probably act as more of a journal of the progress we are making. I am so thankful of all the readers and all of the people that have supported this website. This website, along with Be Healthy and Relax, has provided the finances needed to really get things moving on those other projects. Please stick around. You won’t want to miss what we have in store with these new projects!

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December was a bad month for me as far as goals go. Work got really hectic coming in to Christmas, I got sick on Christmas and then I went out of town. I have lots of excuses. I will review the goals that I had set for myself anyway…

Personal Goals

• Complete all of my Christmas shopping within a budget of $500
  Success. I think I spent a total of $350. I’m not sure the exact number but it is in that range.
• Open up a separate bank account for my side business
  I failed here. I never got around to getting to the bank to set up an account.
  

Blogging Goals

• Post 5 blog posts per week
  I failed here too. I only posted 15 blogs posts for the entire month of December.
  
• Get to 200 subscribers
  Failed. I maxed out at 135 subscribers. This is probably due to my lack of posting for the month.
• At least 2 carnivals per week
  Failed. I think I participated in 4 carnivals all month.
  
• Break $150 total money made
  Success! This was actually the first month I started to see a little bit of blogging income. The blog made $75 for the month. That puts my total income as a blogger at $197.14 (Over a 6 month period).
  
• At least 2 guest posts on other (more popular) blogs
  Failed. I only managed one guest post this month. You can read it over at Lazy Man and Money.

January Goals:
For January I’m going to tone down my goals a little as far as blogging goes. I start back to school on Monday and I have a feeling that it’s going to consume a whole lot of my time. Blogging is very important to me because I love sharing my goals and being held accountable when I fail (kind of like this month). I do think pursuing my degree in finance will fuel my blog; I just know that my free time is going to be harder to come by. With that being said…

Personal Goals

• Complete my first month of school (without going insane)
  Work is hectic enough. I’m starting back to school on an accelerated program. I will be completing one class per month for the next seventeen months. I will attend class three times a week for four hours per session. It is going to be intense.
• Open up a separate bank account for my side business
  I’m going to try to squeeze it in somewhere this month.

Blogging Goals

• Post at least 4 blog posts per week
  I’m going to shoot for five posts per week but I’m being realistic. Four is probably much more obtainable.

That’s about it. I’m not setting too many goals for myself until I see what my new life is going to be like. Next month, once I have a better feel for how hectic my school schedule is really going to be, I’ll set some more ambitious goals. For now, I’m just hoping to make it through my first class.

Thank Yous
I’ve never really had the StumpleUpon effect before December. For some reason, my site got stumpled like crazy though. That was the number one source of traffic for this month. Here are the blogs that sent me the most traffic in December.

1. Lazy Man and Money
2. Get Rich Slowly
3. Cash Money Life
4. Brip Blap
5. Plonkee Money
6. Consumerism Commentary
7. Stock Trading To Go
8. Moolanomy
9. I’ve Paid For This Twice Already
10. Be Healthy and Relax

Thanks so much to everyone who reads my blog and to all the other bloggers who support and help my blog. I appreciate it so much.

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As you’ve probably noticed, my posts have been sort of random lately. I’ve discussed going back to school and what’s going on at work and in my personal life. Life gets hectic around the holidays and I’ve sort of been using the blog to blow off some steam and get things off my chest. I’m really hoping that people don’t mind if I do that every once in a while. It may give you some insight in to where I am going with some of my future posts and some of the things I’ve gone through in life. I’m hoping that one day, a couple years down the road, I’ll look back through my archives and really see the progress that my life has made.

This blog is now about six months old. It literally feels like I’ve been doing this for just a few weeks. I wanted to take an opportunity to link to some of the posts I’ve written in the past that I feel are pretty strong posts. A lot of these, people have never read because they are getting old and buried in my archives.

• No Reason Not To Have A Roth IRA (August ‘07)
  
• The New or Used Car Decision (August ‘07)
• ETFs Vs Mutual Funds (August ‘07)
• Buying a Home Vs. Renting (August ‘07)
• Stress is Never Worth It (September ‘07)
• My 8 Step Process To Being Rich (September ‘07)
• 78 Blogs to Make You Healthy, Wealthy and Happy (September ‘07)
• Starting a Business - All You Need is Momentum (September ‘07)
• How and Why to Write a Business Plan (September ‘07)
• A Business Introduction Letter (October ‘07)
• Enthusiasm is the Way to Success (October ‘07)
• When Should I Start Saving For Retirement? (October ‘07)
• Make Money and Save the Environment (October ‘07)
• The One Investment You Absolutely Must Make (October ‘07)
• Make People Feel Important (October ‘07)
• How To Get Insider Pricing (November ‘07)
• My Thoughts on Robert Kiyosaki (November ‘07)
• Make More Money at Your Day Job (November ‘07)
• Writer’s Block - My Solution (November ‘07)
• How to Make Up For the Rising Price of Gas (November ‘07)
• Promote Frugality Through Gift Giving (November ‘07)
• An Alternative to Gift Cards for Christmas (November ‘07)

Digging through the archives, those are some of the posts that I found to be some of my favorites and some of my early reader’s favorites. If you especially enjoy the few posts written by Joe Fier, check out our other site, Be Healthy and Relax. Joe primarily writes over there now.

Check out some of those older posts and feel free to leave comments and continue old discussions. I love any and all feedback.

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Reviewing Last Month’s Goals

• Post 5 blog posts per week
  I had no problem achieving this goal. I’ve realized my optimum writing time. I have discovered that if I set some time aside at night close to bedtime and I just sit in silence for a little while, I come up with my best ideas. The blog posts just flow naturally. I tend to be insanely busy on the weekends and have a hard time finding the time to blog. By sticking to approximately five posts per week, I get a couple days off and I don’t overload the readers.
  
• Get to 100 subscribers
  It’s kind of funny because my goal before this was to get to fifty subscribers and literally two days after my month’s end deadline, I hit my goal. This month I had my goal set at 100 and by November 30th, I had a total of 93. As of writing this (December 4th), I have broken that 100 subscriber mark. I will consider that a success for the month, despite the fact that my deadline was about 4 days late.
  
• At least 1 carnival per week
  This goal was no problem. I probably averaged about three carnivals per week this month. I love carnivals. They are such a great way to get exposure for your blog.
  
• Break $100 total money made
  I was shooting to make $100 total. That’s not $100 for this month, that was a total of $100 since the conception of this blog. This is the one goal this month that I failed to meet. The blog’s income, since the day it was born, currently stands at $90.14. So in case you are wondering, this blog averages about $0.73 or so per day.
  
• At least 2 guest posts on other (more popular) blogs
  I actually did write a few guest posts this November. I was successful in doing that. They weren’t published in November but I did manage to get them written. One of them was actually featured yesterday over at Brip Blap.
  
• New theme / layout
  As you can see, my blog has a new theme. I like it better than the last one but it still needs work. I’m actually rethinking the whole thing once again. Right now, I think it might be a little too busy. I’m thinking about switching it to something a little more minimalistic. White background, black text… Something like that.

I had a pretty good month as far as achieving goals go. Hopefully I can do even better in December and meet 100% of them.

Goals For December

I’ve realized that I’ve only been sharing my goals related to blogging. I’ve decided that, starting this month, I’m going to get a little more personal with my goals. I will still share my goals concerning this blog but I also feel that it could be beneficial to share my goals concerning my personal finances and my entrepreneurial endeavors. Sharing these goals holds me accountable and I will realize that, this time next month, I will have to share how well I faired on my personal goals as well.

Personal Goals

• Complete all of my Christmas shopping within a budget of $500
  I tend to go a little overboard every year on my Christmas shopping. I dig in to credit cards and pay for Christmas for months. This year I am going to set a strict budget and stick to it. So far, I’ve already spent $40 of my budget on one person… I’ve got about ten more people to go…
• Open up a separate bank account for my side business
  Joe and I have a few internet endeavors in the works. I’ve got a separate Tax ID number already, I just need to find time to get down to the bank and get an account set up.

Blogging Goals

• Post 5 blog posts per week
  For now, I’m going to stick to this schedule. It has worked great. It’s not overwhelming me and I don’t think it’s overloading any readers.
• Get to 200 subscribers
  I’m feeling pretty confident this month. I hit my 100 subscribers, I’ve got guest posts out and about, I’m consistently participating in carnivals and some bigger name blogs are starting to make mention of my blog. I’m confident that in December I can make the subscribers double from what I’ve managed to accomplish in the entire history of this blog. I have decided that, once I hit 150 subscribers, I will publish my subscriber numbers for everyone to see.
• At least 2 carnivals per week
  Carnivals are great. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’ve been mentioning them a lot lately. They do great things for blogs that are just starting out. It’s really a great way to get yourself out there. Last month I committed myself to one per week. I am upping my commitment to two per week.
• Break $150 total money made
  Seeing as it has been extremely hard to make much income off this blog, I’m not really shooting for the stars this month… If I can make $60 over the next 25 days I will be extremely happy. That will put my overall blog income at $150.
• At least 2 guest posts on other (more popular) blogs
  So far, only one of my guest posts has been published. That one day, however, I saw a huge boost in hits. I’ve got to continue with this. I’m going to start submitting some of my best stuff to share on other sites. I really think that can be a great tool to help this blog grow.

Some Thank Yous:
These are the ten sites that referred the most traffic to me in November:

1. Lazy Man and Money
2. Brip Blap
3. Consumerism Commentary
4. My Two Dollars
5. No Credit Needed
6. I’ve Paid For This Twice Already
7. Stock Trading To Go
8. The Digerati Life
9. The Simple Dollar
10. Clever Dude and Personal Finance

Thanks so much to all of the blogs that have sent traffic to me and talked about me on their blog. I appreciate it so much. The blogging community has been so great and accepting of new blogs and I think it’s really great to finally to start to feel like part of the community.

Thanks So Much to everyone,
-M

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Lately I’ve been going through this phase of writer’s block. I sit down at my work station at the end of my work day, close my door and make sure that I won’t be interrupted. I open up Google Docs to start laying out my thoughts and I just go blank. I can’t explain why I go through phases like this but it seems to hit me for about one week every month. Most of the time stuff just comes to me but every once in a while I find myself staring blankly at my computer screen wondering what I can write about that people will actually want to read. On weekends I tend to link to interesting articles that I find and I think my readers would enjoy. That’s just not my style for the mid-week posts.

Today has been one of those days. I keep setting aside time and nothing comes to me. I think my mind is already getting excited about my upcoming four day weekend. Anyway, I’ve come up with a little remedy to this problem that usually works pretty well and gets me thinking. So, today, instead of writing something related to personal finance, I’m writing about how I get over writer’s block. I’m beginning to realizing that a lot of the people that read my blog are actually fellow bloggers themselves. So, with that being said, I am hoping nobody minds that I’m taking an even larger step away from my normal writing topic to explain, on a day the I have writer’s block, how I get over writer’s block.

What I have started doing recently is something that has really helped me a lot. First, I go around to the other blogs that I really enjoy and that have become pretty popular. Blogs like Get Rich Slowly, The Simple Dollar, I Will Teach You To Be Rich and Consumerism Commentary all come to mind. Then I go back to the very first post that they ever did. From that point on I just start reading forward. I really like to see what various bloggers wrote about when they first started. I love the writing style at the beginning and watching it progress as you follow through all the posts. You’ll notice that they become much better at getting their points across and they really start to find their voice. You can also really start to get an idea, based on the comments, about what topics worked for them and what stances they took on the topic. If you really want to become successful as a blogger, it’s a good idea to use these popular blogs as a blueprint. If you model your blog after the ones that have managed to become successful, your chances are that much better of making something of yourself.

Another tip that I recommend when that dreaded writer’s block hits is that you look at bigger blog’s popular posts. Most blogs tend to have some section that lists off their most popular posts. They do this because they want to provide a place so that first time visitors know where to start. Scan through all the popular posts that they’ve written. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with taking that topic and making it your own. I don’t condone stealing their idea and their point of view and rewording it but I see no harm in taking the topic and elaborating off of it. If you use your own unique blogging voice and put your own spin and opinions on the topic, you are basically elaborating off the original writer’s ideas. In fact, link back to the site that you received the idea from in your post and not only will the original poster have no problem with you using their topic, they will probably even appreciate it.

Hopefully these little suggestions help others that find themselves in the position that I constantly find myself in. Writer’s block is frustrating but there are a lot of blogs out there that have been doing this for years and years now. Somehow they always managed to keep their blog going. I am hoping that, one day, my blog is one of those that people are going back through the archives of because they want to gain the amount of success that I’ve gained.

-M

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