I have had this post sat in my drafts for a while now, but I think that it is time to share this with you, especially after the excitement at the weekend.
I want to take The Frugal Cottage in a slightly different direction and change things around here, a bit.
I love having a personal finance blog, and I love writing about saving money, budgeting, earning money and investing. I love sharing our story and hopefully helping people along the way. I hope that I inspire others to make the same move towards early retirement, as it shows that we are just two ordinary people doing something slightly out of the ordinary.
But, I feel that I am not posting the content I sometimes want to because I worry that it doesn’t quite fit in to the niche I’ve put myself into. Yes, every post can be about saving money, or tips on how to declutter and save that way, but I feel like I want to include more than just that in my posts.
So, I am changing things around here, and I hope you will stick around!
I want to write more family orientated posts. I have a one year old, and I want to write more things about raising a child the frugal way, how we keep our spends low even though he’s constantly changing and what we plan to do as we move forward as to not get into the trap of spending lots on things we (and him) don’t need. I want to share some of the things that we bought and in hindsight didn’t need at all, and things we didn’t originally buy but have been a godsend once we did buy them. I want that to be helpful to readers, so that they don’t waste money on things that you really don’t use.
I want to write more frugal lifestyle/food related posts. I love food (as my work colleagues would definitely tell you!) and I want to write more about frugal food and living. I want to write about perhaps starting to grow our own and how that goes. I want to post about my favourite frugal recipes and how I keep the costs down in the kitchen. I want to write about how we don’t really buy clothes particularly often, and how I’m leaning more and more towards a capsule wardrobe. I want to post about what a capsule wardrobe might include for me, and how we keep our overall lifestyle expenses ow.
I want to write more personal posts, about us. Here I am, writing away about our journey to early retirement, but I am still, at this point in time, an anonymous blogger. For the time being, I want to keep it that way, but in time I hope to be brave enough to reveal myself, so to speak. I want to write more about what motivates us, what motivates me as an individual and what makes us tick. The blogs I like reading the best, for the most part, are ones where I can connect to the blogger and know who they are and what they like. I am buying into their story and I am hoping that you buy into ours. If I want to inspire others to join us in our journey, then I feel that you perhaps should know us a bit more. I’m not going to start posting selfies on Instagram or anything like that, but I might share slightly more about us that I have done before.
I have removed the option to guest post on The Frugal Cottage. Since I started my Advertise/Hire Me tab, the option to pitch about guest posting on The Frugal Cottage has been there. I’ll be honest, more and more I get spammy emails about guest posting on the site, just for a link in return, and I want to be true to my readers, so you can hear my voice. I am still accepting sponsored content, though I am being more picky about that (I removed a sponsored post recently as I felt it wouldn’t be something I would actually recommend, and wasn’t fair to be posting about) as I want it to be the very best stuff on here for people to read.
I want to share things that help us to keep to our frugal journey. I want to review products that I have found useful and think that they might be useful for you too. Another post I have in my drafts is all about our slow cooker and what a wonderful kitchen item it is, for example. I’m in the process of writing a recommendations page that we have a round up of things I would recommend on this journey. I want to share books that I have read that I have found useful, or money saving apps that you can use to get stuff for free.
I hope that you will stay around as The Frugal Cottage continues to grow and evolve. Watch this space, so to speak!
What posts would you like to see on The Frugal Cottage?
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Go for it! Be brave 🙂
I for one will keep reading.
Best wishes
Thank you! 🙂
Sounds good! – looking forward to reading it and hearing more about your life
Nice post!
I truly interest in frugal live (in fact I do frugal live), and I think your blog is truly inspiring, but sometimes I can hardly glimpse how you (and your husband) manage to deal with dispenses (in order to get some tips from your own life style). In other words, how do you plan your month according to your incomes? (I read your post about that, but I don’t see many things clear) Other interesting questions such us: does your husband have a regular job? are you planning to mothering till your child will be a young adult? etc.
Thanks for advance and congratulations for your blog!
Cèsar
Your blog so go for it! Whatever you write I will enjoy reading 😀
I follow a couple of bloggers because their blog covers several topics and they are such interesting people. One lives in Japan and talks about living in Japan, quilting, food, etc. The other is an Iowa quilter with a wonderful family that is now starting to have grandkids. Learn all about the area and farming, her husband’s occupation, quilting, etc. My friend in the UK is retired and I just love hearing about the area and what gardening they are doing. Write about what you love.
Go for it! I do the same thing and enjoy writing personal stories.
I love this. When I realized I’d been blogging for a year, I found myself in a similar situation. I’ve basically only ever written stories about me. I try, of course, to include actionable things (or what not to do! ha!), but I mostly just want my blog to be me. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to monetize much or at all, but I think I’m OK with that. I love your honesty, and I love how you shared all your thoughts with your readers. If I had to pick anything that I’d want to see on here, I’d say it’s exactly that…whatever you most want to share! Cheers, friend!
The best blogs are the ones that are true to themselves, where they are blogging about what they truely enjoy and not just because they have to. I think you should blog about whatever you want to, I am sure it will end up working in your favour, and I think what you will be blogging about still fits with the reasons I and others started reading your blog in the first place.
I am new to starting my blog and it went through many stages, first just about crochet and craft, then just allotment, then just art, then just sewing. But I wasn’t happy just posting in one of those niches, I have recently removed all content and am starting afresh with a frugal living based blog where I can include ALL of the previous topics but also my recipes, clearing debt and any other lifestyle posts I fancy. I already feel so much more positive about it.
Good luck Nicola! Please do so because I’d like to see more family-related posts. Keep us posted.
You got a new reader here! I just clocked you on UK Money bloggers.
I’ve only been blogging for a few months and as you might have guessed, my main focus is on money. However, I’ve also got a section called ‘more than money’ because though its important to me to make sensible financial decisions, money isn’t the be all and end all. I want to help people improve on other areas of their life, share ideas for how you can give back to your community, etc.
I love the photo of forget-me-nots by the way, I’m a sucker for flowers!
Thanks for stopping by 🙂 I think that it is important to be able to give back as well 🙂
Sounds great!
Looking forward to reading more.
I felt exactly the same earlier this year I felt like I couldn’t write what I wanted because I had niched myself and although I’m fairly frugal there are lots of other sides to my life and family too so I turned it around and I’m really happy with how my blog is growing now. Wishing you luck on your blogging journey.