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I'm going to unload a little more honesty for you good people. I'm sure you're used to that by now... :)
From an early retirement standpoint, mission accomplished. Job done. Good for me...moving on.
But, I would be kidding myself if I tried to make you good people believe that I continue to value the time I spend maintaining this blog as much as I have in the past. Frankly, I don't. I feel like I'm moving on to bigger and better things - both personally and professionally, and I promised myself that once this stopped being fun, a change needs to be made.
Truthfully, I did not start this blog to get a bunch of hits. Although I sometimes strut around on Twitter with some blog accomplishment, I genuinely don't care. I don't care about running the most popular blog. No fucks given about SEO.
Now, what's next? Rest assured that I have absolutely no intention of shutting down the blog because my wife and I accomplished our goals. Instead, the blog needs to change its focus. It no longer follows our journey towards early retirement because we're there. And, I am sure you noticed that I've eliminated my Wednesday posts.
For the past couple of years, my regular publishing schedule included a new article Monday and Wednesday with the Friday Feasts going out...you guessed it, on Fridays. Now, I'm nixing the Wednesday article. My hope is to maintain a Monday and Friday posting schedule as much as possible as my wife and I travel the country.
No promises, but that's my goal. When life gets in the way, life will come first. Travel will come first. Getting out in the middle of nowhere without Internet access and beautiful scenery comes first. The blog comes somewhere after that.
And yes, this blog will remain an outlet to funnel shit straight from my brain and onto the digital screen. What kind of shit?
Ah, now we're talkin'. I have thought a lot about that question lately.
This is where I would love some feedback from the congregation. You may have already noticed an influx of guest posts, and that is something that I hope to continue. I love giving other writers an outlet to offer their own perspective on money, jobs and lifestyles.
For example:
I also covered several non-financial related topics in the not-so-distant-past:
What next?
First, I have an announcement to make. I have officially joined the Rockstar Finance team! I am in a CTO-type role in Rockstar and spearhead a lot of the technical and development efforts that stem from J$'s brilliance. We have a LOT planned for the future of Rockstar and its influence within the community, and I'm thrilled to be a part of it.
Isn't retirement amazing? I quit full-time work at 35 and I'm easily busier now than I was before. The main difference? I am doing things that I truly enjoy. No more time cards. No more performance reviews. No more eight to 10 hour days working on projects that I really don't care one way or another about. When I want a day off, I take a day off. Or maybe two. This...is livin'.
I plan to keep the weekly Friday Feast posts around at least until we begin traveling. Thereafter - honestly, I don't know. Curating articles for the Feast takes a great deal of time. Reliable Internet access is a must. At the moment, it is tough to predict whether or not these posts will continue. Time will tell.
Like I said, no more Wednesday posts. Monday and hopefully Friday, at best.
I am taking a page out of the Essentialism book and will strive to never publish another blog post again that's greater than 1,000 words unless absolutely necessary. Substance beats word count, and I'm taking that to heart going forward (this post has 921 words!).
I would love to cover more lifestyle-related topics, especially unique or uncommon ways of life.
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My goal is to make this blog more approachable to those who may not already live within the PF community. Basically, appeal more to a mainstream audience without clickbait headlines or those insipid \"10 ways to...\" articles. I hate those.
The one thing I do know is this: I want this blog to be fun. Fun to write and fun to read. The second that this blog stops being fun...I'm done. Out. This means I will probably continue to swear and post stupid memes. Write about more light-hearted topics instead of boring personal finance stuff. Whatever suits my fancy.
What would you like to see? Are there any topics that you guys would love to see covered in more detail on the blog? If so, let me know in the comments section below.
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Today is a very special day in the life of Mr. Blog, aka: ThinkSaveRetire.com - he turns one! A year ago today I published my first post about Starbucks and the retirement-killing habit that the place has quite literally turned into for a lot of people.
I got exactly zero comments on that particular article. How sad. Nobody read the blog at that time, so I was writing primarily for myself. That's okay - I've actually done that quite a bit in my life!
I suppose I should say something about \"I can't believe it's been a year already!\", but honestly, I don't feel that way. Yeah, it seems like about a year has gone by, and I'm largely proud of the progress that this blog has made during that time.
One year in, I've written around 190 posts, all available from the blog's archive page. Tens of thousands of hits a month. Requests for sponsored posts (which I have declined...every one). Over 850 900 920 Twitter followers. Sorry Mr. Facebook page, I've largely ignored you. That's my bad.
I wrote every damn post except for one. While in Glacier National Park, my blogging buddy Chris over at Money Mozart penned my one and only guest post, Achieving your permanent paradise. Thanks again, Chris.
To be honest, I am not exactly sure what I am supposed to write in this post, but it seems like a blog's first anniversary is special enough to warrant something. How about I talk about what I have in store for the blog in the future?
Cool, let's talk about that. What do I have in store?
Actually, I don't know.
I know that post-retirement, the blog will remain active. My wife and I will be enjoying a life of full time travel in an RV. Our FullTimeExplorers.com blog will be the place where we post about our adventures, but I plan to keep this blog very focused on the softer side of financial independence and early retirement. The net worth will probably disappear from these pages, but we'll continue posting our budget.
I'll probably continue mocking the stupid buying habits of the typical consumer-oriented American, of which I was once very much a part of. But I'll do it from a coffee shop with my laptop at 10am on a Tuesday morning, retired, hopefully worry free. Sounds like fun!
The blog will probably turn more retirement-focused, but that's only a guess at this point. I always like to approach my writing from my current position in life, so it only stands to reason that after we call it quits, future content will possess the sweet flavor of early retirement. We'll see.
I may begin looking into opportunities to expand the blog by including additional content from external sources, but those plans are still very much in their infancy. If I do choose to go down that road, it won't be immediately after retirement anyway.
I would like to be able to say that I like all my posts equally, but of course, I don't. Some rock my world more than others, and several landmark posts and milestones along the way are definitely worth remembering.
Blog milestones:
A few notable posts from the first year of operation?
Other favorites from over the year:
All in all, I'm happy. I'm happy with my life. I am happy with the goals that my wife and I have set out for ourselves. And the more I thought about Mr. Blog's first birthday, the more I realized that today also signals the one-year anniversary of our dramatic lifestyle change.
It may not be one-year to the day, but it's darn close - I started this blog well after my wife and I had decided to retire early, but we did not begin to significantly change the way that we lived our lives until the completion of our honeymoon, which we took in Hawaii after our October 4th wedding.
It has been amazing what we were able to accomplish in one year's time. Through the power of our DINKness, we've been able to save an average of 70% of two pretty darn good salaries in a very low cost of living area. Once we retire towards the end of 2016 and beginning of 2017, it would have been about two years since we made the decision to retire early.
I owe a lot of the success that we've had to this blog and especially the people that we have met along the way. The truth is the blog and all the comments keep us motivated. Reading other blogs gives us ideas to try, keeping us productive and focused.
What we've learned in one year's time is stunning to me.
Happy birthday, Mr. Blog. Enjoy a yummy and delicious post, on me!
","tags":[{"name":"Anniversary","slug":"anniversary"},{"name":"Blog update","slug":"blog-update"},{"name":"Change Your Life","slug":"change-your-life"}]}},{"node":{"slug":"would-you-like-some-sound-with-that-text","feature_image":null,"title":"Would you like some sound with that text?","published_at":"2015-02-09T13:00:47.000+00:00","primary_author":{"name":"Steve Adcock","profile_image":"https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/ae0b2f8d459bad06e6d287fa4a74b1ea"},"html":"Most of you will notice a new feature that has been added to my newer blog posts, and even some that have already been published - and that's an audio introduction. I have decided to add in an audio tidbit...well, just because. Maybe if you're just tired of reading text, play the audio intro and you'll be good to go.
Oh wait - no, nevermind. Read the whole damn article. That's what I'm supposed to say, right?
The intros are short - usually between 40 seconds and 1.5 minutes. They are good for just a summary of the article that you're about to read and hits at some of the motivations behind the writing. They are meant to be short and to the point, not a reading of the whole damn post.
Truth be told, I've always been a bit of a radio fanatic. I've listed to talk radio as long as I can remember, from politics to sports, finances to car repair. Radio is where my true multimedia passions lie, so why not add a little bit of that passion to the blog that I run?
In the end, this blog...and really, life in general, is about having some fun and trying new things. If you can't have fun with these things, life becomes that much more frustrating to get through. For me, this is all in good fun. If it works, great. If it doesn't for whatever reason, that's cool too - at least I tried.
Thanks - and enjoy the audio!
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