Takeaways From My One-Year Blogiversary!

I can’t believe it, but it’s officially been one year since I published my first post on this blog. Where has the time gone? It feels equally fast and like I’ve been doing this forever.

It was in the early days of reading The Frugalwoods blog, which is how I first learned about financial independence (FI), that I began to wonder if I might want to blog myself. When I first started to think that I might actually have things to say about life and money. Of course, I then asked myself a bunch of paralyzing questions. I started immediately questioning myself. What do I really have to say, anyway? Would anyone read it? Does what I have to say even matter?

Then, I learned about slow FI from Jess of The Fioneers, and this rocked my world just as FI had in the beginning. At this point, the bus idea had just begun to be thrown around, and I had left my dream job to take a huge paycut, but I had so much more time in my days and was discovering how much more there is to life than work.

Around this same time, I heard The Disney Dinks (DINK stands for double income, no kids) being interviewed on the Martinis and Your Money podcast, and the name for the blog came to me immediately. I doubted the choice of Dinks on a Bus only a few times, but I always knew deep down that was it, that there was no better choice. The bus was our big dream, and is a big part of our slow FI lifestyle plan, so it seemed like the perfect blog name for somewhere where I could write about both things.

When I went to finally pull the trigger, the domain name was available (thank goodness, as I had no backup at the time). And the rest, as they say, is history.

And here I am, one year later!

Below are some takeaways from my first year blogging as Mrs. Dink of Dinks on a Bus. I hope you enjoy, and let me know what you think!

I wouldn’t change a thing

I have no regrets about how my first year of blogging went.

I did it my own way. I stayed true to myself. I made it a goal to post once a week, and for the most part, I stuck with that. And when I couldn’t make it work? I gave myself grace and didn’t get upset. Some weeks it felt more right, more true, to skip a week. And when that happened, I leaned in and went with it.

I went at my own pace. A pace that felt right. I wasn’t trying to make money from the blog or start a business, so that took a lot of the pressure off and allowed me to just write. If something didn’t feel right, I didn’t do it. In the beginning, I constantly struggled with feeling like I “should” be doing more with the blog. I should be trying harder with SEO (search engine optimization) or trying to monetize the blog. But I’m so glad I didn’t listen to those voices in my head that were speaking others’ words.

I wanted my own voice to shine through. And so that’s what I kept repeating to myself over and over all year when I doubted myself.

I made social media work for me

One of my biggest hesitations with blogging was the inevitability of also having a social media presence. When I started the blog, it had been a whole year since I gave up Facebook. I knew that a trade-off of starting the blog would be getting back on social media. But I did it intentionally, and I did it my way. And you know what? Things are going just fine.

Not only have I not slid back down the slope of being addicted to social media, but I also haven’t given in to the notion that I need to be on it all the time. I’ve used social media for my own purposes, and I haven’t focused on growing my following. Because that’s never what this was about for me. I didn’t want to start a business. I just wanted to write. If people followed me or my work, I wanted it to be because they wanted to. Because something that I wrote resonated with them.

I’ve used social media as another tool to get my work out there in the world, but I haven’t sacrificed my life or my happiness trying to get more followers and more likes. There’s nothing at all wrong with this, it’s just not what I wanted for me or my blog.

Having an accountability partner is a true blessing

I read something once that said anything you do fully is an alone journey. That passage wouldn’t have hit me as hard before slow FI. I didn’t know what it felt like to go against the norm, to live a life against the cultural grain. I had always followed a well-defined path and been “successful” in others’ eyes. Now I wanted to give up my fancy professor job? I wanted to live in a bus part time? I wanted to start a blog? How dare I spend time on bettering myself? Doing what you love, what sparks true joy, can be vulnerable. Especially if it isn’t what “everyone else is doing”. Especially if it’s against the norm of society, the checklist of things to tick off in order to live a successful life. And most people shy away from vulnerability. Because it’s hard, because it’s scary, because it causes you to go inward and take a good, hard look at your life.

I was prepared to do this blogging journey alone. Mr. Dink knows, but it’s definitely not as important to him (of course not, he hadn’t been thinking about and planning for it for years, like me). And I think I would have ended up fine if I had done it alone. But I wasn’t alone, thanks to my accountability partner.

She may not be a blogger, but she knows me and is invested in my success, just like I am for her. We started as work friends, and then morphed into accountability partners. We are fierce friends and fiercely passionate about each other’s success. I’ve never had a relationship like this in my life before, and it’s been an incredible journey, and one I have felt lucky to have as I started this blog.

I call it a blessing because I believe it’s just that. It wasn’t necessary for my success, but having an accountability partner helped immensely with my progression, and my confidence. It helped to have someone who knew my heart and why I was doing this. Her feedback was invaluable. She hasn’t read every post, but when she does it’s a gift to get feedback in real time from someone who I know, love, and trust.

I’m not going anywhere

Sometimes, during a busy week where I haven’t gotten to write as much as I like, I start to panic. I hear those nasty, doubting questions in my head again. What am I doing? How am I going to sustain this? What more do I have left to say?

And then, I sit down on a weekend to do a brainstorming session, and I have the most fun I’ve had all week. I feel like a kid again. I get into a total flow state. The ideas come pouring out. And I laugh at the fact that I ever doubted myself in the first place. When will I learn? Maybe never, and maybe that’s the point!

We’ll see where all this goes, but for now, I’m not bored. And I’m not going anywhere.

If you’re thinking of trying something, just do it

Coming into 2022, I made it a goal to start writing more. Although the blog idea had been swirling around for awhile, I didn’t want to jump right in. I didn’t even have a writing practice! I didn’t want to set myself up for failure. So I decided to start small. My goal was to write every day, even if it was just for 10 minutes in my journal. I wanted to see how that would go, where that would take me.

About a month after I made this goal, I just knew. Blogging was it. I looked back on what I’d written just to be sure, and it was so crystal clear. I had at least 10 of what I considered blog posts. Turns out, even though I thought I was just writing, I had been writing blog posts for the last month.

At this point, did I feel “ready” to start the blog? Absolutely not. I was scared to death. Vulnerability is a tough battle.

But all the advice I was reading encouraged me to just start. And so that’s what I did.

During my staycation from work in February, I made it a goal to “get ready” to start the blog. I did the research on how I wanted to do it. I bought my domain name. I bought a hosting platform. I got everything as set up as I could, with a goal of publishing my first post in mid-March.

I still wasn’t ready. I knew a million things could go wrong. I knew I’d have to learn as I went. I wondered if my content would be good enough. I wondered if my blog name was stupid. And even with all the wondering, I hit publish on that first blog post on March 19, 2022, anyway.

I’m so glad I didn’t listen to the fear. I let her stay there, but I didn’t let her rule. And I’ve had to live with the fear and doubt all the time since publishing that first post. And it still feels worth it.

Because blogging was something I felt called to do. I felt the creativity whispers, and I gave in to them, despite all the fear and doubt. I answered the call. And now, I don’t want to ever look back.

Closing thoughts

It may be shocking to hear because I’m such a fan of goal setting (and have written about goals a lot on the blog), but I didn’t set any blog-related goals for 2023.

I’m so happy, so content, I don’t see the need to do anything different. The saying “don’t fix what ain’t broke” comes to mind. Maybe if I knew I was going to shift to part-time work this year, I would. But I’m not sure if that will happen yet, and I have been doing pretty good with writing with the time I have now, working a 9-5. And for right now, I don’t want to mess with that. Especially with a niece on the way. Who knows what the future holds!

And for those of you who’ve been “with me”, reading my blog and connecting with me in various ways over this past year, thank you! It means more to me than you could ever know. I hope you’ll keep reading, and let me know what you want to hear!