Why I still blog after all these years….

I started this blog back in 2010 and, if I’m honest, I never imagined I’d still be writing it all these years later.

At the time, I was a mum of two young children who had lost both my Mam and my brother within the space of about twelve months. Losing them both in such a short time hit me hard and made me realise just how quickly life can change. It also really made me think about the things I wanted from life and what I wanted to leave behind.

I actually had two big reasons for starting the blog. The first was financial. We weren’t in the position I wanted us to be and my goal was to improve our financial well being enough that I could eventually afford to work part-time and spend more time with the children. I thought that writing about our progress would keep me accountable, almost like an online diary that I couldn’t quietly give up on when things got hard. 

A year after I started writing it and started making changes in our lives to save money, I was able to go part time at work and could start after dropping the kids off at school and was done in time to collect them. 😍

The second reason was much more personal. When my brother died, he left behind a little boy who was too young to have real memories of his dad. That stayed with me. I wanted my own children to have something they could look back on one day that captured all the little moments that make up family life. The holidays, the days out, the birthday parties, the recipes we loved, the funny things they said and all the ordinary days that seem insignificant at the time but end up being the ones you remember most.

I genuinely didn’t expect anybody else to read it. In 2010, I didn’t know anything about blogging or the opportunities that could come from it. I wasn’t trying to build a business or become an influencer because, if I remember rightly, influencers weren’t even really a thing back then. It just felt like an interesting way to document our lives.

Then people started reading and before I knew it, my little online diary had turned into something much bigger than I’d ever imagined. I made some brilliant friends through blogging, worked with brands I’d only ever dreamed of working with and had opportunities that I would never have experienced otherwise. At its busiest, the blog was getting around 350,000 page views a month and the last time I looked, it had passed five million page views in total. Even now, I still find that hard to believe because I never set out to build something that big.

Along the way I won awards, attended some amazing events and, more than anything, absolutely loved blogging. It became such a huge part of my life that I couldn’t really imagine not doing it.

Then my life changed massively! When my marriage broke down, I completely fell out of love with blogging. I’d spent years sharing our family life online and suddenly the biggest thing that had ever happened to us was the one thing I couldn’t bring myself to write about. Not sharing it almost felt dishonest, but sharing it didn’t feel right either. At the same time, I wasn’t particularly happy and I think that showed in every part of my life. The ideas stopped coming, I lost my enthusiasm and gradually the blog became something I hardly updated at all.

I also didn’t necessarily need to save as much money as I did before as the kids were older and I was back at work full time. We’d learned to be better with money and a few promotions later, our disposable income was more than it was when I’d started blogging.

For a few years, I barely posted but then my life moved on and I found my happy place in life.

I met my partner, we built a new life together and every so often I’d look at my laptop and think that I really wanted to start writing again. The only thing stopping me was me because somewhere along the way I’d convinced myself that blogging wasn’t really my thing anymore and I’d almost become embarrassed to admit that I had a blog.

Eventually, I realised that I wasn’t missing the page views or the awards and I wasn’t even missing the brand campaigns or the opportunities that blogging had brought us.

What I missed was sitting down with a cup of tea and turning something that had happened that week into a blog post. I missed pressing publish and wondering if anyone else would relate to whatever I’d just written.

So I started again, with a few false starts where I’d go in all guns blazing and then give up as the blogging world had changed so much and the little community I’d built had moved on. I kept going though, and gradually I found my blogging mojo again.

The blog looks very different these days. My children are adults now and, quite rightly, they would be horrified if I shared photos of them every week or wrote about their lives the way I did when they were little. I completely respect that, so these days the blog has naturally evolved into something different. I write more about our house, the recipes we actually eat, the bargains we find, money-saving ideas that genuinely work for us and the little everyday moments that make me smile.

I realised that just because I didn’t NEED to save money any more, I enjoy making sure that we don’t pay for for something than we need to. Intentional spending is a big thing to me – saving money so that we have more to spend on the good stuff. 

The page views aren’t what they used to be and that’s absolutely fine. Around 1,500 people still visit the blog every day and, honestly, I’m just grateful that after all these years there are still people who want to spend a few minutes reading what I’ve been up to. Some of you have been reading since the children were little and that genuinely blows my mind.

Looking back now, I don’t think this blog has ever really been about page views or awards, even though they’ve all been lovely along the way. It’s always been about documenting our life. The only difference is that the story has changed over the years. Fifteen years ago I was writing about two small children, stretching every penny and hoping that one day life might look a little different. Today I’m writing about renovating a Victorian house, cooking easy meals, finding bargains on Facebook Marketplace and trying to be a little more intentional with how we spend our money.

The subjects have changed, but the reason I sit down and write hasn’t really changed at all.

I still enjoy it.

And as long as I still have stories to tell, recipes to share and the occasional bargain that I’m more excited than I should be about, I can’t really see myself stopping.

I’d love you to follow me on Twitter and it would be amazing to see you over on my Facebook page and on Instagram. If you’re interested, you can find out more about me here and while I’ve got your attention, if you’re wondering why some of my posts lately are a little bit less frugal then have a read of this post. 😉

Do your future self a favour – Pin this post for later.