The Frugal Cottage Turns 1!

The Frugal Cottage is 1 year today! I bought the domain on May 31st, and posted my first post on June 1st, which is a year ago today. I have been formulating plans around a blog for some time, though it took me a while to bite the bullet and actually set one up.

I must admit, I was worried that no one would want to read anything I wrote. What happens if I didn’t know enough about personal finance? What happens if I ran out of blog ideas two months in? But, once I sat down and started to plan posts, ideas around how we sustain our lifestyle and then what we wanted from the future, it all became miraculously clear. And the more I wrote about our plans for the future, the more determined I am that we succeed.

 

I set myself a regular posting schedule, which was posting every Tuesday, Friday and Sunday. You know what? I’ve managed that, for an entire year. Something which I’m immensely proud of; even when I thought I didn’t have a blog post to write, even when I felt ill, or down, or demotivated, I managed to keep to that exact schedule for the year. I don’t know many other things that I’ve stuck at for so long!

 

More so, it has been amazing and somewhat humbling to see my readership grow over the past year. What started off as very low viewer numbers has grown steadily over the last 12 months. I’m constantly amazed that other people want to read my ramblings on here, which I am incredibly thankful for. Our journey towards a simple life, retiring early and making the most of things is going to be an amazing, stressful, sometimes hard, but fantastically rewarding, and I’m grateful for those of you who have offered insight along the way so far. It makes me feel like I’m not alone in our quest, nor that it is an impossible dream. It also makes me feel happy that there are other people who want to simplify their lives, and live a life that is not dictated by a 9-5 job. 

 

The top 10 posts at The Frugal Cottage over the last year are:

1) 10 Personal Finance Blogs You Should Be Reading – a roundup of my favourite personal finance blogs.

2) 5 Easy Ways To Reduce Grocery Costs – grocery costs are always mounting so it’s no surprise this is the second most viewed post on the blog!

3) How To Stick To A Budget In 2015 – I’m a big fan of budgets, and so creating a new one for a new year seems like an obvious thing to do. This post sets about how to succeed with a new budget.

4) The Ultimate Dream – this is where I half seriously, half wishfully post about what I want our future to be.

5) How Our Budget Works + A Free Budget Template! I hope that the budget templates have been helpful to people; this is how our budget works.

6) Why I’m Aiming To Save 50% Of Our Income – reading many PF blogs shows that we’re not saving enough of our income. Here’s why it matters.

7) My Investment Strategy – a post about my thoughts on investing, though I’ve not actually started with this yet. Maybe in Year 2!

8) Our Ultimate Dream: An Update – an honest look at how we’re doing with our ultimate dream fund (hint: not that well!)

9) Why We’re (sort of) Paying Off Our Mortgage Early – mortgage overpayments seem to divide the pf world, but this is our plan, for now.

10) The Frugal Cottage Is Expanding – life is going to get a little busier around here!

 

I want to thank everyone who has visited, left a comment, followed me on any social media platform, sent emails or general encouragement. I didn’t realise how much time blogging would take up, far from it, but I have enjoyed it immensely over the past year. I’m looking forward to Year 2, another year of learning and sharing knowledge so that more people can live the life they deserve to lead.

 

What kind of things do you want to see on The Frugal Cottage in Year 2? Any particular posts you would enjoy reading?