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Responding to a Comment

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I received a comment earlier today, and instead of responding in the comments I thought I would respond in a post since it brings up some good points.

Hey Tricia,
I love ur site and I know you are going to leave soon but I feel that in the last month or so it has gotten less personal and more linky/ady. It’s good info. for people that need it but nothing a google search won’t find. I think there are others that might agree with me when I say I started following this blog because it was a story. A story that I could learn from and enjoyed reading.
Anyway, that’s just my 22 cents

I agree that there have been links lately. I don’t always keep up with my emails on a daily basis and I often spend the weekend replying and sometimes I take longer than a week to reply. I still try to reply to every email I receive and I tend to be long winded in emails. I easily get behind. When I go through my emails, I find some links readers have sent me. They have found value in them so I sometimes pass them on. I don’t always do it. It depends on the link and if I have time to check out the validity of the links.

That said, those links have come in handy. Our financial life has been pretty darn boring lately. I’ve been mentioning new things we have been trying (like the grocery price book) and I’ve had to vent a little (like with our gas bill). Expense wise, we haven’t made many changes lately. Many of the changes have been made during the past three years and I’ve already discussed them.

Which brings up a good point. The three year anniversary of our debt reduction journey is coming up. I haven’t posted many financial details lately, so I’ve been working to get some anniversary-related posts ready. I really want to take a closer look at everything, since that was put on the side burner for a while. I tend to be a perfectionist when it comes to things like that and I will keep looking even when I’m only missing one receipt. It’s a character flaw.

Income-wise, things are pretty boring as well. We are still working the same jobs and our business is steadily growing. I’ve chosen to not discuss details of our business on here – at least not at this time. That’s not to say that I won’t discuss things in a private setting. I know a few of you have written and received novels in response. That’s me! LOL

When your financial life is boring, it’s tough to blog. That’s why I did one of those various updates posts the other day. There isn’t enough to make a full post out of each point. In a way, it’s a good thing when your financial life is boring since there aren’t any bumps in the road right now (knock on wood). I think that could be contributing to the knot in my stomach as well – things are going well…almost too well right now financially.

That’s not to say that all is well in other aspects of our life. Our son has been needing a lot of our time after a disability has come to light. It is not life threatening, but in Tricia fashion I hit the books and the internet hard to learn as much as I could to help our son (it reminds me of how we started with debt reduction – I read a lot). It hasn’t had much of a financial impact yet, unless you consider the time spent as lost income-producing time. There could be costs if we need additional testing/therapy and it could put us in more debt. I’m taking it one day at a time in regards to that. Out of respect for our son’s privacy I have decided to not discuss his disability in length on here.

About the leaving part, yeah, that will happen. I’m not sure when, but our credit card payoff goal date is still May of this year. It will be bittersweet, and there will be more on that later. I’m still coming to terms with the whole credit card payoff – retiring from blogging thing. It still seems a bit surreal.

Oh boy, I’m writing a novel again 🙂

To sum it up, I have been linking to other sites lately. I’ll try to tone it down some or keep it to a weekly thing (if possible). I think I can do that because anniversary posts will be coming this weekend and early next week and today was a good mail day (no bills – just things that I could discuss). It will be a balancing act because I receive some great tips from readers.

I do, however, have to sneak in one more link right now because I found the cutest thing to make with your old credit cards! Credit Card Flower Box Fridge Magnet. I am soooo making one (or two) of these when I get a chance! 🙂


14 Comments

  • Reply Crispy |

    Every good story has an ending, and this is just the dénouement – the calm after the climax. I don’t mind the links – I would rather see links that were hand-picked by a writer I respect, like Tricia, than links served up cold by a search engine.

    Looking forward to the May payoff event, Tricia – I assume you’ll be inviting all of your loyal readers over for champagne and crackers? 🙂

  • Reply MrPlasectomy |

    It will be sad to see you go as I just found your blog a few months ago. I have enjoyed reading past postings and reading about your success over the past couple years. Of course with life all things have to come to an end at some point, just don’t make it to abrupt. Some of use need to be weaned off it like a drug.

    The credit card flower box is a fantastic idea. I will be doing that as well, it seems to be a fitting use for something that can create such havoc on someone’s life that it can repurposed to nurture provide life.

  • Reply Trixie |

    Hi Tricia,

    I just thought I would let you know how much I enjoy reading here. Your Misc post on a variety of things was great. I use a price book too, and have noticed things are consistantly going up with one nice exception: a gallon of milk used to be $4.19 and it’s now $3.19.

    I understand about your financial life not having any new updates. We are just plugging away at paying our mortgage off and don’t have much of anything new and exciting to say. But it still feels great to make headway on it.

    Take Care,

    Trixie

  • Reply Adam |

    Don’t change a thing. Keep writing what you want to write and quit when you’re ready. You can’t please everyone and I can assure you that including links to other interesting sites on the web is not something to shy away from. That is one of the things that makes Al Gore’s internet so great! It is totally dynamic, and if you think there is something that 1 person may find helpful, then post it!!!

    Thanks for the site. I enjoy reading!

  • Reply Leah |

    Hi Tricia,
    I love your site, and like MrPlastectomy, just started reading a few months ago and will be sad to see you go. I understand your position with making progress against your debt but not having anything really exciting to report. Keep up the good work! We’re all cheering for you 🙂

    On another note, I checked out the link for the credit card planter, and just made one for myself! I’m waiting for the glue to dry on the magnet (I cut up one of the AmEx card-style magnets they keep sending my BF!) and as soon as I pick up some seeds, I’m good to go! Thanks for the link!
    -Leah

  • Reply Margot |

    It was sad to read the reference to maybe needing to go into more debt in the paragraph about your son. After this long, I would have hoped you’d have a totally different perspective on debt. There is something very powerful to taking a Dave Ramsey stance of literally refusing to go into debt (or at least certain kinds of debt like no debt other than a mortgage). It forces you to think outside the box. I wonder if you’re retaining too much of your old attitude to find long-term financial freedom and success. I hope not. Yes, your son’s learning is critically important. But debt is not necessary. If you decide that debt is not an option, you’ll do whatever it takes to save up the money you need, work extra to provide what he needs, find what he needs at free or reduced prices, etc. Good luck to you.

  • Reply HS |

    I think a good debt blog has to be dramatic, for example JW’S Need to be debt free, had so much bad stuff happening to him that his readers looked forward to the next mishap in his financial life, finally it looks like he had enough and quit. Felt like his readers enjoyed how miserable he was… I kinda felt bad for him but that’s what made his blog popular.

    I only get around 10 readers on my blog but I try to provide as much proof as possible about my debt and try to be truthful to my readers about my finances. I have actual screenshots about my balances and I provide as much details as possible.

    Good luck in the future…

    HS

  • Reply Matt |

    Hi Tricia, I haven’t commented for a while the whole life thing made me incredibly busy lately. It will be a bittersweet day. On one hand it will be amazing to see your ultimate success – I’ve always enjoyed reading about your progress because I’ve struggled with mine. On the flip site there won’t be any more updates.

    Have you contemplated altering the blog to discuss other aspects of your financial journey?

  • Reply louise |

    it’s great to see you under the $5000 mark with the debt, I too will be sad to see you go when the debt is paid off, but really happy for you and glad that you let me share the journey, all the best with your son.

  • Reply danielle |

    I really admire how, when you get criticism in your comments, you bring it to the front page and respond to them civilly. That’s not an easy thing to do.

  • Reply fitwallet |

    Your blog was one of the first ones I discovered last June, when I was overwhelmed by the thought of paying off our credit card debt. We had almost finished paying it down, only to find that my partner hadn’t paid an old $5,000 debt and was being sued. We settled for $3,400, put it on a new credit card, and I was so upset. But reading your story about paying off much more than that made me realize it could be done, with hard work and sacrifice. And just two weeks ago, we did it! So thanks for the inspiration, and keep posting whatever you want 🙂

  • Reply emmi |

    Seems like the tone and content of the blog had to change, since you don’t want to blog the same kind of details about your son and business as you did about things in the past. This is completely understandable. Since it’s not possible to discuss these issues peripherally to provide the same kind of content as before, you’ve found something else to provide. I’m cool with it. You are being wisely careful while a few other blogs I used to read have had to close shop for not being so. So, do what you need to do.

    (Frankly, when you did provide details it broke down into a tug of war in the comments that was not particularly nice reading anyway. So, stick to your guns.)

    Your money saving mentality has been helping me with my diet. Budgeting money and budgeting eating and exercise are remarkably similar. And our family is doing one of these weight loss pools now so I plan to even make money off of it, lol.

    As to your son, it’s nice to see you are leaving every option open. These are important years of his life that cannot be recaptured. I think I like your blog over some of the others because you are so pragmatic and not obsessive. You are a normal person adopting difficult rules for your family without becoming someone else in the process.

    (novel writing in the comments is allowed, too, right? 😉

  • Reply Kev |

    I discovered your blog over a year ago and have been a dedicated reader every since. It was you and No Credit Needed who introduced me to the world of personal finance blogging.

    It was kind of weird b/c I actually started looking for you and others like you before I even knew you existed. I had never even heard of financial blogging before. I guess what I was really looking for was other people like me. People who had found themselves in the ultimate of financial messes and were determined to pick themselves back up and fix it – the right way. I was extremely motivated and excited about the changes I was making and I loved discussing my progress with others who were experiencing the same challenges and successes that I was. Your blog and other blogs like yours gave me a much needed outlet and for that – I thank you. It will be bitter-sweet to see you move on. I am happy for you though and wish you the best.

So, what do you think ?