This is a long overdue update. While the overall explanation is quite complex, basically we needed to make some major changes to the way we run our websites to stay viable. This has meant completely redoing many of the sites we run, a refocus on many of them and changes in priorities. While we were doing all of this, we left BAD to run on it’s own which wasn’t the greatest approach with all that was going on, but the site was in much better shape than the other projects which took precedence and we knew it would survive.
The good news is that we have managed to implement most of the changes we wanted to over the last six months, and now should be around to spend more time making sure things are going smoothly at BAD (while continuing to stay in the background so the writers can tell their stories). Here are a few changes you will be seeing in the coming months.
Surveys: The surveys we put up at the beginning of the year have been removed. We originally placed them up as a test to see if we could pay the writers a bit from the income they generated, but they never did as well as we hoped. You will no longer see them, and should not have seen them for about a month now.
New Writer: We will be having a new writer join Ashley and Hope starting with the new year. We have decided to limit the writers to three for now (as opposed to the four we originally started with), and the new writer will be male. As with all the writers, we hope you can glean helpful information from all of them as they blog about their debt experience, but there is no requirement to follow all of them. We will be setting up an individual day for the three of them to write (Mon, Tues and Wed) as theirs, and then have the other four open for those who have more to write that particular week.
Other Writers: We will also be allowing others to contribute guest posts. Since these won’t be ongoing, they won’t be a in depth and detailed as many of the regular writers’ posts. For those who want to avoid them, we will be limiting them to Friday, Saturday and Sunday and we hope these can help supplement the regular writers when they get busy. In some cases (but not all), these will also allow us to pay the regular writers a bit for all the writing they do. Anyone is free to contribute, be the one requirement we have is that it has to be a first person account of how they have reduced debt or saved money in some way. If you don’t want to read them, you know they will be on the weekends and can ignore them.
Your Suggestions: If there is something that you would like to see to better the blog, feel free to leave a comment and we will look into whether we can do it. Again, thank you for your patience over the last six months while we have been absent tending to other matters. We hope that won’t be the case going forward…
Jeffrey strain is a freelance author, his work has appeared at The Street.com and seekingalpha.com. In addition to having authored thousands of articles, Jeffrey is a former resident of Japan, former owner of Savingadvice.com and a professional digital nomad.
Nice!
Looking forward to the added perspective.
I find these guest posts to be annoying and unhelpful – particularly because there is no interaction like with the other bloggers. We can comment on the posts but there is no reply
just ignore/don’t read them. That’s what i’ve done. Problem solved
I’m hoping the authors will interact (and have suggested to them all that they do), but I don’t have control over that. If you find them unhelpful, as debtor suggested, simply ignore them.
I follow by email subscription so I would appreciate if the author could put their name, and/or a quick bio, at the beginning of the article. There is no “by..” in the email version and it takes a little bit to figure out who is writing.
Thanks for the update….and thanks for getting rid of those surveys:)
I like the current format with two writers, but welcome another voice. Sometimes I like the guest posts and sometimes I skip them, but it’s a nice addition to the site.
I don’t care for the guest posts. When the first one appeared, I thought, “Where did that come from?” The format of your site has always been to follow specific people down their debt-paying path. I’m not sure why you are shaking up your blog this way. “Staying in the background” is not the same as basic blog maintenance. For instance, the two bloggers who dropped out should have been dropped from the sidebar long ago. Is there a time limit on how long these bloggers share their story? I’m not sure if I have seen that. You have to have committed people to make this work. (like Ashley!) If there is not some kind of measurable progress by the bloggers, the readers will lost interest in their story. I’m not saying that paying off debt is easy, but it’s what people come to this blog to read.
Jeffrey, I’m willing to do some updates occasionally from us through 2015, please let me know.
Adam (and Emily)
Yes, I would definitly like to read Adam’s and Emily’s update.
Hope things are working out fine in your lives.
I enjoy guest posts and would also like to see updates from previous BAD writers. I always look forward to more content on this site. I suggest having a brief 2-5 sentence background written by the guest to quickly introduce themselves and their post. Otherwise the comment section will be full of whiners (WHO is this??) and there will be no chance of discussion. And like others have said, if you don’t care for the guest posts, don’t read them.
I tried to find an e-mail address because I didn’t want to post this as a comment, but I can’t find one. I have been reading BAD since the beginning, and while that doesn’t make my opinion more valuable I would think you would like feedback from loyal readers, so here are several points:
1. Don’t tell readers that they were your last priority.
2. Don’t err on the side of neglect when trying not to micromanage.
3. Don’t keep bloggers who are clearly not committed.
Having said that, I would be content if Ashley were the only blogger, although I know her life probably doesn’t allow that. Stephannie’s posts were good, but it seems that her life didn’t allow for her to continue. Jim gave the impression of being a con-man, and Hope gives the impression of someone who wants to get rid of her debt… after she has everything else she wants. Hope’s posts sometimes appear to me to encourage those who make endless excuses for delaying debt reduction. I really don’t mean that to sound harsh, but she just doesn’t seem to be in a place in life that allows for being a credible debt blogger.
Perhaps it’s just a case of trying to force lightning to strike repeatedly, but BAD’s quality hasn’t been anywhere near Tricia or Beks since they left. I can live with that and still be a reader, but it really has deteriorated to the point where there is only one readable author left. I will continue to read and hope the site continues to improve. I appreciate that the bloggers put themselves out there. I don’t think I could.
1. Don’t tell readers that they were your last priority.
Please read post below.
2. Don’t err on the side of neglect when trying not to micromanage.
Our philosophy is that once the bloggers are chosen, it’s their story. You may not like their story, but it isn’t our place to tell them what their story is. It’s one of the reasons we chose a number of bloggers — so that there could be different stories that might resonate with different readers.
3. Don’t keep bloggers who are clearly not committed.
Again, it’s their story. We don’t tell them what “commitment” is because there is a huge range and it would be different for different people. If you don’t find you’re getting something from one of the bloggers, don’t read that blogger.
JFYI: Beks was by far the most polarizing blogger and we had literally dozens of readers write that they would no longer follow the blog if we kept her. I told them the same thing that I wrote to you above. It’s her story and she gets to tell it like she wants.
The guest posts are all about SEO, which is really a cheap shot and non-authentic. I agree with Pam above. Don’t outright tell your readers that the blog they are regularly visiting is low priority for you.
Totally agree. Supposedly these ‘guest bloggers’ are regular BAD readers, yet not one of them responds to any comments made on their posts. Being told to ignore those posts is insulting. Thank God for Ashley
All valid points and I understand why you might not be happy with the decisions I’ve made. That being said, it was the best choice in a situation of only bad choices.
Let me try to frame it in a financial scenario. We found ourselves in a situation where our budget was out of whack. We weren’t generating enough income to cover our outgoing expenses. In that situation we had two choices…cut expenses or increase income. Since cutting expenses (selling BAD) wasn’t an option, we needed to increase income. Unfortunately, BAD is not a blog that generates much income. Think of it as a hobby you enjoy and would like to spend time on, but it doesn’t help out with paying the rent. So we concentrated on the blogs that would let us pay the rent in order to get the finances in order. Now that we have solved the budget problem, we can spend more time on BAD. Again, I understand if you don’t like this decision, but given the alternatives, it was the one that made the most sense.
If you have any ideas on how the blog can make more money so that it gets more attention, I’d love to hear it. We spend a lot of time on it for little money because we feel it’s a great outlet and helps people think through their own finances while getting a chance to see how others approach their financial problems. We are more than willing to put that time in when we have it, but when tough financial choices have to be made, they get made on reality and not what we’d like to be doing much like when you have to make tough choices on your monthly budget.