HELLO PARTY PEOPLE!!! LET’S MAKE SOME NOISE IN THIS JOINT!!!
For those of you who may not know us, we are Greg and Holly from Club Thrifty. Although our blog has only been up for 9 months, it seems like ages ago that we decided to bring the awesome sauce to personal finance. Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into back then. We thought we would just write some funny stuff, people would come and read it, and we’d spend maybe an hour a day working on our new little project. Boy, were we wrong.
Some Background
The year was 2010, and there we were…wondering how all of our money kept disappearing. We had always thought that we were living a frugal lifestyle. We believed that we were pinching our pennies. Yet, even though we were making a very nice income at our jobs, we had barely any savings to show for it. That is when we discovered the prettiest girl in the financial room – the zero-sum budget.
After cozying up to our new budget, we realized that we were literally eating up all of our money. OK, so maybe not literally. I mean, it’s not like I was dipping Benjamins in ketchup and chowing down on them. However, we were hitting the local eateries several times a week. On top of that, we had a bunch of consumer debt to which we were shelling out monthly payments. We decided – then and there – that we were going to control our spending and get out of debt as soon as possible.
Our new attitude toward our personal finances quickly snowballed into new interests. We began watching less TV. In fact, we cut the cord to cable completely. We limited our restaurant trips to once a month and kept a very close eye on all of our spending. About a year later, we had paid off about $20,000 in consumer debt. From there, we decided to attack our mortgage.
Birth Of The Blog
During this time, we began to read several different financial blogs. We learned a lot from these blogs and found an online community where we felt we belonged. After batting around the idea for a few weeks, we decided to start our own blog – hoping to inspire others while keeping ourselves accountable for our own financial decisions.
Working on the blog has been A LOT more difficult than we expected. We really didn’t know the first thing about blogging when we started, which made things a wee bit difficult. Luckily, we discovered the Yakezie Network. The members here have been so helpful and supportive as we have stumbled our way through building our blog.
Every time we have needed help, Yakezie members have stepped in to lend a hand. Each time we had a question, Yakezie members have been happy to give us an answer. During those times when we were frustrated and ready to quit, Yakezie members were there with words of encouragement and helped to keep us going. We are so glad that we did!
Since we started Club Thrifty nine months ago, we have been very fortunate. Many of you have visited our website, and some of you have become good friends. We are stoked that we have finally found a community that understands our values. Yakezie has been a very important part of our blog’s success thus far, and we hope to be able to add some value to the network in the future. We are very proud to be the newest members of the Yakezie Network, and there is just one thing left for us to say:
WE MADE IT!!! WOOOOHOOOOO!!!
Welcome guys! Pretty amazing it’s only been 9 months for you guys. You guys have come a long way very quickly. Thanks for your support on my site and may you guys keep on rocking.
Thanks Sam! We appreciate your support as well. We’ll try to keep this thing a rocking:)
I never would have guessed you guys have only been around for 9 months. You guys seriously have rocked it pretty hard in such a short time.
Thanks Johnny! We’ve put a TON of work into this thing, but we have found that we love doing it. We appreciate all of your support!
YES! Welcome to the club. The drinks are great on this side :) Pretty excited to be on a team with you wonderful people :)
Right back atcha Jake! BTW…you were right. This salmon dip is AMAZING!!!
Welcome to the network! I can’t believe it has only been 9 months – I feel like your stature in the community makes you seem like a veteran.
Thank you very much! Glad to be here. I don’t know about stature, but you’re gonna make us blush with comments like that :)
I have enjoyed following you guys during the journey. I have only been around for 6 months and my challenge is coming to a close soon. Keep up the great work and I will continue to follow along.
Thanks Grayson! Keep it up! We enjoy your site:)
I enjoyed reading your story and am glad I could be inducted into Yakezie in the same class as you guys! Congrats on coming so far in such a short time period!
Thanks Lance! I think we have a great class here! We’ve enjoyed getting to know you as well!
Good luck and welcome. Blogging is so much more work than one could imagine!!! Enjoy the journey.
Thanks Barb. You’re right, blogging has been much more work than we ever imagined…but we love it!
Welcome, guys and well done during the first nine months. I’ll be visiting for the next several years :).
Thanks Maria!!! Much appreciated:)
How many hours do you each spend on the blog in an average week?
I have been with wordpress for 3 months and I was with Goggle for 3 months before that but I don’t really count the Google time because I had no idea what I was doing and Google was not very helpful.
Hi Jane,
At the moment, we do everything ourselves, so we each spend somewhere between 15-20 hours a week (at least). Like most bloggers, this is in addition to our full-time jobs and family life. That time is spent commenting, answering emails, writing, proofreading, publishing, and doing SEO work, etc.. Not all of it is spent on our blog as we both do some freelance writing as well. However, the vast majority of that is spent on Club Thrifty.
That is a full time job split between the 2 of you. No wonder you are doing so well.
Saturday night in Canada. Worked all day today. Hockey on tv and struggling to think up an idea for my next post but thinking I should go to bed because I have to work early Sunday morning.
Congrats guys! Your success is well deserved. I’ve been a fan of you site for a while now.
Congrats on the success you two have made. Holly was one of the first bloggers to visit The Frugal Path and I’ve followed you two ever since. I can’t wait to see where the next nine months will take you.
Keep up the great work!
Congrats on becoming a Member! I know what it’s like to blog on the side while working full time. It can get quite hectic but isn’t it so much fun?! :) I like the palm tree “T” in your logo btw,
Congratulations and welcome. Where’s the party?
congrats guys, that is well deserved!
Congrats on making it so quickly. It shows how successful one can be when they put their mind to it.
Congrats! I’m hoping I can say the same when the time comes. It’s only been about a month of Yakezie for me!
Congratulations on becoming a member! You’ve definitely accomplished a lot in 9 short months. Best of luck in the future.
Thanks everybody! We love being a part of this community:)
Welcome Greg and Holly! Sharing your experiences so that others may learn is what Yakezie is all about. Best of luck to you!
Congrats to you both! I think it’s awesome that you BOTH blog, hopefully Mrs. Brick By Brick steps up to the keyboard one of these days.