Hope for your financial life and beyond

My A – Z List of Blog Related Things I’m Thankful For

Yes, I know. What a strange thing to write about during the week of Thanksgiving. There are so many more important things to be thankful for. Certainly family, friends, freedom and prosperity, health and faith all rank near the top of thankfulness for me.

thankfulBut over the past ten years of writing, I have managed to carve out this tiny space of the web for myself. My intent was never to become THE place for finance advice and make a living from this site. Others are doing that much better than I ever could.

Rather, I’ve used this site as a dumping place for my journey with finances and my faith. It’s helped me more than probably anyone else to clarify my worldview about finances and how that worldview works itself out in my life. I owe who I am today to the writing and research I’ve done over the past decade.

But along the way, I know I’ve also helped others. There is great encouragement in that. It’s one of the things that gives me purpose to keep the site active and updated as much as my busy life allows.

So, I’m taking a different route today with this Thanksgiving week post. I’m sharing my A-Z list of blogging related things I’ve come to be most thankful for over the past 10 years. Some have relevance in the past as things that got me through the early years. Others continue to drive me to this day to bring the best content I can to this platform.

Wherever you are today, you have so much to be thankful for. Here’s what I’m thankful for as I continue to bring hope for people’s financial life and beyond.

Thankful Thoughts About My Blog

A – Analytics. Analytics isn’t everything in blogging. But it is very helpful to know what is happening on your site. Tracking page views, where they come from, how long they each readers stays on your site is useful information. In the early days, it encouraged me to see my site growing and that my efforts were not in vain.

B – Buffer. Buffer is a very simple but amazing tool for sharing content across your various social media platforms. The interface is simple to use and the cost is very reasonable for what I need.

C – Comments. Truthfully, I’ve had some of my best conversations in the comments section of my posts. I’m still amazed that people are not afraid to ask questions and post their feelings online. There hurting people who struggle with money and it’s a blessing to be able to coach and encourage them through the tough times.

D – Debt Journey. Debt is one of the topics that divides the finance community. The extremes go from never having it to using it everyday to manage your life. This blog has helped me explore my feelings about it and come up with logical reasons why I never want to go down the debt-path again.

Related Content: How to Get Out of Debt and Win in Five Simple Steps

E – Encouragement. I was not prepared for the level of support and encouragement I would receive from the blogging community and from my readers. I thought I would receive more criticism for my thoughts. But that has not been the case over the years. The critics have been few and far between.

F – Facebook. Over the years, this has been the best outlet for me to share posts with friends.

G – Genesis Framework. I am thankful for companies like Studiopress who build the bones websites and create themes so I didn’t have to. I could not have started blogging had I needed to do that myself.

H – Helping Others. In the end, this is what it’s all about, right? Why write unless to make an impact and redirect the course of someone’s life.

I – Ideas. The web is all about sharing ideas. When I engaged with the finance community, I realized there are so many quality ideas shared everyday. Unfortunately, there are also many poor ideas share everyday. So the goal for me became being able to bring ideas to my community that added value to their life and did not take them off course with their money.

J – Jetpack. This is a must-have plugin for any beginner on WordPress. It helps with email, social media, comments, coding, widgets and a host of other blog issues.

K – Kingdom Messages. It’s very important for me to discuss my faith in God. It’s an intricate part of my life that I cannot ignore. This blog has given me an outlet to share those encouraging and inspiring message with others.

Related Content: 15  Bible Verses to Remind Us to Be Thankful

L – Link Checkers. Quality links help add value to any article a blogger publishes. I’ve linked to thousands since I started this site. But sometimes the linked urls from other sites change as that owner makes adjustments, thus rendering your initial link inoperative. A broken link checker plugin helps detect those quickly so you can make the necessary updates. It’s been a life-saver for me.

M – Monetization. Like I said in the opening, I’ve never set out to make a living from this site. But I’m thankful I’ve made enough money over the years to keep the lights on.

N – NFTs and Crypto. Why am I thankful for these things? Because they have given the personal finance world something to write about. They are controversial and mostly unproven as an investment. But the potential exists (for crypto maybe more so) to be something one day. When will that be, if ever? I don’t know, but they are both fascinating topics to debate with fellow finance bloggers and readers.

O – Opinions. Reader opinions help keep blogs alive. The blogs I enjoy reading the most have an active commenting community where people are bouncing ideas off one another and stimulating further conversation on the post topic.

P – Pageviews. In the dark days when I first started, I obsessed about a pageviews. I’d check every few hours. I’ve come to realize that pageviews aren’t everything and don’t define me as a blogger. But I am thankful people continue to visit and draw encouragement from what I post.

Q – Quitter. I’ve talked with so many people who are longing to quit their job and transition into something else. It’s their dream. If that’s you, then the book Quitter: Closing the Gap Between Your Day Job and Your Dream Job by Jon Acuff is the book you need to read – before you quit your job.

R – Ramsey, Dave. I know he is criticized in many personal finance circles for the simplicity of his ideas. But it was his message that got me started on this journey in the first place. Thanks Dave!

S – Spam Blockers. Holy Cow! It’s wild how many spammers try to infiltrate your site with their content. I’m closing in on one million spam comments being blocked by my anti-spam software. So I’m thankful software exists to monitor people like this (who really need to get a life and stop bothering people trying to help people).

T – Twitter. Yes, in some circles it’s a controversial platform. But again, it gives me reach into other people’s lives I’d otherwise not have.

U – Unsplash. One of the most difficult things when posting an article is to find free quality images for your post. Most sites with free content are junk. But there are several that have emerged in the last few years that you can find quality images on. One I use often is Unsplash.com.

V – Vision. Vision drives everything in life. Where there is no purpose or vision, people perish. My vision remains the same as when I started: To bring hope to people’s financial world.

Related Content: God Places Us for a Purpose – Find Yours

W – Widgets. Widgets are small applications that serve a limited purpose and can be plugged in anywhere on a web page. Another tool to help those of us who can’t write code enhance the blog pages for the readers.

X – XML Sitemaps. I don’t know the technicalities behind how this works. But they help search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing index your blog, assumingly to pull up appropriate articles from your site that people search for. That’s got to be a good thing, right?

Y – Yoast. Yoast is simply one of the best programs out there for SEO. It’s helped improve me as a writer and content provider. I know I wouldn’t have as many pageviews without using this tool.

Z – Zany posts like this. You just never know what creative posts you will find in the blog world from day to day. I hope you keep coming back to read mine for another 10 years!

Have a great Thanksgiving holiday!

Leave a Comment or Answer a Question Below: What are you thankful for this holiday season? What other blogs do you enjoy? What vision do you have for your life? Are you still on a debt journey or have you paid off all your debt?

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

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Comments

  1. What a creative Thanksgiving post! Haha

  2. Credit Card Shoppe says

    I’d have to say Freelancer is a pretty good thing to be thankful for. I’ve come up with a few minor problems with my blog layout that would have taken me hours upon hours to figure out. You know..just minor tweaks here and there. I’m sure I could have figured it out, but is my time really worth the headache? Nope. So, I can always find a good and contractor to get whatever I need done, fast and at a reasonable price. Thank you Freelancer!

  3. MakintheBacon says

    This is such a clever list!! I’m thankful for a lot of things you mentioned on the list. I’m thankful that the blogosphere is such a great community and people are willing to help you out- all you have to is ask.

    • “…all you have to is ask.” It’s funny though…for many people (me included) that’s the toughest part. We always think we can figure things out on our own. However, if we humbled ourselves more often and weren’t so prideful, we could probably learn more and complete projects faster.

  4. Very nice list, Brian.

    I wonder if you had some trouble with a few of those lists!
    Good luck on your Yakezie challenge, my friend. Very nice site you have here. We’ll be glad to have you on board.

  5. Great list Brian! I have yet to take advantage of blog carnivals just because I can’t see how I can squeeze one more blog related thing into my day. LOL! I need a personal assistant! Hope you had a wonderful thanksgiving!

    • I guess it depends on how much time you want to put into it. I usually submit up my Monday and Wednesday posts to appear in carnivals that are usually published that weekend. I probably spend 15-20 minutes submitting the articles into the forms. I try to get into at least 5 different ones per week.

  6. There’s definitely a lot of encouragement, which is nice. Good post. Happy thanksgiving.

  7. aha… brilliant post Brian. I’m very thankful that I didn’t quit and that somehow I’m still going.

  8. One thing I’m thankful about as far as blogging goes (besides the community) is the limitless potential. You can literally make as much money as you want blogging, publish as often as you want, etc. It’s perfect!

  9. Hey Brian,
    Nice list, I agree with others that this list is different than other’s Thanksgiving list. Those are some nice apps I’ll have to check it out. Happy Thanksgiving

    • I’m still discovering new things to make my life easier. Anything that can be automated and run in the background without you paying much attention to it is great.

  10. Very creative indeed!

  11. Six Figures Under says

    When I read the title I thought there would have to be some serious stretches to fit all the letters, but it worked out quite nicely! Great job. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

  12. Very unique! You’re right it gets a little boring reading all the same thankful lists, I like your creativity. I am grateful that I have met so many wonderful people through blogging and that it was the catalyst for me being able to do what I love!

    • Meeting quality people was the biggest thing I was unprepared for. I thought blogging would just lead me to people who rejected my ideas and were negative all the time. I’m glad I was wrong…it would make this a lot less fun.

  13. Joe Robinson says

    This is some great information that will be very useful.

  14. U – unlimited

  15. Great, and inventive, list here, Brian!! Lots of good info also – many thanks. 🙂

  16. Color Me Frugal says

    This is great! And thanks for mentioning Nrelate related content. I had not heard of that one- but it’s on my site now!! Thanks a million!!!

  17. Holly Johnson says

    Nice! I was wondering what the X and Z were gonna be. You pulled it off!

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