posted on May 21, 2019
Welcome to the “Tell Your Story” highlight reel.
If you haven’t guessed it as yet, everyone has a story. Within each is identifiable life experiences, anyone can glean from if open to receive.
This is a Highlight Reel of another’s life journey designed to inspire. Have a coffee/tea and read on as Emilie shares her story.
I’m Emilie, and I’m so glad to be stopping by here at The Watering Whole! I have been blogging about money, life, and mental health at Wise Mind Money for a little over a year now. I love reading, hanging out with my dogs, paying off debt, and anything food-related. I work in human services and am passionate about helping people. I live in a small town in Ohio with my husband, our two dogs Lila and Helga, and we will soon be joined (June 2019) by our first child. Thanks for having me on your blog, Al!
Why did you start blogging?
I have actually had a couple different blogs, so the idea of blogging and writing always came naturally to me. I started one when I was in grad school that was going to be about mental health (the field I work in), but I only wrote a few posts before I gave it up. Even though I stopped blogging there, I learned a lot about the basics of blogging and that gave me a good foundation of knowledge to start my current blog. I started Wise Mind Money because my husband and I graduated college (undergrad for him, undergrad plus graduate school for me) with a combined $108,000 in student debt, and I wanted to chronicle our way out of it and give hope to others in similar situations. We don’t make a lot of money and we want to pay our debt off quickly, and I want to be an encouragement to others while also showing them that they aren’t alone.
What hurdles (mental or physical) did you have to overcome to get your blog started and continue on today?
So many hurdles! First is just the basics of learning about blogging. There are so many posts out there all about “How to Start Your Own Blog in 10 Minutes!” A lot of them just want you to use their link because they get a kickback if you purchase hosting through it, but some of them are actually helpful. I read a lot of articles on starting a blog and learned all about WordPress and hosting and other stuff that didn’t make any sense when I first started out.
After those basics, the hardest thing for me is just writing! I have a list of ideas of topics to write about, but sometimes I don’t have the time to write in a week, or sometimes I just don’t feel like writing that week, or I don’t think my topics are interesting enough. That has caused me to miss a couple months of blogging at times, but once I get back into it, I am always glad to restart! My goal for this year is to write one new post a week, which is definitely challenging but possible. Having the discipline to make myself carve out time for writing, editing, and creating graphics and inserting pictures is one of my biggest hurdles.
What advice would you share with someone who wants to start blogging?
I would say just start! It doesn’t have to look perfect at all at first; jump in and learn things along the way. Don’t let your need for perfection or a fear of failing stop you from trying. Everything can be tweaked or changed down the road if you don’t like something (heck, I have lots of things I want to change about my site still!) but it’s a process and you can improve little by little. You won’t improve if you don’t even start.
Please feel free to email me at wisemindmoney@gmail.com if you’d like to continue the conversation. You can follow me on social media @emiliecleaver on Twitter and Instagram. I am most active on Twitter, but pop over to Instagram every once in a while!
