State of the Blog 2011

I thought I would start a new tradition on Fiscal Fizzle, inspired by the President’s yearly State of the Union address. We’re just shy of the blog’s birthday (February 1st), so why not start the celebration early?

Judging by my Twitter feed last night, I was one of the few who did not watch the speech, but I’ve found lately that ignorance is the best strategy for decreased stress. Instead, I watched one of my favorite Polish tennis players (as if there are so many), Agnieszka Radwanska, lose to Clijsters at the Australian Open. Bummer; I was hoping for more Polish pride going into the semifinals.

Anyway, let’s get this show on the road and get you back to whatever you were doing in no time.

Highlights

I’ll start off with the best stuff—what’s new and exciting around here that is really worth your attention:

• I recently created a brand new Resources page to share some of the tools I use (or have used in the past) to manage my own money. I’ll be adding more to this list in the coming months!
• I’m just getting started on the grocery coupon experiment, which received a lot of attention this month because of Joyce House. I’ll be putting together my first update mid-February.
• I’ll be doing a lot more guest posting in the coming months, and I’ll be sure to update you on them all, including a few posts for the Lending Tree blog and others.

More Stats

I’m proud to report that the site is doubling in readership at an alarming pace—about every few months. Here are a few other stats of note:

• In the past 30 days, over 13,000 people have visited the site, viewing almost 24,000 pages.
• I’ll receive my 2,500th comment sometime today. If you take the time to comment here, thank you so, so much!
• My email newsletter (both daily and non-daily) have been the fastest-growing subscriber segment recently, with 30% growth just this month.

The fact that so many of you care at all about what I have to say is mind-boggling and incredibly humbling. Thank you!

Areas to Work On

Of course, no state speech would be complete without a few agenda items for the coming year. I outlined a few in my goals post for the year, but here are some that are very blog-specific:

• Release a premium product by mid-year. Right now, I’m thinking that will either be a baby-related product or something highlighting my coupon experiment, depending on how that goes over the next few months. I really want to put a lot of work into a comprehensive resource that will be helpful & as complete as possible.
• Improve all stats going forward. I set a goal of 2,500 subscribes by the end of the year, which is looking more and more reachable daily. I would also like to see traffic and income both rise steadily.

Feedback

You can clap, but I won’t see you. (I hope you don’t yell “you lie,” either. Inside joke for the #SOTU watchers). But you certainly can leave a comment to let me know how I’m doing and what you expect going forward. Your feedback has been phenomenal in the past, so thank you in advance!

Here are a few questions to get you started:

• Everyone has their favorite PF topics. What’s yours? (I can’t cover them all every week, but I can certainly rotate).
• Where are you financially in life? Are you a new parent, retired, just starting out, or maybe single and loving it?
• What’s your favorite post of the last year? Least favorite? Dare I ask why? (See the archives list if you need to cheat.)

Photo by joehardy