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Mrs. Groovy and I are truly touched and humbled by this past year in blogging. Through comments, emails, tweets, phone calls (thank you, Fritz), and Skype calls (thank you, Ms. Montana), we’ve met a ton of fascinating people. And in the very near feature, two of these digital connections will move into the analog realm (see you soon Fritz, Claudia, and Garrett). But even with all the connecting we’ve done this past year with the personal finance community, we’re still amazed that anyone reads or follows us at all.
Yes, even the Groovies suffer from impostor syndrome.
To honor the end of 2016, then, we wanted to highlight some of the more interesting connections we made via tweets, blog posts, and comments. Here we go.
On the Twitter Front
Right now we have over 3,700 followers on Twitter. We realize in the scheme of things that’s nothing. There are currently over 317 million active Twitter users. But the fact that 3,700 people are following two little ol’ country bloggers from North Carolina is nothing short of remarkable. We clearly remember the days when 100 followers seemed like an impossible milestone.
Thirty-seven hundred followers! Let me repeat that. Thirty-seven hundred followers!! Where do these people come from? And why on earth are they interested in anything we have to say? Oh, the eternal mysteries of life. Well, regardless of why they decided to follow us, we’re just happy as punch that they do.
Here are our most notable followers.
James Altucher: Thought maverick, author of Choose Yourself, and host of The James Altucher Show.
Taye Diggs: Broadway and film star (Rent, Go, How Stella Got Her Groove Back) who currently plays Councilman Angelo Dubois on the television show Empire.
Nathan Latka: Producer and host of The Top, perhaps the best podcast out there for aspiring entrepreneurs.
Robert Lustig: MD, author of Fat Chance, and the #1 enemy of the sugar mafia.
Broke Millennial (aka Erin Lowry): Author of Broke Millennial, daughter of Mr. Lithium, and one of the grooviest millennials around.
PT Money: The Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler of FinCon.
Jessica Moorhouse: Blogger, host of the Mo’ Money podcast, and another super groovy millennial.
Wade Pfau: Blogger and rockstar retirement expert who teamed up with Michael Kitces to challenge the conventional wisdom of asset allocation in retirement. This is one groovy cat.
But of all our Twitter followers, the one that impresses us the most is Ian Brock—a 12-year-old coder from Chicago whose Twitter handle is @dreamhustlecode.
Ian is the author of the upcoming book, “The Importance of CE Ed. for Kids.” He was recently part of a discussion panel on computer science education with five adults at Google (see video below). Check him out at minute 15 where he introduces himself. He talks about Beyond the Cookie, a cookie company he started with his parents to help bankroll free computer science and coding classes for economically challenged kids. And at minute 39 he discusses how he taught himself to code. This kid rocks, and we hope we remain on his radar as long as we have a Twitter account.
On the Blogging Front
Traffic to our site has improved nicely since the beginning of the year. For the first four months of the year, we averaged 1,626 unique visitors per month. For the last four months of the year, we averaged 7,214 unique visitors. Certainly not Mr. Money Mustache numbers. of course, but considering our breathtaking SEO ignorance, we’ll take it.
In 2016, we averaged 2.13 posts per week (111 in total). The four most viewed posts were all—surprise, surprise—featured on Rockstar Finance. J. Money is definitely a player in the financial blogosphere. But even our non-Rockstar Finance posts are now managing to get some love (600-800 views and 25-30 comments)—and that’s including ones covering topics as dull as Obamacare and minor league baseball.
| Post | Number of Views |
|---|---|
| Financial Advice to Young People: Don’t Be DICKS | 8,140 |
| How to Become a Financial Stud Overnight | 6,933 |
| The Hannibal Lecter Guide to Personal Finance | 5,755 |
| FI Gothic | 4,313 |
On the Comment Front
In 2016, we had over 1,500 unsolicited comments. How groovy is that! And considering that when we started this blog in 2015 Mrs. Groovy had to wheedle our first two comments from two highly esteemed blogging luminaries (thank you Steve and Jim for taking pity on us), that’s damn freakin’ groovy!
Here were our celebrity commenters in 2016.
You know you’re doing something right when celebrities like these guys take the time to read and comment on your posts.
A blog, however, does not live by celebrity commenters alone. To forge a worthwhile comments section, a blog needs scores of real-life people and bloggers with insightful things to say. And fortunately for Mrs. Groovy and me, we had no shortage of such commenters. I know personally that I’m a much wiser and thoughtful person because of the feedback our commenters provided.
We, of course, would like to point out all of the great comments from 2016. But because there were so many, that’s just not feasible. So to work around this severe limitation, we decided to pay tribute to our awesome commenters by doling out three awards. Here they are.
The Most Good-Natured Comment Award
Without a doubt this award goes to Bobby (aka Millennial Money Man). I wrote a guest post for Bobby back in January that initially didn’t go too well. It hadn’t garnered one comment by the time Mrs. Groovy and I sat down to dinner on the day it was published. I was feeling disappointed, of course, and Mrs. Groovy, because she encouraged me to reach out to Bobby, was feeling miserable. So to break the sullen mood, I referred to Bobby—very respectfully, I might add—as “the Douche.” I know it sounds offensive, but it really wasn’t. I was actually equating Bobby to the iconic “Douche” character on the sitcom, Parks and Recreation. In fact, Mrs. Groovy found my Douche reference so hilarious, she wrote about it in her post, One Year of Blogging. But here’s the best part. Bobby took the “Douche” moniker in stride and graced our comments section with a very classy comment. Here it is.
The Most Humorous Comment Award
At the end of my post, I Don’t Know Diddly Squat, I concluded with the following paragraph.
Okay, groovy freedomists, that’s all I got. Have a glorious weekend. Make whoopie with your significant other [emphasis not in original]. And if that ain’t gonna happen, at least go for a walk with your significant other and hold his or her hand.
I wasn’t sure how the “make whoopie” suggestion would fly with my readers, but fortunately no one took umbridge at my call for a weekend of connubial bliss. In fact, only one commenter made reference to it. And thank heavens that Mr. Apathy Ends did. It was our funniest comment of the year. Here it is.
The Most Poetically Waxing Comment Award
Mr. PIE was our most creative commenter by far. The man has such incredible felicity with the English language. Perhaps it’s because of his UK roots. In any event, here are some examples of his golden tongue and rollicking wit.
On my FI Gothic post, Mr. PIE offered the following:
On Mrs. Groovy’s Dead Phone Walking post, Mr. PIE modified lyrics of Adele’s song Hello and left us with this jewel.
On my Should You Start an I-May-Die-Sooner-Than-I-Think Fund post, Mr. PIE decided to go a little Scottish on me.
Finally, I’ll leave you with Mr. PIE’s depiction of his Formula 1 car drive that graced the comments section of my Financial Dashboard post. His words were enriched by his partaking of his favorite drink, the single malt.
Final Thoughts
No news flash here—blogging is hard. It’s easy to start a blog, but it’s not easy to stick around. We’ve all seen promising bloggers fall off the face of the earth in relatively short order. Are Mrs. Groovy and I here to stay? Time will tell. Retirement may change our perspective towards many habits, hobbies, and experiences. But if we never post another thought again, we consider our Groovy Year 2016 to be one of the highlights of our marriage.
Happy New Year to all!
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