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Mr. Groovy and I are not big on birthday and anniversary celebrations—and so the one year anniversary of Freedom Is Groovy came and went without much fanfare. Still, we realize it’s no small accomplishment to keep a blog up and running for a year—statistics show 95% of bloggers drop off the face of the blogosphere within the first few months*. More importantly, we wanted to acknowledge our community.
We feel very blessed to be a part of a smart, motivated and generous group of people—I’m referring to our sister/brother bloggers as well as our followers and steady readers. Somehow, we managed to form a small tribe of people who listen to one another and help one another out. Not a day goes by that we don’t learn something new from our cohorts about finance, blogging—and life. We’d like to give a shout out to a small list of folks who’ve helped lift both our blog and our spirits:
Claudia, Emily, ZJ, Lila (Jaime), Maggie, Penny, Fritz, Frugal Vagabond, Gary, James, Maarten, and Steve. And finally, there’s Bobby Mabuhay, a very supportive follower and fellow minor league baseball enthusiast. He owns a cool dry cleaning business in San Diego.
And there are many more who’ve supported and befriended us, so please forgive me if I haven’t mentioned you all.
In a year’s time we’ve hit several milestones:
Two posts on RockStar Finance, one featuring Hannibal Lecter, and the other featuring an intriguing financial challenge.
Interview with Joshua Sheets on Radical Personal Finance.
Over 2,000 followers on Twitter.
103 posts (mostly by Mr. Groovy) and we’ve published two guest posts—one from Lila Donovan called, Frugal Ways to Get a College Degree and The Ten Commandments of Personal Finance from Fritz Gilbert.
Mr. Groovy has also guest posted on:
The scenario surrounding Mr. Groovy’s appearance on Millennial Money Man could have been the story line in one of my favorite posts, “Oh, the Joys of Blogging with a Spouse”. Bobby (@GenYMoneyMan) put out a call for bloggers to fill some guest post spots. I brought the announcement to Mr. Groovy’s attention, suggesting it would be fun to write for Bobby’s large millennial audience. Mr. Groovy agreed, although he wasn’t—how shall I say it—extremely motivated. So, in an effort to appease me, Mr. Groovy sent Bobby an outline of a post he had in mind. He included his usual contrite spiel, “Don’t worry about hurting my feelings if you don’t like it”—and of course, Bobby loved it.
The big day arrives. The post goes live on Millennial Money Man—and nothing. No comments, no buzz. Zilch. Nada. By the time we sat down for dinner the silence was deafening. Then, as I’m raising my salad fork to my mouth, Mr. Groovy looks straight into my eyes and says, “You know, you embarrassed me in front of the douche.” I burst out laughing and nearly hit him in the forehead with a cherry tomato.
Not that Bobby is a douche, by any stretch of the imagination. But, if you’re unfamiliar with our sick sense of humor, the douche line is from the TV show Parks and Recreation. In Season 3 Episode 5, Tom, Leslie and Ben appear on a local radio show with shock-jocks Crazy Ira and “The Douche”. Ben is caught off guard when asked about his past stint as an eighteen-year-old mayor of a town (which he bankrupted) and totally chokes the live interview. After he, Tom and Leslie leave the studio, Tom turns to him and says:
Nice job man. Was that your first time talking to other people? ‘Cause it came off that way. You embarrassed me in front of The Douche.
By 10 pm that night, however, Lila (mentioned above) left the first comment. A steady stream of comments followed over the next several days, along with some healthy debate. In the end, Beware the 99 Percent got quite a bit of buzz and Bobby said it was one of his most well-received guest posts.
Phew! I dodged a bullet.
And so as we pass the one year mark, we’re considering the idea of coming out from behind our groovy masks. We’ve already revealed ourselves to a few people. And in a twist of fate, Lila outed us from—of all places—the Dave Ramsey show. Mr. Groovy and I called in to the show using our first names. We mentioned we were from Charlotte but said nothing about blogging. Later that day, Lila direct-messaged Mr. Groovy on Twitter and said, “That had to be you guys on with Dave Ramsey”. She recognized our story! Holy sh*t! We were B-U-S-T-E-D!!! But Jaime said, “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me”.
Then, one night when he was feeling nostalgic about the Good Rats, Mr. Groovy caved and told his best friend since seventh grade about the blog. After getting over his initial shock, Mr. Groovy’s friend really got into reading the posts. But here’s what amazed him most—the comments. That’s right. He told Mr. Groovy he was transfixed reading them, and was astonished by how supportive and positive the community is. That gave Mr. Groovy the confidence to share the blog with his brother, too. And Brother Groovy is also in awe of the community.
And that’s what we’re most proud of—the community. We feel very blessed to have found our little corner of the sky. Thank you all.
*Most statistics I found point back to a 2008 Technorati survey which stated 95% of new blogs fail.
**Our Tribe:
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