Our Freaking Budget Turns One!

One year ago this week, a very pregnant Joanna and a less fatigued me quickly scanned over our sad excuse for a website. I double checked design and made sure links didn’t land in an Internet black hole, while Joanna reviewed our content to make sure we didn’t sound like idiots — we did. A few tweaks here and a few tweaks there and then we we were done. We published Our Freaking Budget in incredibly unspectacular form.

It began as a side project. In our 5+ years of marriage, we had always been pretty independent with how we approached projects and hobbies. When I presented the idea of starting a personal finance blog to Joanna, I was surprised at her willingness to give it a shot. I saw it as an opportunity to flex my incredibly weak design/coding/nerd muscles and Joanna was excited to try her hand at writing since she was typically at the other end of that process in her full-time job as a copy editor. And more importantly, we wanted to connect with like-minded folks who love-hate budgeting and help to encourage each other to be smart with money.

We didn’t really have expectations. We hoped a few strangers would poke their heads in every once in a while — before swiftly turning around and mouthing silently “They are WEIRD.” We hoped we would write and communicate financial topics the way we think and talk in real life, which is probably on par with 6th graders. We hoped our families and friends wouldn’t find our blog. And we hoped we wouldn’t quit after a few months.

Our Freaking Budget has been an awesome experience. We genuinely enjoy reading your comments and suggestions, and we feel like we’ve grown more in our resolve to be smarter with our money this last year than any other. We didn’t expect blogging to take so much time, and we’ve definitely almost called it quits on a few occasions. But it always seems like there’s a perfectly timed email from a random Internet stranger that helps us remember why we started all of this in the first place.

So thanks to all you Interneters who have stopped by or commented or not laughed at us. And thank you for allowing us to soak in all of your tips and experiences and advice, and allowing us to share our own, this last year.

Here are a few numbers that help tell our first year OFB story:

316,313 pageviews

160,638 visitors

43,064 comments marked as spam

7,249 comments (not written by LeVar Burton)

225 posts

43 emails to our prior host about our site being down

1 baby born

Those numbers really don’t mean anything, but we thought we’d share what a year looks like around OFB. Here’s to less debt, more awesome, and a great OFB year #2!