After retirement as an educator, I wanted to make extra income, but I didn’t want to return to work as a retired educator. Don’t get me wrong. My career has been amazing. In other words, Education has been good to me. I desired something different and unscheduled in a variety of ways.

If I was going to return to work, it was going to be starting my own online business. I was determined not to get up at a certain time, put on make-up, and wear my best clothes to another place of employment. The mere thought hurts me.

So, my analytical self, begin to explore employment options online. I literally start watching videos and noticed many individuals talking about blogging to make money. I’ve heard of blogging as a personal hobby, but I never associated it with making streams of income. My YouTube search led me further into website creating, graphic design tools, creating digital products, and the information is never-ending. There were so many things to do at home. Well! I found a diamond mine.

As I listened to this guy and his partner, they discussed how they make $50K a month blogging, I couldn’t believe it, so my search took me even deeper. I wanted to see how others were making money online blogging. It was legit. Others were making money online blogging, using Pinterest, Social media and a plethora of other ways. People have literally left their day jobs and careers to learn how to make money online and developing other streams of income. Dang! Count me in.

My journey blogging on pennies started. After studying many of the videos on YouTube, many of the bloggers had a common thread on how they got started. They jumped in and just started through trial and error. There’s no perfect way to start; I just had to commit to the timing of consistency and hard work, and then the thousands of dollars would come over time.” I can dig it. For me, that wasn’t going to be a problem because working hard was my strong suit. In all my years as an educator, I simply enjoyed working long hours, staying behind after school to figure things out, and/or staying behind to help new teachers get started the right way with their career.

I set out to learn the techniques of successful blogging, eCommerce, digital and physical products and other areas that were going to get me the notoriety I needed becoming a professional blogger. In the meantime, I also wanted to learn how to make money to pay off the debt we had gained over time so we could buy our dream home as retirees, vacation as much as we wanted and save and leave an inheritance our grandchildren.

Yes, I said to pay off debt. Debt can really rain on your parade. At our age, we had plan to be debt-free. My husband and I took an oath to stop spending over the next couple of months to a year to make debt-free a priority for us. We’re excited about creating those ways and the commitment we’ve made to each other.

We confessed Romans 13:8- “Owe nothing to anyone except to love and seek the best for one another; for he who [unselfishly] loves his neighbor has fulfilled the [essence of the] law [relating to one’s fellowman].” Even God desires that we are out of debt. The only debt that we should owe anyone is the debt of love.

This blogging on pennies has been quite a learning curve for me. I wouldn’t trade one trial or error for the knowledge I have gained over the past few months. Each day I’m more energized to discover new ways to meet and audience that doesn’t know that I exist. No matter what! I’m willing to show up with passion, diligence, and hard work.

Simply put, blogging on pennies has afforded me the opportunity to research free programs and applications to help guide my start-up. Over the next couple of months, as my audience grows, I’ll sign up for the monthly ads, subscriptions, and upgrades to premium annual contracts. In the meantime, I’ll keep showing up.

Remember, my blogging for pennies started out solely for making money.

However, I’ve enjoyed it so much, I’ve decided to use my expertise as a former educator and grant-writer to showcase my skills. This will help drive organic traffic to my blog as “proof of my work” to leverage employment in other areas I love. It has also given me the opportunity to solidify some speaking gigs too. One blogger shared how she made money through freelance opportunities; again this is another way for me to show off my writing skills and prove my worth.

When I wrote my first post, nobody read it, that was pretty disappointing. I had written my twelfth post, and nobody was reading them. Whew! That was tough. Now I’m on my thirtieth and hardly anyone is taking notice? But, I’m still showing and being consistent because I have so many things that I want to share with my amazing audience.

I refuse to quit. Anything worth having takes time to develop. I compare it to the time I spent going to school. I was consistent and after years of studying; I earned several degrees. It was worth the hard work; I’m a doctor, as a result of my consistency. I’ve persuaded myself, the principles remain the same. Millions of people surf the web day-after-day. It takes a long time for an audience to grow. And it can be incredibly demoralizing to keep showing up when nobody else seems to care. But, I’ll keep showing up anyway. I’m confident the audience will come.

It’s no surprise that many have given up on blogging. They didn’t see the fruit over time so they just quit. Not me, and if you decided to start blogging. I’m hoping you would put in the work until you see the results. I’m determined to continue to blog on pennies as we’re working our way through paying off our debt. I’m counting the small wins as successes along the way. To date, I have about 12 people reading my blogs now. Those small wins are the ones that keep me going.

Building a successful blog is hard. There’s a lot more to it than simply creating a blog and posting it online. For starters, I thought readers would just show up just because I was writing and sharing it with a few friends. Not true! Yet, I’m still committed to telling people about my blogs. If I continue to share and care about my blogs, others will eventually do the same.

But a lot of what it takes to build a successful blog is just being good at showing up. Over and over. For a long, long time. Yes, it’s been 3 months for me and I’m showing up every day with only a few readers. I’m excited because they’re showing up with me. They are anxiously waiting for my blogs several times a week.

In closing, true bloggers who have made it decided to show up, and be patient, waiting on the traffic to come. I am not the most patient person in the world, but I understand with so many blogs on the Internet, it’s going to take some time for my blog to become recognized.

My learning curve has also taught me there is no “secret pill” you can take to make your blog a success. There are plenty of bloggers who are successful by trial and error. That’s me. I keep a journal by my bed so every time I learn something new or make a mistake. I jot those down as reminders, so I won’t repeat those mistakes over again.

It’s going to be worth my wait. I’m perfecting my skills daily just by showing up.