For money bloggers, good news comes in fivers

Miss Thrifty10 September 24, 2014

Fivers? Fives, I mean. You’ll have to excuse me: I’ve got money on the brain, sitting here on the train having just forked out for my crazy-ass expensive monthly season ticket.

Anyway, in this little corner of the internet I am beginning to wonder if we are on the brink of something special. When Miss Thrifty launched, back in the Paleolithic era, you could count the UK’s money-saving and personal finance blogs on one hand. Today, not only are there are more of them than ever before, but the bloggers behind them are having more success and recognition than ever before, too.

Skint Dad

Last week was the MAD Blog Awards, for parent bloggers. Who clinched the trophy for Best Thrifty Blog? None other than Ricky, from last year’s Savoo Smartest Shopper competition:

skint dad
Since winning the Savoo competition, Skint Dad’s life – and his blog! – have been transformed.
My favourite Skint Dad posts are about his Saturday Night Fakeaways: takeaway meals for the family, recreated at home for a fraction of the cost.

If you read one Skint Dad post: Don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle.

I was in total shock and if I’m honest extremely green with envy. There was me making the decision to break the bad financial habits of a lifetime and thinking I was getting somewhere, only to come across people who had far exceeded what I had achieved.

It made me want to give up and not even bother trying to change. Why should I when compared to these people who made cutting back their outgoings seem like a piece of cake?

(NB. It looks like the Savoo Smartest Shopper competition, with its first prize of £10,000, will be back for a third year. Watch this space for further details.)

Frugal Queen

frugal queen

Skint Dad wasn’t the only money blogger to triumph that night. Cornwall blogger Frugal Queen, whose site is a paean to the simple life, walked off with the Best Food Blog award… for the second year in a row!

Let’s just allow that to sink in, for a moment: Frugal Queen’s budget recipes are rated over and above all those sumptuous, non-budget recipes. Not bad, eh?

If you read one Frugal Queen post: Homity Pie – a frugal recipe of yore, brought up to date.

The Money Principle

You may remember Maria, of The Money Principle, from what turned out to be a very popular guest spot on Miss Thrifty. Her post, Are you an extreme frugaller or a frugal artist?, made quite a splash with readers here. Posts on The Money Principle cover all aspects of personal finance and are always thoughtful and thought-provoking.

Although The Money Principle has been around for the while, Maria has always said that she wouldn’t feel like a “proper blogger” until she won an award. And at the weekend, all the way over in New Orleans, it happened.

At the annual Plutus Awards, which celebrate personal finance blogging from around the world, The Money Principle
was named Best International Personal Finance Blog. The last time a British blogger won this award was in 2011, so it’s good to have it back in our clutches again.

Here is a very happy Maria with her award:

money principle

If you read one Money Principle post: How much do you need? A retirement calculator. This post features a downloadable spreadsheet.

You can play with this tool – it will surprise you just how little money you actually need, particularly if you have some base pension and don’t want to live it up too much. Just as an aside, if you have £10 million and feel like spending £300k a year cash until you are 85, this tool shows that you can survive in an upmarket care home until you are 100! So now you know.

Couponshop

Congratulations are also in order for ‘Coupon Kid’ Jordon Cox, who has recently launched his new website: Couponshop. A one-stop shop for information about all the latest coupons and deals, Couponshop is one to check out if you are keen to make regular savings at the supermarket. Visitors are encouraged to add deal information to the website’s forum.


Finally, me…

…While I haven’t won any awards – well, not recently (coughs) – I do have some good news to share. We have found a buyer for our house in North Yorkshire and, just yesterday, had our offer accepted on a lovely house in Cheshire. Everything has been delightfully, but suspiciously swift and straightforward so far; please keep your fingers crossed for me!

I’ll be sorry to leave Yorkshire, but I won’t be sorry to leave this insane commute behind. It’s certainly pretty: this morning I drove to the rail station at sunrise, with the fog rolling down off the moors. Thrifty Kid and I, however, are both finding it hard – and it doesn’t help that winter is closing in. In the meantime, thank you for bearing with me: a return to normality (and a normal blogging regime!) can’t come soon enough.

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10 Responses to “For money bloggers, good news comes in fivers

Thank you so much for the mention Miss Thrifty. The last 12 months have been more than I could ever of imagined and I am eternally grateful to you and everyone else who has been there to give me advice when I’ve needed it.

Looking at the Personal Finance scene now and the success we are all having, it gets me excited to what the future holds. I look over the the States and am slightly envious of the community of PF bloggers but, perhaps the tide is changing and we can all now push on and build that same type of vibe here. FinConUK sounds pretty sexy don’t you think?

Anyway, a little birdie has told me the Smartest Shopper competition will be back very soon. So anyone reading this, if you’ve ever though of yourself as a smart and savvy shopper like Miss Thrifty and the rest of us, keep your eyes peeled and your eyes open.

September 24, 2014 at 2:29 pm

Hey, this is a great post; and as I said before it is very pleasing that the Brits are getting more active and successful :). Thinking of you when it comes to the move.

September 24, 2014 at 3:35 pm

Nicola says:

It’s nice to have more finance blogs in the UK – I’m hoping there’ll be a version of FinCon here in the not too distance future!

September 24, 2014 at 7:06 pm

Miss Thrifty says:

Thanks all! I too am looking forward to finding out what the future has in store. 🙂

September 24, 2014 at 11:18 pm

Katie Seaman says:

What a lovely post – you are always so supportive of others in your field. I’m keeping all moveable parts crossed for your move – we’re hoping to be moving too in about 6 weeks times so I feel your stress/joyful anticipation! And if your move means more posts from you then so much the better. Your site revolutionised my life. I’d already done pretty well by clearing £30K of our debt and tucking several grand away in savings in 2 years while dropping one salary and gaining a child. Then I stumbled on your blog squinting at my iPad in the wee small hours feeding my new born number 2 son in Dec 2011. I actually came to enjoy sitting in the dark at 3am while a small person gnawed away at me as I could catch up on all your past posts! And while I’d made a good start on the debt reduction and money saving, discovering your site injected me with a new wave of enthusiasm and helped me to really finesse my prudence. So thank you so much for your blog and your wisdom/experience. PS. I finally tried your recipe for homemade multipurpose cleaner last month. It is AMAZING. I’m evangelical about it. I really need to get out more…

September 25, 2014 at 9:38 pm

Michelle says:

Congrats to everyone who won award!

September 29, 2014 at 11:54 pm

Miss Thrifty says:

@Katie – thank you for your lovely comment! I am so happy that the posts here have been useful. I must admit, I love the multi-purpose cleaner too. I’ve been making & using it for years now, to the point where the chemical smells of the supermarket cleaners make me feel a little ill. The recipe for floor cleaner on here also works really well – and if you have the ingredients for one, you have the ingredients for the other! I will keep you posted on my (hopeful) move; good luck with yours. 🙂

@Michelle – hear hear. British bloggers FTW!

September 30, 2014 at 12:30 am

savingkash says:

Great post, congrats to all. I’m just starting out in this field – hopefully I’m not too late!

October 28, 2014 at 11:57 am

Sammie says:

Well done to everyone who won an award! & thank you for all your hard work and sharing all of your ideas with people to help them look after their money!

September 29, 2015 at 2:13 pm

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