Do you have a New Year’s resolution? Mine is to lose weight. Heck, this has been my resolution every year since my mid-30s. You’d think that 2 pounds a month until I was satisfied with my loss would be easy, right? Doesn’t seem that way. And it isn’t just a Jan 1 resolution either, it is a Feb 1 resolution, July 28th resolution, the third Thursday in October reso… er, you get the idea. Other than that blog-butt, I am pretty darned happy with my life though.
Last year when I began this blog I had a pretty simple Blog Mission Statement. Some items on this Mission Statement have changed during 2009; for instance I am now pretty good at html and I transferred all my Bargainshare info long ago.
Other parts of this Mission Statement will never change on Coupons, Deals and More:
This blog will concentrate on coupons, refunds, and good deals.
This is the time of year when I am supposed to sit back and figure out what I see for this blog in the next year, or five years. Truth be told I’ve never been a five-year-plan kinda gal. My goals for 2009 were to hit XX number of readers per day, and that has happened… well, Friday through Monday. Mid-week, not-so-much. My monetary goal was to pay the server bill and for blog improvements via ad and affiliate revenue, and thanks to all of you, that has happened!
My goals for next year? It could be as simple as trying to get paid for my time, but only if that does not compromise my integrity.
I could start to welcome PR. I really think the fact that I do not openly welcome PR hurt at Christmas time. I did not have established corporate relationships to offer some nice prizes via a contest, and it showed compared to some other blogs. On the other hand, I noticed cash really was a nice contest prize and that comes from the affiliate sources here so it is a give back to my readers. I like giving cash. But, I gotta tell ya I wouldn’t mind giving corporate gift certificates. Hmmmm how do I approach that? Sure I’ll be happy to shill for you but only for XX dollars in gift certificates that I can give away to my readers? Not sure that will fly with them or with me.
Here are some realistic goals for next year:
• Get my readers more involved. I love to hear from you folks either via an email or as a post response. Some of the best tips and information posted on this blog come from you. I need to work on getting my readers to respond more! (Any ideas!?)
• Keep the blog coupons, rebate and deals oriented. Do not give in to the dark side. 
• Establish and expand more relationships with other bloggers via deal write-up trades.
• Work towards better scheduling and using my time. I really need to streamline the deal write-up process. It becomes a crunch on Thursdays, although I have worked very hard the last two months to add coupons as I go which has resulted in taking Thursdays down from a 12 hour day to a 9 hour day.
• Gather more subscribers. This is a personal obsession based in wellllll my own nuttiness.
• And, as hubby told me, be grateful for what I have accomplished to date. The jump from forums to blog seemed like a segway, but being responsible for all the posts, behind the scenes information and technical upkeep, as well as keeping readers happy and informed was bit more than I bargained for initially. I truly am happy with the way things have worked to date (and I hope you are too!), but initially it was a challenge.
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