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Weekend Edition: the blog so far

Sometime earlier in July, I was perusing the WordPress site stats that prove so addictive to bloggers. I noticed that during my distracted days of lake swimming and cottage building, this blog had hit a nice round number milestone of having had individual articles read a total of 100,000 times. That seemed like quite a lot to me, seeing how triple M was just born in April.

But now, just a couple of weeks later, I see that number is already creeping up towards 200,000 views. Even more significantly, there are now almost two THOUSAND subscribers – people who get the articles directly and thus do not show up in the page view statistics above. Exponential growth, thanks to the magic of the Internet. Just when things start to get slow, another random event seems to happen – this month it was getting a few mentions on the very popular site Lifehacker.com. (Thanks very much to David over there for the mention, by the way).

In June, I experimented with adding some Google Adsense ads to the sidebar. They have been a moderate success. It turns out the bloggers get paid surprisingly little for just having them (i.e., “per thousand impressions”), but surprisingly well when people actually click on them. Unfortunately, a surprisingly small number of people actually click – probably because we are all wise anti-consumers who pride ourselves on NOT noticing or clicking on advertisements. Good for us! I’d have to start a blog on fashion or ‘Celebs’ if I wanted a consumery crowd.  According to the terms of service, you’re not allowed to discuss actual dollars per click, but in total, the blog is now earning over TWO DOLLARS per day. That’s far below minimum wage, but it’s still more than enough to pay for our monthly batch of beer brewing.. so thank you, readers!

As for the mental aspect of being a blogger: it is increasingly addictive. I find myself turning more and more into Mr. Money Mustache in real life each day. I buy less stuff than before, not wanting to contradict my own advice.. and I think up dozens more things that need to be said every day. I jot them down in the iPhone’s little notepad and only wish I had more time to write. Life is too busy and fun this summer, although with the young lad starting Kindergarten next month, I expect a fantastic amount of new time for hobbies to open up. The comments and readers, i.e., YOU, are the real things that make this fun, since we are an actual virtual community now.

Finally, as search engine traffic has continued to grow, so has the hilarity of the searches that bring people here. Here is a summary of some of the top and/or most interesting ones.

For fun, I’ve added a few links to the articles that I think generated these search engine hits:

mr money mustache (and various misspellings thereof, such as “mister money moustache”): 4000

bad superman    9
my money mustache    9
earth day    9
stock market    7
mr. mustache retirement    6
mortgage    6
car    5
“my gray hairs”    4
universal men’s grooming device    4
rei bookpacker plus    4
early retirement family man    3
investing    3
real estate    3
hasselhoff    3
lunch    3
stock market p e ratio 2011    3
401k    3
mustache cash stash    3
student loan    3
japanese man    3
raising children on no money    2
home renovation    2
true cost of raising children    2
how much does it cost to run my electric oven for 1 hour    2
food    2
vbinx versus vfinx    2
insurance    2
getting rich with rental property    2
dave ramsey” good guy    2
old woman weightlifter    2
mustache bar shortage    2
ramit sethi”    2
beer    2
what’s a good work food stash?    2
evil gut with long mustache    1
colourful    1
man grooming head in mirror    1
old muscle big moustache    1
ways native americans kept hair clean    1
mr money mustache that guy who knows loads about money and early retirement and investment for a return of 7%    1
wealth, fuck you money    1
mrs money mustache    1
why retire if you like your work?    1
herbert salisbury simple retirement calculator    1
the magic of thinking big” and warren buffet    1
superman 3 junk yard bad fight    1
there is a higher cause    1
sarah gets a bank loan of 200000 for the purchase of a house the mortgage is to be amortized through monthly payments for a term of 15 years with an interest rate    1
double mcpancy    1
do a lot of canadians have mustaches    1
mr money mustache baby angels    1
why are wealthy people still buying gas guzzling cars?    1
amsterdam bicycles    1
getting rich off rentals    1
the most badass person you’ve met    1
retired from corporate life at 28    1
vin diesel wealth    1
millionaire car buying strategy    1
mustache saver blog retire early    1
mr money muscle    1
mr money mustache investments    1
“summer mustache”    1
rich bar owner    1

  • David Galloway July 24, 2011, 12:20 pm

    You’re welcome MMM!

    As long as your posts have tips that fit the criteria for LH I’ll keep recommending your posts to my editors! As soon as I get the hang of my day job + LH posting I want to also resurrect my old PF blog http://www.geekyfrugal.com. Perhaps on my two weeks of paternity leave in November when my 2nd child is born.

    There are not enough hours in the day!

    Reply
  • Executioner July 24, 2011, 8:08 pm

    You have ads on your site? I wouldn’t know…looks like AdSense is blocked by the Ghostery plugin which I have installed on my browser…which means all of the AdSense ads are blocked too. Great tool and highly recommended!

    Reply
    • MMM July 25, 2011, 7:10 am

      Yeah, I love adblockers too. My view of adsense ads has improved a little from this experiment because now I see them as a peaceful and democratic way for small-time content writers to get paid for their work without resorting to selling things or a big book publisher. Not me in particular, since this blog is not designed for profit, but for many other people making a living. On the other hand, big commercial sites like Forbes that pop up crappy flash ads that completely block the article you are trying to read… Those deserve to be Executed. ;-)

      Reply
  • Cabe July 25, 2011, 2:39 pm

    I so want to be the Rich Bar Owner, but I would drink all the profits which is counter intuitive. Best I can do is brewing my own Christmas Beer and Mead this year, should save me a bundle!

    Reply
  • Bakari July 25, 2011, 5:34 pm

    I am a subscriber, but I usually read the articles here anyway, because I like the format better than in my email inbox. So you are counting me (and probably others) twice.

    still, a whole hell of a lot more readers than I ever got…

    Reply
  • Kevin M July 26, 2011, 10:42 am

    Congrats on the gaudy numbers, MMM. Keep up the good work.

    Reply
  • Bojan Bosnic November 18, 2011, 11:39 am

    Those numbers are amazing for someone who started out writing in April. I think the blog is awesome and its a great balance between humor and actual solid numbers and analysis. I’m kicking myself right now for not using wordpress. I was going to but I already had a tumblr set up.

    As far as monetizing this blog if that’s something that interests you (you obviously don’t need the money) but what about writing an ebook. Plenty of bloggers do it and they have much less interesting content than you in my humble opinion!

    Reply
  • Catherine June 4, 2012, 10:38 pm

    Hey MMM neighbour to the south! (notice the “u”?) Moustache is the British way of spelling mustache. I thought your spelling was funny….
    I’m a new reader but a long time MsMM without realizing it. I still have a long way to catch up, but had to put in my 2 cents

    Reply
  • GeauxBig November 27, 2013, 1:24 pm

    “Raising children on no money” ?!?
    I missed that post.

    Reply
  • caroline January 28, 2015, 3:45 am

    Hi there, just wanted to say I love your blog. I started reading three days ago and haven’t stopped. Determined to get my shit together now. Your really funny too which I love. I have given myself a few black eyes recently.

    Reply
    • jeremy May 8, 2015, 11:46 pm

      Right there w/ you Caroline. I was referred to MMM by a friend a few weeks ago, and have been blowing through these (though not as fast as you seem to be!).

      Just wanted to say thanks for writing. And for what it’s worth this is definitely my favorite search term:
      “do a lot of canadians have mustaches” too good…

      Reply
  • RasmusJ June 24, 2016, 12:11 am

    what a great search term:

    sarah gets a bank loan of 200000 for the purchase of a house the mortgage is to be amortized through monthly payments for a term of 15 years with an interest rate

    :)

    Reply
  • David February 16, 2017, 7:33 am

    The ad at the bottom of this page is for Jeweler’s Mutual Insurance! I thought insurance was a tax on people who are bad at math!?

    Reply
    • Mr. Money Mustache February 20, 2017, 3:10 pm

      Yeah, and perhaps that Google Adsense box will end up being a tax on insurance companies that are bad at ad purchasing decisions :-)

      Reply

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