Don't Be Too Cheap to Spend Money on Your Business

I am passionate about spending money wisely and living within our means. I consider it my job to save as much money as I can and be a good steward of every single penny we have. But, with anything in life, there are exceptions. While it’s important to keep your spending low if your income requires it, I’ve come to realize there are times when the right to do is to actually spend money. It is possible to be too cheap for your own good and hurt your business in the process.

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My Frugal Blogging Journey

I wrote my very first blog post back in 2009, 5 days after I said goodbye to my first child. Back then, I wrote out of necessity. My blog was essentially a grief journal, sharing our story of full term stillbirth. I had no clue about blogging, but signed up on the Blogger platform (it’s free) and started writing. I believe God used writing to help me grieve.

We had my daughter over a year later and I continued to write. I shared a little about saving money as I adjusted to living on one income by using coupons and playing the drug store game. As much as I loved having a baby in our home, I was lonely at times and writing was an outlet for me.

Three years and another child later in 2013, I was still writing, but I was also reading more and more blogs. I paid attention to what they were going and came to realize that these bloggers weren’t just writing for kicks. They were passionate about their topic, but they were earning an income!

I purchased the Ruth Soukup‘s book How to Blog for Profit Without Selling Your Soul for $10 to learn more. After reading it quickly, I saw the potential and decided to see what I could do to start earning a small income from blogging. I decided on a new name, purchased the domain name, and The Teacher’s Wife was born!!

I was excited about the potential in blogging, but didn’t execute many of the things I learned in Ruth’s book. Life was good but pretty hectic, adding our youngest child in 2014. I essentially dabbled for the next couple of years. I wrote when I could, but I was flying by the seat of my pants for the most part.

The Turning Point

Aside from my $10 book purchase, I hadn’t spent a dime on blogging. I determined to figure it out the cheap way, too scared to spend money on my own website. If it never became what I hoped it would, then there would be no financial loss. Deep down, I was fearful that I’d fail.

Finally, in the summer of 2016, I took a leap and made my first real investment in my website. I’m not sure what prompted me, but I purchased Abby Lawson’s book Building a Framework. I was thrilled to have a guide and video tutorials to walk me through the numerous aspects of blogging as a business. I knew some of the basics, but needed more step-by-step guidance to turn my hobby into a business. Thankfully, I took the plunge and I’m so glad that I did!!

Why You Need to Spend money on Your Business

There are so many things I love about blogging. One of them is that the start-up costs are minimal. Whether you blog for hobby or profit, there are ways to keep costs down or even blog for free, at least for a little while.

Anyone can start, no matter the budget. However, as I’ve transitioned from blogging as a hobby to blogging for profit, I’ve realized that it’s not wrong to spend money on your business. In fact, being too cheap to spend money on your business can actually hurt you. Here’s how:

1. You have no skin in the game

Being a successful blogger takes a lot of initiative. No one makes you put the work in. Unless you are extremely self-motivated, it is hard to push yourself day in and day out, especially when you are still building your site and not yet turning a profit.

When you don’t spend money on your business, you have no skin in the game. I immediately felt an urgency to get serious when I spent real money on Abby’s book, Building a Framework. I wanted to earn that money back as quickly as possible, and then some!

Purchasing Building a Framework has been a great investment for me as a blogger. I highly recommend it if you are getting started and want to get your blog started on the right foot! It is a financial investment, but it is a small one in the scheme of blogging courses.

2. You are not investing in yourself

There is so much to learn about blogging and it is an ever-changing world!! You are your biggest asset, so you need to invest in learning more and increasing your knowledge. There is a lot of free information out there on the internet, so you might not feel the urgency to spend money on learning your craft.

I can say from my own experience that I benefited greatly from having a lot of excellent information all in one place. Building a Framework touches on every aspect of blogging, so you don’t have to hunt around to find it yourself.

3. You are not investing in tools that will lead to growth

After I invested in Abby’s book, I was convinced that I needed to invest in some tools to help me grow my website.

First, that meant switching from a free platform (Blogger) to a self-hosted WordPress site. Even though my hosting is fairly inexpensive, I hired someone to set up my site and move all of my content over. With the switch to WordPress, I purchased a theme to make my site look nice without having to code everything myself. Thankfully, many of these were one-time expenses.

Next came building an email list and starting to automate marketing posts on social media. Even though some of these are monthly expenses, these tools will help my website to grow. The investment is worth it and necessary.

No matter your business venture, some investment is critical. It’s important to be fiscally responsible when growing your business, but don’t hurt your business because you aren’t willing to make any financial sacrifice.