“There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder.”
Ronald Reagan
If you’ve been following Cleverly Simple for awhile you already know that things have changed a bit around here over the last year. I’m no longer sharing 10 different things with you each day. Instead I’m sharing one to two intentional items with you each day. I wanted to take a minute to share with you what has changed and why.
Some things never change.
First of all, there are some things that are still around and will be around. The full list of stores with coupons that match to that item are still available for you here. In fact, we’ve added more stores so that you have more variety. Additional exciting things happened this year when we added the deal search here and a new look to the coupon database. So far feedback has been very positive!
Some things do change.
A few weeks ago I stopped sending out my daily email, and instead decided to send out a weekly email. This email highlights everything I shared for that week in one place to simplify things. The email goes out every Friday afternoon. If you haven’t yet, you can sign up here.
Why do they change?
Now, on to the why. Last summer I attended a conference that really changed me. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment, but at some point I found myself writing out specific goals for Cleverly Simple in the next five years. Parallel to that, I started to think about what goals I had personally. My story with this website started out of my desire to stay at home with my kids. Slowly over the past few years the time demand of this site started to replace parts of that time with my kids. I was overwhelmed. My husband, being every supportive, helped me as much as he could with things around the home, but I still always felt like I was failing. I felt like I was failing my business. I felt like I was failing my family.
Something had to change.
At the same time, I started to really analyze why so many of you were coming around. My name “Cleverly Simple” came out of my God-given desire to be the most efficient with whatever I’m doing at the moment. If you were able to spend a day with me personally, you would quickly see how my mind works. I am constantly thinking about the “best way” to do things. It’s that natural ability and thought process that I wanted to share with friends and family when I started this website. While it started with saving money, being frugal goes beyond just using coupons at the grocery store. Over time, Cleverly Simple became a place to share quite a few deals each day. And while this was great – it became overwhelming with the time I had to commit to it.
Fast forward to last fall. I finally had the guts to start to cut back. I started to craft more and bake more. Both are things that I truly love and things that had been on the back burner (pun intended!) with the time commitment I was using to find more deals every second of every day.
Here’s what’s funny. My traffic to this site grew immensely. I don’t say this to brag – I say it to share with you that I feel like God blessed that moment of stepping back and getting back to my “roots”. Slowly over the last six months, I redesigned the site to make it cleaner. I started sharing more of my passions and less of the specific deals. The site continues to grow and I’m spending less time behind the computer and more time in my kitchen and with my kids creating.
Cleverly Simple continues to grow beyond my wildest imagination. I had the opportunity to fly to Los Angeles this past month to work alongside Savings.com and their Favado App. Projects like these are close to my heart. The more I can work with amazing companies like that, the more I feel like I can change the way people think about saving money.
Another highlight was this past Sunday. For the first holiday in years, I didn’t take my computer with me while we were with family. I left it at home. I enjoyed a hayride with my family along my grandpa’s farm.
My kids are the 7th generation to be blessed with the enjoyment of acres of beautiful land to play on. It was a great reminder to me of what my priorities are and what they should be – and how simple they can become.
I say all this to you – because I wouldn’t be here without you. I’m sure you’ve seen a change and I wanted to be upfront with you. I think Cleverly Simple will be better because of the passion behind it. It’s a little different than it was a year ago but I truly believe it shares my heart of a lifestyle of saving money so that you can do the things you find simple in life. Rest assured that I am all about saving money and sharing those deals and savings options with you. My goal is to share with you so much more than simple lists and encourage you toward a lifestyle of frugality.
Thanks for letting me share my heart with you today. I’m not going anywhere – in fact you’ll probably see more of me in each and every post around here.
Thanks for following along. 🙂
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