Q&A | Online-Only Banking, Snoopy, and Blogging Income

First up: lots of you asked if I could just move the belt loops on the striped Helly Hansen raincoat I bought on eBay.

It is possible to do this, but it would require picking out the stitches on both the upper and lower ends and then resewing the loops on.

Since Helly Hansen stuff is pretty well made, these loops are stitched on very well, with lots of tiny tight stitches.

Also: there are four loops!

So, if I decide to do this, it will require a lot of patient stitch-picking. We shall see if I find the motivation.

I love the idea of high interest bearing online accounts but am concerned about problems due to not being able to walk into a brick and mortar bank building to talk to a real person. Problems can arise in the cyber world and there are always questions that need more than a yes or no answer. I wonder what ideas and experiences fellow readers have had.
A similar question would be – where do you put savings to get the best interest rate?
Keep up the good work, lovely friend!
–Book Club Elaine

Well, I have had an online bank account since September 2001 (I remember this because when 9/11 happened, it paused the process of getting the opening bonus from my new ING Direct bank account).

So, you can imagine that I am quite comfortable with an online bank account. And the online version of banks has gotten significantly better since those early days! There are chat features for customer service in addition to phone lines, there are apps, you can access in-real-life fee-free ATMs that connect to your account, and so on.

To ease the adjustment to online, here’s what I’d recommend: keep your main checking account in a bank that has brick and mortar buildings. But for your online savings account, which you will rarely need to access, try an online high-yield-interest account, such as the one from CIT bank (which is where I have most of my savings parked!)

You will just virtually connect your checking account to the CIT bank account, and you can easily transfer money that way.

Your customer service needs for a savings account will be few and far between, so this should be an un-scary way to try an online-only bank. And then you can reap the very happy rewards of a higher interest rate!

You didn’t ask about this, but I know sometimes people feel concerned that they are incurring some sort of security risk by having accounts online, but I do not see this as a concern. Why?

Because if you have an account at a real-life bank near you, they most certainly have your account information stored online, even if you never access it online! So, you cannot completely avoid online vulnerability unless you keep your money under your mattress. 😉

Hi Kristen: I enjoy your blog posts and reading about your resourcefulness. I have noticed you have some Snoopy things around your home and guess you are a fan? (I grew up in the 60s and we were Peanuts fans.)

-AF

Yes! I did always read the Peanuts strip in the daily newspaper when I was a kid, but mainly I love Snoopy because he is just so cute.

And I love his sweet relationship with Woodstock, who is also seriously cute.

Hopefully Chiquita and Shelley aren’t offended by the fact that I love a cartoon dog vs. a cat (I’m sorry, but Snoopy is a million times cuter than Garfield!)

In real life, though, I vastly prefer cats to dogs. 😉

I’ve been a reader (and enjoyer!) of your blog for many years now, and one thing I really love about it is the way your voice comes through in such an open and honest way, and you tell stories of your life. So many of the blogs I used to love have ended, or have become what feels like simply clearinghouses for obvious affiliate links and sponsored content.
That’s why I feel silly for asking this question! I promise I’ve been paying attention, and I know you’ve spoken with detail about how you grew your blog and community over years and now it provides your income. What I would like to know is: exactly how? I don’t see big ads, your affiliate links are so subtle, what am I missing? I’m asking you instead of googling because what I really want to understand is how you’ve managed to find such a lovely balance of earning money and keeping things personal and real. (I don’t mean dollar amounts; I mean more like strategies.)
Thanks for considering my question, and thanks for your writing!

-April

Aww, thank you for the sweet compliments; I am so happy to hear that my blog has kept you interested and entertained for so long. Yay!

Most of the money I make comes from the display ads provided by Mediavine, my ad company. They handle 100% of the ad-related work, and they take a cut of the earnings as their pay.

You do have to build up a pretty significant amount of traffic before Mediavine will accept you for their program, so you can’t just start a blog and then apply the next day. Which honestly makes sense because if you don’t have a bunch of traffic, you wouldn’t earn a bunch of money from Mediavine’s ads anyway!

I know that I could make more money if I did more sponsored posts/affiliate links/content-meant-to-sell-stuff, but honestly, that would make me start to hate blogging. I have managed to keep blogging for a terrifically long time largely because I have always kept it fun for myself.

Most of the time, blogging doesn’t feel like hard work! But if I expanded my blog into more of a money-making machine, I probably would start to hate it.

Also: I make enough to pay my bills (especially now that I’m not paying legal fees. Ha.) and I am content with that.

I have never been particularly strategic and business-minded with my blog, so sometimes I feel a little bit surprised that so many people come to read what I write.

And when people ask me for blogging advice, I am a little unsure what to say! I just show up here, write in a chatty way about my life and about my money-saving activities, and people keep coming back to read.

I am endlessly grateful and sometimes I really have to pinch myself. How many people over the course of history have wanted to support themselves by writing?? And here I am, doing it, almost by accident.

Got input on any of these topics? Talk to me!

(I’m especially hoping that if you have experience with online-only banking, you can share your experience to help Elaine feel more comfortable with the idea.)