• Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Wonder Quests
  • Travel Hacking: How I Travel For Free & Cheap
    • Travel Rewards Credit Cards
    • Point Rewards Credit Cards
    • Hotel Rewards Cards
    • Cash Back Credit Cards
    • 0% APR Credit Cards
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter

The Wonder Luster

For Those Of Us Whose Dreams Won't Die Between 17 and 65.

Life is wondrous! Feed your lust for life with the tools & inspiration to help make it a great one.

Why I Switched Niches After 5 Years of Blogging

Wonder Quests | June 17, 2017

After 5 years of blogging, I drastically switched niches. Read on for the many, MANY reasons I chose to start this new blog.

There are plenty of people who start a blog because they’re experts in something.  Fashion. Cooking. Taking selfies of their impossibly perfect bedhead.  Apparently, some others start blogging because they are are self-professed experts at life, (as detailed by their $1000 online courses about the path to fulfillment and ebooks on balancing your chakras by quitting your day job and traveling the world on $5 a day.)

They have perfectly manicured Instagram feeds, and perfectly manicured hands. I have never been one of those people, despite my best efforts.

In 2011, I started a humble blog, FrugalBeautiful.com because I was a graduate student who was living on $800 a month and was attempting to make sense of my 20’s when there were way too many options and not enough cash to afford any of them. I guess you could say that I was an expert at being broke and frustrated, so blogging seemed like my place. 

For the last five years on a frugality site, I explored and floundered on just about everything- from boys, to fitness, to fashion.  I changed my mind a dozen times about what to write about.  I blogged my way through a wedding that was never to happen. I ran half marathons (very slowly with lots of walking in between.) I paid off my student loans.  I explored everything in a frenzy.  

 

Keeping Up with social mediaIn between the time Instagram got downloaded on my phone and Facebook became sentient, I got sucked into a feed of stimulus to consume, compete, and compare that was fed by an algorithm that was smarter than I was.  I fell for it every time. Clicked. Liked. Winced. Repeated.  There apparently were Joneses somewhere, I was keeping up with- but not with money (had none), but instead, with a frenzied need to run like hell in a marathon of comparison I hadn’t trained for.  

Every time the bell rang, I salivated.

Then, after some time, I was 29, you know how it is, as time goes.  My mom died unexpectedly.  I had called off a wedding.  I had been laid off from my job. I lost a loved one to Pancreatic cancer in dizzying speed. I fell in love all over again.  We moved to Texas.

Life carries on, and sometimes it takes tears to clear your eyes and make sight of what’s important.

Suddenly, I was given a double whammy of a gift- to both have made it to 30 and a chance to start with a clean slate.  What to do? It was a fresh new decade.

In the best way possible, I started to slow down (along with my metabolism, sigh) I started to realize that I no longer wanted to celebrate being busy anymore.  The frenzied pace of my 20’s was getting tiresome.  I also started to realize that while I will always be passionate about saving money and squeezing the value from a penny, there are two things that really matter-freedom of time and freedom of money.  

Life is a constant tradeoff- we sacrifice our time to get more money.  We spent our money to save time. Our time for money.  Money for more time.  Usually, one seems out of whack with the other.

The Wonder Luster BlogI’m 30 now, and I’m done running a one-woman sprint on the rodent wheel of stressing about one while chasing the other, without intention or purpose.  I’ve recognized that when I’m feeling terribly unfullfilled, I fitter away my time and my money, usually to buy stuff, which I have to sacrifice more time to earn more money to maintain.  

Who else is tired of wandering from store to store in the shopping mall of life looking for fulfillment in someone else’s window?

At this age, I yearn to water deep roots.  I want to feel community again.  I want to play outside until the street lights come on.  I realize that my quest for meaning may alienate me from the paths of others.  I don’t want a traditional path, and I’ve started to quietly close the doors to gain focus and figure out what truly matters.

I think most of us strive to be everything, all at once.

We want to kick ass at our careers, find true love, then maintain it, cultivate an awesome friend/family circle, pay off our debts, save up for the future, stay in shape, have stellar wardrobes, go on Instagram worthy vacations, brunch- and of course, figure out the meaning of life, while still having time to check our Facebook feeds and see how well everyone else is seemingly doing it better than we are.

If we gauge the joy of our lives by social media, and measure ourselves in likes and shares, we find the joyless life where everyone else is better than us, and of course, in much better lighting.

The Wonder Luster, as a blog, is my journey into sorting it out, with the assurance that it’s okay to slow down and be deliberate about how you live your day to day.  It is a practice in closing some doors, knowing they can surely be reopened later, but to meaningfully pursue a select few things that bring you joy, grow your skill sets and not get overwhelmed by the thousand notifications going off on our phones.

Traveling to see a Japanese Temple

I’m building a bucket list, well, a Wonder List, of all the things that I want to explore and do.   I’ve realized I can’t live scattered (though we all have to keep so many balls in the air at the same time) and I can’t write scattered.  There is power in focus, intentionality and completion.  

I will still be writing FrugalBeautiful– but this blog will be focused on things that really bring me joy, and of course- exploration.  Every day is a new chance to explore, learn, water deep roots, cultivate connections and find meaning and wonder in life.

Let’s explore, together.

Why I Switched - Facebook

2 Comments

Life is wondrous! Feed your lust for life with the tools & inspiration to help make it a great one.

« It Feels Like Home At The Lone Star Court in Austin, TX
No, It Really Wasn’t A Great Decade: Why Our 30’s Are Way Better Than Our 20’s »

Comments

  1. caren says

    January 10, 2018 at 5:48 pm

    Hey! I just discovered you through the FinCon community. I love your work and your writing is beautiful! Sounds like we’ve got a ton in common and I couldn’t agree more with your discovery that you squander money when you’re feeling unfulfilled. I’ve spent YEARS doing that, too.

    Anyway, we live, we learn.

    Nice to meet you!

    Reply
    • shannyn says

      February 28, 2018 at 1:35 pm

      Thank you for the commment Caren! Fincon has brought so many wonderful people into my life, like yourself! Thank you, sincerely for the kind words about my writing..it can be a really lonely process, and I’m testing out a voice and style that is a bit more personal than what I did at my frugality blog- so we shall see. I appreciate the very kind feedback!

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Welcome!

Because you were born for more than putting your dreams on hold between 17 & 65. Reclaim your sense of adventure, become financially free & live your dream life before you retire. Learn more >>

We're on this adventure together to reclaim your life despite a 9-5! Get inspirational guidance on your own amazing journey with my weekly email.

5 Things To Do Before Traveling To a Foreign Country

5 Things To Do Before Traveling To a Foreign Country

When traveling to a foreign country, planning is your friend. Check out these 5 important things we recommend handling as soon as possible.

Staying in Hostels: What You Need to Know

Staying in Hostels: What You Need to Know

Not only is staying in hostels an awesome way to save money while traveling, the community and friendships you’ll experience are like nothing else.

“The Year of Less:” How A Journey To Spend Less Leads To So Much More

“The Year of Less:” How A Journey To Spend Less Leads To So Much More

I read a lot of books, but rarely, do I love them enough to write a whole post on why I loved it and how it’s positively impacting my life. So, with that being said, I felt the need to share one book I read recently that should be shouted from the mountaintops. It’s called “The Year of Less.”

Follow the adventure on Instagram

Copyright © 2021 · The Wonder Luster · designed by Archer Creative

  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact