I have been writing Mom Start for one year now and still haven’t settled with a direction for my blog. I have been writing reviews and hosting giveaways and sometimes I don’t have the time I need to write as well as I know that I can. I do a lot of copy and pasting and have found that bloggers feel I don’t have a voice of my own.

I have been called terrible names and accused of being an e-mail harvester that doesn’t have any real giveaways. That’s not true and I don’t get as many products for review as I have giveaways and I only use e-mail address to contact the winner. I have been approached twice now for the sale of your e-mail addresses but I turned it down and will continue to do so. I have thought about charging to host giveaways that don’t include a review item and I sent out my media kit to a few companies and no one has accepted the payment agreement yet. This was something else that major bloggers were telling me. They said my time is valuable and I should not feel guilty charging for all the work. It’s just why would a company pay me to host a giveaway when so many other moms will do it for free.?

I will not charge for reviews because then I feel that I’m not giving an accurate representation of the product. I want to make a little money to support my family but not at the cost of my readership. I doubt I will ever be a professional blogger but helping my family with what little I do receive from my blog makes a difference. I mean, it’s just like when I said a penny saved is a penny earned. If I get a coupon for a free cleaning item then I just saved my family 4 dollars. So if you want to know why I blog? The answer is to help my family save money. All the perks have just been extra.

Saving money with my blog has helped us have the capability to move into a new house. My husband has a great job and I just help us not feel so tight. I clip coupons like a mad woman and refuse to walk out of Albertsons without saving at least 100.00 dollars. I sign up for freebies and blog tours just for the coupons and savings. I’ll show you where when I can and help you find the latest savings. I’ll also try to get links to the hot bloggers that write about savings.

I am going to continue reviewing items but I’m going to shift the perspective to savings. So the reviews will contain my opinion of the product, event, or advertisement, and how it has impacted my life and saved my family money. I even want to start a weekly meme that is called “Mom Start Saving”. I want all the bloggers that write about savings and where to shop to link up so we can all help moms start saving money. I’d love to have guest bloggers and establish a relationship with other moms through this aspect.

So let’s start saving together…..and always remember why we are in it. My family is my voice.