New Focus on The Blog & Why It's Changed

A few months ago, I had been taking a couple of extended breaks from The Little Red Journal. I've been quite busy moving, switching jobs, and trying to settle in to these adjustments. That's not my excuse, though. I was getting a little burned out on writing about veganism. I turned to my husband and said, "You know, I feel like I know everything I could possibly want to know about being vegan." I think there was a slight sigh of relief from him, and he probably knew that I wouldn't be asking him to watch yet another vegan documentary.

I wrote a blog post where I expressed this burned out feeling and tossed together all 45 posts up to the point that dealt with my journey into veganism. After writing that, I felt better, and realized that although being vegan is now a huge part of my life, it's definitely led me into another direction that I never really expected it to. After nine months as a vegan, I started to think about about other ways I could improve my life. I watched Adam Baker's TED talk and decided that we should pay off the remaining student loan debt that we have.

Despite having no experience at all with budgeting, I set to work creating one with the help of Mint.com. This was something that I was really staring to care deeply about. Instead of shrugging off a purchase as an "I deserve it" impulse buy, I began to really stop and think, "Do I need this?!" I found a love for minimalism and donated even more than usual to help purge some unnecessary items from our live. Then I really started getting serious about the finances. We've paid $1,000 every month since January on the student loans and are on track to be out of debt in June 2014.

If you're a regular reader (and I thank you for that!), then you're probably thinking, "I knew all of this!" If you're new, welcome, and I'd like to let you know that this has all impacted me, as well as this blog, heavily. The Little Red Journal began as a place where I could write freely and serve as a virtual diary of sorts about my life. I used it whenever I had the time, and in the beginning, I was posting sporadically. Once I went vegan, it was a place for me to seek refuge when many people were not supportive of what I was doing. There were plenty who were behind me since day one, and if you're reading this, you're probably one of them.

My focus has since shifted, and I want to talk about a few topics seriously, and without reservation. Obviously, I will still talk about veganism, as I am passionate about this and know that this is a great place to share all of my info here. I'd also like to talk about my financial goals and minimalism efforts here. An important thing that I've learned over the last year or two is that I don't have to live by anyone else's script, and it's time to create my own. I have no interest in living the life I had always dreamed about and now realize that I'm heading onto another path. I hope you all will continue to take interest in this new direction of The Little Red Journal, and I'm more than excited to share all of these new adventures with you.