What positive things has blogging given you so far?

I have said time and again that I never expected anything from blogging when I started except for it to be an outlet of my pent up emotions back then. A therapy and nothing more. I wasn’t even expecting to gain online friends. I just wrote for me and that’s it.

I used to maintain a blog in Bravejournal.com. I still have it there but I will be transferring the contents to another blog I set up in Wordpress. You can’t really re-decorate the blogs there because of the limited features. I wrote things as they happen to me on a daily basis. Sometimes, I write more than 2 entries a day. That’s how much I needed an outlet that time. All my rants about my life, my work (most especially about my boss), my frustrations… It’s all there. Then, I met Devilicious. Jo was, and still is, one of the most helpful bloggers I’ve met so far. She leaves comments, was sympathetic to my plight (we were under similar situations before) and was instrumental to my introduction to peyd posting.

She taught me everything I needed to know. All the tips and tricks. Most I followed, some I didn’t. Because of her, blogging became more than just an online journal for me. It became a means of alleviating some financial problems then. And then after just a month of her “lectures”, I started earning.

I started with Blog to Prfit and then proceeded to Blgsvertise, Smrty, PayU2B, SpnsrdReviews, RevwMe, 3Ps, and so on. Do you know that the income I got through all these programs produced four vacations with my immediate and extended family, two vacations for me and my sisters, numerous items at home, a desktop and a laptop, cellphones for me, my brother and my 3 sisters, numerous shopping sprees, two years’ worth of high school tuition fees for my brother, and a year’s worth of college tuition fees? That’s how much I have earned so far! I should mention that I am maintaining two households (ours and my grandma’s), paying all the bills and my grandma’s medications. I won’t tell you the exact figure, how much I earned so far. But suffice it to say that it was worth more I could make in years. Quitting my corporate job was the best decision I have ever made in the past ten years.

At the onset, my dad was shaking his head at me, telling me that I was wasting my CPA license with writing online reviews. I was still using my Accountancy education and my CPA license because I have some clients I do bookkeeping or auditing for, though I know my dad wants to see me succeed in my career by being employed in big multinational corporations. He knew I have a love-hate relationship with my profession. But when he saw how happy I am with keeping my own schedule, he let it go. He knew I made the right decision.

And I did. Blogging will always be a part of my life. I doubt if I will quit.

How about you, what positive things has blogging given you so far?