New Year Plans | Blogging Stuff

Well it's taken me a few weeks to post this but the greetings are no less sincere - Happy New Year!
After a lovely Christmas break with lots of great family and friend time, I've struggled to get back into the blogging space but I thought it was about time I got some 2020 thoughts and plans written down - as much for myself as anything. Fail to plan and all that...

2020 sees me enter my 10th year of blogging. It started as a hobby and looking back, I probably didn't capitalise on all of the opportunities that those early days offered. In fact, the blog has only started paying for itself in the last 2 years. And when I say paying for itself, I mean just about covering the website/email costs and the number of hours I spend on here. It's definitely not an income source I can rely on so I've been actively seeking more freelance work this month.

That's not to say the blog couldn't be a bigger source of income but that always involves selling out too much. The small amount of brand work I already do feels like selling out to some degree so to make the blog my only source of income would involve many more #ad posts and I'm just not willing to do this. I don't think you want it either.

So what are the plans for the coming year? I'm not setting anything in stone - never one to do that and blogging changes so much so it would be unwise to be too prescriptive. But I have a few thoughts and plans that I want to be able to look back on during the year when lacking in direction or struggling for content.

• I will continue to buy less & buy better. As I've done for a couple of years now, I'm avoiding fast fashion, pile em high/sell them cheap outlets like ASOS, New Look, Primark and the supermarkets. In 2019 there was the odd thing here and there - literally 2 or 3 things - but 2020 I want that to be zero.

• I will still share the best of the high street with you all on this blog. You've told me you want more try ons and brand edits because you're busy and don't have time to trawl the shops yourself. I've an ongoing relationship with M&S where I feature them monthly but I'll also mix it up with other brands and businesses across a range of prices. Buying better doesn't have to mean spending more. For instance, I'll be celebrating the best of the sales throughout - including my next post...stand by!

• Personally, I will endeavour to buy more from actual shops rather than online. I am increasingly uncomfortable about the amount of packaging in online purchases - and I'm sure there's a ton of waste in other different forms when it comes to getting an item from the retailer to me. I was horrified also to read an article recently about the issue of brands dumping their returned items as it can be too labour intensive to prep them for resale. Obviously, I will buy online occasionally - but I'll be much smarter about it.

• I will incorporate more broad wardrobe advice into the blog - something I'd hoped to do in 2019 but I only scratched the surface. I know so many of you want advice on wardrobe edits and capsule wardrobe so watch out for a few posts through the year to help you with these topics. So many of you have told me how you've enjoyed my wardrobe detox advice - thanks for that! 

• I want to move away from social media and use this blog more as the year goes on. This is a tricky one as brands always request social coverage and actually the try ons work best in the Instagram stories format but I'm still going to focus on moving more and more content to this channel. I'm conscious that over recent years, my blog posts have declined in numbers and I don't want 2020 to continue this trend. 

• I will make more of an effort to broaden my content beyond fashion - as requested by so many of you. Cookery is the main area you want me to cover so I am planning how to integrate this is a useful way - I find cooking for the family as challenging as the next mum and hopefully by documenting it on here, it will help me to get more organised too.

I would also appreciate your feedback. Please let me know what you'd like to see on here by messaging me, commenting here (if it's not too much of a faff!) or sending an email to avril@alifetostyle.com. 2020 will see me working more outside of the blog so time will always be the challenge but I'll keep a list of everything and do my best to incorporate as much as possible.

Finishing with a heartfelt THANK YOU - for all the encouragement, the comments, the emails and the love. I would have given this game up long ago without it.

I hope this year brings many happy times for you and your families.
Much love,
Avril