5 year anniversary giveaway month

December marks From Aldi To Harrods turning 5, in fact you can read my very embarrassing first post if you’d like. 5 years has seen a lot of change in my personal life, my career and on this blog. I am so excited, as I have said many times, to now be working on my blog and other ventures full time.

Over the past 5 years there have been over 500 blog posts published  – did you know that my most popular post of all time is what to do when an eBay buyer opens a case against you? It is closely followed with how to to sell your smelly old shoes on eBay.

I am often asked why I started blogging, and the answer to that is simple – I wanted to tell people how to make extra money without falling victim to any scams. It helped me to be accountable to my readers, and I love hearing how you’ve managed to make some money or save money following something I’ve posted.

Back when I started, there weren’t many people talking about money openly, never mind actually blogging about it. Martin Lewis was the only big name in talking about money, and I was a dedicated user of his forum. Many of my readers were other forum users who were keen to read things away from the forum. 

2013 saw me moving to WordPress and getting my own domain. 2013 also had a lot of other great things happen to me – I landed a fantastic job, I was a finalist in Savoo’s Savvy Shopper competition and I got engaged. Throughout this, the blog grew and grew.

2014 saw not one but two new designs, although very similar. It also saw my online income rising steadily, and the introduction of some regular posts, such as my Poundland finds.

And now we are here, almost at the end of 2015. 2015 saw me get married, my husband set up his own blog and life has been great.

What blogging has given me

Blogging is such a fantastic outlet, especially in this niche. You all hold me accountable with my challenges, and I feel a responsibility to you to ensure that what I write is correct. I have met some fantastic people through blogging – both people I have met “in real life” so to speak, and some amazing online friends. I have had opportunities aplenty – let’s be honest, from the cold, hard cash in my hands to getting to travel. It has been great. I have released an e-book and I quit my job which has to be the biggest achievement to date.

To celebrate over 500 blog posts, 5 years and Christmas coming up, I am hosting a giveaway each and every day throughout December. I can’t promise that the giveaway items will arrive in time for Christmas, but they might help to make the January blues a little bit easier.

The giveaways & how to enter

Every day in December I will post that day’s competition at 00.01am. Each competition (apart from the first day) will run for 24 hours and you can enter with a whole host of entry options using the Rafflecopter widget. There are plenty of prizes to be won including cash, festive items, recipe books, a meal planner, sweets and more!

Be sure to be following me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram for some sneak previews.