Welcome to this July 2021 Monthly Blog Review!
If you haven’t seen one of these before, we like to do monthly reviews where we share some updates on our blog and our personal lives. We recap the new posts and episodes that have come out this month, share any news and stats for the month, then share our personal stories from the month at the end.
New Blog Posts
Here are the blog posts we published this month:
- June 2021 Monthly Blog Review
- How To Write A Professional Email
- What Is Brain Dumping?
- How To Break Up With Your Bad Habits As a Teenager in 2021
- The Importace of Daily Routines
- How to Boost Your Energy As a Teenager in 2021
- Why I Will Be An Entrepreneur As a Teenager in 2021
- How To Improve Your Emotional Intelligence As a Teenager in 2021
New Podcast Episodes
Here are the podcast episodes we published this month:
- How To Be Productive in 2021 (Definitive Guide) – Part 2
- Achieving Early Financial Independence with Dan Sheeks
- Social Media Effects on Mental Health
- Working For Corporate America with Daniel Philpot
- Why I Don’t Completely Agree with Dave Ramsey
- The Power of Real Estate Investing with Daniel Philpot
- Getting Yourself Out Of A Productive Rut
- How To Motivate Yourself To Work Hard With Dani Kaur
Announcements
Happy Birthday Teen Financial Freedom!
July marks Teen Financial Freedom’s 2 year anniversary!!! Jacob started TFF by himself back in July of 2019, and what a ride it has been since then! Our team has slowly grown over time and grew big time this month! Over the last 2 years we’ve published over 200 pieces of content (either blog posts or podcasts) and we’ve had tens of thousands of people visit the website!
New Team Members
As said in last month’s review, this month we have some very exciting news! This month we added not 1, not 2, but 3 new members to the TFF team!
The 3 new members are:
- Ruby Sulter: She is our new social media manager and designer!
- Ian Cohan: He handles communications and podcast management!
- Chase Guellete: He is joining us as a podcast co-host and will manage outreach for podcast!
Check out their bio on our about us page!
Note from Jacob
We’re so stoked to have these guys be joining us. I had a realization this month that this TFF team is STACKED! All of our team members have experience in either owning businesses or being a part of amazing organizations. We’re literally building a dream team and I’m so excited to be a part of it.
We are beyond excited to get working together as a team and reach new heights! With doubling the members of our team, we can put more content out, become more efficient, come up with new ideas, and implement new projects!
What We Worked On
With the process of adding new members, we are just trying to get everyone set up with their new roles and responsibilities. At the same time, we are continuing to write 2 blog posts a week, and record new podcast episodes. As for our podcast, the majority of our episodes had guests who provided great value to the episodes. These episodes will be coming out next month, so stay tuned for our upcoming episodes!
Statistics
Unfortunately our website hasn’t rebounded like we would have hoped by this point. Our June downturn has lasted a little longer than we anticipated, but we’re working on making some changes to the website that should allow us to bounce back in the coming months. Here are our stats for now:
- 4,600 Users
- 14,000 Pageviews
- 185,000 Pinterest Impressions
- 130,000 Google Search Console Impressions
- 3,200 Google Search Console Clicks
Personal Lives
Now it’s time for our personal updates from the month:
Jacob
I spent a good majority of this month on vacation which was amazing. I’m always incredibly grateful about all the memories that I make with my family, but also for all the relaxation and new ideas that come from vacation. However, I sometimes struggle with taking time off from working on my businesses. This month I only had about a week on either end to get stuff done. It felt like I spent a majority of that time just transitioning in and out of vacation mode. Needless to say, I’m happy to be back and ready to grind!
Despite a long vacation in the middle of the month, I did manage to make some good progress on several projects. First and foremost, I spent a lot of time working on TFF this month. Bringing on those 3 team members required a lot of planning, meetings, and set up on our end. We also did a ton of fantastic podcast recordings with some really cool guests. Unfortunately you guys will have to wait until August and September to see those interviews!
I also made some big financial changes this month which I’m really excited about. For starters, I actually came up with a plan for how I’ll go to college debt free (I’m starting as a freshman this fall). It took a lot of research on tax laws, 529 withdrawals, and other topics. But, I’m happy to say I now know exactly how I plan to finance my entire education without taking on any debt (I’ll write a post about this soon)! I also made some changes to my stock investments in preparation for a real estate deal I’m trying to get into within the next 6 months.
Finally, I spent a lot of time with family this month. Obviously I was on a long vacation with them, but even when we were at home we spent a lot of time together. I played a lot of video games with my brother and dad and had a lot of good talks with my mom. I’m super happy I got to spend that time with them as it’s one of my main priorities before I go off to college.
Speaking of college, I have exactly 30 days until I move to a new state and start at a college where I know nobody. A little scary, huh? I’m nervous, but really excited too! Before then, I have a lot I’d like to get done in preparation. I’m pretty stressed right now because I don’t feel like there’s enough time to do everything I want to do, but I know I can get it done. It’s grind time and I’m ready to go!
Terry
Like the others on the team, I had a bit of traveling this month, about a week and a half in Ohio visiting family. I loved getting to see them, but I accidentally set the bar too high one of the weeks I was there with what I expected myself to get done work-wise. Granted, I did get in a decent amount of reading!
I know it’s small, but my favorite “win” by far this month is that I finished the book Principles by Ray Dalio. The entire book was around 500+ pages and it took me forever to finish it, but it was so satisfying when I did. I learned quite a few really cool lessons from the book that I’m looking forward to incorporating in some coming content!
Also, as Jacob has already mentioned, a huge win for us this week was doubling our team with Ruby, Ian, and Chase joining us. I’m really excited to see what the future holds, especially considering we’ve got such a larger team.
Personally, July was a pretty vanilla month. It had some ups and downs. Some unproductive days, and some productive ones. My favorite change I made this month is that I started reading a lot more, and I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve been learning. I guess my low for the month was realizing my schedule is about to get a whole lot busier with college starting in a few weeks (my summer went too fast lol!).
Dani
I’m writing my personal section a week before July ends, as I’m going on vacation soon and won’t be able to work then. I’m super stoked for my trip, and I can’t wait to meet my cousins after a long time. That being said, I have to hustle and get a bunch of work done before I go.
My main milestone this month has been creating my vision board. I dedicated a few hours a couple of days ago to fully create my vision board, and I’m ecstatic with the way it turned out. I then wrote 2 blogs, one on the benefits of creating a vision board, and another one on how to create a vision board that works. In the second one, you’ll be able to read about how I created mine and what it looks like, so be sure to check it out!
This week, I’ll have written 4 blog posts! I have never written this many posts in a week, and it made me realize a lot about Parkinson’s Law: “Work contracts to fit the time we give it.” I’ll definitely keep this in mind when high school starts. Two of the posts were on the vision board, mentioned above, one being this monthly review, and another one being on what I learned from the book, “Rich Dad Poor Dad.”
Tomorrow, I’ll be dedicating a whole day to read the book, “Rich Dad Poor Dad” and write a portion of the blog I’ll be writing. I also got the book, “Atomic Habits” and I’ll read that when I come back from my trip. Speaking of my trip, I’ll be going on a 10-hour drive, so I’m thinking about how I can spend it as productively as possible. I won’t be able to do any work, but I’m probably going to listen to some podcasts.
I haven’t been able to work on my productivity schedule just yet, but I’m promising myself to work on that the week I come back. There is only one week of summer break till school starts after coming back from my trip, so I’m going to relax but also work on myself.
Overall, July has been a productive month for me and I got a lot done! I’ll even be recording a couple of podcast episodes tomorrow with Terry. I’m excited about my trip, and I’ll get back to writing more blogs when I get back.
Ruby
This month, just like all of 2021 has been really rough for me personally. Though this is my first time posting on this blog, I think it’s important to show that there are highs and lows of being a teen entrepreneur. I’ve always felt short on time and extremely overwhelmed, but being on vacation has actually ramped those feelings up a ton (I’d really like to write a full blog post on vacation in productivity, should I?).
For one of my other businesses, I was able to gain two experienced mentors/team members that are really going to help me grow my brand. I was so excited to finally feel understood and validated after months of frustration and dead-ends. This one meeting I had with them absolutely sparked me out of my motivation rut, it made me feel like a light switch had been turned on again in my head. I’m just incredibly thankful for starting to feel back in the swing of things.
Another thing that I’m extremely excited about this month is the 6-week personal finance program by Ramit Sethi. It is the best finance book I have ever read. Period. This month I’ve been starting the weekly tasks to get my financial infrastructure set up. Whenever I try to explain my feelings and thoughts about it I become so overwhelmed in the joy that I can’t even explain how amazing it is. It’s no bs, it’s simple, clear, and straightforward. I’ll be writing a book review on the blog about it soon too, as well as a step-by-step guide that is more applied for teens without debt.
Overall, grace has been an important part of my month. I’m working on being kinder to myself and realizing that often times I am way too hard on myself. Having high expectations of yourself is absolutely important, but it’s also important to realize that high expectations also apply to areas of self-care. As someone who always believes that I can never stop working and I always have to be putting in 110%, it’s important to realize that your 110% doesn’t always have to look the same. 110% one day might just mean reading a book, getting dressed, or going for a walk.
My mantra this month in general and when I’m stressed out has been: “Actually, Life is beautiful and I have time.”
But even with so much going on in my life, I’m so excited to be joining the TFF Team! I have so many ideas that I can’t wait to implement to grow our brand from a social media and design standpoint. Please feel free to check out my bio to learn more about me or send me a dm/email! I’m so excited to meet you all 🙂
Ian
I have been given the amazing opportunity of joining TFF this month, a huge thanks to Jacob, Terry, & Dani for giving me a chance. Things have been slow since it’s the summer and Jacob just went on vacation. Now back to me…
My primary business has been continuously growing business-wise, and I have gotten very close to burnout from processing everything.
I honestly have neglected my eBay store, which sucks since I just ordered brand new inventory earlier this month but my sales have been decent for not being active on the site. A few errors occurred from mental exhaustion and now I lost the best seller performance rating on eBay and I need to do an inventory audit.
On a personal level, I have been keeping my mental health in check and I tried to go running again after having an ankle injury from track. My ankle hasn’t been the nicest person to me so I have to take a break… but I did make a few new friends who are new to my city.
On the best note, I finally started my term as a youth commissioner for my local city and I get to serve those who have allowed me to start a successful business. Now the school is starting on the same day this is released and I’m stressed lol.
Chase
Suffice to say, July has been a bit of a roller coaster for me. The month started on a high note, with me getting my dream internship with an Influencer named Natasha Grano. She brought me onto her team after I reached out through Instagram. I was brought onto her team to help launch her podcast to more traditional platforms like Spotify and Itunes!
Since the beginning of the month, I had some family issues that dealt a blow to my motivation and productivity, so I honestly felt like I wasn’t the level of intern that they wanted on their team. Despite that, I went on a vacation with some of my family, and it was an amazing week and worked miracles for my mental health!
Coming back from that vacation, it took me a while to get back on my game, but in this final week I’ve been returning to and trying to rebuild some of my healthy habits, like exercise, healthy eating, adequate sleep, and spending time with those who care about me.
I’ve been working hard hours with Natasha and her podcast, getting ready for our August release date. I’ve been finding my groove again, and I’m hyped up to be a part of the TFF team as our main podcast host moving forward! Thanks to my older networking and Natasha and her team, there will hopefully be some big guests with great content coming to the podcast soon.
Long story short, I’m ready for an amazing August!