I started this blog about a year and a half ago as an anonymous blog. I purposely had things left vague… and didn’t really disclose too much about myself…
But that’s all about to change. Okay, not totally, but I’ve decided it is time for me to at least have a name (I’m sick of being an acronym – ARBM). And since I’m lazy, and don’t want to come up with a nickname for myself, or try to learn a new name, I decided that I would just use my own name. That’s right, I am becoming slightly less anonymous!
So, without further ado…
“Hello, my name is Jena.”
I live in the beautiful city of Victoria on the west coast of Canada. I work as an engineer, and play soccer and fieldhockey as my fun fitness activities. I am pretty sure I’ve told most everything about myself in the variety of “awards” I have responded to (those are all linked to from my About Me page – which I need to update now…), so I’m going to leave this short and sweet.
I am going to keep my husband fully anonymous, since this is my blog, not his, and I don’t think it would be fair, but it probably wouldn’t take too much research to find us out, if you were so inclined. I am just hoping that if anyone decides to do that, they do it for good reasons, not evil or malicious ones.
I already introduced you to Bentley. We’ve had him for a few weeks now, and he has grown so much. It’s still a lot of work, and we are spending lots of money on training and puppy-care, but he’s such an awesome little pup, and I think he is growing up to be a good dog. Being the crazy puppy-mama that I am, I have started an Instagram account for him.
You’ve met Big Cat and Little Cat before, and as much as I love those nicknames for them, I might as well introduce them with their proper names too…
So, this is Casper (aka Big Cat). He is really not impressed with the new addition to the household… He has taken to living mostly in the basement, and only seems to eat on top of this cabinet (safe height from the pup).
And this is Cleo (aka Little Cat). She has not exactly warmed up to the pup, but she is learning to tolerate him so that she can get food and affection… They can sit next to each other peacefully, so long as Bentley is fast asleep…
So, there we go, I am no longer blogging anonymously… I hope I don’t regret this…
Do you blog anonymously? Or have you introduced the real you to the internet world?
All-Round Better Me 
I don’t blog anonymously, but I do keep my daughter that way. 🙂
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That’s smart. Let her decide when she is older if she wants to have an online presence.
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Exactly! I mean I talk about her all the time but i don’t show her face
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So nice to see you! And it’s funny –- I just wrote a post about how to blog anonymously. 😉 Though I look forward every day to the time when we can share more of ourselves including our names and faces on our blog, too!
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Ha ha! I just went and read your post. Pretty funny timing!
And yeah, I spent some time deciding if I wanted to “come out”, so to speak, and it did mean removing a bunch of numbers from previous posts… But I am so far from FIRE right now (it’s more of a distant dream) that there isn’t any real risk for me…
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YAY! Nice to meet you, Jena! 🙂 As you know, I don’t blog anonymously. A lot of my readers from the very beginning have been friends and family. I think I enjoy having my blog not being anonymous because it allows me to connect with people I already know in ways I might have imagined I could. With so many friends, family, acquaintances, all with varied interests, it can hard to track down commonalities. So I love when I write about something, and people I know IRL really enjoy it and the message resonates with them. In a way, it can help to make our relationship stronger. I’m sure you won’t regret going public with your identity!
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That’s super cool that you have friends and family read your blog. I think I only have a couple “real life” friends that read my blog, and a couple more know about it, but don’t read it… My husband knows about it, but point blank asked if he would be expected to read it. Ha ha ha! I don’t think I will regret it. It already feels better. 🙂
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*waves* Hi Jena! (PS – I was in Victoria 2 years ago, and your town is one of the loveliest ones I’ve ever had the opportunity to visit. 🙂 )
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Well, I am a little biased, but I think Victoria is pretty darn awesome. 🙂
Let me know if you ever come back this way!
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We do a bit of a mix. I started using my pictures, where we live (Flathead Valley, by Glacier National Park Montana) and more about our life. But I don’t show clear pictures of my kids, or use our names. Really it’s mostly so my family can’t google my blog. None of them read it! I think it would make me to self conscious. But we share a lot of our info, monthly expenses, (soon) net worth update, ect. I have only told very few friends. It’s easier to be really open and honest with strangers. =)
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Yeah, my hesitation is sort of that I might share financial goals and information that might be a bit too much information to know about me in “real life”, but that probably also stems from the thought of money being a taboo topic, which is so ingrained in me it is hard to shake. And that’s sort of what the online personal finance community is trying to do, right? It is a bit freeing though, not having to worry about exposing too much information about yourself. I’m already identified, so I won’t accidentally give myself away! 🙂
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Hi Jena, nice to “finally” meet you 🙂
I don’t blog anonymously, but I keep others names out of my blog, even though in my Copenhagen trip post, I was allowed to post personal picture of my friends… I do think more personal pictures will be posted moving forward, at least when I travel 🙂
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Indeed, nice to “meet” you as well! 🙂
It will be nice going forward that I can put photos of myself on the blog, instead of always having to find photos that don’t expose who I am. 🙂
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Nice to meet you, Jena! I’ve been debating over this lately, but so far I haven’t come to a full conclusion and thus have simply not been blogging all summer. Oops! My net worth is high enough and my savings goals high enough that I would need to delete a lot of posts (and not write a lot in the future) in order to de-anonymize, so I’ll probably stay anonymous.
Victoria is a beautiful place!
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Yeah, I was lucky that I haven’t really been sharing too much of our numbers lately, so I didn’t have to do much to change that up. It does mean that I definitely won’t be sharing specific numbers in the future either, but I don’t mind sharing ballpark figures.
And, yes, Victoria is beautiful. (but I might be a little biased)
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