Transcript
Welcome to the Blog It Friends show!
What's up you guys?
Famous Ashley Grant here.
Today I have my very good friend Tracy Shaw from Food Wine Sunshine and Healthy Family
Project.
We're going to be talking all about what it's like to work not only for a brand but also
keep maintaining your own blog.
So Tracy, welcome to the show!
Thank you for having me.
I'm very excited to have you here.
So how's your day going today?
I'm not too bad actually.
I let my children skip school so they could go to the beach and then we have track meet
later.
So this is a perfect break in the middle of the day of everything else so thank you.
That's awesome.
So okay, so that goes perfectly with the whole sunshine aspect of your blog.
So I get the impression based on the name of it that you like food, wine and sunshine.
Absolutely.
I actually have been rebranded when I was starting to come up with the name.
I think almost two and a half, three years ago now so yeah.
I actually do recall that.
I do.
I just don't know if you wanted to chat about that but yeah, I really did enjoy like trying
to help you come up with the name because before it was something else.
What was it before?
I think it's been almost 12 years now and I was having fun saving and then probably
about halfway through that I added in the cooking aspect so I was having fun saving
and cooking and then I needed something that was a little bit more me so that's where food,
wine and sunshine came in.
Well since you did open the can of worms I'm gonna go ahead and jam on that for a second.
I remember whenever you and I were like brainstorming what in the world to call it and you were
talking about all these different names like you came to me and you had all these different
names and all I could think was why not do something that reflects exactly what you love
to talk about.
And so I really enjoyed like helping you come up with that because it was just it was such
a it's such a perfect name especially for what you write about.
Oh for sure.
Yeah.
Let me say one simple sentence.
You said when I think of you I think of food, wine and sunshine and I'm like oh that's
it.
That's it.
I love that so much.
Yeah that was perfect and I'm like good well I'm glad I make you think of food, wine and
sunshine so.
Absolutely especially since those are like three of my favorite things in the whole world.
Yeah.
So okay so how let's take it way back because you and I met a while ago.
Was it 2015?
Yeah I think so.
2015 or 2016.
Yeah yeah and so we met at a well a food and wine conference.
Perfect.
So tell me a little bit about what now?
I think that thing's fitting for us.
Yes absolutely absolutely.
So now with the food and wine tell me a little bit about how like everything progressed.
Like you started with the having fun saving.
You started doing the the food aspect of things and then I'm looking around because my dog's
going a little bit nuts next to me.
He's sitting right next to me.
So tell me a little bit about how everything progressed from like the beginning of when
you started blogging all the way to now where you are now.
Yeah when I was on actually a pediatrician doctor's appointment with my daughter.
Well almost 12 years ago now and I was I had stopped working when my son was born and that
was fine.
I was in sales management at a staffing company and I knew I wanted to stay home but when
she was born I just felt like I needed something and it was literally just reading a magazine
and like the front of the magazine it said how to start a mommy blog and I'm like oh
I can do that because I mean that's what everybody thinks when they read an article that things
are so super easy and that's kind of how having Wednesday was boring.
It was nothing about it was easy.
Years and hours and hours of I started looking for deals because I think way back then everybody
was in a hard financial spot.
Me included.
My husband told me how to figure out how to save money or I needed to go back to work
full time.
So that's what I figured if I needed to save other people did too.
So I not only did the blog but I did a lot of mom meetups.
I did a lot of church groups.
I did a lot of speaking and trying to help people save money on their grocery bills.
From there I wanted to go to teaching people how to use the food that we're buying for
cheap.
So that's where the cooking aspect came into it and then throughout those years I established
relationships with companies that I really enjoyed working with.
One of them being CK Mondavi.
So I ended up talking a lot about wine and wine cocktails and things and then my food
got a little bit more I wouldn't say complicated because nothing I make is complicated but
just a little bit more in depth than chicken and noodles and things like that as my kids
continue to grow.
So that's where the food and the wine came into play and here in Florida, sunshine's
perfect and then I tossed in some of our family travels.
So that's where I am now.
What I love the most about your blog is that even though it's sort of a lifestyle blog,
it definitely does have a solid niche to it.
It is just the food, wine and sunshine and the sunshine aspect being the travel.
So it doesn't get overly complicated but it also gives you lots of opportunities to kind
of talk about more than just one little thing.
One of the things that frustrates me the most about blogging is that they tell you you got
a niche down.
The riches are in the niches.
They always say that kind of stuff but for someone like me and I know like you, being
like a multi-passionate entrepreneur, someone who cares about more than just one little
thing, it's so hard to put yourself in a box.
And so I love the fact that with such a fun subject, you get to talk about multiple things.
So I'm kind of curious, I know how the food and wine sunshine aspects of things went down
but how did you end up working for such a well-known brand as Healthy Family Project?
So actually, throughout my blogging career, even starting back with having fun saving,
I worked with produce for kids.
So they would have two campaigns a year.
One is Mission for Nutrition, which is actually going on right now in the month of March.
And then the other one is our Power Your Lunch Bunch Back to School Campaign, which obviously
focuses more on the following, getting ready, get the kids ready for back to school.
So I've done blog work for them actually for seven years now.
And in the progression of all this, I told you I started having fun saving when my daughter
was two.
So as my kids are getting older, my son is now 17 and driving places.
He takes my daughter to practice.
Things definitely get, I don't know, you're so super busy when they're small and then
you go through this, I know life changes, I suppose, with them.
And then you had a little bit of free time.
And my now boss, Amanda, reached out to me by email 10 months ago now.
I can't even believe it's already been 10 months.
And said, hey, we have a job opening.
Do you have anybody in your real house that might be qualified?
So as I'm reading the job description, it was writing blog posts, food photography,
find interactions, being able to deal with WordPress.
I'm like, and obviously other stuff too.
But as I'm reading it, I'm like, okay, I could totally do that.
And I'm very happy with where Boots, Line, Sunshine is.
I have a good amount of content and I know I would still be able to do that.
It's just that, well, kids will always need their mother, but they don't need me quite
as much as they did five years ago.
So I thought it was a good time to look at something.
And I really lucked out because we are in a place where my husband's very happy, where
he is.
We are okay financially.
So I didn't need it, but I wanted it.
So which is a really cool place to be.
And I think that showed in the interview process and I'm hoping it still shows to this day.
So I have a great team there and they're fully supportive of Food, Wine, Sunshine too.
So I really am the best of both worlds.
What I love the most about that relationship of you working for this brand and yet also
still working for your own blog is that they're okay with it.
They actually are okay with it because what often happens whenever you start working for
a website, at least in my experience, is it becomes very much a, you know, your stuff
needs to go to the wayside.
You need to focus more on our stuff because that's what we're paying you for.
But I love the almost synchronous relationship that you guys seem to have where, you know,
they know that you're going to show up and you're going to give, you know, your all to
their website, but that you're allowed to keep your own project and it's okay.
And I'm very fortunate that now I'm sort of in the same situation where I can play with
my own things, but I also have my, you know, my clients that I serve and I take care of
them.
But yeah, I think it's important too, if you are going to, you know, branch out to work
for someone, that you have someone who understands that even though you are giving them your
all, that's not your all.
And I do like the fact that you said the thing about, you know, now that your kids are starting
to do so much out of the house, it's almost like you're thwarting the emptiness syndrome.
Oh, yeah.
Like, you know, I have spaces to fill and I have talent.
I have experience.
I mean, blogging now for 12 years.
It was really exciting for me in order to take those skills and those talents and put
them on a bigger platform.
Well, Food, Wine, Sunshine has been around for a while, obviously.
Healthy Family Project has been around longer.
They have a much larger customer and client base.
They're in the retail space.
So to take my areas of expertise and amplify them is actually pretty, it's kind of, it's
fun.
It's exciting knowing that you're touching even more people.
It's cool.
Well, and what I also like is that it seems like with your website and with theirs, you
guys have a very similar mission, though it's not necessarily to, you know, save money anymore.
Although that is a goal, you do want to be good stewards of your money and your food,
but that you genuinely care about the health of what you're serving your family.
You genuinely care about what you're creating in the kitchen.
And it goes so much further than just, like you said earlier, the chicken and noodles.
You're actually putting effort and thought into every meal that you're creating.
And I love the Healthy Family Project website because they come up with recipes I never
would have thought of, but then again, so do you.
And so it definitely feels like a really good fit.
So yeah, this is great.
I mean, I'll be, I'll be family project is where I ended about two years ago and they
had a very strong focus on mainly produce.
And now we're more better for you products.
But it's a lot of fun to see all these different ways to use produce.
Some ways I've used on mine, but now you open your eyes to like a whole new wheelhouse of
recipe opportunities.
It's cool.
I, yeah, I completely agree.
And in fact, you know, one of the first things that drew me to your website back when it
was still having fun saving was all of your interesting smoothie recipes.
I mean, just the, it was fascinating how many things you created with both fruits and vegetables.
I mean, I remember one of the first recipes I saw from you, it was like, it was a carrot
smoothie and like had carrots in it.
And I'm like, I didn't even know you could put a vegetable in the smoothie.
Like I knew that spinach was a thing, but I didn't know that like actually adding things
like sweet potatoes or just, just the different things that you add to it.
I think it's, I think it's really cool how innovative you are with your recipes and,
and how innovative healthy family project is too.
So kind of going back and, and, and rewinding the clock a little bit back whenever you were,
you know, just doing just your blog, how did it, how did the monetization track go for
you?
How did you actually start making money from the blog?
Cause I know it sounded like in the beginning it was just a way to save money, but didn't
you have to make money at it too?
Yeah.
The funny thing is, is that I had no idea that you could for a while.
Oh, wait a second.
And honestly, some of it is spent looking at other people's blogs.
So instead of linking to coupons.com, they linked to like something else, but it's still
took you to coupons.com and you're like, huh, where'd that come from?
So you slowly learn about different affiliate platforms that you could be a part of.
So a lot of mine in the beginning was through coupon prints.
So I did a lot, obviously deal matchups and things like that.
So a lot of it first started that way.
And then you learn like, you know, you can put ads on the side of your website.
You're like, Oh, look at that.
I don't think as much information was readily available back then.
But now there's so many different things that you can search that will give you affiliate
platform after affiliate platform, after ad network, after everything.
And then slowly you start to learn that when people want to talk about their products,
they'll actually think, Oh, I mean, it is an advertising.
So people don't necessarily think of that at first either.
So all of that was very eye opening and it's incredible that now I think it's a little
bit more accepted, understood that bloggers are talented individuals and we do deserve
to be paid for our time and effort.
So absolutely.
Absolutely. And another thing is, you know, one of the things you were saying is so true
that back then whenever, because I started in 2009, I think, goodness, how I've lost
track of math.
But yeah, 2009 was whenever I first foray into online blogging and I didn't actually
start really making money at it until 2011 whenever I was actually working for a brand
as well.
I was blogging for them on their behalf and you know, a lot of it was trial and error.
A lot of it was trying to figure things out and it was very holding it close to the vest.
Like if you were, if you were talking to another blogger, they were very secretive about how
they were making money on their websites.
And if you ask them too many questions, then they would send you a link to a course.
And so I like that nowadays, even though yes, there are still those courses and there is
definitely a place for them, I like that it's so much easier to get more information.
Like you can find templates on how to pitch a sponsor.
You can find templates on how to even ask for, you know, the sale or the money or the
contracts.
Like things that you wouldn't think a blogger would need, we're still running a business
basically.
It's not just, it's not just a hobby.
I probably wasn't until, I don't know, I'd probably say like a year or so ago where I
realized that a lot of times we should even come up with contracts stating what, like
what our deliverables are.
I mean, I've definitely had companies give them to me and you sign off and say, okay,
but in some situations we should actually give it to them and be like, wait a second,
this is what we're doing and we expect this to be met kind of thing.
So well, then one of the things just in the last year that's become very eye-opening to
me is also making it clear how long they have the right to use whatever you do.
I didn't realize, why now?
Our pictures.
Yes.
Like I had no idea that you could actually stipulate an expiration date on your content.
Like if you buy this for 200 bucks, let's say, it doesn't mean you can use it in perpetuity.
It means you have this many days to use it, but you actually have to state that in the
contract.
These are things I never would have thought of.
One of my most recent guests was actually a lawyer.
I had Amira from a self guru and we were talking about contracts and she gave me all these
like legal templates, which we'll leave in the show notes, but it's just things you just
don't even realize that bloggers actually have to be aware of because if you're making
any kind of money from your blog at all, there are certain things you have to do to not only
be legal, but to make sure that your stuff is protected, your content's protected.
I didn't mean to go down this rant, but-
No, I was just going to think, wait, you're going to put those in the show notes?
I should probably review those too.
Yes, yes.
I'm going to put it all in the show notes because it's a lot of things that I never
would have thought of and talking to her about how to be legal with your blogging, if you
actually plan on making money at all, you need to think about these things.
So but yeah, that was a tangent I didn't intend to go on, but we were talking about sponsorships
and contracts and there you go.
It's crazy though, but so we kind of alluded to it, but what would you actually say you
call your niche?
What would you say your niche is?
Healthy recipes served up with a glass of wine.
Love it.
I absolutely love that.
And because wine just makes me happier.
Well, you know what they say, wine a little, it'll make you feel better.
Exactly.
And so now on the Healthy Family Project side of things, what would you say their niche
is?
Definitely, we have a large focus on healthy recipes, but we are expanding more and more
into what makes a healthy family as a whole.
So we will talk about sleep patterns.
We have a podcast as well.
So where we'll talk about everything for family.
We've talked about mental health issues.
We've talked about everything, family as a whole.
And we want the whole entire family to be healthy and that just doesn't stem from food.
It stems from communications with parents.
It stems from back to school snacks.
It stems from how will parents to wake up and feel happy in the morning?
How do we go to bed at night?
And everything in between.
So it's absolutely, oh, that's so good.
Because I'm so glad you said that because health is about so much more than what we're
putting in our bodies.
It's also what we're putting in our minds.
It's what we're putting in our areas.
And in fact, another thing that I should leave in the show notes, there's an awesome book
about raising emotionally healthy children by Dr. Nikesha Hammond, and she's with Hammond
Psychology.
And so I need to leave that as well.
But I just love the fact that nowadays it's so much more accepted to talk about health
from not just a food perspective or what medicines you should take or what supplements you should
take.
It's so much more than that.
And so it sounds like Healthy Family Project is definitely evolving from more than just
what we're eating to what we're consuming in life, not just what we're consuming in
our mouths.
Yeah, that's so good.
So what do you see for the future of both Food, Wine and Sunshine and for Healthy Family
Project?
Well, I love what I'm doing there.
I have a customer client base.
I actually would say they're partners that I have had for years and I love them all.
There is a true partnership with them and it just makes me happy.
I would like to obviously continue those.
I love creating new things for them in different ways to be a part of their business.
So I'll continue to grow that way.
As my kids are getting older, we're doing a little bit more traveling.
So we'll probably see some more travel pieces on Food, Wine and Sunshine too, which is fun.
And then for Healthy Family Project, I'm actually the digital marketing manager.
So I get to control a lot of our content, which is a lot of fun.
So right now, since it's National Nutrition Month, we're focused heavily on meal planning,
meal prep and recipes.
So we have a lot of healthy recipes that we're focusing on right now.
But then as things go on, we'll get into, I guess, different themes, I guess you could
say, for every month that you kind of focus on.
So we'll continue to grow and add content, update old content to make sure that it's
so relevant for families.
So we're just growing every day, which is awesome.
I love that.
I absolutely love that.
And meal plans are definitely something I'm obsessed with.
Oh my God, you're so good at them.
I'm obsessed with them.
Basically just before I moved to Kentucky, right in the middle of the pandemic, my husband
and I decided, hey, let's completely uproot our lives with 36 years in Florida and move
to frigid and cold Kentucky.
And whenever we moved up here, well, actually before we moved up here, we decided that we
were going to try to create a meal plan to get rid of everything that was in our apartment
because we didn't want to move at all and we didn't want to throw it away.
So we became very strategic about what was in the pantry, what was in our apartment so
that we could be careful about how we got rid of it.
But it evolved into this 45 day plan of every single dish that we make.
And so I want to release it at some point to share it with people because every time
someone sees it, they get very excited about it because it's reduced our food waste by
at least, I'd say at least 85%.
It's insane.
I think the only thing that we throw away is, I had to throw away a gallon of milk that
wasn't used in time today.
And that was like, that kills me.
But yeah, just like every dish that we have, we intentionally make leftovers.
Like I have two nights of leftovers in the fridge right now because we're being very
good stewards of our money and our food.
And so meal plans, I'm all about it.
I think that's why I like the Healthy Family Brunch website so much because I clean ideas
from it.
But yeah, I think anybody who is looking to save money on their groceries, get a meal
plan because when you go to the grocery store, it's so overwhelming.
If you don't have some sort of a plan in place, all you see is all these things that are like,
hey, buy me, take me home.
I'll be good.
I can share that with the conversations that I would do for grocery saving and stuff like
that.
I'm like, if you go into the grocery store with the intent of just buying milk, you will
spend $20.
It's like almost impossible not to.
Because of those things, you have everything on the end cap that's like, and nine times
out of 10, you're either going on your way home from work or you're running out real
quick, which usually means you haven't eaten yet and you're in a rush and you're hungry.
So it's so easy to walk in and spend more than you intended.
And speaking of food waste, I think it was probably too mindful.
I'll probably write over Christmas break.
I went through my pantry and it's sickening, the things that you can throw away.
Because you bought them when you went into the store and you're like, oh, that sounds
good.
I had a whole trash bag full of stuff and I'm not proud to admit it.
But when you have a good meal plan in place, like you said, you can actually utilize those
things before you throw them away, which is heartbreaking.
Well, and the other thing I love so much about it is there's no longer the decision fatigue
of what the hell are we going to eat tonight?
What are we going to cook tonight?
And we were honestly, like one of the things that was happening right before we moved up
here is we were getting so bored with our food.
But do you plan in a night to go out or do you ever leave a night or two blank so that
if you don't want to make one of your plan, it doesn't screw you up?
Or how do you handle those?
Like, oh, I don't want this one tonight.
How do you handle it?
Oh, OK.
That makes perfect sense.
So what we do is we have a very general like this is what we intend to eat over the next
10 days.
And we're very intentional about this is going to stay in the freezer.
This will be in the fridge.
And you know how many days we have to use it.
So there definitely is the flexibility of if we wake up one day and we're like, oh,
my God, I just want pizza tonight, which does happen a lot.
Or I really need steak because I'm menstrual.
You know what I'm saying?
That definitely does happen.
Yeah, but so it's it's flexible enough, but yet we always make sure we have what we need
to make 10 days worth of food, which is even more important now that we're here where it's
cold and sometimes, you know, you can't go to the grocery store because there's snow
on the ground.
But but yeah, it's just what I have not.
I have not.
But my husband has.
And it's it's a little bit frightening.
I'm very glad we work from home.
But and the other thing is with the whole meal planning thing, I'm really grateful for
grocery curbside pickup, because at least if I don't have to go in the store, I'm less
likely to make those impulse purchases.
You know, I don't ever do that.
I never do grocery pickup and I never do grocery delivery like ever because I think I'm so
dependent on those miscellaneous purchases in store that I'm just like, I can't do it.
I got to walk through the store and see everything.
But in all reality, I really don't.
I got to say, though, there's there's something to be said about about using the curbside
pickup because that's another thing that has stopped us from like buying crap we don't
need.
And it's also stopped us from that annoying moment where you're like, I really wanted
to make the chicken tikka masala tonight, but I don't have cream.
And so now I have to go to the grocery store and get cream when, you know, it's the only
thing missing from my meal.
And so that's another thing that I absolutely love about meal plans is that we have all
the stuff and we don't have to worry about it.
I will definitely need a plan for a couple days.
But I have to like what I do, though, is like on Sunday, think about what I think we would
like for the week.
I don't always look at what I currently have available.
I have to get better at that because I'm ready to do everything that we need.
But I don't always use what I have.
I, it makes complete sense.
And it definitely is a process.
I mean, you know, it's now March.
And so we've been working on this for goodness.
It's been 15 months now and we're still perfecting it.
Like, we're still like trying to figure out how it works.
But just the fact that every meal we have now, we're excited about it instead of like,
oh my God, do we really have to have cheeseburger macaroni again, just because it's easy.
It's like, no, we don't.
Now, now tonight we're having, you know, we have chili in the fridge.
We have Swedish meatballs in the fridge.
And then later this week we're having fish and chips because, you know, we, we have a,
we're very intentional about we're going to have chicken and then we're going to also
make sure we have, you know, ground beef and things like that.
Like we don't just have the same mundane boring things every day.
And so anybody who's listening to this, if you're looking for some really interesting
recipe ideas, that's why you need to go to foodwinesunshine.com and healthyfamilyproject.com
because both of these websites, they have so many amazing ideas for things you can do
with this, with recipes, like with food and food is, it's varieties, the spice of life.
So so where else, I mean, we mentioned the two websites just now, but where else can
we find you online?
We're food family, yeah, partner and obviously I have all of them, you know, you can find,
I'm sure you'll link to them somewhere, but I include Winesunshine on all of mine and
healthy family projects has got a couple of variations just because they're a little bit
longer, but all these, unfortunately, unfortunately, at the same time, I always have my phone in
my hand.
So email, social media, things like that.
Yeah, we'll definitely drop all those links below and we'll also drop the link to your
smoothie book because I did talk about that and it's really cool what you can do with
Smithies.
Yes, I did.
And it was so fun.
It was so much fun.
So and we need to rebrand it.
We need to now make it the Food Winesunshine.
Well, Tracy, I just want to say thank you so much for being on the show today.
I know you're very busy with two blogs you're working on, but I appreciate that you took
the time to talk to our listeners and bloggy friends.
I hope you gleaned some insights of things that are possible for if you're a blogger,
you don't just have to focus on just your own blog and there's a lot of opportunity
out there.
And until next time, may your pay shoes be high and your bounce rate below.