Grammarly Review

The Product - What is It?

Grammarly is a free downloadable tool that helps users edit while writing. It can be downloaded to a desktop or used in a browser for any type of writing. There is a paid option, but I like the free version, so we’ll stick to that for today. 

How It Works

To use Grammarly, you have to download it to our computer first. I have it installed on my Google Chrome browser so it can help me while I write blog posts, emails, social media posts, or whatever else I happen to write online. 

As you write, Grammarly checks your spelling and grammar. It can show definitions or synonyms of words, and predict what you should say next. You can determine what tools you want to use and turn off the ones you don’t want. 

If you’re writing something and don’t want Grammarly to keep chiming in with suggestions, you can turn it off. Don’t worry, if you want to do a spelling and grammar check at the end, you can turn it back on and it will show you all the suggestions. 

Inside Grammarly

Grammarly gives suggestions based on four aspects of writing: 

1. Correctness - whether there are mistakes

2. Clarity - how easy it is to tell what you are saying

3. Engagement - how interesting your writing is to readers; diction (the words you use, the flow of your writing, etc.)

4. Delivery - how the writing sounds to readers; tone (excited, informal, optimistic, etc.)

You can see the edits Grammarly wants to make right on the writing itself, through underlining. You can also check the small circle in the bottom right corner of the screen. It can be green or red, depending on if it thinks the writing needs help. When you click the circle, it gives you an in-depth look at the edits. 

This in-depth look is where Grammarly tells you which aspect the edit falls under. That makes it easier to tell if it’s a necessary edit or something based on your own preference. 

Preview of Grammarly

Pros & Cons

Top Pros:

• By using Grammarly, editing becomes more thorough and accurate. This helps ensure when people are reading your work, they don’t stumble on easily fixable or obvious mistakes. When I’m reading a book, blog post, or other writing, glaring mistakes in the middle of the page take me out of the story and make me nitpick the rest of the writing. It definitely makes reading less enjoyable. Using a tool like Grammarly is a great way to make sure our writing is as readable as possible.

• Another great pro is that it’s free! There’s a premium version that gives you more in-depth suggestions, but it isn’t necessary, at least not for most things. With the free version, you can still see spelling and grammar mistakes, along with some other clarifying edits. I use the free version, and found it very useful for all of my writing. 

Top Cons:

• Sometimes Grammarly gives suggestions that aren’t what we want or don’t work for the sentence. For example, below I wrote “Grammarly picks up on them all” and it suggested I change “up on” to “upon” which is not what I mean. In these cases, you can just ignore the suggestions. 

• If you forget to turn off Grammarly, it will pop up in all writing circumstances, even when it’s not wanted. It’s a small inconvenience, but can be annoying. I ignore it when I’m not using it, but sometimes it can be hard to ignore, like when you’re trying to type up a quick email and it keeps predicting text you don’t actually want to use.

Overall Usefulness

Overall, Grammarly is extremely useful. There have been plenty of times when I’m writing too fast and don’t notice I used a wrong word or spelled something incorrectly. Grammarly is on top of it and corrects me. 

Even when rereading it’s easy to miss some smaller mistakes, but Grammarly picks up on them all. It ensures that my emails aren’t filled with embarrassing mistakes and that my blog posts make sense! 

Those pesky edits we miss can put a damper on our writing, and Grammarly is a great tool to use to make sure that those edits get included. 

I would recommend Grammarly to any writer. It can be helpful in many ways. If it’s not for you, at least you gave it a try!

My challenge to you is to try Grammarly for a week. 

Do you use Grammarly or another app for editing your writing? How does it work for you? Would you recommend it to other writers? I’d love to hear about your experiences and recommendations! Find me on social media or drop a comment below.

Let’s chat because you, my friend, are on your way to great writing.

Bucketlist Bombshells Review: The Work Online & Travel the World Course

With so many opportunities to take online courses, especially in the “start your business” realm, it can be hard to sift through and find one that might actually be helpful. 

Having purchased and taken many courses in the past two years, I can say that The Work Online & Travel the World Course is EASILY one of the most helpful things I’ve done as a new online business owner. Hopefully my Bucketlist Bombshells review will inspire you to take action on your business dreams, too! 

Full disclosure: I have been paid to do a review. That being said, this is a course I 100% believe in and everything I’m sharing is my own opinion. If you’re interested in starting an online business, it could change your life. 

Where it All Started

In April 2019, I started a blog. I wasn’t happy at my day job, and it’s been a lifelong dream to be a “real writer.” I was determined to make that happen...somehow. 

I quickly learned that there are SO MANY opportunities for writers online, but blogging to make income really wasn’t what I wanted to do. I wanted to tell stories and make a bigger impact - to help people like me who struggled with creative confidence for many years before finally breaking free of self-doubt to pursue my dream. 

Fast forward to April 2020 when I purchased The Work Online & Travel the World Course. I’d been on The Bucketlist Bombshells - Cassie & Shay’s - email list basically since the beginning of my journey. I think I saw a Facebook Ad one time and thought: “Oh, they’re doing cool things while they travel the world, I want to know more.”

What appealed to me was that these ladies had started their business so young and had been doing it successfully for years! It wasn’t their first rodeo, even though we’re about the same age. I also thought “They look so normal!” That probably sounds silly, but some of the courses you see ads for are so glamorized that it’s intimidating to a beginner - at least it was for me. 

While I didn’t want to travel full time - and still don’t - the idea of being able to create stable income while being my own boss greatly appealed to me. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked with some fantastic people in corporate jobs, but none of the jobs made me as excited as the thought of being able to be a writer. 

And so I became one! 

These days, I am a writer, as well as a writing coach. Much of how I’ve learned & built my business started with this course. After so many options, this is the one that finally helped me narrow down what to offer, how much to charge, and how to keep track of the money (because that’s SO important, but not something that most other “start your business” courses are offering, even still!).  

What’s Included in The Work Online & Travel the World Course?

Inside the course, there are plenty of resources: 6 full modules, plus some fun bonuses. 

Each module is packed with helpful information, and the format is video tutorials + self-paced workbooks. I particularly like the way the videos do tutorials, but don’t “give you an answer” about your own business. In other words, the tools are available, but you have to do the work in order to be successful. 

The course is broken down like this:

Productivity & Goal-Setting - Getting Started

At the beginning, there’s a short introduction to the course, materials, and how to use everything in the course.

It’s nice because you can quickly see approximately how long the lesson is going to take, and the resources are linked right next to the videos so there’s no confusion about what you’re supposed to be working on after the video.

Module 1 - Define Your Online Skills

The very first module sets the stage for the whole course. 

It includes some pretty major topics, such as: 

• Defining Your Online Skills

• How to Use Your Past Experiences

• Choosing Your Online Skills

There’s no fluff. This module will, right off the bat, get you thinking about what the heck you can do online - based on what you already know! The materials give you plenty of space and ideas for thinking about what you’ve already done and how that can translate into online work. 

Module 2 - How to Rock the Freelancing World

The next module is about freelancing and how to define your skills. It also shows you how to get set up in the freelancing world. 

It includes topics like: 

• Defining Your Freelance Services

• How to Choose a Quality Job Posting & Write a Killer Proposal

What I liked most about this module was that it provides the ideas (like defining your skills), but also tech how-tos about getting set up on different freelance websites because they’re all a little different.

Module 3 - Build & Launch Your Online Business

Module 3 is all about how to set your business up from hourly rate to defining your deliverables. 

It includes topics like: 

• How to Research Your Industry Average Hourly Rate

• Defining Deliverables & Setting Client Expectations

This was one of the best lessons of the whole course because it gives you a way to think about how to start charging for your services. If you’ve been around the online business industry for any length of time, you’ve probably seen the posts on social media and on some coaching websites that advise you to charge “what you’re worth” and “what feels right.”

Now, I’m all about charging your worth! But in the very beginning when you’ve never been in business before, it’s super hard to tell what that might be. It’s so nice to have an actual formula to start off with, and to know how to find out what other people with similar skills are charging! 

Module 4 - Find, Network, & Land Clients

This module is all about making the move from freelancer to “solopreneur” and how to set up your business online. 

It includes topics like: 

• Becoming A Solopreneur & Structuring Your Packages

• Building Your Solopreneur Website

• Finding & Landing Clients

This is the lesson that took me the longest because I redesigned my entire website. I moved to Squarespace and never looked back. It is SO MUCH EASIER than WordPress, and honestly, as a service-based business, I don’t need a lot of the things I was trying to use in WordPress. 

I built my new website in probably about a week or a week and a half, and it’s easily 100x better than what I was doing before. So easy, so professional, and with a clear business focus.

Module 5 - Running & Rockin’ Your Online Business

This module is about how to create a streamlined workflow and different tools you can use to make your business professional and manageable to maintain. 

It includes topics like: 

• Establishing & Streamlining Your Workflow

• Tutorial: How To Manage Projects & Clients Using Asana

• Tutorial: How To Track Your Time & Send Invoices Using Harvest

• Managing Your Solopreneur Finances

So, these tools are pretty cool - I tried them all during the course. They don’t all fit into my workflow, but that’s okay! The videos talk about what the tools do and why you need them, which is important because there’s a lot of things about business that you don’t know about when it’s still brand new. 

My favorite part of this section was the finance piece. It was something I’d been struggling to figure out before this, but the BB Finance Sheet makes it super easy. I still use a version of it today! 

Module 6 - Run Your Biz & Jet Set Around the World

The final module is about how to travel while you’re a solopreneur. 

It includes topics like: 

• How To Choose The Best Cities While Globetrotting

• How To Create Your Ideal Lifestyle On The Road

This was probably my least favorite section, only because I don’t have any intention of traveling full time. The tools are interesting, and I think they’re great for people who do want to travel more while owning their own business, but I was in the course for the other materials. 

Bonuses! 

Of course there are bonuses, too. My favorites are access to the BB VIP Lounge Facebook Group and the Guide to Solopreneur Set Up. The Facebook group has been great for getting advice, as well as connecting with other like-minded ladies who are running all kinds of online businesses. 

The Guide to Solopreneur Set Up was really helpful, too, because it’s all about business and tax questions. Cassie & Shay teamed up with their CPA to create the guide, which has sound advice and information about getting started legally and tax-wise, which are both really important.

Pros & Cons

Cons

• If you don’t want to travel all the time, there’s a good amount of information that won’t really apply to you

• You still have to take the travel module in order to pass the “quiz” at the end and get your completion certificate

• The videos, while still great, can be a little outdated at times for setting up the tech pieces; the information is still similar, but there are areas you’ll have to figure out by doing a little trial and error

Pros

• Great information

• Self-paced

• Builds your confidence & decision-making skills

• Multiple ways to learn; videos, workbooks, bonus interviews, etc.

• A way to connect with the BB community (through the Facebook group) & ask questions

• Live masterminds with Cassie & Shay once per month

• Reasonably priced for what you can get from it

Overall, I think it’s a great course, and you definitely get good value for your investment!

Is The Work Online & Travel the World Course for Writers? 

To wrap up my Bucketlist Bombshells review, I wanted to talk about who this course is actually for, because you may still be wondering: Could this really help me?

This course is for you if: 

• You’re self-motivated and ready to take action

• You can process information when working on your own & are willing to ask questions when you need help

• You’re willing to do the work it takes to be your own boss

• You have an idea for an online business or you know you want to start a business but aren’t quite sure what you could do

• You’re open to new tools & frameworks you can use to be successful

This course is NOT for you if: 

• You need someone to keep you accountable

• You want someone to tell you what kind of business to start

• You already have a functioning framework for your online business

• Aren’t sure if you want to start an online business 

• You’re not willing to put in the work to figuring out your business

What this means for writers is that this course could ABSOLUTELY be for you!

It helped me launch my writing & coaching business, and there are many other BB Alum that also have writing-related businesses, too. It’s a great place to get feedback on what you’re doing and maybe even make some new business friends. 

If you’re still not sure (I get it - I waited almost a year before purchasing!), you can check out these resources to get a better look:

Student Success Stories & Features

3 Steps to Build A Wildly Successful Service-Based Online Business Free Masterclass

3 Steps to Learn the Skills You Need to Make An Income Online Free Workshop