$5 Dinners is just one of several very successful WordPress websites founded by Erin Chase. What initially began as a blog used by Erin to share her recipe tips and tricks with friends and family, quickly became an outlet for sharing her techniques for shrinking grocery bills!
During the recession in 2008 when gasoline prices were beginning to spike, Erin and her family needed to find a way to cut their monthly spending. While examining her family’s overall financial picture, she found her grocery bill was the easiest place to start and launched $5 Dinners as place to share her journey.
Your host is a part of your team. You simply cannot operate your business online without a solid host, it’s impossible. Having a reliable team member that you know is there whenever you need them, but you don’t have to get on daily calls with is super amazing, and BigScoots has that figured out.
Erin Chase, $5 Dinners
The Path To BigScoots
Over 12 years Erin has grown $5 Dinners into a thriving business generating hundreds of thousands of unique visitors each month. She teaches families how to cut down their grocery costs while also providing meal plans, grocery-saving workshops, budget-friendly recipes, children’s at-home cooking lessons and hosting a podcast to help listeners live a more intentional life.
Before moving to BigScoots Erin’s growth had created a real sense of urgency to locate a host capable of handling the increasing traffic her successful WordPress websites were generating.
Erin had spent 6 years with her previous hosting provider, and in that time she was constantly being up-sold to a larger service.
“They were always trying to sell me something bigger, even though I never needed it, and I honestly found it really annoying. They had placed me onto an unpublished plan, which was nice because I sat between two different plans, but then they were constantly trying to up-sell me to the larger one.”
A member of Erin’s technical team recommended to check out BigScoots managed WordPress services! 🙂
“I reached out and Scott (CEO and Co-Founder of BigScoots) answered me almost immediately. I am in a bit of a unique situation because of how many domains I have, but Scott and I were able to work it all out very quickly. It was fantastic.”
The migration process was performed over a series of days, as requested by Erin, moving her larger domains first. A total of 19 websites were successfully migrated over to BigScoots managed WordPress services with entirely zero downtime or interruption of any kind.
It was super smooth, and super fast. I don’t remember any blips happening during the migration process, and I didn’t even notice when each of them occurred. All I wanted was to know what my new credentials were and from there, everything was so easy and available.
Erin Chase, $5 Dinners
The BigScoots Experience
Around the same time that Erin moved $5 Dinners over to BigScoots, she also transitioned into working with a new ad network, Mediavine.
We love working together with industry leaders and Mediavine is no different. At BigScoots, we collaborate directly with Mediavine so that our clients do not always have to wear the typical “middle-person” hat, and we can dig into issues, collaborate with their team and find resolutions much faster.
“I did have two significant increases after changing hosts and ad networks. Once in March and then again in May. We had an increase in both traffic and site speed!”
Erin’s transition to BigScoots and Mediavine in March of 2019 resulted in an increase to her site’s traffic as well as had an improvement on her site’s performance.
I haven’t had a single moment of downtime since switching to BigScoots. It is just so nice to be able to not think or worry about whether or not my site will go down if we have an increase in traffic. That used to be a thing many years ago, and it was a major concern that I had, but now I never even think about that anymore, which is very nice.
Erin Chase, $5 Dinners
$5 Dinners Found Top-Notch Support
Managing multiple successful WordPress websites of this magnitude requires a serious amount of hands-on time and attention to ensure each one is proactively monitored, has on-going optimizations and never runs into any slow-downs or interruptions.
“The value of BigScoots is what is so amazing. We have a super fair price point for both our traffic and also the quantity of domains we have. Your support is lightning fast, and I think part of that is what makes me feel so comfortable. I know that if anything did go wrong or any issue arose, Justin (SVP and Co-Founder of BigScoots) and the rest of the team is so incredibly fast that I never have to worry.”
With BigScoots, Erin is now supported by a team she can trust. Our expert team is standing by 24/7/365 ready to support you and in as little as ~5 minutes on average.
The peace of mind that I have, even if it isn’t something super urgent, I just know a solution is going to be found quickly, which I believe is a fair expectation to have, but you guys follow through on that!
Erin Chase, $5 Dinners
Personal. Expert. Always There.
That’s Real Managed Hosting.
Completely managed web hosting that works for you, because experts built it just for you.
Advice For Future Bloggers
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed our world in so many negative ways, but one silver lining is the extra time at home most of us now have. For those with a passion for blogging, it may now be possible to finally dig-in.
As an industry leader, Erin was gracious enough to share some tips for up and coming bloggers.
Two things: consistency, and pain points. I cannot stress enough how important it is to keep showing up everyday. Take a look back at the Great Recession and the pain points that were occurring then versus the businesses that were launched during that time. Each business was born out of a terrible economy and these new pain points that society was facing. If you can figure out what your specific pain point is, someone else will have that same pain point in their life.
You’ll hit road blocks and you’ll feel like you are failing. That is just all a part of the entrepreneurial roller coaster, but you have to be consistent and keep showing up. That’s what business is all about. If you have an idea or a solution to a problem that can help others, then you are morally obligated to run with it!
Erin Chase, $5 Dinners
When asked how likely she is to recommend BigScoots to friends and family members, Erin stated “I feel super good about recommending you, and I already do. Ten out of ten. I have had nothing but a great experience and super helpful support for a non-techie like myself.”
Written by Katie
Marketing and Client Success Manager
