Yesterday, as part of blogoversary week, I put out part one of my year in review. And here is part two. Exciting things, I tell you, exciting things!
May
- Disaster preparation
- I tried to re-start couponing
- I continue to love YNAB
- I applied snowflaking to other things
- Can the rich spend irresponsibly?
- Rewards programs are still awesome
- Required donations are not
- I started planning for Christmas
- Some frugal things are just too much for me
- I started paying more attention to impulse purchases
- Food prices start to get a little scary
- Retirement planning is just a little more tough for the ladies (and my first real post at the new site!)
- I learned how many people are fine with credit card debt
- I agree, my accounts look a bit crazy
- My most popular post, how to make more money
- Kiva – still a worthwhile use of your money
August
- Pets are expensive, but worth it
- The budgeting got a bit stressful, but I worked through it
- How to save the economy and lose weight
- I started to feel the pinch in my grocery budget
September
- I got a roommate!
- But then I had to figure out what to do with the extra income
- Common money mistakes
- I still haven’t tried a spend nothing month, but it impresses me nonetheless
- A quick review of some of the government bailout plans
October
- I decided to not look at my investments for a while
- It’s hard to stay calm during this economic situation
- Sometimes the best charity is unplanned
- I took a disasterous road trip, but it turned out to be not that bad
- I reviewed AAA and their battery service
- Layaway is back!
- Emergency fund guilt
Megan is a 40-something government employee in the Washington, DC area. She got interested in Personal Finance when she got out of college and realized that her paycheck wasn’t going to go as far as she had hoped. Since starting this blog, she has managed to buy a house and make a solid start on her retirement goals, and hopes to help others do the same. Here is her story:
In 2007, I was a gainfully employed 20-something with no debt but not a lot of knowledge about personal finance. It was a co-worker’s comment about Roth IRAs that sent me to the internet, searching for information. It was then that I realized that I really didn’t know a whole lot about personal finance and that my current financial situation was due a lot to inherent frugal tendencies, generous family members, a fear of debt, and good luck. While that was working for me, clearly I needed a better plan.
While I had no debt, I was also pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and not worrying about going over budget (I say this as if I had a real budget) because I had an emergency fund set aside to cover any overages.
Except that’s not what an emergency fund is for.
So I did a lot of research, read a lot of blogs, and decided that I needed a plan. I needed to budget. I needed to know what I was spending my money on. I needed to prepare for the future.
I decided to create a blog not only to make myself accountable to others but also to share the knowledge that I gained along the way. I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers, and I hope that my readers can find something useful in what I have to share as well.
