For those of you who are new to my site, you might not realize that back in January I moved my site from “blogger” to “wordpress”. During the move, I lost most of the comments associated with my old posts. Also, many of the category listings failed to transfer. I’ve been combing through the archives, in search of my favorite “articles from the past”. Here are two of my favorites, one written in August of last year, and the other written two years ago.

10 Steps For Personal Finance Organization: If you struggle to keep your financial documents organized, join the club! Hopefully this article can help you manage your payments, organize your documents, and clean up your desk.

Simple, Simple, Simple: This is one of my favorite articles. If you are trying to figure out how to create a simple, easy-to-use budget, read this article. You’ll find out how to create a simple, zeroed-out budget.

If you are ready to move from pencil and paper, may I suggest long-time site sponsor, YNAB Personal Budget? I’ve been using Jesse’s products for almost two years, with great success.

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I use the Envelope System to manage my cash. The idea behind the envelope system is pretty simple. By distributing you cash into manageable budget categories, you can control spending, manage receipts, and fine-tune your budget. I thought that it would be interesting to create a video tutorial, explaining the basics of my envelope system. (Please note: I use actually envelopes to manage my cash, but you could use any method for dividing your cash into manageable amounts.) You will have to click the arrow to start the video… and you might have to hit the small volume bar at the bottom to get the audio to play. I did not set this video to “auto-play” because I hate going to sites that set their videos to “auto-play”.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think about the video.

(I’ve created a video podcast episode from this tutorial. If you would prefer to download the video and/or watch it with QuickTime or iTunes click here: NCN Podcast Video Podcast: Episode 1: The Envelope System Tutorial)

(My Dad watched it and said… “Looks like the opening to Napoleon Dynamite”. Gosh! )

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I spend an hour creating a flow-chart of my “should I buy this” thought process. Seriously. Here it is, in all it’s non-glory. (Click the small image to see it full-size.)

I’ve really, really been struggling to go to sleep (and stay asleep) lately, so I’m up at all hours, catnapping during the day… I’m going insane. I wanted to write this really awesome post about making wise spending decisions, but my brain is in hyper-mode and my thoughts are swirling and they refuse to focus. So, I downloaded some free flow-chart software, and started fiddling with it. I’ve never actually used a flow-chart so I’m sure I have all of the shapes wrong, but you’ll get the drift if you take a look. Basically, this is how I manage my spending habits. If I need it, I research it, and then I work until I have the money to buy it, and I buy it. If I want it, I go through the same process, delaying a purchase until I can pay cash. Once you move away from credit cards, you have to learn to plan and prepare for every purchase, big or small. I now longer “charge it” and worry about it later. Nope. I go through this process, day after day, month after month. Hopefully this post will inspire you to think about how you manage your spending. I need some sleep!

Edit:  Here’s a link to the free program I used to make my flowchart: yEd - Java Graph Editor

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Welcome to the 100th Edition of the Carnival of Debt Reduction. It’s my privilege to host this week’s carnival!

Here’s how a blog carnival works:

1. Bloggers submit articles about a specific topic. (In this case: Debt Reduction)

2. A host blog (In this case: No Credit Needed) compiles those articles and presents them in list-form, linking back to the original article.

3. Bloggers who submitted articles are encouraged to link-back to the host blog and to link-to each other’s articles.

So, without further ado, let’s get to this week’s submissions:

We’re In Debt has started a new series about debt reduction: 15 Days To Start Paying Off Your Debts. Bookmark this page and you call follow the series from start to finish.

Picture Of Wealth presents 10 Ways I’m Saving Myself. I especially like the idea of cutting up those credit cards!

Debt Free Revolution has an extremely informative post about Dave Ramsey and his REAL opinion about Saving For Retirement While Doing Debt Reduction. I recently wrote an article about this very subject, and Debt Free Revolution has certainly clarified this particular point. Thanks!

Should I Make Extra Mortgage Payments? asks Mortgage Blog. The answer: Yes!

All You Need is Love…and a Good Financial Plan: 17 Finance Tips from the Beatles. Credit Card Lowdown turns to the Beatles for financial information! (Might want to think twice about asking a “certain” member for marriage advice…)

Clever Dude has written one of my favorite all-time posts about financial planning: Is The Thought Of Debt Ruling Your Life?

When his 16 year old nephew said, “I Want To Be Rich Like You,” Single Guy Money decided to talk to the young man about the realities of personal finance.

I’ve Already Paid For This Twice wonders… Maybe Credit Card Debt Is The Baddest Debt… This post reminds me of the power of “thinking things through”.

College Of Cash is setting some Future Goals. I like the ideas of paying of loans and getting out of debt!

A post after-my-own-heart: Finding Snowflakes To Add To Your Snowball by Being Frugal. This, my friend, is a quality post: informative, easy-to-read, and practical.

Gather Little By Little has written a very “NCN-like” post! How To Get Your Finances Under Control - Step 6 Get Out Of Debt. This post has it all: emotion, facts, even some scripture.

Where Your Treasure Is has some information about Credit Card Protector Plans. (For some reason, the words “credit card” and “protector” don’t seem to go together…)

Indebted 2 You is making plans. In this post, 18 Months To Debt Free Living!, Indebted sets out the plan for progress. I love it!

Free Money Finance (which is a mandatory-daily-read) has an excellent post about why you need to Forget Biweekly Mortgage Payment Plans. (Just send in an extra payment! You need not sign up for some silly program.) Again, FMF totally rocks!

My Two Dollars is writing a series of posts about digging out of credit card debt. Instead of linking to just one post in the series, I’m simply going to link to all four posts. Why? They’re just that good! Digging Out 1, Digging Out 2, Digging Out 3, Digging Out 4.

Money, Matter, and More Musings has written about Getting Out Of Debt Without Worrying About The Latte Factor. I’ve never actually had a latte, so I’ll call mine the “Diet Mountain Dew Factor”.

Plonkee Money with a philosophical post: Debt Reduction Is All In The Mind. (Repeat after me… Visa does not exist, Visa does not exist… Man, it didn’t work! I’m not deep enough…)

FinanicialDominance writes about High Speed Debt Elimination.

The Digerati Life submitted an article about Managing Credit And Debt, My Mistakes And Lessons. (By the way, “Digerati” means the “elite of the computer world”.)

Verve Coaching presents part 4 of a 4 part series: Getting Out Of Debt. The article is about “sticking to the plan”.

Ask Mr. Credit Card with a post about Balance Transfer Deception. Frankly, I’m shocked that any credit card company would try to deceive its customers! (Sarcasm… so difficult to type…)

David on Finance (which is quickly becoming one of my “must reads”) has written a post about Backbone Growth. Seriously, everyone should read this post. David is a great writer.

Get Rich Slowly contributed his “favorite debt reduction post ever”. How To Get Out Of Debt. Simple, easy-to-read, straight to the point… this, my friends, is a well-written article about debt reduction.

Mighty Bargain Hunter, who also coordinates the Carnival of Debt Reduction, has an interesting post about a doctor who is deeply in debt. How much? $327,000.

What do you do when people are less than supportive? Blunt Money has a few tips and ideas. I love this line: Succeeding at goals usually means seeking out like-minded people that can offer support.

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May I suggest that you bookmark this page and then comeback to it during the week so that you can get the most out of all of these links?

You have been reading the 100th Edition of the Carnival of Debt Reduction, presented by No Credit Needed. Please take a minute to subscribe to No Credit Needed. (You can also subscribe via email!)

If you would like to listen to my podcast about debt reduction (and personal finance), visit No Credit Needed Podcast.

If you would like to join over 175 other members who are sharing their personal finance goals, visit No Credit Needed Network.

If you would like to see me fail at losing weight, visit No. Calories Needed.

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Finally, the following articles are a little off-topic, but they’re good articles, nonetheless.

The Wastrel Show

Married And Broke

Fire Finance

Debt Free

Graceful Retirement

The Frugal Duchess

Whew, The End! (Please note, clearly off-topic articles have not been included. Please feel free to contact me if you feel your article should have been included.)

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I live in a small town in Georgia. All my life, I’ve been surrounded by people who love me, plenty of food, and I’ve never once, not one time, gone to bed hungry. I spend my days and nights worrying about the things that most Americans worry about. Will I have enough money to buy a new car? Can I afford to retire when I’m 65? Should I increase or decrease the amount of life insurance I have? But, tonight, as I’m thumbing through the channels, I stumbled across a 60 Minutes piece about Darfur. I must confess, I had heard of “Darfur” but I’d struggle to find it on a map. To be honest, until I looked it up, I didn’t know if Darfur was a country, a province, or a city. But, after watching the piece on 60 Minutes, I’ve decided that I’ve got to do “something”. Seriously. Do you know about conflict in Darfur? Here’s just a snippet from Wikipedia:

There are many casualty estimates, most concurring on a range within the hundreds of thousands. The United Nations (UN) estimates that the conflict has left as many as 450,000 dead from violence and disease… As many as 2.5 million are thought to have been displaced as of October 2006…

Do you see those numbers? Staggering… Basically, there are 2.5 MILLION human beings who have been driven from their homes, forced to live in tent-like housing, baking in the hot dessert son, miles and miles and miles away from their homelands. I don’t have the time (nor the desire) to go into the details about the political upheaval that lead to this genocide, but I hope that you will take the time to educate yourself about the conflict in Darfur.

So, what is the “something” that I can do? At first I had the idea of asking for donations, or doing some silly “leave a comment and I’ll donate a dollar” type thing… but that’s all too… trivial? trite? self-promotional? So, I’ll leave it up to each of you as to what your “something” is going to be. As for me, I’m going to go to bed hungry. Instead of eating at night, I’m going to spend time in prayer, meditation, and thought, thinking about the people who are suffering in Darfur, and I’m going to make some kind of donation to help them. I’m going to talk to other people about them. I’m going to speak to my church about them. THEM! Not just “Darfur”… THEM. Human beings, created in the image of God, each one individually designed with purpose and meaning. Dying, thousands per day, many of them alone, sick, broken-hearted, poor, sad and away from their homes.

If you want to learn more about Darfur and it’s people and the terrible reality of their struggles, click here to Save Darfur. Make a donation, spread the word, say a prayer, or share their story. Just. Do. Something.

–Jason (NCN)

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