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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It’s always interesting to look back and see what I’ve written about in the past.

Two years ago I was still in debt but planning for the future when I wrote “Getting Ready For Freedom“. Check out this quote:

It will be fun to focus my energy on how to save my money, rather than on how to pay-off my debts. I can’t wait.

I also wrote about the personal side of personal finance in a post titled “More Than A+B“. It’s been so long since I used a credit card that I’ve almost forgotten how “addicted” to them I used to be. It’s affirming to read:

What has helped me the most is realizing that I was using credit as a crutch. As long as I was free to use my charge card, I did not have to have a budget, I did not have to watch what I was spending. Credit cards create a “fantasy” world where we “have” more money than we really have. We can live a lifestyle that is above and beyond what we can truly afford.

One of the coolest things that happened while I was getting out of debt was receiving an unexpected check from the state of Florida. Read this post “Found Money!! Wowser” to learn more about my long-lost paycheck and the website Missing Money.

Moving up-in-time just a bit, a year ago I had to dip into my Emergency Fund. Check out “Emergency Fund Invasion“. After having to use some of the money in my emergency fund, I wrote:

So, we used some of emergency fund savings, paid for the medical need and the automobile repair, and moved on. No interest to be paid. No bills to worry about. No middle-man.

One of the most popular (and controversial) articles I’ve ever written is “I Will Not Borrow Money“. This article received a ton of comments (which did not transfer when I moved from blogger to wordpress) and was the first article to receive “major” attention. What’s the big deal? It could be that I compared being in debt to “slavery” or it could be that I used a story about a brain-damaged kid to illustrate a point I was trying to make. Either way, this post is old-school-NCN, and new readers should get a kick out of my passionate anti-credit stance.

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I love writing about my personal finances and I hope you’ve enjoyed this “look-back”. It’s important to remind ourselves of where we’ve been so that we can understand where we are and plan for where we’re going.

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Many months ago, I wrote a post entitled Your Very, Very Best Money Saving Tips. The idea behind the post was to get as many bloggers who would to write a post of their own about their single best tip for saving money. The response to the post was very positive. But, after moving from my old hosting to new hosting, many of the links to the various tips were mangled. But, I have taken the time to fix the links and I want to “revive” the post. Basically, my goal is to have over 100 bloggers submit their very, very best money saving tip. All that I ask is that after you write your post, leave a comment letting me know that you’ve written you post, and link-back to the “Tips” post. (If you do not have a blog, feel free to leave a comment at the original post, and I’ll include it in the list of 100!) Please read the entire original “Tips”post. Feel free to contact me with any and all questions. Remember, do not link to THIS post or comment on THIS post! Link to and comment on the ORIGINAL post! (At one time, I was going to run a “contest” in association with this post, but I’ve recently learned that there can be legal ramifications for running a contest online. Let’s put it this way, once I reach 100 posts, I’ll do “something” to celebrate. A donation to a worthy charity, perhaps?)

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For those of you who are fans readers of No Credit Needed, now is the time to show some love.  Free Money Finance is running an NCAA-like contest among personal finance bloggers, and TWO of my posts have made it to the SWEET SIXTEEN.  Please, please, please take a second and go over to this post at Free Money Finance and vote for my two posts.   In game 2 my post is labeled Make Multiple Debt Payments  Every Month.  In game 3 my post is labeled Avoid 10 Common Debt Reduction Mistakes.  Please take a second and leave a comment (your vote) over at FMF.  Also, you might want to read the posts themselves.  All of the posts that have made it this far in the competition are informative.

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Over the past few months, I’ve written several posts about debt payment (aka debt reduction). I thought that it might be helpful if I gathered them all in one place and put them in some kind of logical order. For those of you who are new to my blog, welcome! I’m glad that you’ve stopped by. Without further ado, here’s (almost) everything I know about debt repayment.

Creating a personal finance goal.

Getting prepared for debt repayment.

Debt repayment process.

10 mistakes that I would try to avoid while getting out of debt.

Great Technique: Making multiple debt payments every month.

Finally, here’s how I plan to STAY our of debt.

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