Archive for the ‘Popular Posts’ Category

2008’s Best Of The Best – February

I want to thank those of you who have supported No Credit Needed during 2008. I thought it might be fun to take a look back at some of the most popular posts from the past twelve months – the best of the best.

February 2008 –

February 2:  My Favorite Books About Debt Reduction

February 3:  Debt Cures For Living Debt Free – Here’s how I live without borrowing money.

February 7:  Living On A Budget: Don’t Knock It Until You Try It – I’ve been living on a budget for almost four years, and I couldn’t live without one.

February 18:  Paying For Three Kids To Go To College Is Going To Be Expensive

February 25:  10 Things To Do After You Get Out Of Debt -  Getting out of debt is only the beginning!

February 27:  Building An Emergency Fund: Where To Keep It?

February 28:  Facing The Frustrating Realities With Which We Must Deal – My reflections on the current economic meltdown.

2009 is shaping up to be another remarkable year for No Credit Needed.  I want to again thank all of you who have supported the site.

If you would like to help No Credit Needed reach an even larger audience, here are a few things that you can do.

You can subscribe to No Credit Needed via RSS or Email.  Either way, you will always have the freshest No Credit Needed content.  Click here for more information about subscribing to No Credit Needed.

You can comment.  I love to hear from my readers, and comments help create a conversation between you, me, and other readers.  Comments take two or three minutes to show up, so please be patient.

You can promote No Credit Needed and each post via social media sites.  At the bottom of each post, you’ll see a little reminder that reads -    Share: add to tip’d – digg this – stumble it – save to del.icio.us – where you can quickly and easily add posts to your favorite social media sites.  If you don’t have accounts with all of these services, consider signing up.  Each service is unique, and each service will help you promote the sites you like and find new sites to enjoy.

You can link to No Credit Needed.  Do you have a website?  Feel free to add No Credit Needed to your blogroll or list of links.  If you do, be sure to contact me and let me know!

You can follow my Twitter updates.  Twitter is a strange, wonderful, unique networking site.  I really can’t describe it, but I sure do like it.  Consider following me and creating your own Twitter profile.

I sincerely hope that you will continue to enjoy No Credit Needed.  Almost four years ago, when I sat down at my computer and started this site, I would never have dreamed, in a million years, the impact that it would have on me and my life.  I have met so many good people and I have learned so much from my readers.  You keep me motivated and you keep me involved.  I can’t think of a better way to put it – You ROCK!

2008’s Best Of The Best – January

I want to thank those of you who have supported No Credit Needed during 2008. I thought it might be fun to take a look back at some of the most popular posts from the past twelve months – the best of the best.

January 2008 -

January 9:   Building A Better Budget With The New Baby On Board -  In April, my wife gave birth to our third child, a beautiful baby girl.  While preparing for the baby’s arrival, we created a brand new budget.  The baby is now eight months old, and she’s the sweetest thing in the whole wide world!

January 10:  Time To Call The Credit Card Company -  For those who are in credit card debt, this is a must-read.  Do not settle for your current interest rates!  Grab your phone and start making some calls.

January 25:  Back To The Basics : How To Get Out Of Debt -  Here you go, a super-simple guide for getting out of debt.  I’ve written about this subject, over and over, but with today’s economy, articles like this one are more important than ever.

2009 is shaping up to be another remarkable year for No Credit Needed.  I want to again thank all of you who have supported the site.

If you would like to help No Credit Needed reach an even larger audience, here are a few things that you can do.

You can subscribe to No Credit Needed via RSS or Email.  Either way, you will always have the freshest No Credit Needed content.  Click here for more information about subscribing to No Credit Needed.

You can comment.  I love to hear from my readers, and comments help create a conversation between you, me, and other readers.  Comments take two or three minutes to show up, so please be patient.

You can promote No Credit Needed and each post via social media sites.  At the bottom of each post, you’ll see a little reminder that reads -    Share: add to tip’d – digg this – stumble it – save to del.icio.us – where you can quickly and easily add posts to your favorite social media sites.  If you don’t have accounts with all of these services, consider signing up.  Each service is unique, and each service will help you promote the sites you like and find new sites to enjoy.

You can link to No Credit Needed.  Do you have a website?  Feel free to add No Credit Needed to your blogroll or list of links.  If you do, be sure to contact me and let me know!

You can follow my Twitter updates.  Twitter is a strange, wonderful, unique networking site.  I really can’t describe it, but I sure do like it.  Consider following me and creating your own Twitter profile.

I sincely hope that you will continue to enjoy No Credit Needed.  Almost four years ago, when I sat down at my computer and started this site, I would never have dreamed, in a million years, the impact that it would have on me and my life.  I have met so many good people and I have learned so much from my readers.  You keep me motivated and you keep me involved.  I can’t think of a better way to put it – You ROCK!

Creating A Basic Budget And Orgnizing Your Financial Documents

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.

Three Summers Of Blogging: Looking Back, Looking Forward

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.

Now that we’ve traveled back in time, be sure to subscribe to the No Credit Needed RSS Feed. If your browser does not automatically open your feed reader, simply copy and past the following RSS url: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ncnblog. You can also subscribe via EMAIL! That’s right. Instead of going through the process of using a feed reader, you can simply subscribe using your email address. Once a day, you’ll receive an email containing the latest posts from No Credit Needed. (You can unsubscribe at any time and your email will only be used for the purpose of subscribing to No Credit Needed.) There are 2 ways to subscribe via email. Simply fill out the form below OR click this link to subscribe via email.

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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.

Requesting Your Very, Very Best Money Saving Tip (Again!)

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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