Best of May

The Best of May
1. How to Budget
2. Why Budgeting
3. Diversifying Your Risk
4. Credit Card Recommendations
5. Introduction to Bank Accounts

I thought I would take a post to go back through the best of May, at least in terms of viewers.  I know that it is biased for posts that were made earlier on since they had more days available on the website to be read, but I sincerely believe some of these most read posts are what people are looking for in terms of learning something new about personal finance.



The basics of personal finance come down to this single idea: spend less than what you earn.  In order to accomplish this, we can either try to increase what we earn or decrease what we spend.  A lot of my site so far focuses on ways to increase what you earn by having your money earn more money (through investing and careful management), but how to control your spending should not be ignored either.

I don't think it comes to any surprise that my most widely read post has been about budgeting.  I get some views from people searching for the 50-30-20 budget which is a guideline I reference in that post.  Budgeting is perhaps the most fundamental tool used in personal finance.  As long as you aren't spending more than what you earn, you should never need to worry about money.  Of course, good budgeting also takes into account exceptional one time items that we may have to purchase in the future, which is captured by the savings portion.

It also isn't that surprising that most readers are worried about risks they take with their money, especially after the recent financial crisis.  I will constantly revisit this topic on my blog because it is so essential to manage one's risk.

After my stocks segment, hopefully I will come back to look at more budgeting tools since that's what may be most helpful for college-aged adults.