Here’s a list of the most popular articles about money on the blog this year, as rated by *page views*. Thanks for reading all year long!

Morning, my dudes! (as said like my 5 y/o)

Hope you had a great New Year’s break! Did you see that note the J. Money Fairy left us yesterday??! A true story that’s important to keep in mind as the year ticks on ;)

But while we’re still in the spirit of reflecting right now, I thought we’d continue the tradition of sharing the most popular articles about money written on Budgets Are Sexy over the past 12 months… Even those not written by me (*gasp*!).  But according to the *stats*, these were the most seen and passed around articles throughout 2019.

Thanks for reading all year long!! And if you’re new to the site, consider this like “speed dating”  ;)

XOXO

My Most Popular Articles About Money 2019:

How to Sell Your Inherited Coin Collection —  Here are the best ways to sell a coin collection, ranked in order of getting the most profit for them, but also proportionate to the amount of *time* you want to spend too. And as someone who’s currently evaluating a collection for a reader of the blog right now, it’s that last part that’s most key ;) I’m 21 hours into it so far, but thank God I love it!

Challenging the Vanguard Faith (or how Fidelity’s ZERO expense funds are increasingly tempting!) — Did you catch the news about Vanguard’s rival, Fidelity, this year? They introduced two ZERO expense ratio funds – one domestic and one international – in a very clever maneuver to compete with Vanguard… In this post, A 28-year-old die-hard Vanguard lover shares why he’s tempted to switch, and I’ll admit I stopped for a hot moment to consider it too!

6 Things I Don’t Agree With Dave Ramsey On — Most of us love Dave for his no nonsense debt and budgeting advice, but what about the other areas of his finance? In this post Christine Luken stops by the blog to share her experience as a former Dave Ramsey devotee who later changed her tune: “I started out taking everything Dave Ramsey said as gospel truth, but after a decade of coaching hundreds of people on their finances, I realize he’s wrong about a few things.” Can you guess which? :)

Net Worth Report #139: $1,131,601.03 (We did it!!) — The major – and last! – net worth report! After 11 years of hustling and tracking and saving… It’s still pretty hard to believe as I still feel like that 25 y/o party boy scraping by for beer money, haha, but I guess it just goes to show that when you put your energy towards something good things happen :) Even when you can’t connect the dots at the time.

Where are you on your path to Financial Independence? —  A fun test that spits out your ranking after answering 20 fairly simple questions about your finances. Although with a net worth of $900k at the time, I only scored a paltry 6 out of 14 on the FIRE scale so this may end up depressing you! ;) Shout out to Cashflow Cop for this one.

Our decision on the 15 vs 30 year mortgage debate! This was one of the bigger questions from the year, where I polled everyone asking for advice as we were in the thick of home buying. The answer we ended up going with actually surprised me, but before you click here were the survey results which I found equally as interesting:

• Those in favor of 30 year mortgages: 55%
• Those in favor of 15 year mortgages: 35%
• Those in favor of some sort of ARM concoction: 6%
• Those in favor of other random year’d mortgages (like 7 and 20): 4%

The original post and reader advice can be found here:  Should we go for a 15 year or 30 year mortgage?

17 Hacks to Reach FIRE Faster — A bunch of great tips from the community on speeding up those bank rolls… Including: The Uniform Hack, The Punishment Hack, The Free Yoga Hack, The Netflix Hack, The Bedroom Hack, The Home Phone Hack, and The “Why I Can’t Go Out To Lunch With You” Hack.

*How* we grew our net worth to $900k —  After a decade of blogging about my finances, it dawned on me that unless you’ve been reading from Day 1 you probably don’t know how we got our money to be where it is today. So in this post we TL;DR’d it which will bring you up to speed, at least until we crossed the $1,000,000 mark. Which came to fruition shortly thereafter, as a result of the below decision ;)

New Beginnings, and The Future of Budgets Are Sexy  — One of the scariest, and most exciting!, decisions ever made on this blog!! Or in my life, for that matter. But four months later I’m as confident as I was on the day we made it, so hopefully it’ll continue feeling that way well into the future as well… Have you noticed any major changes since the new owners took over?! I feel a lot more FREE over here, while still being able to hang out with you guys :)

Resource of The Month: Debt Free Coloring Charts! — A genius idea by DebtFreeCharts.com, and even more so making them FREE because people in debt don’t have much money to spend anyways :) The creator found these super helpful in getting out of her own debts and keeping herself motivated, so she decided to give them away on her site with a goal of sending 300,000 of them out in 2019. The last update showed she had given out 163,546 of them so far as of August, so hopefully she made it! Download a few yourself and help both you and her out! :)

12 Excellent Money Hacks For Ya — More great tips from the community! Including: The Scoring System Hack, The RoosterMoney Hack, The Car Flipping Hack, The Child IRA Hack, The Motivational Milestone Hack, The Sobriety Hack, and the The “How To Get More Sleep” Hack ;)

14 Best Surveys for Money Sites — These sites won’t make you rich by any means, but some of them pay a quick $5 – $10 welcome bonus just for signing up. And all the surveys and other activity stuff can be done while you’re multi-tasking!

6 great new financial resources 💪💪 — A bunch of great resources I found across the web, including: a free budgeting spreadsheet, an excellent “rent vs buy” calculator, a book on “digital minimalism”, a list of helpful tips if you struggle with “reading OCD” like I do, a fun financial crossword puzzle!, and then one of my all-time favorites: The “In Case of Emergency” Binder.

Things that make your life better for under $50 — I stumbled across a poll on things that genuinely make your life better, and an hour later I had a list of dozens of recommendations from fellow productivity/minimalist nuts. Including the best books, products, apps and more. Might be good to check out while we’re all geared up to kill our New Year’s resolutions!

Meet Miguel – an Immigrant Who Became a Multi-Millionaire Without Any Help or Money — Many of us come from a solid upbringing with plenty of opportunities to easily take advantage of, but Miguel here is proof that even without any privilege you can still succeed – and well!!! – with good grit and determination. Here’s his story of how he went from nothing to millions, all by the time he reached his early 40s. Pretty amazing journey!

Cool Idea: Adding Life Events to Your Net Worth! —  A great way to add more depth to your numbers! As recommended by a reader of the blog who inspired me to give it a shot myself for the first time in 11 years tracking this stuff :) Was a fun new way of looking at things! Check it out below, and then give it a try yourself!

And then lastly, a few runners up if you’re really bored today ;)

• Should we buy this Benz?!
• We’re homeowners again!!! But I’m still struggling with it all… 
• How I Stopped Sabotaging My Own Financial Independence

There you have it! My most popular articles about money. It was a fun year!!! Let’s see what the next one brings!

*********
PS: For previous years’ “best of”s:

• 10 Most Popular Posts of 2018
• 10 Most Popular Posts of 2017
• 10 Most Popular Posts of 2016
• 10 Most Popular Posts of 2015
• 10 Most Popular Posts of 2014
• 10 Most Popular Posts of 2009