Happy Friday!!

So yesterday we shared the most popular blog posts from across the year, but today I wanted to highlight some of the ones that were my FAVORITES to publish. Either because they were fun as hell to write, or because they contained some little nugget that got me to think about stuff in a new way.

And not relating at all, but today marks 1 year of going back to DAILY blogging again!! After years of moving to 3x/week posting! I did take a summer sabbatical to move, but outside of that we’ve been pretty consistent over the year, and hopefully you’ve been enjoying the change :)

If not, you can always sign up to our *weekly* email that rounds up all the posts here, as well as other nuggets I find from around the web –> jmoney.biz/newsletter

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Thanks for being in the community!

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Favorite Blog Posts of 2019:

35 Money Quotes You’ve Never Heard Before — A bunch of great – and obscure – quotes I’ve collected over the months… And I know they’re obscure because I’ve plucked them from bloggers and rappers! ;)

The Problem with “Free”, and My 2 New Yard Sale Rules — Some tricks I picked up over the summer from a heavy dose of yard saling! They were meant for my kids, but in all honesty they would do many of us ADULTS just as good implementing them.

Things You Can Do That Rich People Do —  A list of reminders that you don’t need gobs of money in order to have a good life :)

A Useless But Fun Perspective on Money — Convert the length of all the dollars you own (6″) to feet, convert those feet to miles, map out a radius with Google on how far those miles stretch from your home, then pick a spot and create an imaginary walking path with those dollars as if they were lined up one right after another. How far would your money take you?

7 Ways My Kids Actually SAVE Me Money — There’s a lot of talk on how much kids COST you over the years (with some bloggers going as far as even tracking it every month before burning out!), but it’s a little known fact that they can also *add* to your stack too. Or at least *prevent* you from pulling from it because AIN’T NOBODY GOTS THE TIME TO SPEND WHEN YOU HAVE KIDS!! ;)

Buy Your Home Like a Landlord, Live Like a Renter –A cool tip from a reader on how she looks at home ownership and systemizes things to better keep the *emotions* out of it. Something I’m notorious for struggling with!

12 Major Decisions and How We Feel About Them Now — I’m usually good at sharing new ideas and challenges, but not always so much at *following up* with how they’ve gone over the years. So in this post I sit down and recap some of the bigger decisions we’ve made over the decade and how we’re feeling about them now. Including buying a luxury car from Carmax, switching cell phone plans to Republic Wireless, waking up at 5 a.m., selling Rockstar Finance, cutting cable and more.

You Might Be a Money Nerd, If… — A silly little test to see how nerdy you are with this stuff (and to also make you feel better that you’re definitely not alone! ;))

A Silly Little Trick I Started Doing to Make Expenses Feel Better ;) — It’s no secret I’m not a fan of home ownership due to all the maintenance costs involved, however I might just have found a way to sleep better at night about it, haha…  It’s silly, but it’s helping!!

When Luxuries Become Necessities — “One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations. Once people get used to a certain luxury, they take it for granted. Then they begin to count on it. Finally they reach a point where they can’t live without it.” – Yuval Noah Harari, “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind”

Treating Your Money Differently Depending on *How* You Get It — A form of “mental accounting” that many of us do, even though we might not realize it! It’s not necessarily bad, but important you’re aware of it 👍

The “Setback” Fund —  Do you get speeding tickets often? Set aside $50 a month for “speeding idiocy.” Do you always break your phone or drop it? Buy idiot insurance for $5 a month or start a fund. Have a high insurance deductible? Start setting aside money NOW for that deductible so if you were to get injured you’re not financially destroyed later.

PS: We All Struggle — If you’re feeling down about your finances or career or anything else going on, read this post and you’ll be assured you’re not alone ;) Pay particular attention to all the pieces of hate mail I’ve included from over the years, lol…

I’m Officially a Member of The Mileage High Club! — Glanced down at my odometer earlier this year, and realized my Lexi had crossed over 100,000 miles!!! Woo! Headed to Twitter to humble brag about it, and was quickly put to shame by just about the entire financial community one-upping me, haha… Are you a member of the club too?! :)

Money Jokes For Impressing People  — Here’s a free sample 😂

A genie came to me and asked, “What’s your first wish?”

I answered, “I wish I was rich!”

The genie then says, “What’s your second wish, Rich?”

And then here were my favorite posts written by other people that I thought needed some extra love:

• You Want HOW Much For That Stamp?!?
• Hidden Investment Opportunities in Mobile Homes
• My Ex-Fiancé Spent our Rent Money on Weed
• Ben Franklin: The OG of FIRE?

Thanks for a great year!

Back to original posting on Monday!

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Past year’s goodies:

• 10 Favorite Posts of 2018!
• 10 Favorite Posts of 2017!
• 10 Favorite Posts of 2016!
• 10 Favorite Posts of 2015!