Blogging Away Debt Our Journeys to a Debt-Free Life

by Tricia

Jim over at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity has been very supportive of my efforts to reduce my debt. Quite a few times he’s linked to my blog with nice words. He noticed my post the other day about how much I’m paying in finance charges now and he asked if I’d write a guest article for his blog. I said sure.

I wrote 6 key things I did to reduce our finance charges, and discussed each of them for the article on his blog. Here’s a recap:

1.) Tried calling my credit cards to see if they would lower my interest rates

2.) Paid off as much of our debt as I could

3.) Worked to increase my credit score

4.) Took advantage of balance transfer offers

5.) Used my husband’s cards

6.) Looked around for other ways to decrease my interest rates

Please visit Jim’s site for the full article. You also may want to look around his site a little bit for he has some great information over there.

Thanks Jim, and everyone else for your support. I can’t believe its almost been a year!

by Tricia

I don’t always have the time to read many articles out there. But my readers are great and some of you have taken the time to email me some stories to take a look at. Thank you for pointing these out to me 🙂

The 13 Most Overlooked Tax Deductions

I happen to love tax time because that means I will be getting a refund soon. I know some experts say that you should only withhold what you need to from your paychecks, but I don’t like doing that. I actually withhold a little bit more so I guarantee that I will not have a tax bill to pay come April. Even if you do not do your own taxes, it doesn’t hurt to read about some deductions you may qualify for. This articles gives a list of 13.

College Can Be a Crash Course in Debt

I actually read an article like this CNN article in a 2003 Money magazine. College freshman are applying for credit cards and before they know it that have thousands in debt. That was definitely me. After all, my debt started with a candy bar as a freshman in college.

2006 Savings Fall to a 74 Year Low

American’s savings rate is at the lowest level since the Great Depression. That’s not very good news. That means a lot of us out there are spending more than we earn and we are dipping into savings or resorting to credit to purchase items. As a whole, something needs to be done. With my experience, I’d say the best place to start is with our children. Whether it be personal finance classes in school or parents making sure our children understand personal finance, something definitely needs to be done.

Thanks again to my “tipsters” 🙂