Top Ten Posts in Our First Year
Financial IQ by Susie Q celebrated its first birthday last week. In the first year, we published 52 posts on our site, two of which were guest posts from other authors, and published two posts on other blogs. In case you haven’t had time to keep up with reading the posts as they are published, we provide you with a list of our ten posts with the highest page views. (We note that there were two periods during which our site wasn’t “talking” to Google Analytics, so there might be a few posts that should have made the top ten, but didn’t.)
#1 Advice We Gave our Kids
This post had almost 1,000 page views in large part because it is the only post we’ve had featured on Money Mix. It provides a list of 7 themes about money that my kids heard frequently as they were growing up or as they were starting to make their own financial decisions. In addition, I added two other pieces of advice I wished I had given them.
#2 Should Chris Pre-Pay His Mortgage
This post was one of my favorite ones to write! Chris @MoneyStir published a post given a lot of detail about his financial situation. He asked others whether their opinion on whether he should pre-pay his mortgage. In my response, I showed Chris that, given his particular circumstances, he would be substantially better off after he fully re-paid his mortgage a large percentage of the time if he invested his extra cash instead of using it to pre-pay his mortgage. One of the broader takeaways from this post is the importance of isolating a single decision and not confusing your thinking by combining separate decisions into one process.
#3 Introduction to Budgeting
Introduction to Budgeting was our very first post. I’m not sure how high on the list it would have been had we published it later, as many of our friends viewed the post just to see what we were doing. I still think budgeting, whether done in great detail or at a high level, is a critical component of financial literacy, so hope that it is valuable to our regular followers and not just our curious friends.
#4 What to Do Once You have Savings
This post is the first in a series of three posts intended to provide a framework and guidance once you have some savings. The series talks about how much to put in emergency savings, how to save for big-ticket items, savings for retirement and deciding whether to pre-pay your student loans. For each type of savings, it provides suggestions for appropriate asset choices.
#5 Getting Started with Budgeting
This post is the first in a series of nine posts on how to create a detailed budget. The process starts with tracking your expenses to see how you are spending your money. Subsequent posts talk about setting financial goals and figuring out how you want to spend your money. The series finishes with monitoring your expenses to see how you are doing relative to your budget. This post includes a spreadsheet that allows you to track your expenses.
#6 New vs Used Cars
This post totals up all of the costs of owning a car to help you understand how much better off you might be by buying a used car rather than a new car. For some cars, it is much less expensive to buy used, whereas for other cars it doesn’t cost much more to buy new especially if you plan to own it for a long time.
#7 Traditional vs Roth Retirement Plans
This post provides lots of information about Traditional and Roth IRAs and 401(k)s. It also explains in what situations a Roth is better than a Traditional plan and vice versa, including some examples. The biggest determinant of that decision is your expectations about your marginal tax rate at the time you save relative to your marginal tax rate at the time you make withdrawals. The post provides lots of information on taxes, too, to help you make that decision.
#8 New Cars: Cash, Lease or Borrow?
This post explains the costs related to buying a new car with cash, leasing a new car and borrowing to pay for a new car. It provides a detailed illustration for three different models. The best choice among those three options depends on your ability to pay cash, how many miles you plan to drive, and the terms of each individual offer. For some cars and situations, leasing is less expensive than borrowing whereas, for others, borrowing is better. It also provides a spreadsheet that allows you to compare your offers.
#9 Car Insurance
I was surprised that this post made the top 10. I spent my entire career in the insurance business so probably have forgotten how complicated car insurance is! This post describes all of the important terms and coverages you’ll find in a car insurance policy. It also provides some insights on how to decide what coverages, deductibles and limits to select.
#10 Health Insurance
On the other hand, it didn’t surprise me at all that this post made the top 10. In fact, I would have expected it to rate higher than it did. As with #9, this post explains all of the terms included in health insurance policies. Its companion post explains how to select the health insurance plan that best meets your needs and your budget. That post includes a spreadsheet that follows along with the calculations. I recently had to select an individual health insurance plan as my COBRA benefits expired. I used exactly the process described in this post to make my decision!
