The Best Personal Finance Basics to Reach Financial Success

There is a lot to take into account when dealing with personal finance. I know this because I’ve managed to write over 200 posts on the topic. When you’re just getting started it can all seem a bit overwhelming. So today, I decided to dial it back and share with you the most popular Personal Finance Basics posts on Less Debt, More Wine, these are the posts that people have found most helpful when they are just starting out.

You can also always check out my Start Here page that outlines the best posts depending on what stage of your financial journey you are in. There is also my FREE Money 101 email course which has be recognized as a Plutus Award finalist for Best Personal Finance Educational Resource. Did I mention it was free? Check out the Money 101 email course.

Ok, so in order of most popular, let’s dive in and look at the best Personal Finance Basics posts available here on Less Debt, More Wine.

1. How to Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck

When you are living paycheck to paycheck, your finances just feel like a vicious cycle, a seemingly never ending on. Somehow it always seems like as soon as you start to get ahead something happens and sends you back to barely scraping by.I’ll be honest, getting out of living Paycheck to Paycheck doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time and consistency in your actions.One of the mistakes I made… Continue Reading

2. How I Raised My Credit Score by Over 100 Points (and you can too)

My debt repayment journey started by checking my credit score. I quickly realized how bad my credit was and knew I had to improve it. I went from having a score of 640 to 749 in less than a year. It now nears 800.There are a combination of things that resulted in raising my credit score. In case you weren’t aware, your credit score is based on six things… Continue Reading

3. Paying Off Debt While Pursuing Big Crazy Dreams

I’m a dreamer, always have been. I truly believe that if you set your mind to it, you can achieve almost anything. Some exceptions being if you can’t sing you probably won’t ever become a great singer, though you could become a great entertainer.  I dream big believing that the big crazy dream/goal is 100% achievable… Continue Reading

4. 10 Best Money Rules to Live By

Not all personal finance tips or rules are created equal. Each piece of advice may also not be for where you are at in your life and your finances. However, through all the personal finance tips and advice, these are what I consider to be the best rules to remember and live by. Here they are in no particular order…Continue Reading

5. Make Budgeting Easy with Multiple Checking Accounts

Very few people love to budget and if you aren’t one of them I don’t blame you. While I generally enjoy budgeting now, it wasn’t always the case. One thing that made budgeting for me way easier and more enjoyable was to use multiple checking accounts…Continue Reading

6. Why You Need an Emergency Fund & a Buffer

You can have the greatest budget in the world, but at some point, life is going to throw you a financial curve ball. It might be a parking ticket or a sudden job loss. Either way, you’re going to want a financial safety net to catch those curve balls (it’s possible I’ve muddled my metaphor a bit, moving on).

While a parking ticket is an unexpected expense, it is hardly an emergency. Let me repeat an unexpected expense is not necessarily an emergency. Unexpected expenses pop up all the time and if…Continue Reading

7. How to Best Build Savings

Everyone should have a goal to build savings. Whether you are saving an emergency fund or a travel fund or for your future, everyone should have a savings goal. But having a goal is just the first step, the next is to figure out how you are going to build your savings. If you don’t have a plan to save, you probably won’t save.

There are tons of different ways to grow your savings. You can save lots of money with the help of savings game where you manually save. Or there are also lots of ways to build savings digitally. But which is best for building savings?…Continue Reading

8. How to Budget Successfully Every Time

Budgeting can be clutch to taking control of your money but can be a bit overwhelming when starting out. I’m going to break it down for you by first explaining what a budget is, hint, it’s not a way to torture yourself. Then we are going to cover the three basic rules of a successful budget. We’ll walk through step by step how to budget successfully and finish up with different budgeting tools available that may be helpful for you…Continue Reading

9. The Best FREE Personal Finance Tools

There are tons of personal finance tools out there, some are free, some cost some money. I’ve put together a list of the best free personal finance tools. These free personal finance tools will help you budget better, save money, and kick debt in the face…Continue Reading

10. Should You Automate Your Finances?

So many personal finance bloggers are pro automation and when I decided to write this post I thought I’d be the other side of the argument. That is until I realized I actually do automate some of my finances though I am definitely against automating other parts of my finances.

When I reached out to the personal finance blogger community I found I wasn’t alone. There is actually a wide range of opinions on automation in the personal finance blogosphere, some pro automation, some automation with moderation, and some wary of automation at all. Here is what some other Personal Finance experts had to say about their stance on automation…Continue Reading

Wrapping it Up with a Bow on Top

Hopefully these popular posts dealing with the basics of personal finance have helped you to start taking control of your finances. While some of these posts do share some personal stories of mine, please remember not to compare your beginning to somebody else’s middle. You’ll be on your way to this:

via GIPHY

in no time.

What posts have you found most helpful to start understanding your money?