Blog Recap: My 10 Most Popular Blog Posts of 2015

Hi everyone, hope you had a great Christmas and that you’ve been able to make the most of the festive break so far! The end of the year is always a time for reflection and I’ve been analysing how my blog has been doing during the past year.

In the summer, I decided to undertake a blogging course from the Elite Blog Academy (affiliate link) to help take the blog to the next level. I have to say that even though I’m still working through some of the modules, this course has helped my blog no end. My blog traffic has literally doubled since starting the course and I still have a lot of work to do!

Whilst looking at my blog analytics, I thought it would be good to do a quick recap today on my most popular personal finance blog posts during 2015, in case you missed them! Here are the top 10, in order of most read!

1. One Incredibly Simple Mind Trick to Help You Improve Your Finances

In this post, I described a nifty mind trick that’s incredibly simple, yet wonderfully motivating when you need to improve your finances in some way.

You can use this trick if you want to spur yourself on to put extra money towards debt repayment or increase your savings pots. I personally used this technique throughout my own debt payoff journey and all the time now to help me focus on my savings goals!

2. 10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Was in Debt

This post outlines some of the things I know now about debt that I wish I’d known when our debts were at their worst. Back then, we felt like we were drowing in debt and it was difficult to see a way out. We felt trapped, our daughter was very young, our income was low and it was pretty scary to figure out how we were going to manage day to day, let alone make headway in our debt repayment.

But actually, there’s always a way out of debt, even if some ways take longer than others. Take a look at some of the things we learned about how to survive debt.

3. How to Make Money Writing and Publishing eBooks

I published a complete series on the blog during 2015 on how to make money writing and publishing eBooks. If you want to make extra income (passive income in fact), this is one method you could try.

This is the first post within the series and it explains more about the types of eBooks you could write about as a starting point. After you’ve read that, there are further posts explaining how to create an ecover and get your eBook published on Amazon.

4. Become a Bridal Makeup Artist: Earn Extra Income

You might not know this about me, but I used to be a bridal makeup artist for several years in addition to my day job. This was a great little earner on the side, so I wrote a post explaining how I got into it (no qualifications needed)! Plenty of brides want to splash out on the perfect look for their wedding day and if you’re a natural at applying makeup, there’s good money to be made. Find out how in this post!

5. How to Stop Wanting Stuff You Can’t Afford

One reason why many people get into debt is because they want “things” that they don’t have the means to buy and therefore resort to credit to fund such possessions. This post explains some of the behaviours around why this happens and how you can combat the “wanting more” mindset if you find yourself relating to this.

6. 10 Reasons Why Opening a Joint Account is a Good Idea

Not everyone agrees that combining finances is the right thing for couples to do. Some consider doing this an invasion of privacy, plus there’s the danger of one person in the relationship clearing out the joint bank account and leaving the other with nothing.

However, if you’re in a secure relationship, combining finances can be an excellent idea and it can actually improve your overall financial situation massively. My post about the advantages of joint banking explains more.

7. Why the Debt Snowball Method Works Amazingly Well

There are different techniques you can use to pay off debt and what worked the best for us was the debt snowball method. It helped motivate us and we saw results fast, even though we weren’t paying off the debts with the highest interest first. Take a look at these five reasons why this method of debt repayment works well.

8. 101 Ways to Earn Money from Home

This post explains more about my eBook, 101 Ways to Earn Money from Home. If you’re looking for flexible ways to make extra money on the side or even in place of your day job, then check this post and eBook out! Even if you don’t have much spare time, there are plenty of ideas described here to help you to raise some cash.

9. How to Be a Better Friend to Someone in Debt

If you have a friend in debt, they’ll need your help and support whether they know it yet or not, but not in the way you might think. This post gives an insight as to what your friend in debt is probably going through and how you can help them in your own way.

10. 20 Things People in Debt Say That Will Keep Them in Debt

Doing what it takes to get out of debt takes a great deal of commitment and focus. There are some common beliefs that get in the way of making progress as I’ve outlined in this post. If you want to get out of debt, make sure you’re not making any of these mistakes!

I’d love for you to check out these posts if you haven’t seen them before! I hope that they help and inspire you to improve your finances in some way, whether you need to get out of debt or earn some money on the side.

I probably won’t get chance to post again before 2016, so… Happy New Year when it arrives!