Best personal finance articles on DojoBlog in 2013

Most of 2013 on DB was pretty quiet, but in the past few months we had a lot of personal finance articles written here for your enjoyment. Here is a collection of what I consider to be my best work here this year .. hope you’ll enjoy:

Personal Finance: How do you manage a windfall?

Fortunately for us, the unexpected doesn’t always mean just expenses we have to cover for. From time to time we get lucky and some money comes our way. Here is an article detailing such situations and we can also hear from our community how they choose to deal with such happy events.

Personal Finance: Are you living below your means?

One of the best ways to remain debt free (or pay off debt faster) and have at least a glimpse of financial independence is to never spend all your money. With such a consumerist society we live in and all the media pushing us to want more, this is not an easy task. And yet, living below our means can help us get into a better financial position and not have to worry that much about tomorrow.

personal finance articles

Personal Finance: How much money do we lose when we accept loans or credit?

An example of how much money we can save by not taking a loan/credit. While it’s easier to not have to worry about paying too much at once, saving money and not taking a loan can really make a difference with most of our purchases.

How to save money: 10 sure ways to start saving money TODAY

A list of tricks anyone can use to start saving money. Don’t wait for any special events, don’t even wait for something bad to happen, before you start saving. Follow these few rules and you can see some good results starting from today.

Saving money: does being frugal have to take off any joy in our lives?

One of the things I hear from many people ‘I want to live my life and not feel deprived’, every time I discuss about being financially responsible and saving money. You can still be happy and not squander your hard earned money.

Saving & Frugality: How we saved more than 1/3 of our travel budget

We had a wonderful vacation this year and a hefty budget for it. And yet, with a bit of organizing and budgeting we were even able to save while traveling, which clearly helped us tremendously after we got back home.

Emergency fund: why is it important and how to grow it faster

I’ve been in deep financial troubles for more than once in my life. My family had everything possible thrown at them from sickness, job loss to even death. So I really know how important an emergency fund is and hope to convince you that it can really save your butt in times of need.

Money earning opportunities: how to stay away from SCAMS

Many people fear that they’d be scammed if they start doing business online. Here are few tricks to keep you safe and still allow you to earn a side income.

Home based business: The myth of the lonely freelancer

If I had a cent for every time someone said they feel like freelancers are lonely people, I’d be pretty rich today. Here is an article detailing my own view about this. I’ve been working from home in the past 4 years, got successful with my home based business, traveled for almost 2 years out of these 4 and enjoyed every minute of it. Hope this allows you to see how freelancing can really look like and that we’re anything but lonely.

Freelancing: The complete guide for running a successful home based business

This is a ‘mega’ article that I hope will help many of my readers understand how freelancing works and also inspire them to be successful. If you haven’t already read it, please give it a try.

How to become a freelancer, even if you’re starting from zero?

Many people fear that they lack the skills to become successful with running a home based business. Well, you don’t need to be a genius, all you need is to understand your qualities and start providing a good job to your clients.

Debt: Ramona’s debt story

This is my debt story. How I got into it and how I finally became debt free. One of the most revealing and personal articles here, which I hope will help my readers.

Your credit card is NOT your emergency fund

I know many people rely on credit cards to solve their emergencies, but this usually puts them back into debt and makes their financial situation even more unstable. A pretty controversial article which I hope you didn’t miss this year.

Personal Finance: There is no such thing as ‘good’ debt

Another article you might love or hate. Again a personal outlook on how debt affects our lives.

So, these are some of the best (in my opinion) articles here on DojoBlog. Thank you for stopping by this year and I hope we’ll meet again in 2014, healthy, happy and ready to make it a great year.

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Cheryl Zhao
Cheryl Zhao

Cheryl Zhao, a financial expert, has been a part of our team for five years. After earning her MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management, she worked as a real estate broker before turning to blogging. Cheryl’s extensive knowledge of the housing market and trends, coupled with her passion for financial literacy, makes her blog posts an essential read for anyone considering becoming financially independent.

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