Three Gift Cards for Fizzle’s First Birthday!

Administrative, Links 3 Minutes

On February 1st, 2009, a small stroke of inspiration turned into my first blog post on tax refunds. One year, and nearly 400 subscribers and 100,000 page views later, I’m behind the wheel of a blog that will one day be among in the best in the personal finance space. I’m going for it! (are you coming?).

I’m not going to re-hash my goals for the coming year–you got a pretty good taste in my Plans for 2010 post. I’m only going to say that everything I’ve outlined is still in the works, and I am continuing to see more and more activity on Fiscal Fizzle by the day, so that’s an exciting indicator that you guys are on board.

Instead, let’s celebrate Fiscal Fizzle’s first birthday with some links and a proper GIVEAWAY!

Win Stuff!

Nothing better than a giveaway to put the stamp on a celebration! Today, you have a chance to pick up one of THREE $10 Amazon.com gift cards in under 60 seconds. For a chance to win, simply leave a comment below by midnight on Sunday, and answer this simple question:

What would you like to read more of on Fiscal Fizzle?

Help me help you, and win some dough in the process! Don’t forget to use a valid email address so I can contact you when you win!

January in Review

It was nothing short of a wild month for me–having our first child and the sleepless nights and adjustments that come with it. To be honest, it’s been 300% better than I thought it would be, in terms of my time and my sanity. Heck, I’m still able to blog, aren’t I? Life did not end at birth, imagine that!

There was a ton of good writing in the space this month, but I wanted to highlight a few particularly juicy posts that caught my attention and should be worthy of your time. Here they are:

1. How You Spend Your Time, How You Spend Your Money (The Simple Dollar): This post really got me to think about the relationship between money and time, and how we spend and use each with respect to the other. Trent’s suggestions are spot-on.

2. Five Psychological Money Tricks That Work (Bargaineering): The links between psychology and personal finance are very interesting to me. Jim talks about five strategies that make good use of human psychology to improve your financial position.

3. Your Budget: 5 Factors That Will Determine What It Looks Like (Balance Junkie): I’m a budgeting fanatic, especially because I’m such a big proponent of envelope budgets. But this post by 2 Cents got me thinking about how unique budgets are to everyone’s own situation.

4. Don’t Tell Others How To Spend Their Money (Consumerism Commentary): As a personal finance blogger, it’s easy to fall into the trap of dispensing free advice to everyone around me, even when it’s not explicitly asked for. Guest blogger Outlaw provides interesting commentary about when to give and not give financial advice.

5. 44 Ways to Improve Your Health and Happiness (Wise Bread): I mean, come on–who doesn’t want to read a post about how to make your life better? Henri at Wise Bread dishes out some awesome advice.

6. 55 Compelling Reasons to Get Out of Debt (Money Help for Christians): In reality, even one of these reasons would be…reason enough. 🙂 But a whopping list of 55 makes it all that much sweeter!

7. My Store-Brand vs. Name-Brand Blind Taste-Test Experiment #2 (Len Penzo): Len rocks my world with another round of the now-famous brand name vs. generic experiments. The results are interesting, as usual.

Enjoy your reading session!

Other Notes

In other news, I hope you’re continuing to follow the discussion on Untemplater, where I’ve already contributed two posts and have two more upcoming in February.

I will soon be contributing to another site with an organizing focus, something that I’ve always been interested in. Stay tuned for more information on that!

Finally, if you aren’t already, don’t forget to join my fan page on Facebook and interact! It’s a lot of fun to hear from my readers more informally.

Thanks for taking the time out of your day to celebrate the blog’s first birthday with me!

Photo by eperales

Published by Peter

Published

20 thoughts on “Three Gift Cards for Fizzle’s First Birthday!”

  4. Congratulations! I also like more of the same. I enjoy the a fresh look you give some of the personal finance topics. I enjoy reading your posts.

  5. I would enjoy reading more about investing – even just the basics. It’s very challenging to be in the beginning stages of investment education. There are so many options, and I haven’t found many bloggers addressing this issue in a logical, easy-to-understand manner.

  6. Fast year! But a lot of progress–congratulations!

    Content–writing about the first year with a new baby. A lot of people who visit pf blogs are in their 20s and either are or will be experiencing what you’re going through right now.
    .-= Kevin@OutOfYourRut´s last post: Social Media – How Do You Find Friends and Followers? =-.

  7. I have to chime in here with 2 cents–I’d like to see more of the same. I particularly enjoy how you include personal stories with broader topics. It makes the subject matter far more relatable. I’m looking forward to seeing how you navigate finances with the new baby! ‘Cuz lawdy, lawdy, people do spend a ton on children.
    .-= ConsciouslyFrugal´s last post: Kreativ Kindness =-.

  8. Now that you have a baby, you have to add saving for college to your financial equation which should provide fodder for blogging.

  9. Second the motion on the first year with baby — it’s a rare and interesting time and I’d love to see the finances behind it.

  10. What would you like to read more of on Fiscal Fizzle?

    I’d like more on investing for beginners!

  11. Hey Woj,

    Congrats on making it past year numero uno with the fizzle and on the birth of your child. I think your posts should definitely highlight the costs of having a baby as this is a unique perspective that many people could learn from… possibly even myself one day… scary thought. You could probably make it one of your nav bar options or create a series walk thru about it. Lots of potential there, starting with planning the nursery for cheap, to the delivery room costs, to feeding a baby well for a cost efficient way (I wouldn’t have a clue) to well… you get the point…

    Other than that just keep your voice and opinion on your topics rather than just writing for SEO and I’ll keep coming back.
    .-= Ryan @ Planting Dollars´s last post: The Part Time Job Search =-.

  14. Congrats on the anniversary. I’d love to just hear more about your progress, as I progress on a similar path.

    Thanks!
    .-= Mike Strock´s last post: Windows 7 – 64 bit Experience begins =-.

  16. Congrats on the one year mark! I just noticed today that Kyle at Suburban Dollar shares the same start week as us!
    .-= Tom @ Canadian Finance Blog´s last post: Canadian Finance Blog’s 1 Year Anniversary! =-.

  19. Thank you to everyone for participating in my giveaway! I have selected three winners using Random.org. The three comments that each won a $10 Amazon.com gift card are:

    Comment #4: ctreit
    Comment #1: 2 cents
    Comment #13: Brian R.

    Thank you to all for participating! Your insight is invaluable and I’m getting started immediately on implementing suggestions.

    Congratulations to our three winners!!

  20. We had one winner decline, so I went ahead and selected an additional winner using Random.org. The third winner is:

    Comment #17: Ninja

    Congratulations!

Comments are closed.