I read many blog posts each day. They mostly focus on personal finance, but also on minimalism and travel . Many bloggers took time off around the holidays, so my list of favorites is a little shorter than usual for December.
Kitty at Bitches Get Riches wrote an amazing post on staying organized (or, decluttering). Her advice on dealing with the physical clutter was spot-on, and she finally helped me understand the vaguely woo-woo advice by other writers about decluttering other aspects of life. Her example of dealing with the 8 different ways people contacted her at her old job was illuminating (also overwhelming, but she fixed that). She drops so many truth bombs that I can’t really summarize them. Instead, go read Anti-Goblin Mode: the Game I Play Every Day To Reprogram My Disorganized Brain.
Over at The Retirement Manifesto, Fritz Gilbert put out two posts I really liked.
- The first one I read, 10 Steps To Prepare Your Finances for Retirement, is a post I think I will be referring to frequently over the next few years. It’s really meant for people 1-2 years out from their proposed retirement date, which I think may describe my position. (I may try part-time work for a while–you know, cutting down to 38 to 40 hours a week–but at that point I won’t be focusing on saving for retirement any more.)
- The second one I read, though it was published first, is a reminder to me that it’s been nearly 5 years since I wrote down information for Mr. PiN in case something happened to me. Why I Write A “Love Letter” Every Year (and you should too) is an important prompt to make things a smidge easier for your spouse when you are no longer here to manage the family finances. He includes some templates that I might try out (to make things easier to organize, and read). I think it would be great if we had a working printer, but I’ll try not to let that stop me.
Charitable giving has been on my brain recently, but I’m not yet in the demographic to worry about Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs). However, I found this post from Mike Piper at The Oblivious Investor very helpful for thinking about them. Qualified Charitable Distributions: Concerns from First Timers. Recommended for someone who might want to do QCDs, or knows someone who might.
I have, no joke, left some posts on procrastination open in my tabs for… many weeks. Obviously, there’s something on my mind. I very much liked this post from Darius Foroux titled Stop Protecting Your Old Self (The Real Root of Procrastination). His paragraph at the end on blogging definitely rings true to me (maybe I will learn to let go and blog more? If my posts suck, I apologize in advance):
If I think I want to write an awesome article, I often take a longer time to write it, and the results may not be very good. But if I start with little to no imaginary pressure, the writing comes easier, and the results are better, too.
Do you have any favorite posts from December?