It’s Been An Amazing Year For Bible Money Matters! Post Roundup

The past year has been an amazing ride for me here at Bible Money Matters. 

I started this blog with the intent of just sharing some of my thoughts about our financial journey, and then as a journal as my wife and I attended Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University.  I thought it might even be able to help a few others as well with some pointers here and there.  

We had already gotten rid of all our non-mortgage debt by the time we took the class, but we still hadn’t really focused on our finances to the point where we had a  budget or knew why we weren’t getting ahead faster.   Taking the class, and writing this blog has helped me to be more aware of our finances, and to take a more active role in it.

Here we are just over one year later and things couldn’t be better.

Bible Money Matters has gone from having maybe 20-30 visitors a day to the point where we can now say we’re getting thousands of visitors a day! 

The site has gone from being a time-sucking hobby to a nice second income. 

I’ve made a lot of online friends and even added a contributor to the site (thanks Jason!  Read some of Jason’s devotionals here).  I’m extremely humbled by the success I’ve had so far, and I look forward to continuing that in the coming year.

So I thought real quickly I would share some of the stats this site has had over the past year – and all our success is thanks to you!

• 400,000 visits
• 572,500 page views
• 1037 RSS subscribers and counting! (sign up now for free daily updates!)
• 1900 Twitter followers (If you’re not already,  start following me today!)
• 570 posts
• 2085 approved comments, in addition to at least 1000 lost comments after switching from blogger.com
• 2 Major Redesigns, and one switch from blogger.com to self-hosted WordPress (see our two main designs since launch above)
• 1.6 pages a visit (we’ll try to get this number up!)
• 1 very thankful blogger!

During my first year of blogging, I received a ton of traffic from other bloggers.  These folks were instrumental in helping me get this little blog off the ground, and I just wanted to take the time to thank them.  The top 10 referrers for my first year include:

1. http://ptmoney.com/
2. http://beingfrugal.net/
3. http://moolanomy.com/
4. http://gatherlittlebylittle.com/
5. http://ncnblog.com/
6. http://frugaldad.com/
7. http://kingdomfirstmom.com/
8. http://wisebread.com/
9. http://frugalhacks.com/

Thanks, guys, I am forever in your debt!

On a side note, another personal finance blog ranking site was put up in the last week by WiseBread.com. Here’s the link along with a couple of others!

• Top 100 personal finance blogs @ wisebread.com  (I’m in the top 30-40 in most criteria!)
• Top 100 personal finance blogs @ http://firefinance.blogspot.com
• PopTopRanks.com

Thanks to all my readers for making this blog such fun for me.  Without all your interaction it just wouldn’t be worth it!  Stay tuned for more great things in the year to come!

Good Reading From This Week

Here are a few articles I enjoyed reading this week that I thought I would share.

• Is Saving 15% For Retirement Enough? @ sensetosave.com (Depending upon your time horizon and other factors, 15% should be enough)
• Guide To Getting Out Of Debt E-book @ christianpf.com (click on his banner to the right as well!)
• Frugal Ideas To Help Your Home Sell @ freefrombroke.com
• Should We Downsize? @ mydollarplan.com
  
• Budget Categories – Less Is More @ gatherlittlebylittle.com
• IRS Has $1.3 Billion For People Who Have Not Filed A  2005 Return @ thesimpletax.com (I just finished doing the logo for this great new site!)
• You Need A Budget Giveaway! @ cashmoneylife.com (I’ve been busy, just did a logo design for Ryan at cashmoneylife.com as well!)
• Stock Market and Timing: Can Timing Alter Your Plans? @ goodfinancialcents.com (yes, I did Jeff’s logo as well )
• Dave Ramsey’s Debt Snowball @ moolanomy.com (I’m not the only one writing about Dave Ramsey!)
• How to Pilot Through a Financial Crisis
• Freedom & Finance: Healthcare @ rocketfinance.net
• Life Insurance: Where To Get It? @ ptmoney.com
• Selfish Reasons To Be A Good Landlord @ moneysmartsblog.com
• The Limits of My Frugality @ beingfrugal.net

Wow, that was a lot of articles!  Have at it!

Thanks again to everyone for joining in the conversation here at Bible Money Matters, and I look forward to more great things in the coming year!