Highlights of the Month and a Preview of Some Excitement for July

June was a very productive month here at Money Smart Life, despite my laziness of being gone on vacation for a week.

Thanks for Your Thoughts
One of the most exciting events was getting to know each other a little better through the reader survey. If you didn’t get a chance to see the results, you can read about your fellow readers here and if you missed the chance to take the survey you can take it here.  Thanks for your feedback, I’ve begun incorporating some of your requests into the topics covered here, for example I’ve started a series on Stock Market Investing 101 in response to those asking for more coverage on the basics of investing.

Special Deals
Another popular request was coverage of special deals being offered to help save you or make you money.  I haven’t really done much of that in the past so I’ll come up with a way to screen those for you.  One deal that a lot of readers have taken advantage of to help save money on movie rentals over the summer is the free trial of Blockbuster Total Access.

Popular Topics
The most commented post of the month was the one on direct sales parties, people offering their opinion on making extra money by selling to their friends. 

My favorite article of the month was a recent one, how to decide when to quit your job.  I think the tool I described in that post is great for making financial decisions.

Graduation season is winding down but there are still a lot of people looking for gift ideas for college grads.  Now that the graduates are out on their own and having to make financial decision, the series covering health insurance, investing, student loans, best credit cards, and budgeting for college grads has become quite popular.

It’s obvious a topic on many people’s minds is the price of gas.  As fuel prices continue to climb readers are frequenting articles like small easy gas saving tips, save gas money by riding the bus, and the best gas credit cards.

Article Series
I had two different series of articles in June, one on identity theft and one on selling your home by owner.  I’ve always felt running a series of articles was a good way to take a more in depth look at a topic rather than trying to cover everything in one article.  I was glad to see that approach supported by some of the comments in the reader survey, here are the two series from this month.

Identity Theft

• Identity Theft Protection
• Identity Theft Costs
• Identity Theft Tips

For Sale By Owner

• Selling Without a Realtor
• Backing Up Your Home’s Asking Price
• Getting Your House Ready to Sell
• Marketing Your House

Coming Attractions
After the 4^th of July weekend is over I’m going to be doing something a little different on the site.  I won’t give it away yet but I’m excited to announce it.  I’ll put it this way, your opinion and readership is what keeps this site going so you get to make some decisions that will impact the future of Money Smart Life.  Stay tuned for more!

Ben Edwards, the founder of Money Smart Life, saved up enough to buy a Nintendo back when he was 12 years old. When he used the money to buy shares of Wal-Mart stock instead, he knew he wasn't like the other kids... His addiction to personal finance has paid off for his family and now he's helping you to afford the life that you want. Check him out on the web at Google Plus, Twitter and Facebook.

All posts by Ben Edwards