Blog Your Way Out of Debt

Some of us are always looking for ways to motivate ourselves. And some of us have this insane need to be creative. And every once in a while, the two roads meet.

Ever thought about keeping a personal financial journal? It's not a bad idea:   Writing down your ideas and thoughts can serve as a great motivator, thought flesher-outer, and stress-reliever. But hey — it's the 21st Century. Nobody does paper anymore, right?

So ... ever thought about keeping a personal financial journal online?

Lots of people are doing it; you can check out some of the best of them by heading over to my personal finance blogroll page.

As for me, I began keeping Money Musings, my blog, in April of 2002. I kept several small blogs, actually, and used them to remind myself of short- and intermediate-term goals. I used them to reprimand myself for careless or stupid expenditures. I used them to preach to my Dense Inner Self how much better off I was every month that my credit-card balances decreased. If I saw an item in the news that struck me as financially telling, or heard a statistic that took my breath away, I copied it into my online journal. If I saw someone around me being stupid with their money, I expounded upon it to my heart's content.

I will be honest here:   There is something downright powerful about opening yourself up online, particularly in the area of personal finance. Write about what you want to do to improve your situation, or what goals you hope to attain in certain periods of time, and suddenly you feel as if you are being held accountable by a great many people. I did not expect this feeling at first. Quickly, however, I learned to feed off of it, appreciate it, and put it to use as a motivational tool.

If you're not exactly the sort of person who wants to fiddle with much internet/technical stuff, you might look into goal-sharing sites to keep online tabs on yourself. I know folks have used Facebook for this sort of thing, too, but that particular route wouldn't appeal much to me.

On the other hand, if you have blooming web-developer aspirations — and wouldn't mind learning a bit of code while you're at it — then you could always grab a free content management system like Wordpress, find a solid web-hosting provider, and write to your heart's content! Good web hosting isn't pricey at all these days. This is the route I took, and it's worked very well for me!

So get your typing face on. Let your inner voice do its thing. And see if you can't create an online journal that helps make your financial beliefs, motivations, and accomplishments just a little bit clearer.

And closer.

If you're comfortable with it, then once you've got your financial blog up and running, you might wish to let me know about it. I'd love to follow along.

Great journeys, I believe, are meant to be shared.