The Amateur Financier

Well, it’s the end of the year, a time when we look at ourselves, at our accomplishments and our failures, and make plans to improve in the new year.  With that in mind, it’s time to look over my life in 2009, see what I did right, what I did wrong, and what I intend to do in the future.

Luckily, I’ve been blogging for most of this year, so my year-end review process is going to be much easier than it has in the past.  I’ve been pretty open about my personal and financial life when writing this blog, so it should be a much easier process to go through and spot my high and low points.  Come along and enjoy the fun!

The Good:

I started a new personal finance blog!  In hindsight, maybe personal finance wasn’t the best niche to focus on, but it has kept my interest and spurred on my writing for this past year, and hopefully quite a while into the future.

Celebrate the Good Times!

I was able to spend another Valentine’s Day with my beloved.  (I promise this won’t turn into a list of the celebrations I had with Sondra, although a few more might sneak through…)

Speaking of which, this was also the year that we got engaged!  *Does his happy Roger dance to celebrate, again*

After only a few months, I decided to go at making this blog interesting and productive, and decided to leave Blogger for my own site (which you’re reading now).  It’s been a great move, in my opinion.

I shared seven things with my readers that they probably didn’t know (unless they’ve been stalking me…)

As part of my attempts to ingratiate myself more fully with the PF blogging community, I hosted a carnival, the first of several, actually.

I got a new job, with good pay, at a place I’ve been trying to get into for quite a while…

The Bad:

…Which I unfortunately lost before too long.

I had to make semi-major repairs on my car, at a time when I was unemployed and trying to stretch my savings as much as possible.  On the bright side, I did get another post out of the deal, so there was some good that came from the whole ordeal.

And deal the bad times

While I had a wonderful trip out to visit my fiancee’s extended family, our trip home was horrible.  I hope I never have to deal with that kind of aggravation again.

The Ugly:

I tried not to spend too much time on the whole real estate melt down and the after effects, but it was hard to be a blogger in 2009 without expressing some opinion on the whole situation.  So here is my rant on the causes of our financial mess (which is far from completely cleaned up).

I’ve run into some complications getting my unemployment benefits paid, after the aforementioned job loss.  (As of this writing, it seems to be resolved, but I’m not counting my chickens before they are hatched after all the trouble that I’ve had.)

My Year in Review

I’ll be honest, I’m a bit surprised at how many good things happened this yes, and how few bad ones.  It’s easy to get lost in the bad things and forget all the positives.  But all in all, 2009 was a pretty good year.  Yes, I wish that I hadn’t had so many job problems (and all the associated money problems that went with them), but it was also a year filled with positives.  I got engaged!  I started a blog!  I held several jobs over the course of the year, and I’m sure I can get another job soon.

All in all, 2009 was pretty good.  I can only hope that 2010 will be even better.  But I suppose my year will be only as good as I can make it… Happy New Year, Everyone!

• Improve Your Blog and Personal Finance Links
• Monthly 2010 Goal Progress Update
• Blogging Advice for Small Business
• Projecting the Right Image of Your Company Through Your Corporate Blog
• Learning Basic Money Management Skills