The Best of Couple Money (2011 Edition)

by Elle Martinez December 26, 2011 Family and Finances 3 comments

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This week I'm catching on some items on my to -do list that I've been putting off. It's been an amazing year for me, both personally (our baby girl!) and professionally. I'm happy with how 2011 went and I'm looking forward to improving Couple Money in 2012.

I want to thank those of you who have been with me since the beginning and those who have joined recently.

As a way to wind down this year, I wanted to share some popular posts of 2011:

January – March 2011

The beginning of last year was memorable. I started having morning sickness and was feeling miserable. I kept myself positive as I kept thinking that soon we were going to have our baby some time in the summer. At that point don't ask me why, but I thought we were going to have a boy. I only became confident when nearly everyone else was guessing boy as well. The only ones that mentioned girl were my husband and a family friend.

In February we went to get the more detailed ultrasound we found our we were going to have a little girl – my husband was right! Naturally he's excited about being right and spend the rest of the month trying to reclaim the better parent title 😉

As for Couple Money we had a great month with the netbook contest and being a part of Free Money Finances' March Madness. With your votes of support, Couple Money raised $100 for Charity: Water.

April – June 2011

Anticipating the baby's arrival, I decided to start banking some of my posts and scheduling them around her due date. This is very helpful for me because time seemed to crawl. June couldn't get here quick enough. With the heat wave it feels even a bit longer.

I was also surprised to see how people felt about saving money for their kids' college fund. I still believe you need to be out of high interest debt and have a retirement plan in place for yourself before you start saving up for a college fund, but some parents disagreed. I understand that parents want to give the best to their kids; I just believe that also includes leading by example.

July -September 2011

Our baby girl arrives in July and we're off! Well, I was pretty much off the month of August. I did some light posting, but the schedule remained pretty much the same on the site since I had already written ahead. Exciting and fun times as we learned to survive on less sleep. Eventually things improve and our baby realized that nights are for sleeping, not playing or eating.

To add to our new insanity we drive up to Chicago for the Financial Blogger Conference. Couple Money was nominated for a Plutus Award, but alas, J. Money won. We had an awesome time and my little girl was a great conversation starter 🙂

October – December 2011

I got back into my new routine her on Couple Money, sharing tips about family and finances. We had 2 back to back contests that were popular – the tablet giveaway to celebrate Couple Money's 2nd anniversary and the 50/50 Challenge where Julie picked up a new Kindle Fire. I already decided we'll have both contests again next year, but I'm spreading them out.

Speaking of anniversaries, this month was our 5th and we had a great time celebrating it with our baby girl and friends.

Thoughts on Couple Money

Thank you again for a fantastic year! Which are your favorite Couple Money posts from the past year?

About Elle Martinez

Elle Martinez helps families at Couple Money achieve financial freedom by sharing tips for reducing debt, increase income, and building net worth. Learn how to live on one income and have fun with the second..

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