# I am writing articles on personal finance



## ronaldo (30 Aug 2007)

Hi,

I'm writing a number of articles that describe, in my opinion, how one should go about improving their financial wellbeing. 

Basically, it's a step-by-step guide that starts from budgeting to paying of debts and so on. It is in the format of a blog so the posts should be read from bottom to top. 

I hope it's not against the rules for me to post a line (there's a link back to askaboutmoney on it):

http://www.thoughts.com/financialplanning/blog

I'd like your thoughts and opinions on the views expressed. You can either post on the comments on the site or else post here.

I will be adding more to it in the coming weeks and months.

Thanks,

Ronan


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## ClubMan (30 Aug 2007)

*Re: Ireland - Investment Priorities*



ronaldo said:


> Basically, it's a step-by-step guide that starts from budgeting to paying of debts and so on.


Not sure if [broken link removed] covers any similar ground? Or any of IFSRA's consumer guides?


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## noilh (4 Sep 2007)

Ronaldo thanks for telling about your blog.   I've just had a quick look and must recommend it to my young relatives.  I would prefer if the text was contrasting more with the background, i'm finding it a bit hard to read as it is faint. I hope you don' mind me saying that  - its meant constructively.


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## ronaldo (5 Sep 2007)

I've changed this now. The site I've it on currently doesn't offer much options but I will be transferring the articles to a different site when I have a good few up.


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## ClubMan (5 Sep 2007)

Another piece of hopefully consutrctive criticism - I (and I'm sure others) would be put off reading a site that uses so many exclamation marks !!! in the text. To me it's often a sign of somebody who is ranting or maybe even a scam site.


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## SidTheDweeb (5 Sep 2007)

Well done on making the website.

Some constructive criticism - it looks a bit 'much'.
The text seems very condensed and the whole 'read more' after a few lines is a bit annoying. Shame it can't have a greater bulk of text and then 'read more' - sort of like

http://www.engadget.com/
http://gizmodo.com/

I also agree with the above about exclamation marks.


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## imogen (5 Sep 2007)

Ronaldo

In the first paragraph I read I found an unfortunate misspelling:

"Some people will have a certain percentage of their asses invested in these."

So my tip is to proofread everything or better still, get a friend to do it. Otherwise very interesting, I learned something new.

All the best

Imogen


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## Murt10 (5 Sep 2007)

Liked the bit where you actually inserted real figures to show the result of a E50 pm overspend over 2 years on a CC.  It made it far more stark warning  than just advising someone not to overspend. E50 pm or E12.50 pw sounds and feels like such a trivial amount when considered on its own but it mounts up so very quickly and is compounded by the high interest rate. 

Once a person gets caught in CC trap it's very hard to get out of it and the banks are delighted when you just make the minimum payment.




Murt


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## ronaldo (5 Sep 2007)

I've taken the above into consideration and fixed the exclamation marks and spelling mistakes. I do proof read everything myself but unfortunately missed out on that mistake (of all places)  

With regards to the "read more" problem where only 2 lines of each entry are revealed, I cannot fix this on this blog but will be able to fix it when I move the articles to an alternative site in the future.

Has anyone got any suggestions as to what would be a good article to write after the asset allocation section. I was thinking maybe something along the lines of "The Effect of Charges" which show the difference made to, e.g. a €200 monthly contribution to a unit linked fund that charges 1.75% (like some of the banks products) and one that charges 1% (like Quinn Direct).


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## ClubMan (5 Sep 2007)

ronaldo said:


> Has anyone got any suggestions as to what would be a good article to write after the asset allocation section.


Maybe something in the _Money Makeover _forum might inspire an article? And it's always good to remind people of the sorts of tax credits/allowances/reliefs and _SW _and related benefits/payments they might be entitled to.


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## Bob the slob (6 Sep 2007)

I read all your articles.  Some of them are very good indeed and I will use a few things you said in them.  Thanks.


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## ronaldo (14 Sep 2007)

I've added two articles to my blog - one on insurance and one on tax.

I'd be grateful if you could have a look through them. Obviously, I'm no expert on tax and there may be some slight inaccuracies in what I've said or there may be additional things I need to add. Please let me know your thoughts. 

Thank you.


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## ClubMan (14 Sep 2007)

ClubMan said:


> Another piece of hopefully consutrctive criticism - I (and I'm sure others) would be put off reading a site that uses so many exclamation marks !!! in the text. To me it's often a sign of somebody who is ranting or maybe even a scam site.


Looks a lot better without the !!!!s.


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## command (17 Sep 2007)

I know where you are coming from. Writing articles like these seem pretty straighforward but in reality explaining things can become very complicated and by extension technical and boring. 

The challenge is to make the articles reader friendly. I have completed over 40 in the last two weeks alone for an Irish website that is about to launch. I find the most difficult part is not finding topics but how to communicate advice on those topics. The regulators site is a prime example of how not to do it. All the facts are there but how many people have actually completed reading their guide to pensions, its boring. Even the revamped site launched last week it a bit tedious. 

I think your articles are very good and the more you do the more confident your writing is becoming. Keep up the good work.


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## LouisLaLoope (17 Sep 2007)

That's a great web page - well done. I really like the contents of the articles. It's written in plain language and the examples with figures make it much more applicable.

The only thing I don't like is the lay out! (Oh, now I'm using exclamation marks - it's catching) I don't know how to go about designing a web page and I know you're trying to fix this, but I think basic headings would be better without seeing the opening line followed by "read more..." 

Nicely done, though. Very helpful.


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