Way back in August 2009, I started Five Pence Piece.

I didn’t really know where it would go, but I knew I enjoyed writing and that talking about my debt at the time would help me stay focused on getting rid of it. Stay focused I did, and get rid of it I did. But what Five Pence Piece turned into was more than I could have imagined.

I kept on writing, about topics I found interesting, that some folks struggle to understand, or just simply “don’t get”. In the UK we still have no education at statutory level on personal finance and I think that a crying shame. It is one of the many reasons people in the UK and across the world have difficulty managing their finances.

So I thought I’d dig back into my archives and pull out some of my favourite, or most useful timeless pieces and hope you’ll join me on a trip down memory lane!

2009

• Five Pence Piece is born! (First Post)
• My Financial Meltdown (4-Part Series on how Five Pence Piece came to be)
• The Importance of Redundancy Planning (A quick look at why, and how)
• Chasing Saving Rates (how to get free money!)
• Could You Live on Half Your Income? (right now. Could you do it?)
• My 10 Economic Predictions for 2010/11 (doomsday cometh!)
• The Psychology of Debt (honestly one of my favourite pieces ever written)
• Notices of Disassociation (what they are, how to use them)
• Personal Recessions (it doesn’t have to be country-wide to affect you)
• The SCRAM Plan (for when your finances go nuclear)
• A Guide To: ISAs (cutting through the jargon of ISA accounts)

2010/11

A lot happened in my life in 2010/11, and Five Pence Piece took a temporary back burner. Right at the beginning of that year I became debt free (woo!), and my divorce finally came through (woo!), but I also started working a heck of a lot of additional shifts due to various happenings at work, and in my personal life.

There was one particularly useful post though, and that was where I examined two savings products:

• Cash ISA’s versus Regular Savings Accounts

2012

This year I’ve really started to get back into blogging and found the passion I had in 2009 all over again. It’s a great feeling when totally random people rock up at my virtual front door and share a comment, or ask a question or point me towards an opposing view on something I have written about.

So for my 3.5 month 2012 round up I present:

• 10/10 for my 2010/11 Predictions (reviewing my predictions from 2009!)
• Are YOU Saving Enough? (a look at how much is enough)
• Fighting Benefit Fraudsters (and getting nowhere)
• Reclaim Mis-Sold PPI – Totally Free (3 part series, with interview)
• How to Survive a Petrol Strike (8 tips to make fuel go further)
• Emergency Funds (what they are, why you need one)

Ongoing Series

Some information is so invaluable – based on search terms, content and comments – that it deserves its own landing page. One of those is my Dig Yourself Out of Debt series, a 5-parter that looks at every aspect of identifying your debts, dealing with them, and tidying up afterwards.

Another is the open-ended ‘Frugal Friday!‘ series, where on a Friday I’ll post about frugality and how you can painlessly shave money off your budget. I’m not talking about the ‘making your own laundry soap’ level of money-saving, but practical stuff like cutting your electricity bills,  20 ways to cut your annual vehicle costs and batch cooking.

What was your favourite post? Come share in the comments!