Ed. Note: taking a breather from our normal business of posting retirement, tax and other personal financial planning topics to report on the blog itself and the statistics we’ve seen in this, the 6th year of publication for the blog. We’ll be back to our regular programming with the next entry. – jb
Over the past year, this blog has undergone a few major changes… I upgraded the format to WordPress; then added the IRA Owner’s Manual, reorganizing all those IRA posts into a coherent manual; a summary, chapter by chapter, of the seminal book “The Richest Man In Babylon”; plus I started writing more – generally adding a new post every other day.
Planned for 2010: more of all the yummy income tax, IRA, and other retirement-related and investment/financial planning articles that you’ve come to expect; likely a Social Security Owner’s Manual and a 401(k) Owner’s Manual (along the same lines as the IRA Owner’s Manual); guest experts will from time to time contribute posts on areas complimentary to my expertise; and continuing the pace of approximately 175 to 200 posts throughout the year. Please pass along any suggestions for new topics and series that you’d like to see written up and discussed.
Listed below are the Getting Your Financial Ducks in a Row end of year statistics and Top Ten lists for 2009. Thanks to all who have supported this blog in 2009 by reading, subscribing, commenting, linking, and not coming right out and booing!
General Statistics for 2009
- 198 total posts
- 228 comments & trackbacks
- 9,386 page views (averaging 26 per day)
- 105 RSS subscribers
Top 10 Most-Viewed Posts for 2009
- The IRA Owner’s Manual
- 401(k) & Qualified Domestic Relations Orders (QDRO)
- Payroll Tax Reduction (ARRA 2009)
- Auto Purchase Incentive (from ARRA 2009)
- Separation From Service On or After Age 55
- 19 Ways to Withdraw IRA Funds Without Penalty
- Determining Your MAGI
- Traditional IRA v. Roth IRA – Compare & Contrast
- American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
- 401(k) Fair Disclosure for Retirement Security Act of 2009
Top 10 Referrers for 2009
- leimbergservices.com/blogwatch.cfm
- obliviousinvestor.com
- moneysmartlife.com/financial-advisor-…
- blogher.com/those-pesky-401-k-fees-yo…
- blogcatalog.com/blog/getting-your-fin…
- twitter.com/
- wohlnerfinancial.blogspot.com
- keyfeeonly.com/web-resources
- monevator.com/2009/12/12/weekend-read…
- dividendsvalue.com/5086/weekly-links-…
Top 10 Search Engine Terms for 2009
- qualified domestic relations order 401k
- irs life expectancy tables 2009
- payroll tax reduction 2009
- net unrealized appreciation
- payroll tax reduction
- 2010 estate tax changes
- arra car sales tax
- 401k separation from service
- 401(k) fair disclosure for retirement
- 2010 gift tax exclusion
Top 10 Most Popular Links Clicked in 2009
- bfponline.com
- badmoneyadvice.com
- iraownersmanual.com
- irs.gov/publications/p590/index.html
- irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/rr-02-62.pdf
- blankenshipfinancial.com
- carnivalofpersonalfinance.com
- money.cnn.com/2009/01/06/pf/funds/etf…
- affinefinancial.com/2009/07/09/can-an…
- moneyning.com
That’s it for 2009 – Happy New Year to all, and thanks again for all your support! – jb
Photo by J.harwood
Sterling Raskie, MSFS, CFP®, ChFC®
The latest in our Owner’s Manual series, A 401(k) Owner’s Manual, was published in January 2020 and is available on 
A Medicare Owner’s Manual, is updated with 2020 facts and figures. This manual is available on 
Social Security for the Suddenly Single can be found on Amazon at 
Sterling’s first book, Lose Weight Save Money, can be 
An IRA Owner’s Manual, 2nd Edition is available for purchase on Amazon. Click the link to choose the 
Jim’s book – A Social Security Owner’s Manual, is now available on Amazon. Click this link for the 
And if you’ve come here to learn about queuing waterfowl, I apologize for the confusion. You may want to discuss your question with Lester, my loyal watchduck and self-proclaimed “advisor’s advisor”.
The IRA Owner’s Manual is a great idea! I’m glad the article on financial advisors with web sites sent some people your way.
Thanks for the explanation about the web stats, Jim. I installed the plugin — piece o’ cake. Wish I’d done this long ago, since I lost a year of stats, but better late then never.
Nice round-up for the year, Jim, and thanks for including my link.
How do you check which links are clicked on? I use Google Analytics to track usage, and if it has that feature, I haven’t found it , yet.
Also, I’ve moved my blog over to http://www.scienceandmoney.com My formal education is in science, and I found that many of my posts ended up being more about science than money, so I changed the title to reflect what I’m really writing about. But there’s still a lot about money. I just wrote a post on RMD’s that I’d be interested to have your comments on.
Best wishes for a terrific 2010.
Happy New Year, Helen!
I had noticed and wanted to congratulate you on the new look of your blog – very nice indeed!
The statistics that I mentioned, including links clicked to and from, come from the plugin “wordpress.com stats”. If I remember correctly, to set it up you have to have an account with WordPress.com, which provides you with an API connector. Other than that, the statistics doesn’t require any special setup to just “work” and it works well. Let me know if you have questions if you want to set it up on your blog.
I was on my way over to your blog to check out the RMD post when I saw your comment, so I’ll be looking at that shortly…
Have a great new year!
jb
Six years of publishing? Wow, you make me feel young, and I thought my two years was pretty geriatric. Glad to send some traffic your way — here’s to 2010!
@Investor: Yes, it will be a full six as of mid-March… although those first few years were pretty sparse, it seems like a long time in “blog-life” – lol.
Thanks for the mentions, and best wishes to you in 2010!
jb