Hey all and welcome to the first edition of our Friday Faves!

Aaron and I thought it would be fun to put together a quick little post every other Friday to let you in on what else we’ve been up to (as far as writing goes), and let you know which articles by our personal finance blogger friends we’ve found to be helpful, enlightening, or just plain fun!

Without further delay, here are some of our fave personal finance posts from around the web.

How I plan to retire at 28 using dividend income – Canadian Budget Binder – This post was an eye-opener. It’s always amazing and inspiring to read about people who have such lofty goals and great plans to achieve them.

Update: January 2015 Budget & Goals – Blonde on a Budget – We love this post from Cait because she totally killed her January budget and goals! Who doesn’t love a post like that?!

Detoxing Your Budget – Plunged in Debt – Catherine talks about how she’s come to realize her spending triggers and tells us what she does to beat them and stay on budget. My favorite line: “If you have to justify a purchase, you probably don’t need it.”

Tax Tips for Self-Employed Workers – Diversified Finances – I pretty much love every post Michelle puts together for her site (probably because I’m working hard to have a diverse income myself). This one is packed full of tips to help you figure out what to do when filing your 2014 taxes.

What Would You Do With an Extra $470/month? – Frugal Rules – John tells us the average amount most Americans spend on a car payment is$470/month. By saving up and paying for you car in cash, or not always upgrading when you don’t need to, you can use this money for a lot of other things. What would you use it for?

Our Personal Finance Work:

Aaron and I aren’t slackers. Both of us are constantly working and writing for a variety of websites about personal finance. Here are just a few places you can find some of our latest works.

Being a Pack Rat is Expensive – Cash Smarter – A great post that lets you know just how much your clutter may be costing you.

Preparing your Kids for the Cost of Driving – Money Propeller – Educating your kids about how money affects everything in life is important. In this guest post, Aaron talks about the costs you should point out to your kids when they get ready to hit the road on their own.

Understanding the Health Care Reform – Budget Blonde – I try to de-mystify some of the confusion surrounding the Affordable Care Act in this post, but overall it’s still pretty hard to understand.

Another One Bites the Dust – Shoeaholicnomore – Another debt on my list is officially gone and two months ahead of schedule! I also talk about my debt payoff plan going forward.

That’s it for this week’s personal finance roundup. We hope you have a great weekend!

Friday Faves: Best Personal Finance Posts is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.

When I first started this blog, I didn’t even look up a comparison of WordPress and Blogger. I should have, but I just jumped to Blogger.

There are pros and cons to each. Many people believe that WordPress is better in every single way. I disagree, but I do like it a little better, so here’s my version of WordPress Vs. Blogger:.

Design

Blogger blogs are easier to design, whereas WordPress blogs have more range and options. I’m not terribly tech savvy, so my designs are never super intricate, but I also liked the range of widgets available at blogger better than I do here in WordPress. Plus, adsense was nice.

Ease of Use

In my opinion, Blogger was much easier to use. I think that’s why they do so well, you can just jump right in. WordPress takes a lot more time to use, but this may be because it has a much broader capability.

Stats

I hated Blogger’s stats page. When I logged on, it was messy, annoying, and hard to look at. With WordPress, it’s all laid out neatly and obviously. You can see more of what happened than with Blogger, such as clicks out and not just clicks in.

Comments

WordPress blogs get substantially more spam comments than do Blogger blogs. However, WordPress does do a great job in catching them – my WordPress blog has about a 95% success rate in distinguishing spam comments between real.

It’s so, so difficult to comment on Blogger blogs. WordPress blogs are intuitively easy to comment on. Many people refuse to comment on Blogger blogs – I don’t. I just hope they have the Name/URL option, because logging into WordPress for Blogger rarely works well. However, if a Blogger blog has a captcha, I’ll only comment if I really like the blogger or if the post is pretty good.

Blogger doesn’t allow you to reply directly to comments. Hate this. WordPress does, and it makes life so much easier.

Posting

To be honest, with my Blogger blog, I never used the schedule post option, and with WordPress I do almost always. They both have the option, so neither is more superior in that regard.

Blogger does not allow private, password protected posts. I hate this. I don’t do many (or any), but I like having the option. WordPress allows password protection.

WordPress allows for both categories and tags, whereas Blogger only allows for one.

WordPress allows for a blogger to publicize a post on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Blogger does not.

WordPress allows “likes”. Blogger does not.

Blogger lists followers publicly, WordPress does not.

You can copy a post in WordPress as a template. You can’t in Blogger. You can also request Feedback in WordPress before publishing. In blogger, you cannot.

I’ve stuck with WordPress because the posting, stats, and commenting capabilities are much, much better than Bloggers’. However, it’s personal preference. I have struggled (and continue to struggle) with designing my WordPress blog.

This is just my take on Blogger vs. WordPress. Feel free to tell me yours in the comments. I know Blogger has changed recently, so I didn’t take into account any of the changes the would have done.

Starting a blog? You may also be interested to read some of my other posts about the subject:

Blogging 101

• Why Should You Blog? I Have a Bunch of Reasons!
• If You’re Just Starting Out, You Should Start on WordPress. Here’s why
• Ways to Inject Personality Into Your Posts (because nobody wants to read boring stuff)
• A Post About Knowing Your Audience
• If You Want a Successful, Money Making Blog, You Should Outsource (or quit your job and blog full time)
• Make Sure You Are Running Your Blog Like You’d Run Your Business
• Learn From My Mistakes in Blogging

Should You Blog Anonymously?

• Blogging Anonymously – How to Do It
• A Case for Blogging Publicly
• My Beef with Blogging Anonymously

Feel free to email me with any blogging questions and I’d be happy to help!

You may also be interested in checking out the comments below and leaving one yourself if you don’t know whether to blog on WordPress or Blogger.

Blogger Vs. WordPress is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.