transfer contacts to SIM card

I am heartily in agreement about the smashing with a hammer directive! However, I can't do that while my contacts are still inaccessible and I'm starting to think I may have to go back to the traditional pen and paper option and spend the next few weeks getting thousands of contacts' information into a format in which I can access it.

I have spent the past three days trying to figure out how to sync my contacts onto ANYTHING that will transfer them onto my new phone, I have opened two Windows Live accounts, neither of which I want and both of which are confusing and un-navigable. Some of the contact information has been transferred, but most of the phone numbers, which are what I want, have not, and I can't see any way to tell the damn thing to transfer the phone numbers.

All the contacts were on my SIM card when I made the drastic and terrible mistake of getting the Windows phone and now they are not on it and there is no way to get them back there.

What is the great secret of getting ALL the contact information from the phone onto the Windows Live account, from whence I will then try to figure out how to download them onto another phone so I can get them back on my SIM card which is where I want them and delete the stupid, pointless and cumbersome Windows Live accounts and never EVER have anything to do with Windows again?

BTW I'm not computer illiterate, in fact I'm one of those people other people often consult when they don't know how to do something. This problem has me completely stumped. Thank all the deities in the universe it wasn't my mother who bought this phone!

absolutely the worst os i have ever had win 6 was better, i am throwing my wp7 phone in the trash and got an android!