I sometimes find it hard to choose my next PF book, as a lot of them are aimed at people swimming in debt or people that are swimming in money — I don’t match either.

Thanks for pointing me to the next few books I’ll be reading.

I’m glad you recommended Suze Orman for young folks. But I object to saying it’s for “early twentysomethings completely lost when it comes to finances”!!! I certainly don’t consider myself completely lost, and I find it to be a great resource. Personally, I think it’d be a much better graduation present than Automatic Wealth for Grads, which I thought was just so much fluff.

Guess I’m a bit more cynical and view good and negative exposure as ‘good’ press for a seller.

I don’t follow the amazon links, but I know it’s hard for people to drop old habits. I just hope folks aren’t spending all their cash being pointed to financial books, in the hopes that that’ll over come their financial woes.

Anyway, your readership seems to be more educated than that.

Again, I honestly like the topics and discussion here.

Thanks!

I assume most of them are written with an American audience in mind? It’s not that hard to pick out general good advice from the specifics, or mentally translate “401(k)” to “RRSP” (Canadian equivalent) for example, but sometimes it gets a little tiring.

The reason for my comment in the first place….I always buy “The Richest Man in Babylon” Wikipedia for J-Rock for college graduates. Almost everyone I’ve done that for has sought me out to thank me, in the most sincere way.

Furthermore, I write about frugality. I’ve written about going to the library and hitting used book stores and using PaperBackSwap so often that readers have asked me to shut up about it. If I were trying to be a book shill, that would be rather counterintuitive.

Let’s take it another step. I write very long book recaps so that my readers who are busy and who are poor DON’T have to buy the book or even read it if they don’t wish. Again, if I were book shilling, I’d immediately shelf that practice.

If you click on that link to Amazon, I make nothing. If you decide to go ahead and buy that book at amazon after clicking through (meaning you actually put it in your cart, then check it out), I make a few pennies, far less than pretty much anything else I do on this site.

If I wanted to make money from book affiliate links, I certainly would NOT be linking there – I’d be linking to other booksellers that actually pay something for a link. I’d also write the majority of the stuff I write here quite a bit differently – I wouldn’t give explicit reasons not to buy books (like I do in basically every single book review). I link because I think it’s a good resource, probably the best one for getting a ton of views at once on a topic. If you don’t think so, don’t click the link – I don’t really care, it’s up to you.

I love the site. It’s on my regular to read list because I know your topics will at least give me something to think about.

I would like to comment on the amount of shilling that goes on though.

I understand this is a supplemental side business and you’d like to make enough to quit your regular job, work from home, or what have you, but I find it ironic that on a site devoted to frugality and the evils of over consumerism, you link yorur readers to affiliated links at any opportunity.

Again, I understand why this is done. I guess I’d just like it to be more up front and honest. I mean “See what Amazon has to say about it (link)”? Do we care what Amazon thinks, or is this an opportunity for me to spend money I may not need to?

I really started thinking about it with your entry on U2′s the Joshua Tree. Why not just post your love for the album? Or a link to it’s wikipedia entry, if information is really what you’re imparting.

Again, I really dig the site, but in the future are we going to see Trent’s top 10 movies or 5 books I read in December, etc. simply to link us to Amazon?

Keep up the ‘good’ work!

I’ve read about half so far and recently purchased What Color is Your Parachute for the upcoming book club. I’m looking forward to reading that and eventually all of these books. Well, not the books for teens or parents…yet. :)