“From My Reader” is a weekly series, highlighting one of over 30 blogs that I track using Google Reader.

Go on, admit it – you buy crap, don’t you? Stuff that you look at a month later and go “why did I put that thing on my credit card to wrack up interest and ruin my life?” Or maybe you’re super awesome and you never make a purchase you regret. We have a name for people like that: “In Denial.”

Cap of StopBuyingCrap.com implores you to… well… stop! Buying crap, that is. And if you’re not sure what constitutes “crap,” he’ll be happy to point it out for you in his “Totally Crap” section, which includes a Fish Tank Toilet and a DVD Rewinder. Actually, those are the only two items there – Cap, find us some more things that are “Totally Crap,” won’t you?

I personally enjoy Cap’s “Woops, Bought Crap” entries, where he admits to not heeding his own advice all the time. It’s ok, Cap, I would have bought that sweet monitor, too.

Cap also has a robust section dedicated to personal finance advice, which is fun to read as well, because it’s written with Cap’s signature sense of humor.

If pressured to make a criticism of the site, I would have to say that Cap just doesn’t update enough. Please, Cap, find more crap for me, and brighten my day a little more?

Recent posts I recommend:
FICO Score Tracking #7 – Breaking the 800 Mark
Woops, I Bought a Private Jet
Finding That Special Reason to Care About Your Finances

“From My Reader” is a weekly series, highlighting one of over 30 blogs that I track using Google Reader.

I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi is the personal finance blog that got me interested in personal finance blogs, so I hold it very close to my heart. Ramit’s writings are full of no-nonsense, kick-in-the-butt type advice meant to jumpstart people in their twenties, and get us thinking about personal finance.

If you’ve never been to the site, start out by visiting the Table of Contents, where you can see every article on the site laid out in an easy format. If you’re new to personal finance as well at Ramit’s site, try starting out by reading the Introductory Articles – that’s where I started, and look at me now! Er… well, I mean, look at my knowledge now, not my net worth! ;o)

Ramit’s focus is more on people getting started and knowing what they spend their money on, rather than just being insanely frugal. I have to agree – what good does it do to save money if you don’t know how much you’re spending the in first place?

Does Ramit make money from his site? People ask that like it’s some indicator for how reliable the information is. Ridiculous question, but nevertheless: Yes, Ramit makes money, but indirectly. I Will Teach You To Be Rich contains no ads. Instead, readers contact him to give personal finance seminars, and recently he sold a short ebook on the site, which I myself purchased and enjoyed.

Recent articles worth reading:
Some people think there’s only a limited amount of money
Free chapter from Ramit’s 2007 Guide to Kicking Ass (the ebook)
Personalized tax answer for iwillteachyoutoberich readers – The second question answered was mine, and because of this, I was finally able to do my taxes!

“From My Reader” is a weekly series, highlighting one of over 30 blogs that I track using Google Reader.

Love him or hate him, John Chow knows how to make money online. In just a few months, he’s pulled a blog up from making nothing at all, to pulling in more than $7,000 a month.

John’s main tactic is to simply blog about how to make money online – especially with a blog! Oh, meta blogs, how I love thee! It’s a topic that nearly every other blogger is interested, even if only in passing.

He’s also decidedly pretty evil: leveraging his audience to meet his goals of increasing his revenue. But of course, we don’t mind, because by using us to make more money, he’s showing us how to do so! It’s all very incestuous, in a way. But I’m not complaining.

The main example of this is what you’re seeing right now: John offers a linkback to anyone who reviews his site. This is beneficial all around: his search engine ranking skyrocket, because of all the incoming links, and in turn, the linkbacks help all the blogs that linked to him.

John Chow is one of the few bloggers that can pull of a ReviewMe post and make me actually want to read it. He doesn’t just shill a site – he visits it, dissects it, and lays out his findings for his audience to see.

Speaking of dissecting, my favorite post of his has nothing to do with making money, but rather with him eating a live lobster. I hate lobsters, as a rule, because I’m girly and I think they’re gross. With that said, I could never eat a live lobster, because I never want a lobster within ten feet of me!

The posts I find most valuable are located in the Make Money Online section, but the other sections are definitely worth checking out. As far as improvement, I catch a grammar error here or there, and it always irks me. I know English isn’t John’s first language (and yet, his grammar is far superior to many people that I know), but I’m a grammar Nazi! (This does not go for my own site. I don’t proofread my own site. I hate proofreading myself! I’d rather criticize others!)

So why is John Chow in my reader? Because he writes on a topic that interests me, and he writes in a style that’s engaging. And he’s evil… and I like that!

[Update: John Chow is no longer in my reader. Eventually, after this article was written, he became too much of a shill and his site too spammy for my tastes. He crossed a line, as far as I’m concerned. But I’ll leave this original review intact, so that you’ll know that he used to be entertaining and readable.]

The war over direct-to-mail DVD rentals continues, even in my own house. My mother has both Blockbuster Online* and Netflix* this month, and she’s torn over which one to keep. On the one hand, she can easily return her Blockbuster DVDs to one of their physical stores, and come home with even more movies – and there’s a store not far from her place of work. Seems like Blockbuster might be the better value, for her.

On the other hand, she doesn’t like the way the categories are on the Blockbuster site, and there still isn’t as good of a selection. And, Netflix introduced a new feature last month: Watch Now. Streaming video, on your desktop, free. You get as many hours as dollars you pay for your plan (my mom is on the $15 plan, so she gets 15 hours of free streaming video a month). The feature isn’t available to all subscribers yet, but it’s being rolled out to everyone over the course of the next 6 months. Looks like my mom got in on the ground floor, because I can access the feature from her account.

So, who’s winning now? Well, I can’t tell you who my mom will pick. She really seems to be taking advantage of the Blockbuster in-store exchange, so we’ll have to see at the end of the month which she chooses. But if it were me? I’m still partial to Netflix. Bigger selection, funding of independent films, and streaming videos are all major pluses to me (I already watch LOST and other shows that are offered free on the network websites). Also, I wouldn’t use the in-store exchange of Blockbuster very often. Not that I have the money for video rentals, but, you know.

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