5 Things You Should Read

I hope you're reading this a few yards from her.

I haven’t been doing a weekly link post for a while now. I’m not really sure why. In some ways, I really like doing them, and I usually posted them on Friday, when traffic is a little lower than throughout the week. I’m bringing them back, and I’m changing the name from This Week in Review to 5 Things You Should Read. This week is the exception, as obviously this is going up on a Monday. In the future, I plan on slotting it in on Fridays. I’ll use the intro as an opportunity to talk about whatever I want, then give you the links and a few words about each one. I quit doing this for a while simply because a lot of the time I had things that I felt were more pressing.

Just as a quick note on why most bloggers have one of these posts each week (often called a Roundup or Review). Bloggers do this for a couple of reason. One is sort of a courtesy to one another. If you have traffic, and find a blog that you like, it makes sense to share it with your readers. We aren’t competing against each other, because, after all, you can read a lot more than one blog. The other part of that courtesy is that links into your site helps your Google Page Rank, which in turn helps your search traffic within Google. Page Rank is essentially based on the premise that the most important sites on the web are the sites that have been linked to the most. They keep track of inbound links on a site and also consider how important the linking sites are. This site, for instance, has a Google PR of 3 (It goes up to 10). As site like Wikipedia or something would be a 10 (I didn’t look it up, I’m assuming).

By linking to these other bloggers, I’m theoretically helping their page rank. In turn, if I write something they find useful, they might link to me. I won’t ever link to something just because I think there’s a chance another blogger will link to me. I only link to article that I think are legitimately useful or interesting, or that will be of particular interest to my readers (for instance, some of my readers with a value investing slant might like Old School Value). I often link to bloggers that specifically don’t do link roundups frequently (some bloggers don’t – like Penelope Trunk – who I’ve linked to many times). Anyway, if you don’t blog, I hope that gives insight into why you see so many link based post on people’s blogs. I honestly think it can be valuable, and I like the idea of Friday being a day where you catch up and have the opportunity to read all the best stuff I came across over the course of the week. Without further ado…

Your Home Never Was an Investment @ Free Money Finance – The best piece of advice I saw in this article was not to buy more home than you need. You don’t need a huge house for 2-4 people. You can only be in so many rooms at once. I would also like to point out that my home is an investment. I bought a two-family home in a thriving rental market and live in the top unit. The bottom unit produces $730 (more than $100 below market, as a favor) per month in income each month. Our unit, if we chose to leave at some point, could produce about $950 per month in rental income. In my opinion, that’s an investment. Otherwise, I agree with the premise that the home you live in isn’t an investment.

Top 7 Recession Indicators @ The Huffington Post – If you’ve never read The Huffington Post, where have you been? It’s one of the biggest political blogs on the web, and thousands of household names have written guest posts there. It was also one of Time’s Best Blogs of 2009. It has a liberal slant on the issues. If that bothers you, it may not be for you. Check out their readers’ cleverly compiled recession ending indicators either way.

How Outlet Malls Fool Shoppers @ The Consumerist – One of my favorite publications is Consumer Reports. I rarely make a purchase without consulting with the online version of their magazine. The Consumerist is a free resource owned by Consumer Reports that serves as sort of a consumer watchdog. If a company is ripping someone off, The Consumerist makes sure that people know about it. This is just a random sample – but did you know that companies intentionally make poorer products to sell at their outlet malls (which are also strategically placed in order to maximize your spending). Check out this article.

Thinking of Starting Your Own Thing? Here’s Why I failed @ Brazen Careerist – Caitlin McCabe tells us why she feels her initial attempt at starting her own business failed. It’s an excellent article. This is part of the reason I’ve started doing the entrepreneur interviews here – you can’t replace the experience of doing something.

In Defense of the Oracle of Omaha @ Seeking Alpha – For whatever reason, people certain people in the media like to go after Buffett. I can’t tell you how many articles I’ve read saying his investing style is dead, or that he’s washed up, that he’s lost his touch, etc. etc. etc. I can’t really understand why – he’s a real sweetheart. I read Roger Lowenstein’s biography (one of my favorite books I have ever read) – and this didn’t just start. This has been going on his entire career. There’s a certain segment of the population that wants to seem him fail. Now that he’s back on the way up, people are rushing to his defense. Some of us never left.

Next week’s 5 Things You should Read will be posted on a Friday. Have a great week and thanks for reading.