The Complete Tightwad Gazette
by Amy Dacyczyn
|
List Price: Our Price: $14.06 You Save: $8.89 (39%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $5.73 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The Complete Tightwad Gazette
Book Review: Don't get caught up in the silly parts
Summary: 5 Stars
This book was recommended to me when I was quitting work to have a baby. I read it while I was still pregnant, and it gave me a headache. "How can ANYONE do all this." (including making your own envelopes out of old papers from work). Now, I have been out of work for 6 months and have been reading the book again. It is excellent. I recommend this to anyone who wants to save money, BUT just gloss over anything that seems too extreme (then maybe come back when you are better at saving). Many of the silly parts are really just inserts that readers of the newsletter have written in to the author. All they are is to show you how to be creative and resourceful. The articles in this book talk about everything from calculating the dollar worth of a task, to how to get things done more quickly, to how to be creative. They bulk of the book is really not about these silly parts that people critique like washing out baggies. It is about seeing where your money goes and cutting down on ways you feel comfortable cutting down. I'll admit, I am not a thrifty person. I grew up in a home where nearly every dollar of the family's $150,000.00 income was spent every year. I was hesitant to buy used things. But this book helps you to see the value in doing these things, and I am starting to change my ways! Some people have commented that the author's kids are deprived. But besides the fact that her kids have plenty, even more than that she has taught them some very important life skills - many of which young people now growing up don't have the faintest idea about, which is why credit card debt is so prevalent among people. Yes, the organization is a little confusing, and the book is a little outdated. But there is a lot to learn from this excellent mother and budgeter. I only wish she were still writing. I'd like to see what she thinks about saving money with cell phones and the internet.Book Review: A must-have book for reformed spendthrifts
Summary: 5 Stars
This book changed my life, and it can change your life as well.
I read "The Tightwad Gazette" newsletters, and subsequently all three books (this book compiles the three under one cover) in my mid-30s and it stopped me dead in my spendthrift tracks! I started cutting back expenses, saving my money, and by the time several years later I had the first of my two children, I could become a stay-at-home mom and we could live -- carefully and frugally -- on my husband's income. I know I could not have done it without the Tightwad tips.
The book has countless number of money-saving tips but I would like to highlight just one alone that has saved me hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Because I converted to Tightwadism before having my two kids, I could feed (breastmilk = free), clothe (garage sale, thrift store, consignment store) and entertain (same as above, plus singing, running in the yard, turning over rocks, collecting leaves, drawing on recycled paper, etc.) for very little money. Raising kids does NOT have to be expensive.
Take clothing. Outside of a few new outfits as gifts from relatives -- which I save for church and special dress occasions -- and a few packages of socks and underwear, my kids wear only second-hand clothes, and no one can tell. I have never failed to find tons of good, quality, new-looking clothes at garage sales. I do NOT buy stained, ratty, and worn clothes, and everything I buy is in fashion. And I pay from $.25 to $5 per item, which is always cheaper than buying it new. I buy ahead in sizes and stockpile in labeled boxes, per Amy's advice.
Kids don't care where their clothes come from. They just want to play and have fun.
By using many of Amy's tips, I save a lot of money and can be at home with my kids when they're small. For me, it's empowering and freeing. I bet it will be for you as well.
Book Review: Some Good, Some Bad
Summary: 2 Stars
I bought this book several years ago (yes, I bought it, instead of borrowing it from the library - shame on me!). I have read through it twice since then.
This book contains some great tightwad tips that I have implemented in my household. I love cooking from scratch, so the low-cost cooking and grocery-shopping tips were the most helpful for me.
However, I have some major problems with this book. One, the lack of concern Miss Amy has for her children's needs is a little disturbing. Obviously, her children are fed and clothed, and have a warm place to sleep at night. But raising kids on hand-me-downs and the cheapest food you can find is not a great way to raise kids. I'd be curious to know how her children dealt with hand-me-down clothes in their teenage years. And, many times, cheap food is also poorly nutritious food. Luckily, Miss Amy has a vegetable garden, or I feel her children would probably suffer from poor nutrition by now. And for heaven's sakes - making your son work for a 25 cent snack? Lighten up, lady - he's just a child!
Second, her obsession with saving money borders on the immoral at times. On one trip, she steals food from the free breakfast buffet provided by her hotel to be eaten for dinner, and crows to the reader about all the money she's saved on dinner! Um...can we say obessive-compulsive?
Finally, I wasn't real happy with the holier-than-thou attitude. So the rest of us don't wash out our baggies and make aluminum foil last for 5,000 years (okay, maybe just 2 years)! I'll bet we do other things even better than you do (like knowing not to steal food from the hotel breakfast buffet).
Bottom line: This book if full of lots of tightwad tips. Use discretion in applying them.
Also, don't have kids if you're going to be this cheap. Please.
Book Review: A tightwad--and proud of it
Summary: 5 Stars
What a great title. Though I thought I was thrifty, I always wanted to save more and was intrigued by this book. After reading this 900+ page tome about saving money, I've decided on a couple of things.
1) Amy Dacyczyn (pronounced "Decision") really knows how to save money. Her ideas (and those of her readers) can really pinch pennies and help people avoid all kinds of waste.
2) Most of our energy is spent working to pay for things we don't need - cable TV, new books instead of library books (sorry Amazon), collision insurance coverage on an old car, bread makers, high-end retail clothing, and convenience foods.
3) The great majority of tips, philosophies, and ideas here are very helpful. I loved the idea of creative ways to have a kid's birthday party, Christmas, or any other celebration.
4) Some ideas I'm not about to incorporate just yet into my life, such as the dumpster diving and buying of used shoes. They're just not my thing.
There are some negative reviews which say that Dacyczyn advocates "unhealthy" or "unsanitary" practices in her quest to save money. Maybe this makes me a filthy vagrant, but I didn't really see any of that. Dacyczyn makes it clear in the book--if some of these practices aren't for your lifestyle--THEN DON'T DO THEM!
Some readers will probably not like this book because it doesn't tell them what they want to hear--that they can keep buying the same overpriced stuff they bought last year and somehow still have more money in their pocket. Well, it's not going to happen. You have to spend less money, and Dacyczyn is all about finding those activities which save the most money for your time. She's very smart about it, and I found it immensely helpful.
You'll enjoy the book too, especially if you read it with an open mind.
Book Review: I maintain that this book, comprising three books in one huge volume, is definitely worth exploring!
Summary: 5 Stars
I am pleasantly surprised that the book form of the 'Tightwad Gazette' newsletters, which first appeared in the very early nineties, is still available. I acquired my first consolidated book issue of 'Tightwad Gazette' also in the early nineties, & the remaining two consolidated book issues, i.e. Tightwad Gazette II & III, during the mid-nineties. I came to know about it probably from 'Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money & Achieving Financial Independence' by Joe Dominguez & Vicki Robin.
Many of the practical ideas & thriftiest thinking in sustaining my current prudent lifestyle, in the light of my planned retirement from early 90's, came from the three wonderful books.
I certainly could recall that, from my early days of exploration & implementation, not all the ideas or suggestions from the three books are useable &/or adaptable in my personal case. In fact, I found some of them to be too "extreme"...to the point of being overly "cheapskate" e.g. filling your pockets with all those assorted freebies like sugar packets, tooth-pricks, wet towels, in a restaurant. From the oriental "face-saving" perspective, I would deem them to be counter-productive.
Nevertheless, I am still very impressed by the overall work of the author, especially her determined search for a frugal lifestyle. I maintain that her book, in this case, comprising three books in one huge volume, is definitely worth exploring. It's a gargantuan compendium of inexpensive tips for a fabulous frugal lifestyle!
Another worthwhile book to be explored with this volume is 'Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life that is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich' by Duane Elgin. This book first appeared in the early eighties, & come to think about it, it may have influenced Amy Dacyczyn in many ways.