The Tightwad Gazette

[Karen_D]

The Complete Tightwad Gazette Amy Dacycyzyn ISBN 0375752250

This is proabably the most famous book on frugality and it's author one of the most famous frugal experts.

First of all, it's a good book. Amy keeps a sense of humour about what she does and interlaces it with sound reasoning for being frugal in the first place. She cares about the environment and she finds quality of life far more important than quantity of possessions.

My problems with the book are that it is particularly geared up for people with kids (and I have none) and it is very US based [1]. As such some of the advice doesn't work for me but a lot of the rest is useful and useable. However, I will say that UK readers might be better off with The Penny Pincher's Book, by John and Irma Mustoe ISBN 028563285X,
which is more general and UK based. Again, it is a good book, and there's certainly plenty of it that applies or can be adapted outside the US. Perhaps one to borrow (frugally) from the library first!



[1] For example, I had to Google to find out what "Downy" was (fabric softener, brand name "Lenor" in UK) and there are some abbreviations that might be obvious to a US reader but left me going "a what?".

[Shirley]

Hi

that does sound interesting... I'll keep an eye open for it at the library

[Tigerhair]

That does sound interesting and that's one hell of a surname she's got there - did she use the left over scrabble letters, or something?

[ina]

- did she use the left over scrabble letters, or something?

Frugal to the last

[Chickenlady]

I really like the Penny Pincher's Bible too. Another good one, although aimed at the US again, is Frugal Living for Dummies by Deborah Taylor Hough.

[Shirley]

I've just bought a copy of The Complete Tightwad Gazette book via Ebay and I have only flicked through it so far.. BUT I can see it taking pride of place on my bookshelf and will be thumbed through over and over.. I've already seen some great ideas that I want to put into practice....

[Luath]

too tight to buy it here - I looked at my friend's copy and wrote out teh bits I wanted Good recipe for dog biscuits.

[Shirley]

LOL Luath!!

There are almost 1000 pages

Dog biscuits huh... nice one. I recently found that the shapes biscuits that we bought for the dog are made by NESTLE!!! Errk. Will try the recipe - am sure the dog will scoff them anyway :)