Sunday, April 15, 2007

"Everyday Cheapskate's Greatest Tips" by Mary Hunt


This is one of those fun little books that you can read in about an hour or two, something that you pretty much skim through and pick out the good stuff. And there is some good stuff in here! Ms. Hunt publishes the national subscription newsletter "The Cheapskate Monthly" and a syndicated newspaper column called "Everyday Cheapskate". Now, before you say "oh no, not another financial guru!", rest assured that Ms. Hunt is not offering that kind of financial advice. No, she serves up easy-to-do, common-sense, home-spun advice, and she knows of what she speaks - at one time she owed $100,000 in debt, and she paid it all off, one penny at a time. No bankruptcy, no fancy accounting, just some hard-nosed decisions and a lot of determination. And in this day and age, when so many of us are in the red, it's refreshing to read about someone who understands our pain and can honestly tell us how to alleviate it, then live in such a way that we don't get right back into it.

This particular book is a compilation of tips, 500 of them to be exact, and they range from little things like cutting your dryer sheets in half to putting aside money every paycheck towards an "emergency fund" (rather than relying on a credit card for just such emergencies). Not all of the tips will apply to everyone, nor will everyone want to follow the advice. For example, the Bookbabe doesn't have children, so I skipped over most of that section. Ditto on the pet section. But that doesn't mean those tips won't be valuable to another reader.

It's worth the short amount of time it takes to get through this book to read it. I pulled out 4-5 tips that I plan on putting into action soon, things that I think might help out myself and the Hubster. You may not find any; you may find all 500 useful. Either way, it's worth a look!

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