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Title: The Tightwad Gazette: Promoting Thrift as a Viable Alternative Lifestyle
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Manufacturer: Villard
List Price: $12.99
Our Price: $0.75
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| Customer Reviews: |
| The Tightwad Gazette: Promoting Thrift as a Viable Alternative Lifestyle by Villard Potluck Wedding Invitation! | | I am a serious tightwadder and I appreciate many of the tightwad tips but if I ever receive a wedding invitation asking me to bring a potluck dish AND to specify what I am bringing in lieu of a gift, the invitation is going right into the recycling bin. Amy compares budget catered meals as inferior to to elaborate potluck meals. I disagree completely. A very simple, inexpensive catered meal with well-chosen items will be superior to a potluck any day. She makes no mention of afternoon cake and punch receptions as an option for those who don't want to go in debt paying for a wedding reception. Furthermore, I am not going to ask my brother to be the photographer, my aunt to bake a cake, or my sister to do the floral arrangements. This is something that people who want to help OFFER. Guests and relatives have a right to enjoy a ceremony without being burdened by potluck planning and wedding chores. | | The Tightwad Gazette: Promoting Thrift as a Viable Alternative Lifestyle by Villard Sorely Needs Updated | Most of my praise or criticism can be found in other reviews posted here. However, there's one point I did not see mentioned. The book is old and sorely needs a revised edition.
While the principles are timeless and many ideas and recipes are current, a book written on penny-pinching pre the advent of the Internet is lacking in a lot of ways.
Missing is use of email, consumer websites and online resources, online banking, various technological advances as well as current price comparisons, interest rates, etc.
Finally, while there are many helpful and worthwhile suggestions that make the book worthwhile, there are plenty to make you cringe. When thrift comprises hygienic practices, as I believe it does in some cases, it's time to draw the line. | | The Tightwad Gazette: Promoting Thrift as a Viable Alternative Lifestyle by Villard TIGHTWADS! set the record straight ... | As a long time subscriber to the Tightwad Gazette, I can see many reviewers have a distorted picture of Amy and Family from only reading the book.
First, it's not surprising someone got "bored" with it after reading 3/4 of it, it was meant to be read one issue at a time - a whole book results in Overdose.
Amy's husband was a 20-year Navy career enlisted man. They knew they would have a not-too-large lifetime pension and lots of half-grown children when he retired. So they PLANNED AHEAD how to have one Stay-at-Home parent at all time plus the large white farmhouse they had always dreamed of. They chose Maine because cost of living was reasonable there.
They knew the only way they could manage the monthly mortgage payments on the house they wanted was if they made a VERY substantial downpayment (mortgage rates were higher then, and back in the 80's I don't think there were any JUMBO 35-mortgages which result in your being enslaved to the bank for the rest of your entire life, should you live so long) and started to save immediately for the downpayment. They lived in a studio apartment when first married.
They are both extremely "handy" and they just have never swallowed the American Frenzy for "buy more, more, more, newer, latest model, upgrade " that fuels the American Economy since the 1960's. Matter of fact, they seemed to live more the way families back in the 50's did - one TV, baking, freezing and canning, kids playing ball outside in the yard, Scouting, Church on Sunday, a stay-home-parent (after the husband retired, it was he, and Amy started the Gazette. And her husband, Lord love him, cooks and can fix almost anything.)
The picture painted by Amy in the Gazette is NOT of the stereotyped decaying 21st Century Family with both parents working 12 hours a day, a diet of take-out or order-in food ("whaddaya feel like tonight, honey, Chinese, Thai or Pizza?") , nannies, kids with their own cars and VISA cards, psychological disorders, parents who don't know what their kids are doing and are afraid to discipline them, humongous credit card bills and the possibility of having to declare personal bankruptcy, drug abusing kids snorting stuff off the granite kitchen counters, etc. (hopefully, most of today's families aren't like that either, but from some of the things you observe ....)
As far as I know, once they had amassed a nest egg they felt was big enough to give their kids the education they wanted, they suspended the publication of the Gazette, much to my dismay.
I followed a lot of the tips given and the philosophy and retired at 49. I've had time and money to travel a LOT and care for aged, ill parents. You'll never convince me that the things I learned from the Tightwad Gazette and from Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin's "Your Money or Your Life" aren't the sanest way to live. | | The Tightwad Gazette: Promoting Thrift as a Viable Alternative Lifestyle by Villard The best! | | If you have all 3 of the Tightwad Gazette books then you don't need any other books on frugality. These books are great. They would make a great wedding gift. | | The Tightwad Gazette: Promoting Thrift as a Viable Alternative Lifestyle by Villard An excellent Dacyczyn | | Dacyczyn does not encourage us to follow her methods literally; she only suggests looking at our spending habits and realigning them. Spending less money on areas which we consider low-priority leads to higher savings and monre money to spend on things we consider important to us. | | The Tightwad Gazette: Promoting Thrift as a Viable Alternative Lifestyle by Villard Product Description | | Having discovered that frugality is good for the bank account and the environment, Amy Dacyczyn started a newsletter for skinflints in 1989. Within a year, 50,000 cheapskates had subscribed to The Tightwad Gazette. Now Amy has collected all her wisdom into a book, and it's as good a deal as you'll find in these inflationary times. Line drawings. |
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