The Complete Tightwad Gazette

Rating:
Summary: Inspiring!
Review: I checked this out of the library the first three times I read it, and had to have it! Amy has wonderful ideas for saving money in ways I never would have thought of, and I appreciate her creativity. (And "tightwaddery" IS fun!)

Rating:
Summary: Best book on saving money ever!
Review: I love the book, but some of the ideas are not for me. I guess I am just not that cheap(frugal) yet. It made me think about some of the choices I have made. I agree with the frugal food ideas, a lot relvoves around meatless meals, not a problem I have been a vegetarian for over 17 years. She eat way more beans than I do.

There are recipes for kids, chalk, play dough, and inexpensive fun things to do with kids. I love the idea of the price book. I think It is genius, although time consuming. I think almost every idea in this books takes more time to save money, but once you start you will be hooked. I like the ideaa of gardening and growing your food. I started just growing everything I needed for a salad in containers on my patio. And it was easy, saved money and I enjoyed it.

Rating:
Summary: Love this book except.......
Review: ..... I could never dumpster dive. I have several reasons.... I am a germ freak; in the neighborhood I live there could be drug needles in the dumpster(but that could be in any neighborhood); and I have seen the grossest things in dumpsters (puke, cat poo...etc). But I do totally love the Good Will and yard sales.

Other than that, this book is a great one. I haven't read it for awhile so I am due for another lesson on budgeting.

My fav recipe in the book is the one for pizza dough!

You don't have to like or agree with the whole book, but I think everyone will find some useful info in it.

Rating:
Summary: In Defense of Dumpster Diving
Review: It was a rare sunny day in an upper-middle class suburb in Oregon. While taking my fiance's trash to the apartment's central trash compactor, I noticed the huge bin of rejected, non-compactable items. A clean, sleek, high-end looking lady's computer case was perched on the edge--trembling, almost in anticipation of that intrepid woman who would simply put out her hand and take it...

That woman was me. Of course then, I didn't know that I was supposed to be too fastidious for this, that it was "extreme" and "far-fetched" to take something that was still in good shape but had clearly been abandoned by its owner. I looked around quickly, almost as if the Waste Police were about to rush in and collar me. But there was nothing but spilled soda on the ground and a lazy fly buzzing around. I snatched the case and almost ran back to my fiance's apartment-!

This is a dramatic reenactment, of course. But the warm glow of victory lingers. I get as much of a rush from a great bargain as some die-hard mall mavens get from shelling out $500 for the latest Coach purse. Is it a sickness? Are we really wackos? Did I really Dumpster-dive without even knowing it?

I know a gal who has a $9000 Nordstrom credit card balance. Is she sick? Is the best way the moderate way, to buy your clothes on sale and to shop at a co-op, as I did until recently? To answer these questions for yourself, you have to enter the world of Amy Dacyczyn.

I heard about this lady years ago and thought she was a nut. Now, exactly five days after reading only her second book of tightwaddery (which I picked up at Goodwill, figuring I'd get my 2.99 back somehow), I can hardly believe my good fortune. I've already saved $50 on last week's groceries, have a fully stocked fridge (instead of cleaning it out, like usual), and am rejoicing over my revelation that we can stop paying $100 a month to insure a car that we don't even drive. This is money earned, people. My husband is a little sick of hearing me sing Amy's praises, but he is already experimenting with cooking our meatloaf in the microwave vice the oven (either my husband makes terrible meatloaf, or we couldn't tell the difference). I am only sorry that, with a new baby to watch over while my husband travels for work, that I can't patrol the local Dumpsters! Or maybe I can...

I was astonished to find that a friend of mine (whom I KNOW to be a total tightwad who scavenges and trash-picks regularly) has actually NEVER HEARD of Amy's books. I won't buy them for her (she'll scavenge them on her own if she wants them) but I am buying this book for my family. (BTW, when she visits next we are planning a Dumpster-diving mission together, since I can't quite justify doing it alone with a baby--unless I drive by real slow!)

In a society characterized by excessive exposure to sex, you have people with weird compulsions and habits. The same applies to consumption. You have your extreme spendthrifts and you have your trash-pickers. We are all sick, folks. You get to choose your disease. You may think you don't care about where your money goes, but when it runs out you start to care real quick. I'm just glad there's somebody out there crazy enough to try to "beat the house" as it were--the advertisers, the corporations--the bean-counters who shave their pennies to see if they can get another penny out of you. It seems as if the rule is squeeze or be squeezed.

I find Amy's work to be a celebration of alternatives that we just don't consider. The advertisers hawk a bunch of new products and we never think about the Dumpsters of this country as treasure troves. Same product, different packaging. Get over it.


Rating:
Summary: Encouraging and a bit discouraging, all in one!
Review: While I enjoy and have used much of the information in this book, my big gripe is that the index is done terribly. It seems like they just copied the indexes from the three books instead of re-doing them, so nothing is listed under the proper page number. It makes trying to find anything a nightmare.