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Learning to be a Tightwad

January 5th, 2008 at 04:46 pm

I am reading "The Tightwad Gazette II," by Amy Dacyczyn. She is known as the "Frugal Zealot." She wrote a popular newsletter in the 80s and 90s filled with frugal ideas.
I liked this quote from the book.

"People who put their surplus money into short-term extravagances rarely build the same wealth as those who put their money in things with lasting value."

To her, buying paper towels is a short-term extravagance. She uses cloth napkins. But she only decided to use cloth versus paper after she figured the detailed cost of using both.
She is an economist in that she does these in-depth price comparisons on everthing they use.
She doesn't write her newsletter anymore, and I wonder what she is doing now. I'm sure she made a lot of money from her books. She was raising, I think 6 children, while writing the newsletter.
Interesting ideas and I have already started using some of the ideas in the book.
A lot of it is time consuming, and things I could do even though I work full time.
I will try, because I do want to have some money some day.
I want to be able to retire in 10 years, and things must change in order to do that.
My good husband is outside digging the garden spot for spring as I type. Ummmm... fresh vegetables I can just taste them now.