I’ve been re-reading The Complete Tightwad Gazette, looking for inspiration for Chicago on the Cheap. It’s a compilation of newsletters on thrifty living that Amy Dacyczyn started in 1990. She and her husband wanted to raise a large family (six children) on a small farm in Maine, without sending the kids to day care. They started living frugally out of necessity, and they had so much fun with it that they kept it up. Dacyczyn has said that the irony of it all is that they ended up with more money than she and her husband ever imagined because they turned their thrift into a business.
I first found the books when I was a burned-out investment analyst, trying to figure out what to do with my life. Some of the advice was so darn obvious: of course the toothpaste companies run ads showing the entire brush covered with toothpaste when only a pea-sized amount will do! No matter how rich you are, why would you want to use more toothpaste than you have to? It doesn’t make your teeth cleaner, and you can’t impress other people with your toothpaste extravagance.
Other bits of advice are not applicable (I’m not going to buy and store 50-pounds bags of potatoes for a three-person family), and much of it is dated. The book has a lot of tips on saving money on long-distance and how to re-ink printer ribbons.
But what sticks with me is the philosophy.
It’s not so much that everyone wants to live a dirt-cheap life, but that we all have things that are more important to us than others. Raising six kids in an old house on a small farm isn’t exactly a frugal lifestyle choice, and Dacyczyn admits it. My family lives in an old house in one of Chicago’s nicer neighborhoods, and we like to travel. Those aren’t frugal choices, either. We do it without my old investment-bank salary, and there have been periods where we have done it on just one income. We don’t insist on a brush-full of toothpaste, we eat store brands, and we shop at thrift stores. (I’m wearing my favorite sweater right now, bought at a thrift store several years ago.) We have one car, use the library, and turn the furnace down at night. When our kid’s phone broke, we made him use my old one until he was eligible for a new phone.
I recently had lunch with some friends who gave me their ideas for the best cheap things to do in Chicago. One was forced to be frugal by various personal circumstances. The other has four children, three of whom are in private school, so there isn’t a lot of extra money in the household. I wanted to live in an old house in a big city, pay for my kid to go to college, and be able to travel to interesting places without the stress of working at an investment bank. Other people are frugal for environmental reasons (plain water is just as good on windows as any window cleaner you can buy), because it’s their nature, or because it gives them a sense of security. Does it even matter?
What I love about The Tightwad Gazette, and why it’s still relevant despite all its recommendations for sending self-addressed, stamped envelopes when requesting information, is that it’s all about the reasoning behind different advice. That’s what makes it good reading, all these years later. Once you start looking at the world as a series of challenges that require the cheapest possible solution, a whole bunch of ideas come to you. Yesterday, my kid was talking about some kind of sling they sell to make it easier to practice handling lacrosse balls. I suggested that he see about making his own with an old sock and an old shoelace (we save all old shoelaces – they come in handy). And he did. There’s a sense of power that comes with that – that you can solve problems, you don’t need someone to sell you something first. That’s huge, and greater than the money he saved or the environmental benefits of reusing materials rather than acquiring new ones.
As I re-read it, I keep finding tips that I had forgotten about. I found really dated advice that I can update (yes, I’m planning to look into military surplus auctions at Great Lakes Naval Base. One of these days.) And I’m reminded of how Amy Dacyczyn’s books changed my life.
Hello! I am currently reading The Complete Tightwad Gazette. Our family began a frugal journey about 18 months ago and we’ve not looked back. Our quality of life is so much better now and we are only 18 months in! I agree that there is much dated material but you are so right…the philosophy is spot on! Over the last several months our family of 5 has: started making about 95% of household cleaners including laundry detergent and fabric softener, started purposefully watching our electric usage and have cut our bill by about $120/month, cut back on all holiday/birthday spending by thinking ahead, looking for deals early, and making some nice gifts, we have paid off several debts, we began composting last summer and bought exactly ZERO bags of potting soil this spring! We do a million small things daily that help cut back on expenses. I watch loss leaders in the local grocery store and stock up. We use coupons when they provide a great discount….not often, but occasionally. We cook more frugally and stick to a list. We even make things like butter and cheese on occasion, not so much for cost purposes, but to become more self sufficient and learn new skills. I make all of our spice and most baking mixes and we accept any free garden surplus from neighbors, plus we planted a small garden this year! I grow herbs too and dry them for use in cooking and things like potpourri. I am so glad to have found Dacyczyn’s book and would encourage anyone interested in pursuing a frugal lifestyle to read it.
Hello. Nice article. I’m a tightwader from back in the early 90’s, and my friends and I have read the original three TG books so often we had them almost memorized. Following many of the ideas in those books we were able to avoid needing a mortgage, send our kids to excellent colleges without loans, and be on track for retirement, for the most part with only one income. While we have “relaxed” a bit (organic groceries, for a start), the principles behind frugality are still deep within us, and we are very grateful for the motivation that Amy’s books gave to us.
Could someone please tell me if the Tightwad Gazette Newsletter still exists and how can I get a MAIL subscription? Email me @ karpan654@gmail.com THANX!
It is no longer around; Amy Dacyczyn retired. YouTube has a great interview that she did a few years back. The closest thing I know of is The Dollar Stretcher, which has email newsletters – but not postal mail.