June 3rd, 2008 - Book review: America’s Cheapest Family Gets You Right on the Money
I’ve subscribed to The Home Economiser newsletter for a couple years. The authors came out with a book recently, America’s Cheapest Family Gets You Right on the Money.
It’s similar to all the other books about being frugal and saving money and all those things I love to read about. I like reading these books because there’s always something that jumps out at me, even if the books seem quite similar. In this case, it was their dedication and ability to pay off a house in just 8 years. (I think they’ve done it twice, but I might misremember that. They might be doing it for house #2 right now.) It gives me the drive and desire to work on paying off ours. We’ve often talked about it, but then something else comes up–lead paint, adoption, you know those sorts of major events that cost tens of thousands of dollars that always crop up. (LOL. I certainly hope that doesn’t happen to other people like it does us!) I’ve come up with a possible budget post-baby that would allow us to put a little bit more each month towards the house.
And we’ve agreed that the money we used to put in the pickle jar would go towards the mortgage. When we started paying off the lead HEL, we switched the pickle jar to that. Then, when that was going well, we started splitting the larger monies like from rebates, testing, Deal Barbie, and credit card cash back in 3s–pickle jar, Eric, and me. (And the pickle jar fund morphed into funds for treating visitors. Which we ADORE doing.) Except for testing, the money will go 1/3rd to treating, and the rest towards the house. Since testing is considered work (we pay taxes on it, and we split child care the rest of the weekend), we’ll split that as before. We’re not talking large sums of money, but an extra dollar now on a 30 year mortgage saves a surprising amount of interest. (Quick estimate with 5% interest on a $100,000 loan,an extra dollar a month saves you $471 in interest on a 30 year mortgage. Or almost 1 month’s payment.)
Well, anyway, back to the book. It was a fun and easy read. One nice touch I’ve not seen in other books is that they have comments from their kids (5 teenagers/young adults). Sometimes they love what their parents do, and sometimes they complain a bit. Some of the information is very specific (such as the section about what discounts they’ve found with insurance companies), but all of the sections talk about how YOU can do the research and figure out how to save more money.
At the same time, they encourage having fun and not denying life’s pleasures. It’s about moderation and what you choose to spend your money on.
The book’s chapters cover specific topics including groceries, budgets, cars, housing, vacations, kids (I rather like their payday system for allowances), investments, and finally, attitudes. Much of the information has also appeared in their newsletters, but I still enjoyed reading it again all in one place. (Plus a lot was new since I’ve only been a subscriber for 2 years or so.)
I’m considering getting the book and newsletter as a gift for my brother and sister for Christmas. What do you think?