The Tightwad Gazette


I first found out about The Tightwad Gazette 20 years ago at the library.  I had just made the decision to stay at home with the kids, and I found the first of Amy's tightwad books.  At the time, she was writing a newsletter called The Tightwad Gazette.  The book I found was the first of her compendiums that she put together.

What struck me the most was that she talked in her first book about "Doing the Math".  She asked her readers to do the math to see if things were worth it.  For example, as far as my going back to work.  We had already made the decision that it was cost effective for me to stay home.  With the cost of child care, my entire salary, plus $150 of my husbands salary was being spent on childcare EVERY MONTH.  Since we quickly followed up with child #2, and child #3, I can't even begin to imagine how much money we would have spent on childcare over those years.  Since I was a teacher, and I know what my salary would have been over that time, I know that we would have lost money every year until my youngest child entered kindergarten- 9 years after the first child was born.

It's been a tight haul.  Money has never been plentiful, and we've never had vacations to exotic locations, and we don't make an annual pilgrimage to Disney World.  However, being together as a family has been a blast.  I have been fortunate that we've been able to thrive on one income for as long as we have.

I will give credit where credit is due.  Amy is a black belt tightwad.  She reuses tinfoil and plastic bags.  She line dries her family laundry in the attic of her garage.  She makes bread from scratch, she cans her own produce, and grows veggies in her own garden, and feeds her family out of her garden.

I picked up many hints from her that I've used over the years.  Whenever I feel the need to cut our budget back a little bit more, I'll pull her book out and read it over again, looking for inspiration, or things that I might have let slip past me in previous times.

We currently have two kids in college, and one more to go.  Oldest son is on a full scholarship, and middle child is on a partial scholarship.  The boys both earn money to kick into their education.  This year, oldest son paid the difference between what his scholarship pays and the balance.  I paid for his books.  According to our agreement, this year, we cover the expenses for middle son that are not covered by the scholarship and the pre-paid college trust.  We're looking at sending one more child to school in a year.  Our goal is to help them get through without taking on a load of student debt, or adding to our own debt load.  Middle child's expenses for us this year, including his books, came up to $5,000.  We have already worked out an agreement with him that he will pay for his own textbooks next year.  He will be living in an on campus dorm next year.  As a result, he will be responsible for paying for his utilities, as well as any other expenses not covered by the room & board bill that we will cover.  I want to have money on hand to cover his tuition and fees as well as daughter's college application fees when she begins applying in the fall.  My guesstimate is that we are going to need to have $6,000 in the bank come September.  Substitute Teaching is just not going to cover that difference. 

As a result, I pulled out my Complete Tightwad Gazette this morning.  I began reading through it, looking for inspiration, reminding myself to pay attention to the small things.  I was looking for ideas for new places to cut corners and different ways of looking at this problem.

And so, I thought I'd share this with you.  I will be cutting more corners, and I will be sharing them with you.

In the meantime, I wanted to share the book with you.  I love the Tightwad Gazette.  I find it to be inspiring and thought provoking!

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