picture from amazon.com
I heard about this book on “Boston Gals Open Wallet” . Jane Dough read it and gave a synopsis. She said although it wasn’t a page turner, she did recommend it. So I went onto the good old 4 counties library system webpage and requested the book.
I really wanted to like this book. The premise is simple, a woman and her husband decide to buy nothing except necessities for a year. Should have been a shoo in for a frugalite favorite.
But somehow, it wasn’t. I actually had to force myself to finish this book-and it took me about 3 weeks to read it. For that last statement to hit you the way it should, you have to realize that I reguarly read 300 pages or so in 2 to 3 days (depending on how much the kids distract me). I am a voracious reader, and I read just plain old FAST. But I couldn’t get into this book.
I think that part of it was that the book really wasn’t about saving money, but about disconnecting from the consumer culture. There was a lot of deep stuff in there about how you interact with people when you aren’t buying things. It was pretty philosophical.
Also, the author is about 360 from my views politically, and she talks a lot about politics in the book. I have a hard time reading opinions that are so far from my own. It makes me uncomfortable. I know that it is not healthy intellectually to only listen to people who believe exactly what you do, and I’m working on that. But she was SO vehement about her views that it just irritated me and made me uncomfortable.
In the end, the autor did wind up saving some money, several thousand dollars actually as well as paying off a large credit card balance. But she said the biggest benefit was to her marraige, that they hadn’t had a real fight all year (because they didn’t have money to fight about) and they had spent more time together doing things than previously. So I guess that I at least got a little something good out of the book, although the fact that spending more time with your spouse is good really doesn’t come as any surprise.
Would I recommend the book? Probably not. If you think you may be interested, I would recommend that you go to amazon.com (the photo is hotlinked) and check out some of the reviews before you get it from the library.
I’ve heard of this, too. I might read it from the library, but I’d never pay for it. Most of these books don’t tell me anything I don’t already know–it’s just rehashed stuff. And I agree–I don’t like it when they use a totally different topic to push their political views. You want to write about a liberal or conservative policy, fine…but don’t disguise it as something else.
Oh…hope you don’t mind but…if her views were 360 from yours, they’d be the same. Doing a 360 means going all the way around a circle. Sounds like her views are ‘180 degrees’ from yours–exactly the opposite, LOL! And now you have me curious…but I still wouldn’t pay for it.
uh, duh, 360 in a circle. . .. . I did mean 180. . . .
Thanks for reviewing this. I think I will skip it. With two children (under three), my time is w-a-y too valuable to try and push through something I won’t enjoy!