Thrifty Living

Just because romance is in the air, doesn’t mean that money has to fly out the window. There are lots of inexpensive romantic things you can do to celebrate Valentine’s Day or any other special day for that matter. In our area there are a couple of outdoor malls that host special f*ree events with horse-drawn carriage rides, chocolate tasting and other special activities.

We’ve turned over a few pages of our book reviews to one of our
subscribers, Gina Dale from Fairfield, Montana. We are grateful to Gina
for taking the time to share some of her favorite books and web sites
with all of us. Here's what she wrote:

Okay, so the title just doesn’t grab you, but the content will. This book is worth buying and worth reading at least once every 2 years. It talks about contentment, controlling your spending, avoiding debt, living in a smaller house, college scholarships, the value of sleep, recreation ideas, parenting and a lot on investing. They don’t adhere to the common wisdom of most money experts that you should “pay yourself first.” The Toohey’s advocate cutting expenses, living less expensively and getting rid of debt so that you can create an excess of money.

Greg Karp is an award-winning, nationally published newspaper columnist. He understands that earning more money isn’t the solution to most financial dilemmas — but that spending smarter is! He discusses evaluating your life insurance; owning cars; analyzing phone, internet and cable TV bills and usage; options to wasting money on overpriced bottled water; extended warranties; timeshares; smoking; playing lotteries and much more. This book talks about lots of very practical ways to save money — but doesn’t really address how to develop a budgeting system.