The Cheapskate Next Door and The Ultimate Cheapskate’s Road Map to True Riches
Jeff Yeager
Lesson number one rule in Yeager’s amusing and instructive books: cheapskate is a GOOD word. I couldn’t agree more. Rather than going down the usual money-saving how-to roads, namely the “how to save money by reusing old string and cardboard boxes to make shoes” and the “just stop drinking that triple frappe half-caf latte every morning and you’ll be rich in no time” books, Yeager focuses on helping you find your inner cheapskate.
He lays out the major areas of our lives where people often make poorly informed choices with little forethought. His advice runs the gamut of being below your means, considering the total cost of a purchase (including upkeep, repair, etc), ways of saving money and amount of...
Malled
Caitlin Kelly
Caitlin Kelly’s tell-all working retail behind the cash register is both shocking and unsurprising. Everyone knows that retail is a dead-end and most would work almost anywhere else. However, the total blind-eye that management and the average shopper turns to those working sales is both a sad, sickening and clearly why companies still continue to make massive profits. Despite often being the only contact a shopper may have with a company, these poorly paid peons have to know products (often with no training), clean the store, stock, ring up sales and returns and a myriad of other exhausting tasks, all with a required smile. Kelly does her research well and, in addition to her own battle stories, talks about retail work and workers in...
The Bucolic Plague
Josh Kilmer-Purcell
This is one of those books that has me vacillating wildly between seething jealousy and abject horror. When Josh and Brent, overworked Manhattanites, find the perfect old mansion for a song it seems like their dreams have come true. The first months of farming and spending weekends at the Beekman house are idyllic. But the two driven A-personalities soon feel the need to do more. What was a peaceful retreat becomes a task-master. Having Martha Stewart herself as Brent’s boss makes their scrutiny of the farm and their need for country-perfect even more intense. Hilarious, sad and a hell of a warning to those who don’t know the word “no.”That being said, they do seem to have landed on their feet with their...
Money for Nothing
Edward Ugel
It is a bit sad how many Americans use the phrase “when I win the lottery…” before expressing a dream or desire. What is surprising is how many people do win the lottery – and what a lousy deal it often is. Many states don’t allow lump-sum payments. They instead give winners a pay-out over years and even decades – with no interest. While many people will think “Hell, I’ll take a steady $70,000 a year for the next 20 years” it doesn’t usually work this way. Winners blow through their money, and much more, in record time. And then they call someone like Ugel.
A gambler, failed film-student and bartender, Ugel landed a job working for a company he ominously calls “The...
The Baglady Papers
Alexandra Penney
Reviewers of Penney’s book panned it , calling her “entitled”, “rich” and “whiny”. Clearly, none of them bothered to read more than the dust jacket…if that. Penney lost her life savings which she had scrimped and pinched through years of hard, exhausting work. She talks about the sickening shock of going from something to nothing in a moment.
Last Thursday at around 5 p.m., I had just checked on a rising cheese soufflé in my oven when my best friend called.
“Heard Madoff’s been arrested,” she said. “I hope it’s a rumor. Doesn’t he handle most of your money?”
Indeed, he did. More than a decade ago, when I was in my late 40s, I handed over my life savings to...
I.O.U Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay
John Lanchester
Lanchester, a Brit and writer by trade, started his research into the current financial debacle as background for a novel he was writing. He soon found a mind-boggling story worth telling without any fictional embellishment. His description of credit markets, hedge-funds, mortgages and other financial toys are remarkably clear and easy to understand. Lanchester peppers his description of the financial meltdown with stories of the self-satisfied bankers who helped create this debacle. The book is surprisingly readable, never dry and rich with a heavy serving of British snark and a soupcon of vitriol. The British take is any additional interesting facet.
So yes, the regulators were useless, but their failures wasn’t like that of a...