#FRUGALITYPAYS: Money Saving Tips for the Underachiever
by Antonio Starr
After browsing some money saving blogs like The Simple Dollar and The Frugal Duchess, I figured that it'd be great to see what other folks have done to save some dough.
#FRUGALITYPAYS knows its audience, which consists of people who are "just a tad too lazy to take on this daily challenge. We are the underachievers!"
Well, there you go. These tips are aimed at the lazy and the people who are new to the frugal lifestyle, who are still probably paying a ton for cable and buy expensive beverages on the go.
For its audience, Antonio Starr's book is a small compilation of basic frugal living tips that deal with automatic bill paying, reducing entertainment costs, and not buying bottled water. The tips for saving money are solid, but if you aren't a huge spendthrift when you first read this book, then you probably aren't going to get anything new from it.
"Bring your lunch to work instead of going out or you can do what I did once, which was to find a job that offers free lunch lol." (page 45)
Lol, okay.
#FRUGALITYPAYS is concise, but at 91 pages, it can definitely go further into some of the categories. It's not even about fluff, but quality content. For $2.99, I would have liked to see some more tips on saving money in the categories about eating beyond the good ol' cook-at-home, use-a-slow-cooker, plan-your-meals things. But once again, I must remember that this book is aimed at the Underachiever.
"One thing I despise are books that are full of fluff! I hate having to spend three hours reading a book only to realize that the author could have delivered the same message in a third of the time. With #FRUGALITYPAYS, I get straight to the point because my aim is to add immediate value to your life starting with the first paragraph of the first chapter...Some of the tips in this book are more strategic actions as opposed to direct money saving tips such as buying from a clearance rack, etc...." (from the Introduction)
Something tells me that an Underachiever wouldn't be looking up actual books to read on saving cash. They'd probably hit up Google for "how to save money" tips that they can find without buying this book. I find that the actual audience of this book is actually quite different from its intended audience, since a frugal enthusiast is more likely to pick up this book than a reluctant underachiever or spendthrift.
