By Daisy Luther
It’s no secret to anyone who has read my website for a while that The Tightwad Gazette books changed my life. If you don’t know the story, here’s the CliffsNotes version.
When my first daughter was a month old, my husband lost his job. We had a new baby and not one penny of income. We were young, had nothing in savings, and there was a glitch in the unemployment paperwork that left us without a dime coming in for nearly 3 months. My husband tried in vain to find work in the small town where we lived, but he was unsuccessful.
It was one of the lowest financial points in my entire life.
I was at a library sale when some books caught my eye. For a dollar each, I was able to buy three books that completely changed my life. They were The Tightwad Gazette, volumes 1, 2, and 3. I bought them, even though I felt guilty for that little splurge.
Those books opened an entirely new world for me. I had grown up in a well-to-do family and money had never been a concern. I had no idea how to be frugal. But I learned fast and have followed those principles ever since. I was heartbroken when I learned that the author, Amy Dacyczyn, had retired. After the success of her books and newsletter, she went off to live a happy, frugal life in Maine, and I rarely heard anything about her.
Amy is a lifelong frugal zealot
Imagine my delight when I came across this video from 8 years ago and learned that Amy was still killin’ it, frugal style. Watch and see if it gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling of nostalgia, too.
I love the fact that she has remained thrifty despite her success. Many of us are thrifty when times are tough, but when life gets better, we go back to our former bad habits. The Tightwad Gazette wasn’t a business for Amy. It was a way of life.
Introducing a modern frugality newsletter
The discovery of Amy’s video inspired me to strike out on a new project that is absolutely a labor of love. I decided to start a newsletter of my own called The Preppernomics Report. I’m combining two of my favorite things: prepping and frugality.
I’m giving you the November issue today, absolutely free. Upcoming issues are a rock-bottom low price of only $5 and I am absolutely certain that if you get into the spirit of things, you’ll find a way to save at least that amount each month – but probably much more!
[thrive_link color=’teal’ link=’https://www.theorganicprepper.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Preppernomics-Nov-2017.pdf’ target=’_blank’ size=’medium’ align=’aligncenter’]Preppernomics Report November 2017[/thrive_link]
I’m doing everything possible to keep the price as low as I can. The newsletter will be delivered to you in an easy-to-print PDF format. It will be completely black and white to save money on ink or printing costs at Staples. You can print this for about 5-10 cents a page at most office stores. Issues are between 20-30 pages long. Articles are separated so that you can print only the ones you want to keep on hand in hard-copy form, and if you want, you can read it online instead of printing it, for no extra cost.
If you subscribe before November 30th, you’ll get two things.
First of all, your price will be locked in at $5 for this PDF newsletter forever. The price will never go up for early subscribers, even if it gets raised at a later date for new subscribers.
Secondly, you’ll get a very timely gift. Last Christmas, I wrote an ebook with my youngest daughter called “Have Yourself a Frugal Little Christmas and a Debt-Free New Year.” With it, you can make this Christmas both thrifty and magical.
I hope you won’t want to, but you can cancel your subscription at ANY TIME. If you have an issue, we’ll try to resolve it, but if we can’t, you don’t have to worry about being locked in.
Finally, if you’re a Facebook user, we’ll have a closed group with monthly challenges to motivate you to save even more.
What have you got to lose, except debt and a higher cost of living? Subscribe today to reap the rewards of all these benefits!
We can’t always change our income, regardless of how hard we try to get ahead. But we can change our lives by changing the way we spend our money. By spending less to live well, we can find that elusive thing called “financial stability.” I’ve been a single mom for 12 years and am putting a second child through college on a tight budget, without any financial aid. It CAN be done.
I hope I can help you do this too!
Daisy, you sure you have time to do this with everything else you gotta do? Not trying to be a wet blanket but you seem to be a very busy lady!
Hahaha – well, I have shuffled some things around because this is a topic that has been my passion for nearly my entire adult life. I’m no longer teaching at Preppers University because I really wanted to do this project. I wanted to help people in a way that was more affordable, and nothing has helped me personally more than living a frugal lifestyle. This stuff comes pretty easily to me because it’s the things we do as a family every single day. I figured writing about it seasonally and dividing it up by the month was the best possible way to share the ideas.
I pretty much live to write, so it’s a pleasure to do this newsletter. 🙂 Thank you so much for your concern!
Gee wiz, when do you sleep! Don’t burn yourself out, girl, we need you!
Hi GC 🙂 well, I do go to bed early (by 9 or 10) so that helps a lot.
Don’t worry! I’ve got this.
Thank you for the free sample issue! Sounds like a promising endeavor – best of luck with it. Very much needed these days. (Plus you’ve sent me off down a rabbit hole of frugal living videos on YouTube. LOL)
I love the first issue, and subscribed to the rest. Yours is one of the few daily emails I always open and read thoroughly. I don’t know about anyone else, but I had trouble with the Subscribe
Now button, but the link above it works just fine.
Thanks for all you do!
Thank you, thank you for adding using the carcass as a broth/soup base!! I had dinner at a girlfriend’s house one year and her mother literally was shocked that I would want just the bones! The mother always threw it out!! I almost had a coronary. Those turkey bones just keep on giving, and I would rather have my own broth versus the $3.98+ carton from any store. Soup is healthy, soup is cheap, and soup is fantastic!!
Are these going to be $5 for each publication? How often are they being released, monthly, quarterly, etc?
They’re $5 each publication and they come out on the first of each month. 🙂
I loved the free issue, Daisy, and hope to subscribe before the deadline (I know it’s not a lot, but on a tight income it is). Best of luck with this endeavor!
I’m so glad you liked it! Hugs to you – I have been in that tight spot before. Send me an email (just reply to one of mine) and we’ll talk.
Just read your excellent article at lewrockwell.com about cooking from scratch and had to come over and compliment you on it 🙂 I’m a big Amy fan, too; her newsletter was a huge help to me back when we were homeschooling our large family on one income. Years ago, I watched her on the Phil Donahue show. He was so condescending to her, but she took it in stride and just kept sharing her ideas about frugality with the viewers. I really admired her for that, still do.
Thank you! So glad you’re here. 🙂
Thank you for posting this video of Amy. I was a reader of the Tightwad Gazette for its entire run. I, too,was so disappointed when Amy retired. I loved watching the video!