Tightwad Gazette | Should tuna go in soup?

Today in our intermittent series of Tightwad Gazette reviews, we are finishing up Book II!

Price-Book Hassling

A reader said that she got confronted by managers at grocery stores because she was writing down prices for her price book.

Mainly, she was getting accused of working for competing grocery stores. And this story made me laugh because with the advent of smartphones, the prices in stores (grocery and otherwise) are hardly a mystery! People routinely look at an item in the store and price-check it other places.

So, I can’t imagine writing a price down would get you hassled these days.

“Bring something you can’t buy in a store”

This bridal shower idea would not be universally well-received, but in this specific circumstance, I love it! The bridal shower guest list for a tightwad bride included people who didn’t have a lot of money and also people of greater means.

So, the hosts asked people to bring a gift that could not be purchased in the store. I love this! 

The bride was the sort that could appreciate homemade gifts or gifts from a garage sale, and the directions for “gifts not from a store” allowed people with less income to not feel embarrassed about their contributions.

Perfect.

Long-distance call bargains

Amy’s article tackles long-distance phone calls, a happily irrelevant budget item.

I have said so many times that I am delighted long-distance call fees are no longer a thing and that is particularly true for me since Lisey lives in Hawaii.

She calls me most days of the week, and I would get to talk to her so much less if we had to pay for our calls by the minute.

Either that or we’d have racked up shocking phone bills. 😉

LPs vs CDs vs Spotify

Obviously, Spotify and other music streaming services did not exist when Amy was writing. 😉 So she was trying to compare the frugality of records and CDs.

She suggested snapping up cheap records and record players while everyone was upgrading to CDs, since used CDs were still running $8-$10 apiece at the time.

I’m so used to being able to find any music I want on Spotify or YouTube, I had kind of forgotten what it was like to have to buy individual albums!

While I know purists maintain that the best sound quality comes from a record player, I do appreciate the convenience of not having to own physical copies of music. And this is particularly nice when it comes to playing music in the car. Remember when we hauled discs around with us??

I used to have a portable Sony Discman that plugged into my car, and it worked pretty well until I went over a bump and then sometimes the CD would skip.

Ah, memories!

Tuna Cheddar Chowder

This is one of those cases where I wish I could taste a spoonful before attempting a recipe; I feel a little bit skeptical that this would be good, but Amy says it’s one of the best soups she knows.

Someone did actually make it and post about it:

Not gonna lie, I do still feel skeptical. Have any of you made it??

Wealth and frugality

The last article in this section (which concludes Book II) covers the distinctions between wealth, poverty, and frugality.

Amy says (monetary) wealth is not how much you earn or spend, it’s how much you accumulate.

To sum it up, frugality does not equal poverty, and extravagant spending does not equal wealth.

There are plenty of people who are high earners, high spenders, and low savers. Lots of money comes in, lots of money goes out, and at the end of the day, they are no better off financially than a low earner.

And conversely, there are also average-earners who spend very little and save a lot by living within their means. There might be less money coming in, but even less is going out, and at the end of the day, they are ahead of the former group.

Obviously, there are complicated factors that contribute to both earning and spending, and some of these are outside of people’s control.

But I think Amy’s point is this: we do not need to feel ashamed of our frugal habits, as though we are an economic failure when we are buying second hand, packing lunches, and mending our clothes.

This is not an essential message for a frugal blogger (Since when have I ever been ashamed of my frugal habits?? I’ve been writing about them on the internet for almost 17 years!), but it is a common struggle for people, especially if they are surrounded by people living an affluent lifestyle.

An affluent lifestyle looks rich, but simple low-spending habits are part of what leads to true financial wealth, which is an accumulation of money, not the acquisition of expensive clothes, houses, cars, vacations, and more.

(Note: obviously, if a person has unlimited wealth, they can live an affluent lifestyle while also having a lot of money in the bank. But this does not describe most of us.)

Alrighty, time to discuss! Any and all topics in this post are fair game.

(But I do particularly want to know your take on this tuna soup issue.)

P.S. Next time we will start with Book III!