Writing In Cheap We Trust

Writing this book was a case of life imitating art. I had no steady income during the two years I spent researching and writing In Cheap We Trust, so I really had to hone my skills at low-cost living, to the point where I felt that I could even go toe to toe with Lydia Maria Child, the author of the 1829 best-seller, The American Frugal Housewife, and one of my frugal heroes.

As my savings dwindled, I cut more and more expenses. I gave up canned beans in favor of dried beans, shaving a few pennies off the cost per serving. I made my own laundry detergent out of borax, washing powder and grated soap. “Dinner out” came to mean $2 tacos at the Mexican carts below the elevated subway tracks in my neighborhood. I gave up on haircuts altogether.

The process of living cheaply and writing a book about thrift in America was not without its ironies. New York City is home to many “writers’ rooms,” places where you pay a membership fee in exchange for a quiet, communal room with desks, Internet access and a sense of fellowship with other scribes. After prodigious research, I discovered that my city’s cheapest writers’ room was at the New York Society Library, a grand and slightly stuffy institution on the Upper East Side. I chuckled to myself nearly every day as I walked to the library, past Park Avenue doorman apartment buildings or the couture boutiques on Madison Avenue. It was my little secret that I was visiting their posh ZIP code in order to write my paean to cheapness.

In truth, my NYSL membership turned out to be one of the city’s best bargains – for $150 a year, I had access to the library’s wonderful circulating collection, electronic databases of scholarly articles, a large writers’ room, and the Green Alcove, a lovely little nook where I penned many of my chapters.

In the end, writing ICWT forced me to be a better cheapskate and a more thoughtful consumer, as every cash outlay came under greater scrutiny. I considered the value of everything I bought, trying to weigh not only price but also environmental impact and contribution to my overall quality of life. I decided it was worth the extra money to buy “happy meat” – cage-free chicken, for example – but that I’d wear my clothes more often and do laundry less. These are small decisions, but they’re part of an “ethical cheapskate” vision that I’m constantly refining. And that’s the message of the book: the way we spend and save may seem inconsequential and frequently irrational, but it has real meaning for our economy, our planet and the kind of lives we want to build.