In CHEAP We Trust

July 6, 2009
Guilt-free consumption has always been a cherished American value, but this book explores its flip side: a historical engagement with thriftiness, starting in the pre-revolutionary days with Benjamin Franklin, championed by reformers Booker T. Washington and Lydia Marie Child, taken to absurd lengths by the 19th-century miserly millionaire Hetty Green, espoused by economist John Maynard Keynes and married to environmental concerns by contemporary conservationists. Journalist Weber's treatise begins with recollecting her father's conservative habits and ramifies into a far-ranging examination of social programs, alternative movements and mainstream institutions including savings banks, home economics, industrial efficiency experts, “freegans,” economists and war departments, all of which promote some form of frugality. While failing to provide a satisfying distinction between cheapness and thrift, the author provides a rich canvas from which to consider American ambivalence about saving; she examines how thriftiness became a racist pejorative hurled at Jewish and Asian immigrants. While the rise of consumer culture and advertising undercut individual and social efforts to save, the author also finds structural reasons for our profligacy in growing financial illiteracy, wage stagnation and deregulated financial markets.

July 1, 2009
Entertaining history of scrimping and saving in America.

In her debut, former Newsday reporter Weber makes clear that frugality is not a long-lost virtue of consumer culture. Rather, scaling down has been a cyclical manifestation of hard times: Americans have tightened their belts in periods of war, financial panics and recessions, only to go on spending sprees shortly thereafter. A cheapskate's daughter—her economist father uses teabags a dozen times—Weber advocates a moderate approach of"mindful consumption: considering each purchase, embracing a stricter set of guidelines for winnowing down what I buy…thinking about the values that are most important to me, and spending or saving accordingly." Beginning with a consideration of Colonial-era thrift advocates from the Puritans, who legislated against vulgar forms of consumption, to Benjamin Franklin, who encouraged prudent living in The Way to Wealth, the author shows how patriotic self-denial during the War for Independence soon gave way to the frenzy of consumption that has become the American way. Sometimes-preachy advocates for frugality have ranged from Booker T. Washington, who urged the"saving habit," to 19th-century self-help writers like Lydia Maria Child (The American Frugal Housewife, 1832), to the U.S. government, whose slogans touted the virtue of austerity and war-bond buying in both World War I and WWII ("Use it up, Wear it out, Make it do, or Do without"). By the 1950s, Americans had abandoned Ben Franklin and other thrifty heroes to embrace credit cards and postwar prosperity. In the current recession, writes Weber, Americans recognize once again that savings matter but are discovering that they have racked up record amounts of personal debt. The author also covers the many ways in which some Americans live on the cheap—as a way to reverse ecological damage or to opt out of the consumer culture completely—whether by fixing appliances, foregoing new clothes or even dumpster-diving for food. Her stories about tightwads like a friend's uncle who walked miles to work each day, ate peanuts for lunch and gave away $1 million each year, will force many to reconsider the motives of cheapskates.

Welcome reading for a newly frugal world.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

September 15, 2009
This splendid, timely history and apologia corrects any misplaced nostalgia for a simpler, thriftier age. Business journalist Weber demonstrates that, from the Puritan settlers to today's economic stimulus measures, America has endured continual cycles of thrift and consumption, an endless battle for behavioral dominance between saving and spending. Among expected topics (wars, the Great Depression, industrial advances, and the explosion of consumer credit), she makes interesting forays into the origins of savings banks, the field of home economics, and the checkered history of National Thrift Week. The final third of the book includes a macroeconomic argument for increased savings and a collection of chapters on the voluntary simplicity and freegan movements, the psychology of frugality, and suggestions for learning the art of thrift. While this may seem a bit of a mishmash, the book is thematically consistent and convincing. VERDICT Weber manages, with panache, to combine a socioeconomic historical exploration that is readable and fun for the lay reader and a thoughtful defense of frugality that doesn't succumb to preachiness. For a sobering, supply-side view of the consumerist conundrum, pair this with Ellen Ruppel Shell's differently themed "Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture".Janet Ingraham Dwyer, Worthington Libs., OH

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2009
Frugalista is the word of the moment, reflecting the economic downturn and, perhaps, a new U.S. trend. Yet newspaper reporter Weber, imbued with the spirit of advocacy, documents our good thrifting history from Ben Franklins Poor Richards Almanack to the conclusion of World War II. Live-like-a-pauper Hetty Green, a nineteenth-century millionaire, became a heroine because of her frugality, as did Emerson and Thoreau for their encomium to live content with small means. She contrasts todays yo-yo mentality of American savings with the unfortunate stereotype of Shakespeares Shylock and thrifty immigrants. The list goes on and on, with our spending starting to escalate thanks to the Keynesian claim that saving was the enemy of economic growth. Her point of view quickly shifts, then, to the chronicling of adventures in low-cost living. Individuals like John Perry (who embargoes most new purchases for 12 months) and freegans such as Los Angeleno Helena Shoe (the extreme version) stand as just two examples of her motto: Shoppingless means we can make conscious, ethical choices about how we consume when we do spend money. Thoughts worth saving.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)