Charles Long (1)

This book is 16 years outdated, and a lot has happened to our economy in that time. So I would take a lot of the financial advice (which is pretty vague, like the part on investments) with a grain of salt. Otherwise this book has good ideas about how to save money, and how to decide how much you need to live. Once again, the age of this book shows. There's no mention of Freecycle or Craigslist because those technologies didn't exist in 1996. So there are a lot of ways to be frugal that aren't covered in this book. One annoying thing about this book is the author's use of male pronouns throughout the book, and calling men men and women ladies.… (mehr)

This book was laugh out loud funny in several places, but also has some interesting ideas about how to live one's life in an enjoyable, but far less expensive way. Much of it I had heard before, but never seen in such an easily accessible and funny/easy to read format. As simple as much of the ideas here are...and ANYONE can use them...living the "conserver" lifestyle is not for those already living at or below the poverty line...as his "method" points out you need to be out of debt and have savings and investments set up to live this way practically. So, really...like several other books I've read recently (most notably The Joy of Not Working) this is really a book for people making 30,000-60,000 (or more) and are tired of the rat race and looking for a new and "better" way to live and enjoy life.

I also think it's important to point out that How to Survive Without a Salary is NOT about living with out a job or some other form of income, it's really about taking a few steps away from the strangle hold of corporate America and living for one's self and one's family...this book isn't so much about dropping out as it is about opting out to another type of job that is more conducive to living a good family life and comes with a lot of funny anecdotes if you do it "right." I think maybe the average person working at poverty level MIGHT able to do this, but it would most likely take 5x as long as he predicts and would be a serious hardship for families (not so much for single people or married without kids couples).

What I think this book does best is demonstrate an alternate way of thinking about how we live and how we spend our money. Some of the best advice here is the logical and oft repeated, don't buy it on credit...but also he admonishes us not to run out and buy things RIGHT when the need arises (if at all possible), because often, an alternative solution will arise (sale, used item given, ect...) that winds up saving the person a great deal of money. Also a warning...the author is Canadian and this book does not deal with the health care dilemma that most of us in the US are faced with, so from that perspective, this book would require some serious thinking for the average American working class family to undertake...because we don't get health care for free. That said, I would definitely add this to my library...but as I am currently living at poverty level, I am at a place where I have to figure out extra income to make this type of life a reality for myself, at least the parts that I would like to incorporate into *my* plan.… (mehr)