Kathleen Anderson

There are two reasons to read this book. 1) You really love Jane Austen and will read anything even remotely associated. 2) You honestly have never heard a money-saving tip in your life.

For some reason, even though neither of these reasons applied to me, I decided to give this book a try.

The Austen references are extremely heavy-handed. If you are not familiar with all of Austen’s books and all the characters in each book, these references will be lost on you. On the plus side, that makes it easier to skim-read and get through the book quicker.

The “advice” for saving money ranges from “duh” to “who lives like this??” Anything helpful seemed either common sense or something that would be any any random Huffington Post or Buzzfeed list of “how to save some money”. Other tips seemed outlandish to me, such as where to shop for a bargain on a Persian rug. If you are in a position to have to read this book and need tips like “don’t buy Starbucks every day”, then I am willing to bet you will not be in the market for a Persian rug for a very, very long time.

One strange section near the end of the book went into great detail on how to act around people who own things that you want in some weird attempt to guilt them into handing their stuff over to you for free. (The authors do have a line though: mooching is fine, stealing is not.)

Aside from the sometimes bizarre content, the writing was hard to get through at times due to the fact that they were purposely trying to write in an Austen-like voice. It felt inauthentic and showy and didn’t contribute well at all.

It sounds like I should be giving it 1 star, but there were a few times when I felt inspired to do some thrift shopping and I am thoroughly convinced to never buy new furniture again.… (mehr)