Comments on: Book Review: 397 Ways to Save Money

By: Squawkfox » July Roundup: The Buck Stops Here Edition

Squawkfox » July Roundup: The Buck Stops Here Edition — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:45:28 +0000

[...] 397 Ways To Save Money | Canadian Capitalist [...]

By: LinkStuff For July 27 « Daily News

LinkStuff For July 27 « Daily News — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 18:26:09 +0000

[...] Canadian Capitalist did a book review on Squawkfox’s 397 ways to save money. [...]

By: LinkStuff For July 27

LinkStuff For July 27 — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 09:04:53 +0000

[...] Canadian Capitalist did a book review on Squawkfox’s 397 ways to save money. [...]

By: Canadian Personal Finance Blog » Blog Archive » Random Thoughts: Happy Christmas…

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 06:35:31 +0000

[...] Canadian Capitalist posts a review of 397 Ways to Save Money, a good book by the sound of [...]

By: Canadian Capitalist

Canadian Capitalist — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 01:53:28 +0000

@Houska: Ouch but thanks for your comments. I did find a few tips that were personally useful for me, so I got value out of reading the book. I’ll cite one example: Remove dirt and debris from air conditioner coolant coils. I’ve never done this and come to think of it, I am tardy about cleaning the refrigerator coils too. Perhaps it is obvious but I’m not in the habit of doing this regularly.

By: Four Pillars

Four Pillars — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 18:38:04 +0000

I actually read the whole book and thought it was worthwhile. If you check out my review (link is in the article) then you can see some of the tips which I really liked and learned something from.

I agree the tips from the excerpt are not earth-shattering. I guess the excerpt was to show the style of the book?

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:21:55 +0000

I like Houska’s reply, and I very much agree with the examples that Houska gave. I don’t think this is very objective and it really does seem like it’s just advertising. Has anyone actually read the book? Does it have anything to offer?

By: Houska

Houska — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:24:21 +0000

CC, sorry to be harsh since I generally tremendously enjoy your blog. But is your enthusiasm getting in the way of your objectivity? I’ve read (since it was mentioned by you) the excerpt the author offers, and am not impressed. While perhaps there are readers who would benefit from the advice, I can’t imagine it would be readers of this blog. In particular the “how much would you save” part you highlight in your post is quite primitive.

2 examples:
a) Suggestion to not buy brand names. Most of us would agree this is frugal. However stating that this can save 10-50% and therefore “$37.50 cash in the bank on a $75 purchase” is only marginally helpful.
b) Suggestion to use loyalty points instead of cash, with a bottom line of “Buying products and services with loyalty
program points can save you from spending your real dollars.
Just be sure to use your points before they expire” is just not insightful, it’s self evident. Maybe coupled with a discussion of how the value of loyalty points varies widely, that loyalty points spent on certain merchandise can seem like poor value at first glance compared to saving up for e.g. a big trip, but due to flight availability, point inflation and chance of expiry it might be worth it – that might be insightful, but as stated it is not.

Now I may be wrong and perhaps the excerpt is just poorly chosen. I’ve cherry picked to examples to prove my point. However, in the whole excerpt I did not see anything which would be more meaningful or less self-obvious. To me this seems like yet another example of a book jumping on the frugality bandwagon, but having little to offer.

By: Aleks

Aleks — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:49:17 +0000

“avoiding putting all of your money in a big pile, pouring gasoline on it and then lighting it on fire is a great way to save money.”

It’s a great way to save gas, too.

By: Canadian Capitalist

Canadian Capitalist — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 15:22:51 +0000

@Al: It is true that many, if not most, readers will find a lot of frugal tips rather obvious. But there does exist a segment of the population who are oblivious of how wasteful they are. And when money is tight they will start to look for ways to save money and hopefully will turn to books like these. At least, that’s the hope…