America's Cheapest Family Gets You Right on the Money: Your Guide to Living Better, Spending Less, and Cashing in on Your Dreams
There's no doubt that today's families can use some help in balancing the household finances, and the Economides family, headed by a former ad sales exec and his homemaker wife, deliver the goods here. To an extreme. As founders of theHomeEconomisernewsletter, the couple offers plenty of helpful tips on shopping and menu planning, saving, reducing debt, and cutting back on utilities. Most of Middle America, however, will probably find their habits overly harsh. Take, for instance, their shopping routine: they make one monthly trip to the grocery store, which takes up to five hours but costs them only $350. By freezing such items as milk, bread, and cheese for later in the month and using the more perishable fruits and veggies early in the month (saving such things as apples and carrots for the latter weeks), the Economideses feed themselvesand their five childrenbased on this one trip. Even though some tips advocate what others might consider garbage picking and mooching, any family with money issues will find useful information here. Especially helpful are their household budgeting techniques, adaptable to any home.Mary Frances WilkensCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved