THE THRIFT BOOK: LIVE WELL AND SPEND LESS. A hardcover book written by India Knight, published by Fig Tree

Essential Stats

• Pages: 272
• Published: Thursday 6th November 2008
• Edition: 1st editionition
• Dimensions: 22cm tall, 16cm wide, 3cm thick
• Weight: 522 grams
• ISBN: 1905490372
• RRP: £14.99
• Availability at Amazon UK:
  • 15 new books from £0.90
  • 18 used books from £0.16

The Thrift Book: Live Well and Spend Less Cover

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Tags

• Kellogg's
• Look Inside!
• Subjects
• English
• Hardcover
• Regular Size

Reviews

A brilliant money saving book. I found it very interesting and couldnt drag myself away. I have used several recipes or ideas and was very pleased with myself for saving money.

When my partner chose to go back to university I suggested we need to economise to pay for it. So she went out and bought this, the stupidest, laziest book to be printed barely legibly and stuck between two nasty bits of cardboard that I have ever come across. It tells you nothing that you don't know already, or can't read for nothing (and probably better written) on 100 government websites (such as Act on Co2).

The sadness is, a great book is out there for the taking - how do you genuinely buy decent food on a tight budget for example? (There is a reason why so many of our poorest people are obese.) And presumably she has the wherewithal to write it, but couldn't be arsed.

It's only honest to admit that at the best of times India Knight annoys me - I find her columns compulsive reading but invariably am irritated by something she's written, unlike her fellow Times columnist Libby Purves, with whom I almost always agree. Can't put my finger on it but there's something a bit chip-on-the-shoulder, poor-little-me about her.

I read the book hoping to pick up useful money-saving tips, but on the whole was disappointed. She certainly gave me some good ideas for websites - I'd never heard of Etsy, which sounds wonderful, though in practice I found it difficult to use. But as for saving money - if I followed her advice I'd spend far more than I usually do! She is obviously (and on her own admission) an extravagant person trying to do better. For those of us who are living on a low income and normally very economical anyway, the book is as good as useless for practical advice, though quite an entertaining read.

The cynic in me was all prepared to loathe this book. A glut of articles in the national press about how we can save money by not having manicures at the salon (gosh!) and going to free museums instead of flying to Paris for the weekend (really?) threatened to turn me Marxist, and extracts in which Ms Knight describes cheap jeans as from Gap made me wonder whether this would be another work which thought thriftiness was simply what most of us do every day. However, the book isn't aimed at those a penny away from the poorhouse (there;s a gap in the lifestyle market there - 402 Things You Can Cook With A Primark Thong) - it is for people who simply have never had the need nor the inclination to consider what difference a few lifestyle changes can make. And in that, it succeeds. It is a book for people who think non-Waitrose food is terrible, that paying someone £15 to put a zipper in is better than taking an hour out to pop a film on and do it yourself, and conversely for people that think thrift is synonymous with mean and that ultra-cheap is always best. It walks the line well between economy and false-economy and anything that encourages people to learn how to do things themselves rather than be reliant on others doing it for them for a fee is definitely a good thing - most people would prefer a hand-made present than a will-this-do from the nearest shop, finding good clothes that will last and learning how to help them do so is great whether those come from the King's Road or The Children's Society, and cooking for yourself is fun rather than the offputting thing some see it as. Written from a position of privilege it may well be, but not to be dismissed on those grounds. Plus, the illustrations and design are marvellous, a Cath Kidston reimagining of the Forties Make Do and Mend pamphlets.

It's a well organised book, so you can skip the chapters that you aren't interested in, either because you don't want to sew your own clothes or because you already know what an ISA is; but then you can bookmark the bits that appeal to you, for me the clothing, food and beauty sections were pretty interesting reading.

It's a good read spiced with India's peculiar confessions of how she's reached these money-saving solutions, thorough a youth of thoughtless snobbery and an anxiety-inducing fear of finances.

A money saving bible akin to MoneySavingExpert it is not. It is from the point of view of a working woman with an income to afford a few luxuries, as long as she thinks about where it's going. Penny pinching to the point where you're living in an unheated commune is for you, then this is not the book you're looking for. She is simply offering her own practical methods that slot in with her lifestyle. She tempers her money saving with time constraints, and an ethical approach to what she buys and eats. She will only buy organic meat but her recipes are chosen for versatility, so you don't waste the good quality food you have, which in my opinion (and hers, obviously) is a better way of feeding yourself and your family than buying cheap processed food.

The chapters are well researched, and there are lots of website and book recommendations if you're interested in finding local resources or buying the things she recommends.

When buying this book, bear in mind that there is no catch-all version of this subject matter. There will undoubtedly be something of interest for everyone.

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