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 So you think you are cheap? No, I mean really cheap! Well if you want some insight into living cheap, stingy cheap, Phil Villarreal’s book Secrets of a Stingy Scoundrel: 100 Dirty Little Money-Grubbing Secrets will show you how it is done. Villarreal spares the niceties that complicate most writing and puts saving a buck in front of everything else. As the book says upfront, "Honor. Integrity. Honesty. Dignity. If you live by any of these values, you may as well drop the book right now...".
First and foremost, Scoundrel is a very funny book. In a world of writers that will bore you to death detailing how you can make a chicken serve your family 4 meals, Villarreal brings an edginess and humor to even the driest of subjects. Anybody can tell you to hang your clothes on a clothesline to save money but Villarreal does it by demonizing the dryer as a “fire breathing beast” hell bent on stealing your socks and shrinking your clothes so that even your kids can’t fit in them. And humor is what sets Scoundrel apart. It's humor and delivery breach any gaps in substance, and it will have you laughing till the very last page. Not every tip is practical but nearly every one is funny. Sure, some may raise an eyebrow, but the reality is that many of us have done more than a few of these tips.
The book's 100 tips are split into two sections, the first seventy or so are meant to be used in practice while last thirty entitled, “Gross, Mean, and Just Plain Wrong…” are meant for entertainment value only, with a notice that some of them will require you to have your soul cleansed. Honestly, I thought some of the latter where actually pretty helpful although most I could never put into practice. The sensitive types will probably think that about many of the first seventy as well. To be blunt, if you are easily offended and cannot cull the advice from the comedic wrapper, Scoundrel is not the book for you.
So besides making me laugh about every other page, there were some very good tips on how to cut your costs or at least, live large without costing you a pretty penny. Some gems: how to negotiate with a ticket scalper, getting into movie screenings, cutting $1,000 off your hospital bill, and getting 6 month free of movie rentals. These all seemed like solid advice and I think I will try the hospital technique. If I can save even half that much, the book will pay for itself 50 times over.
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