Customer Reviews

Downsized but Not Defeated: The Family Guide to Living on Less

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My husband has been laid off for over a year now (a victim of downsizing), so I picked this book up at the library in hopes of finding some helpful ideas. Well...a good number of the ideas just left me scratching my head and wondering what planet these ladies are from, because they offered things like :
1. Letting go of your housekeeper, and cleaning your house yourself.
2. Ditto, for lawn and yard help (our son said,"YEAH! FIRE me!!!")
3. Let country club and health club membership dues lapse, and join the Y instead. Well, my "health club" is the mall - I walk there for free, though I DID just put new inner tubes in my bike tires (for less than 11 bucks!)

In all fairness, they did have some good ideas, although even those fall into the common sense, life-as-usual, "everybody I know IRL lives this way anyway" category. (Borrowing movies from the library or friends and limiting rentals, instead of going to the show..., etc.)

If you're the type of person that has always been able to afford household help and belonged to country clubs (that's not me, or anybody that I know), then I guess you might find some useful advice here. Otherwise, stick to something like The Complete Tightwad Gazette instead.

I was just amazed at how this book changed the way I looked at my financial life. I'm sure if it waan't for this book I would be on the streets panhandling. It helped that much, Thank You!!