It is also not cheap, but more expensive, to buy something for a cheap price that you want to last for a long time, such as a washer or refrigerator. Back in 2000, I bought and paid cash for a washing machine. It was the better one, and I still have it. It’s been worked on once and is still going strong.

Dogging out J.D., who as far as I can tell busts his tail to keep this blog going is so wrong. If you don’t like it fine, but don’t get all up in his kool-aid. A total lack of comments would have sent him a message about how his readers responded to this post.

I will give you a little something for free – how I save over $1200.00 dollars a year on my water bill. I now pay close to the absolute minimum the bill can be. It was originally costing me almost 400 bucks a quarter – it is very expensive where I live.

1. Get some buckets from the dollar store
2. Start taking them into the shower with you – you should be able to collect a bucket per quick shower
3. Collect the water that comes out of your washing machine in buckets before it goes down the drain
4. Use the water collected to flush your toilets
5. Save mad cash

Here is another one good for buying new furniture

1. Go to a showroom and find the piece you like, make a mental note of the maker and model.
2. Find one of the big furniture companies in North Carolina and get prices from them. You can find them on the web. If someone tells you “here is a price but you have to buy it right now”, look for another furniture company, because they don’t want you to find it cheaper (and you will) I would tell you who I like, but I don’t want to give them a free commercial here.
3. Save big bucks – 1000′s if you are buying nice stuff.

Here is another – You can find copycat recipes for free on the web for almost any food you like to eat out in a restaurant. Make it at home.

BTW – I think Ramit’s dismissal of the little ways to save is wrong. Every little bit counts.

I admire his entrepreuerial drive and ambition, but at a certain point, can’t he use the blog to give back to the world (for free). He gets speaking engagements, has a book, advertising, etc. At a certain point the blog started to feel kind of icky.

And, I should mention, the blog’s attitude seems to be self-serving. Instead of saying, here are some ideas/ ways that YOU, educated reader can figure out how to save money, it seems to say — YOU, dear reader, need ME. I don’t know. I’m disappointed because I did like the good stuff in the past.

I agree with several commenters – my first thought when I went to the site was how much I love the pig logo – haha.

That being said I’ve been all over iwillteachyoutoberich.com and loving it. I’m not convinced that it would be worth my $8/month, but there’s a lot of great, valuable, and free content on here to appreciate and I’m glad I read your original posting for it.

I would contend that he is pretty arrogant with his message. And it’s really hard to combine his contempt for traditional thrift tips with his paid thrift blog… it’s almost like he’s saying “thrift ideas are dumb unless they’re MY ideas”

Sorry your post has banged you up so much today… *HUG*

Want to be successful? Find any combination of those million free tips that will allow you to save 20-40% of your income. Once you have those, be disciplined. That’s all you need to do.

I think if you are going to pay for this subscription you would have to consider comments like this from Ramit’s site: “I certainly won’t tell you to cut your rent or move to a cheaper place, because NOBODY WILL DO IT! Does anyone ever follow those stupid tips? No, but it sure makes other personal-finance authors feel good about themselves for coming up with a suggestion that theoretically, maybe, somehow could save money for the moron who would do it. Not here.”

Moving to a cheaper place is a stupid tip? You are moron if you do it? Sorry I have to disagree with you there. I think you would be pretty wise.

What’s entertaining is that Ramit said in his 30 day challenge, “…this series will not include retarded suggestions like Start a garden…”

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2009/01/11/7-tips-for-starting-your-own-vegetable-garden/

Did he just call JD retarded?

This is not an effort to hate on anyone but if you call people’s tips stupid and retarded and you call people morons you are asking to be called out.

I do echo the others who find this article a bit odd to be recommending a subscription newsletter. Normally, JD, wouldn’t you be recommending against subscription services? You may do book reviews, but don’t you also recommend checking them out from the library?

Amy D. of Tightwad Gazette fame turned down having Tightwad calendars and mugs because she felt that would not be frugal for the buyers. She also said that if you wanted her book for free to take it out of the library!

I do like the tone that JD puts in his articles. I didn’t like Ramit’s style/attitude so, I’ve not gone back but a couple of times since the original visit. Anyone who comes across as “I know it all” turns me off. That’s why so many of us like JD…he’s very open about “I’m learning” and not “I’ve arrived.” It’s refreshing. (Others may prefer the teacher/student relationship in a blog where the teacher exudes self-confidence.)

This attitude against penny pinching that was Ramit’s benchmark is why this “idea” of frugality tips is rather mind boggling.

Selling your ideas on a blog is fine. Why not if people will buy it? $8/mo is high, though (to me).

I’d prefer to invest in some books that have been reviewed here like Your Money or Your Life, etc. (I already have all the Tightwad Gazette books which are VERY, very full of ideas and a few “attitude” articles–the kind JD shines in!)

I don’t see a problem, however, with PF sites recommending a paid service. It’s not different than buying a book. My brother sucks at saving money, I’d certainly think he could learn a lot by buying a book.

I don’t see the service as any different than weight loss, for example. Sure, I can get calorie counters, recipes, workouts, etc. for “free” on the web (minus the cost of a computer and internet service, or the time to travel to the public library during their open hours). But instead, I maintain my weight much more easily by paying for the Weight Watchers online service. It works better for me.

It can be hard to be objective when you are talking about a friend. I have a friend who is a dietitian, and I have in the past paid for her professional advice. She has a very high quality program/service that she provides, so it’s easy to sound like a salesperson when I talk about her.

People will have different opinions. While I don’t think I will be signing up for the tips, I still like to know what is out there. Maybe I can sign up for the tips for a friend or family member that doesn’t already read the blogs. Knowledge is power and money is power. Keep up the good work by including everything.

I’m well known for trying desperately to save the pennies thinking, as the saying goes, that the pounds will look after themselves.

I am however beginning to see that this isn’t necessarily the best tactic and investing wisely can pay off a whole lot more in the long run.

Personally, I won’t be signing up for Ramit’s newsletter, but not because I think it’s too expensive, or that the tips won’t be very good, or because I don’t like the way J.D. posted about it. I’m sure it’ll be a decent newsletter. The reason I won’t sign up for it is the same reason I don’t buy personal finance books — I don’t feel like I lack information about how to save money. The information required to save money is (mostly) short and simple, and I’ve read it all before. Since I’ve learned the basics, I continue to visit PF sites and participate in the discussions to keep myself focused on the topic. I don’t need more information, I just need to keep the topic in the front of my mind, and a daily reminder (like reading GRS) does that for me.

I don’t see how this post is really much different from a book review, and I don’t see how mentioning a paid service is necessarily a bad thing.

Personally, I like paid web services. It keeps the quality of the content high. People will pay $10 to join a community and contribute to discussions, but they generally wont pay their $10 so that they can shout insulting names at people and post “first!” after every article. This doesn’t happen at GRS, because J.D. moderates all the comments, but it does all over the rest of the internet.

A lot of people still don’t seem to realize that most of the time, you get what you pay for.

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/10/17/recurring-monthly-costs-which-are-worth-it-which-are-not/

As far as the affiliate links, don’t worry about it, you didn’t do anything wrong. How many of us have earned $25 for referring someone to ING? I think the difference though is that you actually really like ING and they’re not your friend. Whereas people might see the motivation to post this article had more to do with your friendship with Ramit rather than raving about or critiquing a great product, even if that’s not true.

Another factor too is Ramit’s style. He has his fan base, but I don’t think it’s as wide as yours. His tone and topics can put off a lot of people, so there’s already that baggage right there.

As for me, I’m not going to sign up. I read through Ramit’s 30 day tips and it didn’t work for me. It seems to work for his readers though, but I found them to be repetitive of other frugal tips that he had previously looked down upon. For instance, brown bagging. He claims you can save $60, or $15 a week by brown bagging, yet he knocks down people who clip coupons. I’m sure there are many people who save more than $15 a week by clipping coupons, and I would argue to say that that is even less time consuming that planning and packing your lunches.

I agree with some of the posters above that a weekly newsletter aimed at bloggers (especially newer bloggers) is a great idea. I’d gladly pay a few bucks (maybe like $1-$4) a month for that.

I don’t have a problem with anything J.D. did. So what if he got paid for the links? If he was going to link anyway, why shouldn’t he get paid?

Also, I don’t see why it matters that Ramit is a friend. I don’t think that J.D. would participate in or promote something unless it was something he believed in. I would just hope that he read some of the full tips first.

As for the Scrooge Tips, I get a bit of a bad feeling about it too, but I’m going to give it a shot. It comes with a 60-day cash back guarentee. If it’s as good as Ramit promises, one of those tips should pay for a year’s subscription. If not, I’ll just cancel and get my money back. No harm done.

I think the bad feeling comes from the marketing vibe I get from it. It goes back to J.D.s recent post how some bloggers take the writing path, others take the marketing path. I like the writing blogs better myself, so I’m a bit leery of paying for the tips.

J.D.’s recommendations are just that, recommendations. Nobody’s forcing you to subscribe if you don’t want to. Nobody’s forcing you to buy books he recommends, either. Heck, you’re not even obliged to follow the advice he gives HERE. It’s OK for him to say he MAY sign up for Ramit’s subscription. Maybe he will. Maybe he won’t.

What I will say sticks a bit in my craw is Ramit’s line: “I’ll continue sending my own personal-finance tips, but by signing up, you’ll also receive tips from J.D. Roth (who blogs at Get Rich Slowly)” (emphasis added). If that’s a direct quote, and if J.D. isn’t planning on a repeat appearance/additional tips on Ramit’s site, then it certainly appears as if Ramit is indulging in some very misleading wordplay. J.D. says he’s contributed one article, and there currently aren’t plans for him to contribute another. While the text is absolutely correct – if J.D.’s submitted an article, then subscribers certainly WILL receive tips from J.D. (if he’s included them in his article, and why wouldn’t he?) – the subtext to that statement is that J.D. will be a regular contributor to Ramit’s newsletter. No, it doesn’t actually state that; but it is phrased in such a manner that the casual reader might certainly infer that J.D. would be a regular contributor, since it is used as a selling point for purposes of encouraging subscribers. I think it’s … slippery advertising, at best, and it makes me LESS, rather than more, likely to subscribe. I like J.D.’s writing, so I’ll come HERE, to HIS blog, and I’ll buy HIS book.

Sigh.

Peace and power to you, Ramit.

Really most of these blogs have some good general advice but aren’t going to make you rich. They are fun to read, however, and help to remind us all of a general philosophy we should maintain in order to become wealthy in time. Really if the only post every day was try to save money, invest as much as you can and try to earn more they would be worth the time. The occasional post on making jam, packing a lunch or where you can make an extra quarter of a percent on a money market are filler. Edit – I do enjoy the book reviews.

Just get an rss feed set up and read all of these during your morning coffee and enjoy.

Go bears!

If there is a conflict of interest in this post, it is, as I mentioned earlier, because it’s a friend’s project. You’re right that the last line is over the top, and I regret it. It’s more from being a lazy writer than anything else. (“This post doesn’t end well…how can I punch it up?”) It’s a mistake. I may sign up for The Scrooge Strategy, but as my wife pointed out before, it comes across like I’m shilling for Ramit.