The topics of the Freakonomics books have always taken some kind of conventional understanding and turned it on its head.  Whether it was the connection of legalized abortion to lower crime rates or the revelation of how much teachers actually cheat too, the connections are found by analyzing data most experts have had access to in a different way.  This same approach was applied to sports for Scorecasting.

What makes sports so interesting in this context is that there are already an army of thousands of journalists and statisticians analyzing sports data already.  And yet in a just a few hundred pages I gleamed more about sports than I ever have from watching Sports Center.

Most of our understanding of sports comes from commentators, journalists, and former players themselves.  They are very apt at explaining the mechanics of the game and summarizing the events of a recent match.  But they aren’t very good at the 10,000 foot view of what is going on in a given league, team, or game.  Some examples are in order:

• Why have the Chicago Cubs not been back to the World Series?  Is it really a curse?  The answer may be explained by the Cubs possibly having an incentive to lose, and keep losing.
• Hindsight can always make a coach look brilliant or stupid.  Despite statistics saying football teams should go for it on 4th and short, coaches only do it when they have to.  It seems much of their decision making may be based on the reaction if they take a risk (even a calculated one in their favor) and it doesn’t work out.
• Baseball isn’t really my thing, but have you ever noticed there are considerably more people who bat .300 than .299?
• Home field advantage is another mystery.  It does exist.  And fans do play a factor, but not in a way you would expect.  As it turns out, the benefit of playing at home can almost be completely explained by the referees.  That alone makes the book worth it.

This is but a sampling of the questions that are asked and answered in this book.

Sports are fascinating intellectually because so many people put so much energy into it.  Not just athletes devoting their lives to a game, but fans too.  We can appreciate the high level sports around us because they are often important contributors to a local economy.  However the sheer level of sports obsession goes beyond mere economics.  There’s a community element to be shared amongst fans.  And our caveman brains probably interpret the competition as a war in some way or another.

It’s no surprise then that a book like Scorecasting could draw an audience.  Sports bring all people together, and economists too.  My only complaint about the book really has nothing to do with the book itself.  It’s that the authors haven’t quite their day jobs yet to focus on this material full-time.

Image: Ed Yourdon

Related posts:

1. Book Review: SuperFreakonomics, Illustrated Edition
2. Book Review: Biography of the Dollar
3. Book Review: The Ascent of Money

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I’m very excited to be doing another giveaway on Weakonomics.  This time it’s an updated version of SuperFreakonomics, you can read my review of SuperFreakonomics Illustrated Edition to learn more about the book.

There are three ways to enter, and you can enter each way once.  That means you get three entries, doing all three increases your chances of winning.  Here’s what you do:

• Comment – Leave a comment on this post with a valid email address telling me a situation where incentives aren’t aligned.  For example: Republicans have no reason to work with Democrats or my landlord has no incentive to reprimand a neighbor that blasts bass all the time because they know I’m moving out anyway when my lease is up.   No extra points for creative ideas, but if there are enough good ones I might turn it into a post.

• Tweet – Have a Twitter account?  Tweet the following message “Win a copy of SuperFreakonomics, Illustrated Edition from @the_weakonomist http://tinyurl.com/freakbook #FreeFreakBook”.  Don’t have a Twitter account?  Create one, follow me, and tweet the message!

• Subscribe – Many of my readers keep up with the blog through an RSS reader.  By subscribing to my feed you get the opportunity to enter again.  What will happen is on Thursday, December 9th I’ll send a post to you in the reader.  If you aren’t subscribed you won’t get this message.  To enter just send me an email with a secret message I’ll give you in the subject line.  That’s it!  Don’t know what RSS is?  Learn more about it here or subscribe with email here.

But wait!  There’s one more way to enter! To enter this way you must have a blog.  You can enter by creating a post about SuperFreakonomics.  Just link to this post and talk about the book.  A small paragraph with a few sentences will do fine.  After that send me an email with the link to your post using the subject “FreakBook Giveaway”.  The email address is Philip [at] weakonomics [dot] com. Note to bloggers, you can use your affiliate link to their Amazon page if you’ve got one.

The Boring But Necessary Stuff

So how do I decide who wins? Let’s assume I get 10 comments, 13 tweets, 8 subscribers and 2 blogs (I hope I get more!) that’s a total of 33 entries.  Numbers 1-10 will be the comments, 11-23 are the tweets, 24-31 for subscribers, and 32-33 for the blogs.  It will all go in order of submission.  I’ll then use random.org to select the winner.  In this example random.org gave me #28, which would be the 5th subscriber submission.

Oh yeah, let’s not forget the rules.  You must live in the United States or Canada.  You can’t enter in the same method more than once.  I will be policing this in the comments, twitter, subscriptions, and the blogs.  The contest will run for 5 days. I will stop receiving submissions via all 4 methods at 5:00 PM Eastern Time on Friday, December 10th. The winner will be notified via email within 48 hours.  If the winner is a Twitter user, they will be notified via Twitter using the @reply method.  If you follow me, I will direct message you.  If the winner does not respond within 48 hours of notice I will use random.org to pick a new winner.

Though the winner and I will discuss this privately, what we’ll do is I’ll get your shipping info and send this to the publisher.  The publisher will then send you the book.  I will serve as the point of contact between the winner and publisher.  Don’t worry reader, I won’t remember your address, I can’t even remember mine.

So get to commenting, tweeting, subscribing, and blogging!

Related posts:

1. Secrets Of A Stingy Scoundrel Giveaway!!!
2. Book Giveaway Pre-Announcement
3. Book Review: SuperFreakonomics, Illustrated Edition

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Longtime readers of Weakonomics know that I am a huge fan of Freakonomics.  Not only have I read both books, but I regularly read their blog and they now have a podcast too (and there was that movie).  And I won’t pretend to claim Weakonomics was inspired in a dream.  The names are similar.  But our topics and specialties are as different as the kinds of prostitutes they talk about in the book.

If you’re not familiar with SuperFreakonomics, I suggest you read my review of the unillustrated book.  This is a review of the illustrated version.  The differences are simple, the illustrated version has pictures, lots of them.

And that is simple enough for me to love it.  The pictures add a level of depth to the content not normally seen in books like this.  For example, want to see the sheet prostitutes filled out to report their “business”?  It’s there, and has been filled out.  The high profile escort?  She’s there, with some pictures for you too.  A diagram of Kitty Genovese’s murder scene shows just who could have seen the attacks, but didn’t report it.

Chart galore:  Just about any statistic mentioned in the book is backed by a chart to help put the idea into context.  Did you know it’s more dangerous to drive in Wisconsin than it is in New Jersey?  As a recent driver through NJ, I for one am surprised.

Don’t forget about the photos:  A cow wearing a gas chamber that collects her farts, satellite images showing air pollution from China moving over to South Korea, a mosquito being killed by a laser fence, did I mention pictures of the high class “escort”?

The concept for this book is really simple, and the execution is exactly what any Freakonomics nut would expect and love.  But there are of course some downsides for people that might not be inclined to buy it.  First, other than the pictures and some digressions in the margin, there isn’t much new material here.  It’s not a 3rd Freakonomics book.  It’s also a lot bigger than the other books, and difficult to hold.  It’s more at home on a coffee table than in a book shelf or on your chest while reading in bed.  If you read SuperFreakonomics and didn’t love it, there probably isn’t much value in picking up this book with a bunch of extras.  It’s like buying the newest DVD release of a classic for never before seen interviews and whatnot.

For someone like me, this book is a centerpiece in my collection.  It’s everything I’ve loved about the Freakonomics series for years, with pictures.  And if you thought the picture with my dog was just an excuse to put him on the blog more, you’re partially right.  It’s also about the alignment of incentives, which is the often theme of the Freakonomics stories (or misalignment).  See, I wanted my dog to pose and look at the camera.  So I put his cookie (his incentive) on top of my head.  Our incentives were literally aligned.

Note: this book was provided by the publisher for review, under no promise of a favorable review.

Related posts:

1. Book Review: SuperFreakonomics
2. Book Review: Nudge – Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
3. Book Review: Biography of the Dollar

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The easiest example is with getting to people to invest in 401ks at work.  Some people just don’t bother, others are daunted by the idea and too scared to make the wrong decision, so they don’t.  Others do it but just put their money in a money market or something.  Can we improve the situation?  Maybe.  How about automatically enrolling everyone in a conservative balance of stocks and bonds?  People that know they don’t want to save can opt-out, and others would at least get something.  This respects everyone’s right to choose, but nudges people in the right direction.
The book goes on to talk about other topics, including social security, and Bush’s Medicare Part D.  One of the more fascination subjects revolved around a system that could dramatically increase the number of donated organs in the US.  Really good stuff that includes practical solutions to every day problems.

So what else is good about the book?  It’s written in a great format.  The first part of the book seems to focus on educating the reader about different things.  For example, there are humans and there are econs.  Econs make rational decisions, humans often times do not.  Econs are the “in a perfect world” people that we use to make assumptions.  But humans are actually people, they make dumb decisions, or avoid decisions altogether.  The book then moves on to more specific problems with their suggestions on how to fix them.  Though there are a couple of policy recommendations, the book is not political and the format made for a good read.

But no book is perfect.  Nudge is written by economists, and you can tell.  They tend to dwell on topics for much longer than my attention allows.  This made for a long read for me, though I’m a very slow reader as it is.  I tore through two other books as I read Nudge though, so it may not be for everyone.  And while they do a great job of explaining topics that even your dog can understand, the book slows as a result.

Don’t let this detract from your reading of it though.  I try not to rate books, but if you like Predictably Irrational, The Economic Naturalist, or even Freakonomics, you should give this book a run.  I hope these guys do a follow-up as I’ll be in line for it if they do.  In the mean time they have a blog and twitter account, which I follow very closely.

And just for fun, here’s a picture of my dog nudging me.  He’s saying, stop reading Nudge (which I was) and pay attention to me.

Related posts:

1. Book Review: Biography of the Dollar
2. Book Review: SuperFreakonomics
3. Book Review: The Ascent of Money

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My wife, (The Sheconomist) discovered Dave Barry the other night. I haven’t heard her laugh so hard in a long time. The laughs are similar to the ones heard in the family car on trips in my youth because my entire family loves Dave Barry. She’s definitely earned the last name “Weakonomist”.

If you haven’t had the pleasure of reading Dave Barry, you’ve got a lot of catching up to do, and you can start with his review of 2009. He used to write regular columns for the Miami Herald which were syndicated, but I don’t think he’s doing that anymore. He does still write and the Herald republishes old columns on a Dave Barry section of their website.

I thought this would be a good time to talk about Dave Barry since I noticed he has a new book out called “I’ll Mature When I’m Dead”. So check out the links and Mom, I know you’re reading this so go pick up this book so I can read it next time I’m home.

Related posts:

1. Review Of What Happened In 2009, Courtesy Of Dave Barry
2. The Dave Ramsey Plan: Debt Snowballs
3. Weakonomics Weekend Edition: Vacation and Book Reviews

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The Millionaire Next Door

Books about personal finance are not page turners. I can rip through a James Bond novel in a week, but anything non-fiction limits my ability to stay awake to about 30 minutes a day. Be that as it may, I think personal finance books are the absolute best way to learn and stay motivated about money.

The Millionaire Next Door is a comprehensive analysis of how the rich get rich. The authors are experts on the subject after conducting surveys and focus groups for longer than I have been on this planet. The book is a few years old but it is nonetheless a great resource on the wealthy.

The most profound statement the book makes is the clarity on who in America really is rich. It surprised me to know that your neighbor, the one that drives the old van with his plumbing company painted on the side, has more money than that Escalade driving lawyer from your church. Of course this simplifies the concept of the book, but it is the premise of the it.

Its no secret, getting rich requires discipline and a lot of work. Many of the millionaires featured in the book are self-employed, and self-made. They are the archetype of the American dream. I work with many such people at my day job and can vouch for this fact. I am not self employed and I doubt many of the readers are, and its still very easy to become wealthy. The Millionaire Next Door was smart to point out this fact. Clearly defined goals and simple budgeting gets you on your way.

One of my favorite sections in the book is about children of the rich. The authors really dig into how the children’s upbringing affects them. Its sad that these some of these kids never learn the value of money and can never be fully independent from their parents. It is just as much the fault of the parents as it is the children, and that’s what makes this book a must have for any book collection.

Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes (and How to Correct Them)

Can’t help myself. Books are fun. I’m trying to keep the reviews short. Go to the library to get them, but if you are going to buy, feel free to go through my Amazon Affiliate in the sidebar.

This book was absolutely the coming out party for behavioral economics. Published in 1999, Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes is the merging of personal finance and psychology. Instead of talking about the book, I’m providing some examples from the book that made it so interesting. I rewrote them to shorten the length, but the point is still made.

The social contract
Bad service from a restaurant is usually due to a previous customer leaving a bad tip, leaving the server in a foul mood. This is a part of a social contract we all have. Make sure to tip even when service is bad, just note on the receipt service was sub par. Don’t contribute to this downward spiral.

Distorted perception
In three successive years, Luke, Leia, and Chewy all bought different stocks for $1000. Each held their stock for 1 year and sold it. During Luke’s year, the country experience 25% deflation – the average price of goods went down 25%. Luke sold his stock for $770, a loss of 23%. During Leia’s year, the country experienced 25% inflation. She sold her stock for $1,230, a gain of 23%. In Chewy’s year there was no inflation, and he sold his stock for $980, a loss of 2%. Who had the best return? A Princeton professor conducted a study to find who students thought had the best return. 60% thought Leia did. Very interesting, since that’s wrong. Luke was the only one to make money relative to inflation.

Odds are you don’t know what the odds are
John is 31, unmarried and lives alone in a small Iowa town. He’s shy, and has little interest in talking to people or being social. John exhibits the need for order and structure and has a passion for details. He loves reading. What is likely John’s job, a librarian or a salesmen. Certainly sounds like a librarian. But how often do we make judgments like this and completely ignore other facts that may not have been presented? For instance, while John sounds like a librarian, the mathematical odds make it more likely he is a salesmen. Why? Because (using the book’s statistics here) there are 15 million salesmen in the United States, and only 180,000 librarians. Making John 80 times more likely to be a salesmen.

My money is worth more than yours
Imagine you’re a huge fan of (the now retired) Michael Jordan. He’s due to retire at the end of the season and you’ve never gotten to see him play. Your boss hands you tickets to his final game saying he can’t make it because of another engagement. A few hours before the game, its announced Jordan will not be at the game, due to an injury. Do you still go even though he’s not there? Many won’t.

Now imagine you saved your money for 6 months for tickets to the game and the same announcement happened. The tickets cost you $400, do you still go? Many would. If you and your manager paid the same for the tickets, why would you only go if you had paid for them? Because those tickets represent a goal and the accomplishment of months of budgeting. At that point there was more meaning to the tickets because of the work they symbolize.

If you are into the behavioral side of personal finance this is an absolute must read. This was just 4 of a hundred such examples, with thought provoking arguments. I had to re-read a section 3 times and its still not quite clicking, which just means I’m not as smart as the authors. If these reworked excerpts are your type of thing, go get this book.

Related posts:

1. The Weakonomist Reads a Book: Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes (and How to Correct Them)
2. Weakonomics Weekend Edition: Vacation and Book Reviews
3. Books I Want to Read

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Though I started Nudge last year, I’ve just now resumed reading it. If you’ve already read the book this subject should be familiar. If you haven’t read the book, you should. The only warning is that it’s written by academics, and they never seem to strike the balance between good reading and good material (Freakonomics being an example of a good balance, thanks in part to the partnership of an academic and a journalist).

Nudge is about gently pushing people to make the decisions that are best for them. I won’t talk about the other subjects, but I am going to talk about nudging people into making the right decisions for their retirement.

The unfortunate circumstance of the current methods of signing up for retirement plans is that we have to sign up for retirement plans. When we have to do something, we have a tendency not to do it. It’s why my 401(k) is still with my previous employer, why I’m writing this post the night before publishing, and the emergence of a tummy around my waist that used to be much smaller. I know I should do something about these things (and I am), but not fast enough. And there are dozens of other things I should be doing but aren’t. For many people, they know they should be saving for retirement and even want to start it up, but never get around to do it.

There is a solution. Currently, when you start working for a new employer you are given information about their retirement plans. You have to choose to set it up. This is opt-in. Instead, we need opt-out retirement plans. In an opt-out plan you are immediately signed up for the retirement plan when you start and you have to choose to opt-out of the plan. Without citing the specific results of studies from the book (and because I’m too lazy to look them up), this actually works.

But how would these plans work in a real world application? Ideally, new employees would be placed in these plans making at least 10% contributions to retirement with some kind of company match. Also, they’d be placed in at least a 50/50 asset balance between stocks and bonds. But the issue there will be exposing people to more risk than they’re comfortable with. If the market turns south these people could sue their employers for losing their money. 10% of a paycheck may also spark too many people to opt-out. At best, I’d say 5% of a paycheck put in a low risk bond fund would be possible. But to be perfectly honest you’d probably end up with 2.5% in a money market with a 100% match in company stock. Hardly an ideal portfolio, and you all know that no one will be able to retire by saving so little.

However, there are other things that can be done to move the process along. Anyone that chooses to opt-out or accept the minimum investment should be required to take a personal finance class of some sort. Many online tutorials offer 1-3 hour readings with tests and reviews. This way those that opt-out understand exactly what they are doing and those that accept the minimum understand that this will not be sufficient and the portfolio they end up with will not be efficient.

To further assist in the retirement process, savings could be ratcheted up as the employee makes more money. 50% of raises would automatically go to retirement savings until a threshold of 10% of earnings are being saved (at which point savings moves in lock-step with bonuses and raises).

There is an issue with the opt-out retirement plans, it assumes people are too stupid to make the right decisions. You can’t walk through life assuming everyone is too dumb for their own good.

Actually, you can. We’re too stupid to acknowledge certain foods are bad for us so warnings are placed on them. We’re too stupid to exercise even though we know it can reduce our health costs and make us happier. We’re even too stupid not to get in the car and drive after drinking. So maybe stupid is a harsh term, let’s just say people are too easily distracted and short-sighted to do the right thing all the time. So we need incentives, consequences, and opt-out retirement plans to helps us along the way.

Related posts:

1. Four Features Missing From Your Retirement Accounts
2. Today’s Retirement Planning Advice is a Sick Joke
3. Roving Revenue Reserved for Retirement – Or Rolling My Roth

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If you were around back when I published my review of Freakonomics, you probably know that I’m a huge fanboy of these authors. Not only that but I freely admit that the name “Weakonomics” was inspired by their play on the word “economics”.

So naturally I was stoked to learn that the authors of Freakonomics have returned for a follow-up book called “SuperFreakonomics”.

Like many of my reviews, it doesn’t do you much good to hear my thoughts on the written word. My reviews work much better as a summary. That way you can get an idea of what is contained in the book. My summary will try to focus mostly on those topics that can be related back to finance and economics, but only try.

Chapter 1: How a street prostitute is like a department store Santa
This chapter is like most in the book. It grabs you with a short headline and then you have to read the whole chapter to finally get an explanation for the comparison, which usually isn’t all that interesting. What is interesting is the studies the authors’ friend has done on prostitution. The chapter goes on to talk about how laws passed to reduce gender discrimination actually helped males get into traditionally female jobs because of the now higher wages. The best example being coaching women’s sports. The most profound idea is based on how much the government has wasted pursuing suppliers of criminal activity. These are prostitutes, drug dealers, etc. When you take out a supplier, prices rise for the rest of the market. This entices new suppliers to enter the market. Instead law enforcement should focus on the customers. The book posits that if the punishment for using a prostitute were castration, the market would dry up quickly. I would argue though that if the prostitutes were punished as severely, you’d probably see a similar end to the market. Still, this was a great chapter with lots of statistics and studies.

Chapter 2: Why suicide bombers should buy life insurance
Again, don’t really care about that. But the chapter does talk about the point of terrorism, and how it paralyzes populations with fear. For example: you’re 575 times more likely to commit suicide than you are to get killed by a terrorist, but you’re much more worried about terrorism. Another section talks about the amazing work one guy has done to make hospitals more efficient, including evidence that chest pains are a low-risk condition and shortness of breath is a high-risk condition, when it comes to patients dying within 12 months of ER admittance. And if you did want to know why they should buy life insurance, it isn’t for the payoff (suicides can be exclusions from payouts) it’s because…. well, read the book

Chapter 3: Unbelievable stories about apathy and altruism
It’s Al Gore’s fault you can’t sell your kidney. And because people can’t sell their kidneys, tens of thousands of people in need of them go without and die.

Chapter 4: The fix is in, and it’s cheap and simple
Things that seem like a great idea now, can pan out to be bad ones in the future. The American’s with Disabilities Act was designed to protect disable Americans’ rights in the workplace. The net effect was fewer jobs for disabled people because employers were worried they wouldn’t be able to discipline or fire disabled people for fear of lawsuit. Charging for trash pickup based on volume inspired citizens to instead dump garbage elsewhere, or just cram more into bags. A trash tax in Germany caused a problem with people flushing their trash down the toilet. Whale oil used to be very popular in the US, to the point we hunted the whale almost to extinction. We ran out of oil and prices soared killing the economy. But then a guy discovered a new source of oil… in the ground.

Chapter 5: What do Al Gore and Mount Pinatubo have in common?
If nothing else, get this book for this chapter. It’s the most fascinating discussion on global warming I’ve ever read.

Though chapter 5 is the most enlightening, it’s the epilogue that is the coolest when it comes to money. Basically, you can teach monkeys to value objects that have no inherent value (in other words, teach them how to use money). But when you do, they’ll teach themselves how to rob you and whore themselves out. That’s right, read it.

All in all this is a great addition to the Freakonomics fan. The original book was so amazing that this is merely new stuff, so not as revolutionary. Doesn’t make it less awesome, just less amazing.

Related posts:

1. Book Review: Biography of the Dollar
2. The Weakonomist Reads a Book: Freakonomics
3. Book Review: The Ascent of Money

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There are three ways to enter, and you can enter each way once.  That means you get three entries, doing all three increases your chances of winning.  Here’s what you do:

• Comment – Leave a comment on this post with a valid email address telling us your favorite dirty little money-grubbing secret.  No extra points for creative ideas, but if there are enough good ones I might turn it into a post.

• Tweet – Have a Twitter account?  Tweet the following message “Win a free copy of Secrets of a Stingy Scoundrel from @the_weakonomist http://bit.ly/scoundrelbook #ScoundrelBook”.  Don’t have a Twitter account?  Create one, follow me, and tweet the message!

• Subscribe – Many of my readers keep up with the blog through an RSS reader.  By subscribing to my feed you get the opportunity to enter again.  What will happen is on Monday, October 12 at 11 AM Eastern I’ll send a post to you in the reader.  If you aren’t subscribed you won’t get this message.  To enter just send me an email with a secret message I’ll give you in the subject line.  That’s it!  Don’t know what RSS is?  Learn more about it here or subscribe with email here.

But wait!  There’s one more way to enter! To enter this way you must have a blog.  You can enter by creating a post about Secrets of a Stingy Scoundrel.  Just link to this post and the Amazon page for the book so that your readers can learn more about the book.  A small paragraph with a few sentences will do fine.  After that send me an email with the link to your post using the subject “ScoundrelBook Giveaway”.  The email address is Philip [at] weakonomics [dot] com. Note to bloggers, you can use your own affiliate link to the Amazon page if you’ve got one.

The Boring But Necessary Stuff

So how do I decide who wins? Let’s assume I get 10 comments, 13 tweets, 8 subscribers and 2 blogs (I hope I get more!) that’s a total of 33 entries.  Numbers 1-10 will be the comments, 11-23 are the tweets, 24-31 for subscribers, and 32-33 for the blogs.  It will all go in order of submission.  I’ll then use random.org to select the winner.  In this example random.org gave me #28, which would be the 5th subscriber submission.

Oh yeah, let’s not forget the rules.  You must live in the United States and be 18 or older.  You can’t enter in the same method more than once.  I will be policing this in the comments, twitter, subscriptions, and the blogs.  The contest will run for 8 days. I will stop receiving submissions via all 4 methods at 5:00 PM Eastern Time on Wednesday, October 14th. The winner will be notified via email within 48 hours.  If the winner is a Twitter user, they will be notified via Twitter using the @reply method.  If you follow me, I will direct message you.  If the winner does not respond within 48 hours of notice I will use random.org to pick a new winner.

Though the winner and I will discuss this privately, what we’ll do is I’ll get your shipping info and send this to the publisher.  The publisher  will then send you the book.  I will serve as the point of contact between the winner and author.  Don’t worry reader, I won’t remember your address, I can’t even remember mine.

So get to commenting, tweeting, subscribing, and blogging!

Related posts:

1. Review: Secrets Of A Stingy Scoundrel
2. Book Giveaway Pre-Announcement
3. Hey You! Win A Free Copy of Biography of the Dollar!

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Need furniture?  Make a friend at IKEA.  Electronics?  Best Buy.  Paint?  Home Depot.  You get the picture.  You need friends at all the stores you shop are regularly or plan to spend a bunch of money at in the near future.  And by friends, I of course only mean that you should only pretend to be a friend hard enough to get in on their discount.  Don’t worry, they hate their jobs and would be happy to help you get a discount if it means helping out a buddy.  Some stores give employee discounts on a flat rate, while others will sell to their own at just a % over the amount the store pays to purchase the item.  I’m not ashamed to admit that I worked at Best Buy and could have gotten you accessories on the cheap because the margins on these products are very high.  TVs and video games wouldn’t have helped you much, but I digress.  Again, you don’t have to be friends with these people.  Just be friends enough to get in on discounts to save on your home remodeling, Swedish furniture, or simply an overpriced HDMI cable.

“100 dirty money-grubbing secrets.”  That’s the tagline to this book.  And it’s appropriate.  The secret above is one of my own, but would have easily fit into the funniest book about money I’ve ever read.  Secrets of a Stingy Scoundrel is great late night reading or the perfect bathroom companion for anyone willing to admit they’re a cheapass.

Phil Vallarreal wrote this book for the high entertainment value it brings to people that have been tightening their belts for the past couple of years.  The vibe of the book is set from the very beginning.  It doesn’t start with a foreword; instead it’s a threeword because Phil is too cheap for a foreword.  I feel his pain.

As I read through all the secrets, which are loosely categorized into different groups, I found decent advice that on the surface sounds awful, but deep down really makes sense.  For example, you need to time when you’re going to have kids.  If you have older siblings or just anyone you’re close to, time having your children a year after they have theirs.  That way they buy all the stuff and happily give it to you to get it out of their houses one their kid is done with them.  Kind of twisted, but kind of brilliant.

No book is perfect.  Secrets of a Stingy Scoundrel can kind of feel repetitive at times; when you go through 100 money saving tips they are bound to blend together a bit.  But at the same time the author does a fantastic job of making personal finance fun to read.  Were Weakonomics to publish books, or if I wrote a book myself, it would probably look and feel a lot like Secrets of a Stingy Scoundrel.  And that’s the best compliment you can expect from me.

Overall, this book ranks highly on my suggested money reads because it meets my three criteria for a good non-fiction: I learned something, I was entertained, and it was done in less than 300 pages.

Related posts:

1. Review: 10,001 Ways To Live Large On A Small Budget 
2. Review: Hot, Flat, and Crowded
3. Book Review: Biography of the Dollar

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