10,001 Ways To Live Large On A Small Budget-Book Review-Book Giveway

Finally, I had a chance to review Wisebread’s 10,001 Ways To Live Large On A Small Budget. I have been reading Wisebread for a couple of years now and been looking forward to this book for a while. Well, I finally got around to it and must say I was very pleased with the book.

What is “10,001 Ways To Live Large On A Small Budget” about?

The book is all about frugality and saving money while enjoying life, actually I don’t think it should be called a book it’s more of a guide. It provides tips on;
frugal eating, saving on traveling, affordable green living, credit cards and financial planning and everything in between. The book includes not only tips from the Wisebread guy’s but also people like J.D. Roth from Get Rich Slowly and Trent Hamm from Simpledollar so as expected the end result is a great savings guide. The book is filled with some great tips and ideas, although I will probably not follow all of their tips, most of them are very useful.
For example, I love traveling so, naturally, the first thing I did is go straight to the travel tips section and found some good tips.

Here are a few I liked:

16 Ways to go light and low budget:

13. Slow Down
Seriously, just slow down. Just like letting off your car’s accelerator can save you gasoline, slowing down the pace on your trip can help pinch more than pennies. With travel as in business, time is money.

16. Be as Independent as possible
Sometimes travel agents can come in handy. But with the amount of online resources these days, they are less valuable and more expensive. Checkout online communities and get familiar with Lonely Planet. Do a quick Google search for reviews on hotels and restaurants. There is loads of information to help you find affordable travel stops.

WIN FREE COPY OF 10,001 WAYS TO LIVE LARGE ON A SMALL BUDGET! See end of review for details.

Not every section is for everyone, I liked most of it but not everything. For example 5 Easy Steps to Making Your Own Pickles did not appeal to me, I am not a big pickle fan and never really cared for making my own. On the other hand I liked the traveling tips, not everything was new but some were great tips.

What I like:
There are many things I like about the book but here are couple highlights:

• Organization; everything is broken down into 2 main categories “Frugal Living” and “Personal Finance” and each category is subdivided into smaller sections like Travel, food, investing your money, etc. Within each of these subgroups you will find tones of practical tips and ideas. So if I am looking for tips accommodation while traveling I’ll look under Frugal Living->Travel-> Accommodations I’ll find several tips on how to save on accommodations while traveling.
• Short & Simple; the tips are usually short and very simple to understand there is no financial jargon to confuse you, it’s for normal people!
• Comprehensive; the guide covers pretty much everything you spend money on from food to education, I can’t really thing of many things they have left out.

What I don’t like:
There aren’t many negative things about the book, but sometimes it felt like the authors were just throwing everything in there to make it to 10,001 (never counted if it actually has 10,001 tips). There were a couple of sections I thought were not needed and could have been left out, but then again I am sure someone will like it.

Who should read this book:

• If you are looking for ways to save on everyday expenses than this is a great guide, you probably will not like all the idea’s (I didn’t) but certainly will find many practical tips and tricks.
• If you want to live large on a small budget!

Conclusion:
Buy. If you are looking for a personal finance book that teaches you how to manage your money or get out of debt than look elsewhere, if you want to have a guide that gives you some tips on saving a great deal of money on everyday expenses then I highly recommend you buy a copy and keep it handy. You probably will not read the whole book at once, but over time you will find the tips very beneficial. At different times you may look for different saving tips so it’s a good idea to have it handy.

Financial Highway Rating: [rating =5]

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