Book review: Secrets of a Stingy Scoundrel

I recently had the opportunity to read Phil Villarreal’s “Secrets of a Stingy Scoundrel: 100 Dirty Little Money-Grubbing Secrets”.  The premise of the book is to provide, you guessed it, secrets to saving money. Phil covers every category from kids to travel to restaurants to dating. If you want to save money, he gives you tips on how to do it. Except Phil doesn’t provide your standard advice like clipping coupons or cutting back on cable. He takes it a bit farther.

This is not your standard money saving guide. With tips like using stores like CostCo to provide your free lunch or using your money savvy skills to avoid ever bringing food to a pot luck or ending a relationship just before a major day (birthday, anniversary, etc) or even discussing why you should never buy a watch, no stone is left unturned in this book. If you want to know practical yet morally questionable ways to save money in pretty much every area of your life, this is the book for you.

I feel obliged to point out that Phil is an outstanding writer. A topic like saving money is usually a bit, well, dry. Okay, fine I’ll say it. It’s a boring topic. But the way Phil presents it is clever, entertaining, and blends just enough pop culture to drive his point home without feeling like he’s pandering to his audience (plus, he talks about how he was able to get a free preview of an episode of Prison Break. I’ve never discussed this here but I was a Prison Break fanatic and I think Wentworth Miller is one of the most perfect looking men ever. So, this mention alone made the book awesome. But I digress).  The short chapters make the information easy to digest and help prevent the book from getting too boring.

There was one part of the book that confused me, though. While the point of the book was to entertain and inform, and it did that very well, there was an overriding tone of sarcasm. That tone, which was not at all offensive, did make it confusing as to whether or not he was serious about some of the tips he was suggesting. It was hard to decide if he was providing solid, concrete information, applicable to our lives or if he was making some sort of commentary on cheapskates.

I believe he was doing both. Just beneath the surface of the sarcasm are actually some pretty good tips. But the way it’s presented provides a sort of caution against being so cheap you actually come across like an ass. No one should ever place money and frugality above ethics, morality and basic common decency. It is possible to take frugality too far, as the book points out in a humorous way, but it’s also possible to be careful with your money.

If you’re looking for a book with practical tips for saving money in a manner that, at times, bucks the system, this is the book for you. And if you have a friend who’s thisclose to extreme cheapness, pick up a copy for him, too. He may learn something.

The opinions expressed above are entirely my own. I was not compensated in any way for reading the book or providing my opinions.