Whatever happened to Amy Dacyczyn and The Tightwad Gazette?
Somebody came across my blog asking that, and although I don’t know the full answer (only the Frugal Zealot herself knows that), I do know what she said in her final book — The Complete Tightwad Gazette, which included all three of the other books, as well as the final editions of the newsletter and her farewell column.
Basically, in addition to feeling like she had covered most topics (in one book, she likened it to learning multiplication tables — once you know the basics, you can apply those principles to other problems), she was feeling drained. Their tremendous success (appearing on Parade magazine soon after finding out she was pregnant with twins, about a year or so after she started The Tightwad Gazette newsletter) enabled her and her husband to fully retire after 6&1/2 years of doing that. But her newsletter subscriber base didn’t just mushroom — it exploded after that Parade magazine interview, and stretched them all really thin. She says that in that first year afterwards, her kids were lucky to be able to pick the color frosting on their birthday cakes, instead of having a full celebration which they typically did (for $25 or less). And after so many years, there were only so many topics to cover without repeating the same information, which she promised herself she would not do — especially after the books came out, and made the information in the newsletters permanently “out there.”
Here is an interview she did earlier this year with the blogger The Simple Dollar, in which she talks about life since retirement (basically, what she did before, just without writing about it, and presumably with most or all of her kids out of the house, since they’d be 18 or over… well, maybe the twins are just 16).
So, basically, she retired when she retired, and continued her frugal ways, resuming the anonymity (more or less) that she had before launching The Tightwad Gazette. But for all of us who “knew” her through her newsletter or (like me) her books, we feel like she’s a friend we’ve just lost touch with, and reread her old letters to connect and reminisce about old times — old times that it feels like we’ve shared together… but never actually did, oddly enough. 
I loved her books. They were a good combination of frugal theory and practice.
the funniest part of Amy’s success with the Tightwad Gazette is that when she was just hatching the idea she came to our house and sat down with my father and asked him “Charlie, do you think this is a good idea?” (this is the same Charlie that she mentions in book 1 in “a stolen soap box speech”). the thing we found most amusing as we read and answered mail (in the most frugal of ways…we would respond on the persons letter directly and mail it back to them
) is that although we had an international subscriber base, very few in our local area read it…why??? because it was all stuff we had been doing for years. given the current state of the economy i can see her books flying of library shelves (a true frugal person wouldnt buy it lol) its great to see there is still a following and its great to be able to say “i remember when”
I have been looking for some contact information for Amy and the Tightwad Gazette. I am interested in purchasing. Do you have any contact info? Thank you, Rae Beasley raebeas61@yahoo.com
I’m pretty sure she still lives in the same house in Leeds, Maine, so you could probably find her via the internet. Other than that, I have no contact info.
I contacted her about 8 months ago intending to suggest that an editor just refresh, tighten, and update the book. She indicated that the publisher held the copyright and that she personally had no interest in messing with it anymore. I got my copies using addall.com
I was at a parade about 9 years ago with my 2 year old. The floats were tossing candy, etc. Amy’s kids were hoarding the candy and running to get it before the other kids.
She may have taught them frugality, but she missed on the manners aspect.
You may be right; you may also be inaccurately judging her on one short example (how many children are always perfect all the time?); or you may be mistaken. She can’t defend herself. In the name of fairness, I will let your comment stand.
I have her last book and came across your post here as I went searching to see if she’s done an updated version of the book. If ever there was a time when she should, it would be now!! I sincerely hope she comes out of retirement to consider updating the bible for frugality.
Good grief! I hope Celeste never saw my kids at a parade where they were throwing candy from the floats! She would really trash my mothering skills; kids go nuts when there is candy being thrown at them.
Ummmmm………. I snatch up candy at parades too….. and I’m 53!
I agree with Leslie.. NOW would be a great time to come out with an updated version and influence another generation of tightwads!
Yes, yes, yes, now is definitely a good time for Amy to come out of retirement.
i must say i loved all of her books. She made everything seem so well with in reach. Cant tell you how many times i have read her books over and over. She told of her mistakes. you could relate to her. i wish she would come out of retirement. in our current economy, we really need help…
My name is Patricia Gallagher and I wrote a book in the mid 1990′s called Raising Happy Kids on a Reasonable Budget. I wasn’t as famous as Mary Hunt or Amy D. but I was a guest on Oprah twice. I have 300 copies of my book available and now see that a whole new group of moms would be helped by this information. So for all of the frugal moms out there, I am selling them for #5.00 each right how, and that includes postage.
Patricia Gallagher, Box 561, Worceser, PA 19490
I welcome interv. and speak. engagements.
Cell: 267 939 0365
Greetings Ms. Gallagher,
I would love to send for your book if it is still available?
Thank you so much for the wonderful offer and for more resources on Living Frugually and Smart
Warmly,
DeeAnn
As a veteran of 50! years of computing, I would like to partner with Amy to publish an online version of the Complete Tightwad Gazette.
The objectives would be:
1. Make it more available
2. Fix typos (there are many)
3. Update it into the cheap computer age and other innovations since the 1990′s.
Does anyone have an email address for her? I am dave1 at wcf dot com
I was hoping Amy had updated her book to include living frugal via innovations made available by the internet, as much of what was previously published now seems quite dated. With today’s economy, her advice would be invaluable.
Yeah, me too. I know that with the “tools” from the TWG books we should be able to take the information and make it work, but sometimes it helps to have a more practical, hands-on approach. Even though I read some frugal blogs and stuff, most of it seems pretty tame compared to Amy’s “black belt tightwaddery.” I miss that, even though I can read the books; because it is somewhat dated.
Retiring on a budget and living well for less. her way since she’s already retired.
More links:
http://kellyskitchenandhome.blogspot.com/2009/12/interviews-with-amy-dacyzyn-from.html
This looks cool. Thanks!
Well, it’s been almost five months and no contact info, so I give up. It would have been nice to modernize the book, but some things are just not meant to be. If anything changes, see my email address above….
Sorry, I don’t know Amy personally, and am only a humble fan. You should be able to find her info online — Amy Dacyczyn in Leeds, Maine; maybe look through the links Kelly posted — it might have some info.
Dave–
I replied to the Tightwad gazette message board just today, but am also interested in contacting Amy Dacyczyn. I have just seen your “reply after 5 months” message. Would you like to get some ideas together and approach Random House? I truly believe, in today’s economic climate, that so many people have need of this. I have always wanted to teach this “way of life” in schools. It is a valuable life skill and unfortunately for many, have had to weather financial disaster before they realize the value of these skills. Fortunately for us, the time is ripe to educate and peddle these skills. Rae Beasley raebeas61@yahoo.com
Well, I finally got closure on the Complete Tightwad Gazette. I found Amy’s phone number on the web and called her. Pitched my idea for editing a new edition of CTG and she said she didn’t think it was useful and that anyway Random House owned the rights. So unless someone thinks it is worth the work, I will just drop it. You can always read the edited version by buying the old one and editing it for yourself as you read it.
I feel that living for today and don’t worry about tomorrow should be the Gen Xer’s motto. The government (Mr. Obama) will take care of us. Let’s not worry about the ramifications about what it (run away national spending and debt) will do to our children and their children….WE WILL BE DEAD BY THEN! WHO CARES?!!!!!
Throw thrift out the window. Spend or today, live for today. You can’t take any of it with you, so enjoy it whilst you can! When you run out of cash, charge it. When you can’t charge it anymore, file for banruptcy, then steal it where ever you can (just don’t get caught.) This is the NEW American economy. Enjoy!
I have been using Amy’s thrift techniques for 15 years now. They make a huge difference to my family. But they will NOT save us from homelessness or bankruptcy if one of us ever has an uninsured illness, which could happen, because even our savings don’t run to the exorbitant rates insurance companies charge families with disabled children and parents with pre-existing conditions. Obamacare got too tame and didn’t reign in the insurers on how much they could charge us. So get a dose of reality, don’t drag politics into every last forum you view (unless you want people like me to let you know what a fool you are) and quit attributing lousy morals and base motives to people who don’t agree with your politics.
Can you name one time that price controls worked the way they were supposedly intended? — Kathy
Kathy, I grew up in Canada where drug companies, for example, are subject to price control. They don’t like it, but they haven’t stopped doing business there either. Private health insurance companies can charge what they like there, because they are supplementary to the basic plan that everyone gets. The basic plan works (not perfectly, but not as badly as the anti-healthcare reform apologists would have you believe) in part because the salaries that doctors earn, the prices of medical equipment, drugs, etc. are all controlled. Nurses and even aides earn a middle-class wage (okay, aides earn a lower middle-class wage), doctors are anywhere from upper middle class to wealthy, depending on the nature of their practice.
My point was that, in the end, I can do a lot to control the cost of food and clothes in my house. I can do quite a bit to keep utility bills low. My idea of recreation is checking a book out of the library. I socialize by having dinner with friends in my house or one of their houses. I go to free concerts in my city and I wait to see movies until they are available on DVD at the public library. I make much of the pet food we use. I am also very fortunate to have a low mortgage payment and one of my frugal objectives is to have the mortgage paid off in another 6 years. I am a gen X’er. Boomers used federal programs to obtain their first mortgages, sent their kids to public schools that were in better shape than the ones today’s children go to and were more likely to get living wages and benefits. So, they should really stop critizing X’ers and Y’ers (who are having even a tougher time than my generation) for “expecting” to be taken care of. X’ers and Y’ers have learned that they cannot take care of themselves as completely as they need to by working, because fewer jobs have benefits, many people are classified as “independent contractors” while working for the same company for a dozen years and so on. As for government programs, well, they are less generous now than when the Boomers took advantage of them. Oh, but none of them were expecting their government to take care of them.
As for the Boomers who don’t think the way John Brazil does, my comments are not directed at you. Many of you are aware of the advantages you have enjoyed and are concerned about those who are hoeing a tougher roe. I only discuss generations because John Brazil approached the question that way and I am responding to him. From where I stand, it appears that the generations that are currently receiving social security and that are entitled to better government-paid medical coverage than many children in our country are the epitome of living for today and not thinking about future generations.
The Canadian health-care system is going broke; people are having to stand in line to qualify for a lottery just to get a primary-care physician; they are dying or getting sicker while waiting for treatment or even to get a CAT scan or MRI. I’m not saying the current American system is perfect — far from it! But I think the cure is that the government is *too* involved, not that it is not involved enough. I could write much more about this, bu it would be going very off-topic, and t I doubt that I’d change your mind, nor will you change mine.
Kathy, my relatives are still in Canada. They can choose their own PCP and go to any doc they choose without a referral. The waits for MRIs etc are ridiculous and it annoys me that Canada has taken such a defeatist attitude about it. A Canadian friend who now works in hospital admin told me about Israel, where she had her first admin experience. The Israeli healthcare system simply staffed MRI and related clinics 24-7 to make sure everyone was fitted in quickly. Some people had appointments at weird hours, but they did get appointments. As far as a government that is “too involved” with healthcare goes, I can tell you that the Canadian provincial governments that administer the programs create bureaucratic hurdles and cause delays, but none that I have not encountered dealing with private insurance in the United States.
I think Amy laughed all the way to the bank. Of course she doesn’t need to update her book, nor does she want to. She is retired!! She is living the American Dream. You all should learn to earn more money, continue to be frugal and build your wealth. Just don’t destroy your children while you are being the tightwad, that you all yearn to be!
I miss The Tightwad Gazette!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But to get back to Amy Dacyczyn, the best frugal habit I picked up from her was thinking about money in terms of how many it would buy me of something I really valued. Being frug, I used cloth diapers and laundered them myself. However, I kept disposables on hand to use on car rides after discovering the hard way that my son’s car seat cover could not be completely detached for laundering after “accidents.” At that time, the cheapest disposables cost 19 cents apiece. Whenever I was tempted to buy something I didn’t need, I’d think about how many disposable diapers I could get for the money. “Hmm, I could spend 60 cents on a package of chips that’s bad for me, or I could have diapers for my son the next three times we have to use the car.” Then there was the time I figured out that I could buy all the diapers my kids would need until they were potty trained if I didn’t buy a new piece of furniture! Really, really effective way of thinking about money, because it made money and its benefits as concrete as possible.
While we may disagree about health care and government’s role in insurance, it’s nice to know that we fully agree on frugality.