I come today to praise the penny-pinchers. I proudly wear the tightwad badge. I save, scrimp, bulk buy, cook at home, sew clothes for Jessica (for fun, but also because I can assemble a week’s worth of clothes, absent undies and socks, for about $150 worth of fabric, thread and notions!), grow veg for fun and savings (nothing cheaper than buying a packet of seeds for $2! Okay, it takes longer, but I damn well know that my stuff is for sure organic) haunt thrift shops, warehouses and sales. Recycle? Yes! Freecycle among family and trusted friends? Love it! If it safely saves a buck, I’m on it or I want to hear of it. It’s a bit of “stick it to the man”, and a lot of instilled frugality.

That’s why I had a lot of fun reading this NYT article, How to Survive in New York on Ninety-Nine Cents. A strange departure from the usual Style section offerings (featuring the uppah-crust, the well-to-do, or the wanna-bes), it was paean to the Cheap Life – namely, how to assemble tasty treats from a series of 99-cent stores. For once, the reporter won my heart with the lead:

I LOVE shopping at my local Gourmet Garage as much as the next guy. But sometimes I plop a can of chicken broth down on the checkout counter and think, “$2.19? For someone to boil chicken bones? I want that job.”

So when I heard that the food you can buy at 99-cent stores is more diverse than you might imagine, I decided to conduct an experiment. I’d make dinner every night for a week using mostly ingredients bought at these stores and then, on the eighth night — once I’d gotten my game down — I’d prepare a meal for friends made only from ingredients bought at 99-cent stores.

Muttering about the price of food and how you could do it cheaper? Yes, baby, yes! Speak it! Legions whose wallets are creased like accordions from being clutched in moist palms say “Huzzah!”

It’s a pretty funny read, and even though the assembled menu was light on fresh fruit and veg (yeah, hard to get in a discount store, which is another post for another time), it doesn’t sound half bad. And he gives a recipe for a pea soup that I’m definitely going to use:

Slice and sauté an onion. Add 3 cups chicken stock, a 1-pound bag of frozen peas, 1/3 cup oats, 1/8 teaspoon cardamom, some salt and pepper. Bring to boil. Purée in blender.)

So MTs, let’s dish. What are your favourite money-savers? Any tips, any freaky-good websites/stores? Recipes happily shared! And question for all you artistic people out there: what would a tightwad badge look like?