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How to Be Thrifty: Living the Life of Leisure

by on Jun 18, 2010

created at: 06/18/2010

Because we’ve done such good work at being thrifty this week, we’re going to treat ourselves today and par-tay! Living the life of leisure might sound like an expensive proposition, but Be Thrifty. How to Live Better for Less tells us how to do just that. From travel, to gift giving, to weddings(!), the book’s ‘living the life of leisure’ chapter covers innumerable leisurely activities. Today we’ll thumbnail just a few. Again, all tips are provided by Be Thrifty.    

The perfect get-together for the budget-conscious: the Cocktail Party.

  1. Keep the food simple, flavorful, and not too messy.
  2. Start the party early, about 6:30 or 7:00 pm, and anticipate that it will last about two hours. 
  3. Pace the food. This will ensure those who arrive fashionably late will have something to eat!
  4. Keep the bar simple. A FEW high quality wines and spirits is a better investment than a bunch of cheap stuff.
  5. You DO NOT have to serve your guests a ton of food. It’s a cocktail party, after all. They’ll probably go out for dinner afterward anyway.

Save on downloads, start a music collection.

If you budget for iTunes, it might be time to start haunting secondhand music stores for some classic CDs. With these suggestions from Be Thrifty, not only will you be entertained, but you’ll be establishing a foundation for a great music collection. All are featured in Tom Moon’s, 1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die.

  • Miles Davis’s Workin’, Friday Night at the Blackhawk, kind of Blue, Sketches of Spain, Nefertiti, Bitches Brew and Decoy.
  • Willie Nelson’s Stardust, Red Headed Stranger and Teatro.
  • Barb Marley’s Natty Dread, Exodus and Kaya.
  • Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millioins to Hold Us Back and Fear of a Black Planet.
  • Bill Evans’s Waltz For Debby, Sunday at the Village Vanguard as well as Conversations With Myself and Everybody Digs Bill Evans.
  • Emmylou Harris’s Pieces of the Sky, Wrecking Ball and Roses in the Snow.
  • Antonio Carlos Jobim’s Wave and Elis & Tom.
  • Sarah Vaughn’s Land of Hi-Fi and Live in Japan.
  • Andreas Schiff’s exploration of Beethoven Sonatas, particularly Vols. VI and VII.
  • The Replacements’s Let it Be and Don’t Tell a Soul.

These tips for living the high life should tide you over until you snag a copy of Be Thrifty for yourself either by entering our contest or picking up a copy at Amazon for a thrifty 10 bucks. Trust me, follow just ONE of the tips and the cost of the book will be recouped!!! 

To close Be Thrifty week, everyone at Curbly would like to give a big shout out to Workman Publishing and the editors of Be Thrifty for letting us use original content from the book. THANK YOU!!! 

 

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