A Couple of Frugal Tools

I've been using Swagbucks for the last few months. This tool gives you "Swagbucks" for searching. They can be redeemed for a lot of different things, but the best value for most people is the Amazon $5 gift card for 45 Swagbucks. I get about one a month, so it's not a fantasic payout, but it's so easy it's practically passive income.

I use Swagbucks mostly to "search" for sites I go to every day (like Worldcat), since the search function isn't nearly as good as Google. One trick I've learned is that you "win" at least once in your first five or so searches each day, so by doing about five searches on both my work and home computers every day I almost always get at least two or three Swagbucks. If you're interested, please consider signing up using my referral link.

Think Beyond the Bottle is a new resource I just found out about this morning through Fake Plastic Fish. This site tracks water fountains and other sources of free water. It's just getting started, but it's really easy to add sites, and I added a couple. I can see this being very useful--I hate buying bottle water or otherwise spending money just to quench my thirst. I often remember to bring a refillable water bottle, but if I'm out for a while, I need more water than my bottle holds.

Minimizing

I now officially own less than 100 books.

OK, 99. But several of them will be Paperback Swapped as soon as I'm done reading them. (And I'm not counting my collection of a series from my childhood. I consider that one item, cause I wouldn't get rid of any of them without getting rid of all of them.) This is down from something like 350 about a year ago.

According to the inventory I made when we moved a couple of months ago, I personally have 444 things. Not too bad, I don't think. Especially when you consider things like "bobby pins, about 20" are listed. (Come to think of it, why am I hanging on to those bobby pins?)

I still have this strong desire to minimize further. But I'm not sure how much more I can do. Books and wardrobe make up most of my stuff, and though I don't have a huge wardrobe, I do like fashion and can't see myself doing a Leo Baubata and bringing it down to seven outfits or so. In fact, right now I want MORE clothes.

I'm sure part of my desire to minimize and simplify is because my personal life is fairly complicated right now. If I simplify my material life, my emotional life will get easier too, right?

It's not like that. But by getting rid of one more thing, I feel a little bit more in control.

Now where did I put those bobby pins?

Steal This Book by Abbie Hoffman

My high school geography teaching recommended this book to me. He wrote the title on the edge of my notebook while I was reading something else; maybe Summerhill. He liked me even though I spent most of his class reading, I guess because a couple of times I misunderstood the assignments and accidentally turned in something interesting and also because I had these jeans I'd written all over. They were against dress code but he never sent me to the office for them. When another girl asked why he didn't he said it was okay because they had "philosophical quotes" all over them, although I think the closest I got to philosophy on those pants were some Smashing Pumpkins lyrics.

He wrote on one of my assignments, "Never stop writing. It will be your lifecraft." I still have that note. I was about to say he was the first person who ever told me I would be a writer, but now that I think about it he might be the only one who's ever said that.

He was pretty crappy at being a high school teacher. He was young and insecure and tried to be cool, not realizing how cynical we were. He told us there was only one rule in his classroom, "respect." I guess he didn't know that half the teachers said that and that they all found ways to make "raise your hand and ask for the bathroom pass," mandatory parts of respect. I guess he didn't know he would do that, too.

After a while, he started calling the campus police over really stupid stuff, like someone raising their voice but not even actually yelling. It seemed like he pressed his red emergency button about twice a week. Officer Nino would come to find out what was wrong and talk to the kid and tell them to cut it out while Mr. Caesar got redder and redder in the face trying to explain what a huge disturbance the kid had caused. In other classes, they only called the campus police when actual violence was occurring.

I had learned to tune stuff out, so while all this was going on I sat in my seat in the back row playing Magic with my friend Jesse or reading Of Mice and Men for English.

I kept that bit of paper where he wrote Steal This Book for many years. Every once in a while when I was in a new bookstore or library I'd look for it. I either didn't think you were supposed to use interlibrary loan for something like that or I was too shy to ask about it.

My senior year of college some friends and I went to San Francisco and found Steal This Book in the City Lights bookstore under a section named something like anarchy. I was a little tipsy and spent almost $70 on books, which was a lot for me at the time, especially since I was financing the entire trip on a credit card.

I bet Mr. Caesar, who if he is still a teacher is almost certainly battered and bitter by now, would like this story.

After six years of waiting to read it, what did I think of the book? I'll leave that to the next entry.

Library Hacks: (Almost) Any Book in the World for Free in Five Easy Steps

To spend less on books, movies, or music, learn to hack your library. The five-step process will help you find almost any media item for free in just a few minutes and make the resulting library visit as quick and easy as (but much less expensive than) filling up the gas tank.

I'm always surprised when people don't use the library. Some people say that their library doesn't have the books they want, or that they don't have the time to go to the library. I suspect that a lot of these people don't realize three things:

1. The most popular books aren't on the shelves. Your local library probably has dozens of copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but they're not in the children's section. They're behind the counter waiting for someone who put the book on hold.

2. Putting a book on hold and picking it up takes about as much effort as ordering a pizza from Little Caeser's.

3. Even if your library doesn't have the book you want, they can probably get it for you. In fact, they can get you almost any book in the world for a couple of dollars--or even free.

The 5-Step System
Every few weeks, I look at my list of books I want to read and pick out a few that seem especially appealing. When I have my targets defined, I go online and start the hunt. It takes me about two to three minutes per book to go through the process below and find the book.

Step 0: Do you have a specific item in mind?
If not, stop. A library website is usually not the best place to browse. Go to the actual library to get a sense of their selection or spend some time on Amazon or at your local bookstore. When you have a specific item in mind, then it's time for:

Step 1: Go to your library's web site.
(If Google doesn't turn up anything for your city name, try your county name.) Click a box called "find books" or "catalog" and type in the name of the thing you're looking for. I'm assuming by now most of us know how to put search terms in quotes if we get too many results and to look for a "search by type" menu if we're looking for the audio book of Stranger in a Strange Land. Step 1 completed! If you got results, go to step 2. If you didn't get any results, go to step 4.

Step 2: Figure out where the book is.
Click on the item you're looking for to "see more detail" or "view the record." This will show you how many copies the library has or at which branches the title is available. It will also tell you whether the book is checked out, on the shelf, or missing. If the book is on the shelf at a convenient library, you're done. Go and get the thing. If not, go to Step 3.

Step 3: Place the book on hold.
Look around the screen. If you're lucky, there will be a button somewhere saying "place a hold." You'll enter your library card number and tell the system where you'd like to pick up the book. The system may even tell you you're third in line or let you place a hold on a book that hasn't been published yet. Once the book gets to your local library, you'll receive an e-mail or phone call telling you that it's there and how many days you have to pick it up (usually about a week).

If you're slightly less lucky, you'll have to call or go to the library in person to place a hold. Until the fantastic redesign of the Chicago Public Library web site earlier this month, I placed holds as part of my regular monthly library trips. While you're there, ask a librarian to make sure you can't place a hold online. Some library sites aren't especially intuitive.

But before you go to the library, finish reading this post--if you're looking for anything obscure, steps 4 and 5 will help you out, and you'll want to know about them before you go to the library.


Step 4: Go to WorldCat.
WorldCat is like the Google of hard-copy information. Once you enter your zip code, it works like a GoogleMaps business search, showing you the nearest libraries that have the item you're looking for. Try it. Type in something ridiculous that you're sure no library would have--Sweet Valley High 86: Jessica Against Bruce or the original version of Mortal Kombat or your grandpa's master's thesis. 10 to 1 some library somewhere has it.

So what's the point of this, other than the novelty factor? Two things:

a. WorldCat can teach you about libraries you never knew existed, some of which may let you borrow for free. As a Chicagoan, I have free access to the Newberry Library and the Metropolitan Library System. Some university libraries will let a "visiting scholar" borrow for free after registering or jumping through a few hoops. Others charge members of the public for a library card. If you're a student, you may have reciprocal borrowing rights at other schools in your area.

When I was looking for an obscure book for work, I found it at the private library of a nonprofit a few blocks from my office. It wasn't a circulating library, but the librarian seemed so thrilled to have someone actually take an interest in the collection that he let me take the book home "off the record" (I returned it promptly, of course).

b. WorldCat will also tell you how likely it is that you can get the item through interlibrary loan (see Step 5).

Step 5: Place an Interlibrary Loan
Through interlibrary loan, libraries lend and borrow from each other and as a result can get almost any material a customer needs. It's often free. It's always cheap. I've used it for everything from a long-lost childhood favorite to a book on polyamory (research purposes only, folks!). WorldCat can give you a pretty good idea of how likely you are to actually get the book. If it's in 125 libraries, great. If it's in only three libraries, one of which is in Scotland, your chances are a bit more slim, but it's still worth trying.

To place an interlibrary loan, you'll almost certainly have to go to your library. When you get there, find the reference desk or ask the person at the checkout counter where to find a librarian (the person who checks out your books probably isn't one). You'll have to fill out a form. Ask for one more form than you need and take the extra one home to copy so that the next time you want to request an interlibrary loan, you can fill it out at home and just drop it off with the librarian.

Once you've filled out the form, go home and wait. Interlibrary loan can take a while. But with all the books you're putting on hold at your local library and your application for a visiting scholar card at the nearby university library, you've got plenty to keep you busy in the meantime.

Rule #1: No New Books

Have you read every book you own?

I used to be able to answer that question yes, but for the past two years I've had a stack of books I own but haven't read perched on top of my bookshelves. Last June, I went to the American Library Association meeting and brought home about sixty free books. I still have about twenty books left in my stack, all of which I still have significant interest in reading. I just haven't gotten around to it yet. Nonetheless, in the last nine months I've spent an average of $50 per month on books. Clearly, this is silly.

Rule: 1. I may not spend any money on books until I have read all the books I already own.
2. I may use my paperbackswap credits (I typically get a few of these a month and use them mainly for series books).
3. I may check out books from the library (no point in depriving myself).

Potential savings: Approximately $50 per month

Estimated length: 3-5 months. I read about a book a day, but this stack includes a lot of heavier reading. Epics like Midnight's Children will take a while.

Stay tuned for weekly updates on this rule!