Authors celebrate being cheap

For years, Robin Herbst kept a secret from her childhood friend Julie Miller. Then one day, Julie found her secret stash of slightly used (but not too used) tissues.

Robin was mortified that Julie had uncovered one of the cheap tendencies she kept from most everyone and had no idea how she’d explain.

“Robin, I do that, too,” Miller remembers exclaiming, overjoyed that she’d found someone else with the same dirty little secret.

The two friends from Edina better get used to people knowing they’re cheap. The tissue thing is just one of the many “cheapisms” — the money-saving practices they employ despite the fact that not everyone would approve — the two are sharing with the world in “The Cheap Book: The Official Guide to Embracing Your Inner Cheapskate.”

Do you rewarm your coffee? Meld those tiny soap slices onto the larger bar? Save cotton balls out of medicine bottles? Then you’re a cheapo.

There are dozens of such examples (some not for the easily disgusted) found in their book, which the 45-year-olds began crafting in 2004. It is scheduled to hit the shelves this week.

Illustrated by Mike Farley, Robin’s cheap cousin, “The Cheap Book” is a humorous, tip-filled guide detailing the lengths that the pair goes to save money. It also has a glossary of cheap terms the two cooked up and a scoring system that lets you rate your cheapness on a scale of “sensible” to “beyond tacky, perhaps disgusting, borderline insane.”

Put down the note pad. This is not your average personal finance manual.

The duo has great timing. The worsening economy has many of us wondering about ways to cut back. With all the gloomy talk about recessions and financial stress, it’s refreshing and fun to read this eye-rollingly silly, yet resource-filled handbook. And that’s just what the co-authors were hoping for. “It helps make you aware and think ‘Oh, maybe I could do this on a bigger scale,’” Herbst said.

The team hopes that the book and their Web site, www.thecheapbook.com, help redeem the word cheap. Its multiple meanings include of inferior worth, contemptible and stingy.

In our trade-in, trade-up, status-conscious society, being cheap isn’t celebrated. “It has a bad reputation,” said Herbst, who admits that she still struggles with wearing her cheapness as a badge of honor. “Maybe the book is part of my therapy.”

The book also jumps on the going-green bandwagon with a section on how cheapness is good for the planet. Miller rarely uses paper plates because of Herbst’s reminders about being good to the Earth. When Herbst sees people throwing away unused stacks of napkins at restaurants, “I just want to go in there and dig them out of the garbage.”

Both Herbst and Miller learned some of their cheap tricks growing up in well-heeled Edina, Minn., of all places. Herbst’s father was a surgeon and the family was cheap by choice. Miller’s family “barely had two nickels to rub together,” she said, recounting her mom’s tricks of watering down shampoo and prolonging the use of leaky boots by lining them with plastic bags.

Today, Herbst is a tax accountant who lives with her husband in Inver Grove Heights, Minn., and Miller lives with her spouse in Bloomington, Minn., and works as director of inventory control at Best Buy. The crusaders could afford to stop scraping the last bit of ChapStick out of the tube and some of the other habits that drive their husbands nuts. But they have no intention of changing.

That’s not to say they don’t have their share of pricey interests. Herbst collects fine wine and Miller owns three nice cars. They’re “cheap-o-crites,” they kid — the tendency to scrimp in some places and splurge in others.

Unless you have piles of cash, being cheap in some areas enables us to spend on what matters without taking on debt. This mindset has helped Herbst and Miller save for the future, pursue their passions and invest in their quirky book project.

X Kara McGuire writes about personal finance. Write to her at kara@startribune.com or at the Star Tribune, 425 Portland Ave., Minneapolis, MN 55488.