Yes, the economy is in bad shape, but there’s still something we can do about it.
Elise
Cooke, owner and founder of Simpleton Solutions, has
been successfully using her skills in creative
frugality for decades. She finally decided to share
what she’d learned when several members of Congress
started the Congressional Food Stamp Challenge, where
they alleged that it was impossible to buy a week’s
worth of healthy food for $21. Elise was feeding her
family of five very nutritiously for about $9 a day.
She expected to see a flood of letters in the local
paper from other savvy home economists, but in the
ensuing silence, her first book, Strategic Eating, The
Econovore’s Essential Guide, was born.
The timing in writing about frugality couldn’t be better. Very soon after the first book came out, the Conservative Book Club started to offer it to its membership; the first order sold out briskly. Elise’s second book, The Grocery Garden, How Busy People Can Grow Cheap Food, won the prestigious national Green Living Award from Best Books USA. More and more, families are looking for ways to cut expenses and live more healthfully, and they’re looking to their thrifty friends for guidance. Elise’s third book, The Miserly Mind, 12 1/2 Secrets of the Freakishly Frugal, will be out soon. It promises to show readers how to Live Large on Less and enjoy every minute of it!
When Elise isn’t speaking, writing books and articles for various publications, and teaching classes, she can be found at home in a Northern California suburb, having fun with her husband and three children.
