Staff Writer

Being thrifty in this economy has become not only a trend, but a necessity. 

A frugal lifestyle is something Lisa Norberg adopted long before the recession after discovering “The Tightwad Gazette” newsletter nearly 20 years ago. 

Norberg, then living in Portland, Ore., started pinching pennies after she saw an interview with newsletter author Amy Dacyczyn of Leeds on the Phil Donahue show. Norberg said she subscribed to the newsletter and began practicing Dacyczyn’s method of keeping a tight budget. 

“Twenty years ago, I was spending $600 a month on groceries and buying snack food. I immediately cut back to $350 and then down to $180,” Norberg said.

Finding the best deal became a game, she said, as she began shopping at discount stores, similar to Marden’s, Big Lots, Reny’s and Wal-Mart, rather than traditional grocery stores. 

As she started cutting back on the grocery bill, Norberg found she could put more money toward paying off debt she and her husband had accrued. 

“It was nearly $20,000 of credit card debt, and in those times it was a mountain of debt,” she said. “It took us nine years to pay the debt down with real aggressive payments.”

She said her savings also helped her family survive when her husband was laid off seven times during their 30 years of marriage. 

Now Norberg is sharing her experience and the advice Dacyczyn offered in her newsletters to members of her own community. 

 “I got it into my head, we all work to earn money, but what if I made it my job and work to save money,” Norberg said. 

When Norberg’s husband was transferred to Maine in 1998, she started teaching her “tightwaddery” around Christmas during Sunday school at a congregation they’d joined. 

Using helpful tips she learned along the way, Norberg said she helped people save money on Christmas and avoid overspending. 

The class later became a 12-week program on saving money in general, and most recently, she started a condensed version of the class at Joyful Harvest Neighborhood Center on Water Street in Biddeford. 

During the second of four classes, Norberg concentrated on “slashing” grocery bills in half.

“It takes hard work and discipline to be a compulsive saver,” Norberg said.

For those who claim they don’t have enough time, she encourages people to calculate what their time is worth.

She starts with the example of making homemade plain cheese pizza instead of ordering pizza from a store. If buying two medium pizza specials costs $5 each, Norberg said taking the time to make two cheese pizzas at home, at an average cost of $2, can save $24 an hour. She said, in her opinion the cost savings is worth the time.

Norberg said the best tricks for saving money on the grocery bill are creating a price book and buying in bulk. She said starting a price book – the item purchased, the store, the price and the cost per unit, then logging the prices each time you shop – can take about 30 minutes but can decrease a grocery bill from $450 to $225 a month. 

“You do this with every single food and it creates a buying database on all the foods you buy,” Norberg said. 

As you shop and fill out the database, you will notice when certain items go on sale, Norbert said. The price book gives you the “power” to know when you are purchasing food at the rock-bottom price, and to stock up on those items selling for less, she said.

In the process of finding the best prices, Norberg said it also is important to shop to fill your pantry and your freezer, rather than shop for ingredients for a specific menu.

“It’s the pantry principle. Have a well-stocked freezer and pantry at all times. And plan one day ahead so you are constantly looking in the pantry and monitoring the pantry,” she said.

Cat Janson, attended Norberg’s class with her son and roommate. 

“She has ideas I haven’t come across yet,” she said. 

Janson,  former executive director of Joyful Harvest Neighborhood Center, now works to help people through the York County Saves and the Cash Campaign at York County Community Action.

During the past months she said she has seen more people seek budgeting help to pay bills because they are running out of savings and people who have “never had to ask for help before.”

“I’ve had grown men crying in my office saying, ‘Now for the first time I have to ask for help,’” Janson said.

Those people are usually the ones helping others during tough financial times, she added.

Janson said she always tells people in her office that if they save $2.74 a day, they’ll have saved $1,000 at the end of the year.

“If people put thought into [budgeting] it makes a difference in what they spend,” Janson said. 

She and her roommate have started compiling a price book and also are keeping a journal of expenditures – another tip from Norberg. 

Norberg advises consumers to track everything they buy, how much it was and how fulfilling the purchase was. 

“Understand every purchase and how fulfilled you felt. Think a little more deeply,” Norberg said. “We are keyed to buy. The thousands of little purchases we make that add up bring us down. We keep thinking it makes us fulfilled but we just get further into debt.”

Norberg said these are simple changes to promote the “art of housekeeping” our ancestors were experts at. 

“This is stuff you can do right now to change your habit and save money,” she said. “Doing this will consistently save you hundreds a month.”

Staff writer Emma Bouthillette can be reached at 282-4337 ext. 237.