The Penny Pinchers Club – Sarah Strohmeyer

Aug 18, 2009 by shanyn

The Penny Pinchers Club
Sarah Strohmeyer
Received from publisher

Living in New Jersey – the state that boasts the most malls per capita – Kat’s favorite recreational activity is a no-brainer: shopping. But when she discovers that her husband, Griff, has been hiding a secret bank account and exchanging dubious e-mails with his attractive young assistant, her joyful consumerism suddenly loses its appeal. Are their fights about money more serious than she understood? Is he, as her friends suggest, preparing for a divorce? Just in case, Kat decides it’s time to start saving. Unfortunately, having racked up tens of tousands of dollars in debt (of course she needed those tiki torches from Peir 1!), Kat finds herself in way over her head.

Drastic times call for drastic measures. Kat starts by canceling cable and kicking her $240 monthly Starbucks habit. But what starts out as a simple effort to cut costs soon becomes an over-the-top obsession when she joins an eclectic but lovable group of savers called the Penny Pinchers Club. Soon she is pumping her gas at dawn (when it is thicker) and serving dinner made from food she retrieved at the grocery store Dumpster. Kat is sving money, to be sure, but what she’s really saving is time – time she spends with Griff, their daughter … and an old flame, who resurfaces at precisely the wrong moment, offering Kat a life where money is no object.

I started this book thinking it would solely focus on saving money – it is called The Penny Pinchers Club, after all. What surprised me most was the amount of character development that happened before any money was saved – The Penny Pinchers were barely even mentioned for several chapters, which gave me time to settle in with Kat and her life.

The book starts off with a hard decision made by the main character, which gets you invested in the story. The Penny Pinchers Club slowly gets woven in, and it soon is one of the main focuses – but you don’t forget about the relationships Kat has, as it is a result of them that she is in the club in the first place.

I loved meeting the characters of the club – they were described so well that I felt like I was sitting in at a meeting with them, and I even had an urge to clip coupons myself. Towards the end of the book I was giddy with excitement because I had NO IDEA how the book was going to end – and I still didn’t until the very last page. I even said that out loud to Steve – “I have NO IDEA HOW THIS IS GOING TO END!!!!” (He looked at me a little oddly.)

I ended up reading this book in one day, which I don’t normally do – it’s almost 300 pages and kept my attention the entire way. People have raved to me about Sarah Strohmeyer before, and now I understand why – I can’t wait to get my hands on some of her other books.

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