Business Books

The English language is rough on those who are determined to hold on to their money. If your style is to limit your bank withdrawals, get ready to be labeled parsimonious, penny-pinching, miserly, niggardly or cheap: in short, a skinflint. In recent decades, though, there have been fewer and fewer people in those categories. Americans have been more likely to reach for their credit cards, or to scramble to sign new mortgages.

But the national romance with consumer debt seems to be coming, at least for now, to a screeching halt because of the realities of the Great Recession. Belt-tightening, whether it's imposed by job loss or financial insecurity, is de rigueur. The savings rate is 4.4%, up from its 2007 rock-bottom level. Book publishers are hurrying to catch up with the rediscovered restraint. Three authors with new books are eager to restore fiscal conservatism to its proper, vaunted role. Being thrifty has become a badge of honor.

Chris Farrell, the economics editor for public radio's Marketplace Money, is the most optimistic of the lot. "Profligacy is out. Frugality is in," he declares in his inspirational self-help book, The New Frugality: How to Consume Less, Save More, and Live Better. Farrell is so enthusiastic in his mission to promote a more sensible lifestyle that he makes the reader want to burn a credit card. Save more, pay off your debts and borrow less, and you can join Farrell's brigade.

Befitting his role as a personal-finance adviser, Farrell has plenty of penny-pinching commandments at the ready. "Clip coupons," he intones. "Watch for sales. Trim cable, cell-phone and Internet costs. Don't pay ATM fees. Find no-fee checking and savings accounts. In the winter, turn down the thermostat, and in the summer, use ceiling fans instead of air-conditioning. Feed your family home-cooked meals and take the leftovers for your lunch at work."

It's not all about money, though, says Farrell. Taking an unexpected turn, the author writes that going green is an aspect of contemporary thrift. Being mindful of the earth is a corollary of being frugal: "Being energy conscious at home, buying clothes at yard sales and vintage stores, and similar thrifty actions both save money and reduce our impact on the planet." Simplify, simplify, simplify.

Complexity is the mode of the second author, Theodore Roosevelt Malloch, whose book Thrift: Rebirth of a Forgotten Virtue may be tough sledding for the non-Ph.D. reader. Malloch, who has held positions at the U.N., the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the State Department, writes with passion in an ambitiously academic style. He examines the history of the concept of thrift--the root of the word is an Old Norse verb meaning "to thrive"--citing the contributions of the Scots and Calvinists. Malloch, like Farrell, considers frugality a moral imperative as well as an economic necessity. "Thrift is positive, wise, prudential, intelligent, grateful and always self-controlled," he writes.