The Beardstown Ladies' Guide to Smart Spending for Big Savings: How to Save for a Rainy Day Without Sacrificing Your Lifestyle

The two previous bestsellers by the ""Ladies"" dealt with commonsense stock-market investing. Here they tell how to economize on everything from baby cribs to cemetery plots to have more money to invest. Their no-nonsense text, sprinkled with personal anecdotes, systematically ferrets out money-saving angles on weddings (don't splurge), mortgages (don't overpay) and new-car buying (don't) and divulges income tax secrets ""the rich already know."" The Ladies deal sympathetically but firmly with those two super bugaboos of modern life-credit card spending and skyrocketing health care costs-and show how air travel and home-appliance buying are loaded with frugal possibilities. Finally, the far-reaching study of auto, home and life insurance, retirement planning and ways to prepare for ever-growing college costs should be particularly valuable. The budget-minded will find here all they could wish for. Author tour. (Jan.)