I’m in the middle of reading The Road, and couldn’t help draw 5 lessons about frugality from Cormac McCarthy’s tale of a father and son scrapping out their survival in the middle of post-Apocalyptic America.
1. Use what you do have creatively
You have no shoes. Yet, you have a suit jacket, a box cutter, and the lining in the suit jacket. Combine them and you have serviceable foot coverings. Similarly, a metal pipe fitted with a length of chain makes an excellent truncheon.
2. Search through the discards
Even if that can in the corner looks empty, tap it with your foot. There might be some useable gas in it!
3. Don’t quit
Just when you’re on the edge of total failure is when you might come across the storehouse of apples and fresh water.
4. When you come across a windfall, use it wisely
Fill back up on what you need, but don’t wallow in it and let it delay you from your journey.
5. Hold on to your morals
Just because you’re hungry doesn’t mean it’s right to eat the flesh of other humans.
In what unlikely sources have you found inspiration for more frugal living?
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Upon finishing “The Road” I realized that McCarthy had indeed invented Time Travel. Here I was, transported into the future by the X number of hours it took me to read the book. And I had no additional knowledge, no insight into humanity, no entertainment value, no value added at all.
In fact, McCarthy might have invented a diet program… he transported me into the future and I had a bowel movement.
(It definitely left me with less than I had started “The Road” with)
If you’re not the travelling type:
Dare To Prepare – 2nd Edition by Holly Deyo.
And, Prudent Places USA – 3rd Edition, if you want to get a head start
Welcome to another edition of THUNDERDOME!!!
Two men enter! One man leaves!
Two men enter! One man leaves!
Two men enter! One man leaves!
Say the gospel, preacher…
“Dyin’ time’s here.”
Gimme Max over Blaster any time.
I come from hill billy stock. Loooong line of hill billy southern secessionist stock. McCarthy ain’t writing anything new. May be new to him … but not to people who know all the words to Hank Williams Jr’s A Country Boy Can Survive
I’m trying to work this into my AP curriculum for this year, as I think my students will really enjoy it. An amazing read! McCarthy is truly one of the great American authors.
Funny! Right under Number 5, there’s a teaser link and photo to “Save Money By Being Your Own Butcher”.
Next up: The Joy of Cooking – Wendigo edition!
@superc: Dude, I was past 28 before I left the library.
I like how the dialog is formatted in this book. Way to save a lot of quotation marks! I know James Frey has used a similar style; I think it’s going to catch on further for pacing/aesthetic purposes.
Some have said (urgh, passive) this book reminds me them of Stephen King’s The Stand. The “end of human civilization following a massive catastrophe” is a very general theme that can be written about in multitudes of ways, so I’m not so much concerned about that similarity – but I think it’s VERY COOL how The Road is consider a work of great literature and contains grotesque acts by cannibals!
What a way to get horror writing some cred points.
@CMPalmer: Dazzling the literati? You’re joking, right? I think Cormac McCarthy has only done two interviews in the last 20 years. I think he’s pretty much the exact opposite of someone who cares about the literati, critics, reviews, or book sales.
It wasn’t a book about “the collapse of civilization and human despair in a post-apocalyptic wasteland”. It was about finding hope during the collapse of civilization, and finding a way to go on when everything seems lost, which is a very different thing.
I learned that Coca Cola will provide me a brief, but profound sense of pleasure if I go cold, hungry, and thirsty for a long time. Take that, Nuka-Cola!
@CMPalmer: I disagree. I think the postmodern flourishes were actually pretty spare. But I’ve seen some pretty crazy literature so maybe it’s like scotch and you have to experience a few times before it tastes any good.
shockwaver said:
“But.. the flesh of humans is so tasty!
And babies.. mmm.. tender babies.”
Stay Away From The Babies.
We need them for Baby Oil.
Jeesh. You want to create another shortage. Enough is enough.
@speedwell: Hillbilly Housewife FTW!
“It wasn’t a book about’the collapse of civilization and human despair in a post-apocalyptic wasteland’. It was about finding hope during the collapse of civilization, and finding a way to go on when everything seems lost, which is a very different thing.” Exactly. And, I’d add, about what it is to be a parent.
Stunning book that has stayed with me for months now. Recommend you set aside an afternoon and read it at one sitting for maximum impact.
I’m constantly surprised at the accolades this book receives. I read enough to be familiar with an eclectic range of very well written and engaging works, and i found this particular read marginal at best. I didn’t hate it, but I was entirely unimpressed with both the writing style and content of the book.
I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone unless they were in grade 8.
@Ben Popken: Plus getting rid of quotation marks reflects the minimalism and starkness of the environment, no?
I’m drawing a complete blank. I can’t recall any money saving ideas or inspirations sneaking up on me.
I find that post-apocalyptic stories provide inspiration to learn how to make your own stuff. The long term plan is to be versed in all the fiber arts, not just knitting, so that I have skills I can barter with after civilization collapses. Also, I’m going to move to Amish country.
The Road was really good, but ‘great American novel’?
Wow, aren’t we lowering the bar just a bit?
It was entertaining but c’mon, its not transforming.
I learned most of my post-apocalyptic genius from two books: “The Psalms of Herod” and its sequel, “The Sword of Mary”, by Esther Freisner. Both were well-written (as I remember; they were certainly grippingly engaging and terrifying realistic) and truly disturbing stories. I even tried to go back and read The Psalms of Herod after I had my daughter, and I can’t do it now that I’m a mom. >,<
Great books; totally recommended if you like dark post-apocalyptic OMG-fests.
I learned:
- stay the hell away from large groups
- if you get stuck in a large group, pretend that you agree with their ideologies completely until you can get away
- always stash a weapon on your person, the more invisible the better
- do not wear/hold/display any sash/totem/item that someone you barely know gives you to take to a public place; it probably labels you as something nasty or illegal
- have a long-term goal and stick to it no matter what
- do not compromise on your morals, ever, unless you absolutely have to, in which case, forgive yourself for it immediately and let it go. (if you never compromise, then if you have to, it’s easier to know that you had to and to let it go.)
- always pretend to be what people expect you to be, but if there’s someone you need to intimidate or control, get them alone and show them a bit of your fighting spirit. They’ll doubt their footing with you, and if they try to warn anybody else about meek little you, they’ll undermine their credibility.
- the more religion a place has, the more fucked-up it is, even if you can’t see the 3v1l on the surface.
and lastly,
-protect children at all costs *except yourself*. You are a functioning person who can change the world *right now*, whereas a child cannot survive on its own and only has the *potential* to change things.
happy sigh
I love morally ambiguous, rich and hand-wringing stories. I need to suck it up and go read those again, nightmares or not!
Loved “The Road.” Can’t wait to see Viggo Mortensen play the father on-screen.
Other source of inspiration for (frugal) living: zombie movies. 1) Have a blunt object handy. 2) Make sure one has a can opener. 3) Learn how to keep one’s sanity in close quarters.
I liked the book and am looking forward to renting the movie when it comes out on DVD.
Personally, I have had my “Bug Out Bag” packed for a few years now…
Also, always carry a shotgun and a cricket bat for post-nuclear zombies and mutants.
@itmustbeken: ‘Great American Novel’? Absolutely. The Pulitzer Prize is no accident. Revisit these comments in 20 years and assess The Road’s position in the literary canon then.
This is book is more than just a post-apocalyptic nightmare. McCarthy deals with big themes – strength, courage and redemption – and he does so skillfully and poetically. To me, it’s a study in what it means to be a father, and how a father loves his son. The Road affected me deeply.
Sniping about punctuation, or lack of, and style misses the point. In a world were there is nothing, who needs apostrophes?
Also, it made me habitually study the construction of various shopping carts, in case I ever need to fix one in dire circumstances.
Lots of jokes in this thread… my serious answers are
1. Supply and demand are context-dependent. That’s always why you diversify your investments. In this case, consider moving money out of things that will be worthless (real estate, stocks, bonds, cars) and into things that will be priceless (clean water, canned food, medicine, weaponry, bikes). Not all of it, of course, but a small investment could pay off big-time.
2. “All true wealth is biological” — Lois McMaster Bujold. Providing for your kids is your number one priority, or else why are you even on the planet?
I’ll tell you what – I’ll go back and re-read it and see if my opinion has changed.
I was just looking back at the list of Pulitzer prizes for literature (and before that, for the novel) and out of 80 or so of the prize winners, I’ve read about eighteen of the them and I liked them all better than The Road.
Back to what was supposed to be the original point of this thread…
Before you can efficiently use, recycle, and improvise on what you have or that others have discarded, it helps to acquire some basic skills of engineering, carpentry, science, and history. This is true whether you are trying to get by with less or dealing with the aftermath of a hurricane – not just if you are in a post-apocalyptic world full of cannibals. Otherwise, you’ll be trying to push a crappy shopping card down melted and cracking roads instead of improvising something better.
Honestly, I found this book just too boring and depressing and uninteresting to glean anything useful from it.
Seriously, why is this a best seller?
@screaminscott: Oprah?
@screaminscott: Pulitzer?
I agree that it was an incredibly depressing book. Not boring though. I can’t stop thinking about it.
What I do wonder is what Oprah could possibly have had to say about it. Power of love and redemption? Surely that would have required some sort of happy ending. Something religious? The main character is pretty dismissive of that idea. Does anyone know this?
@matuszek: I’m not sure, I won’t admit to watching Oprah
I would dismiss her and her book club entirely except that she has promoted some excellent books, and not just new books by authors on the talk show circuit – One Hundred Years of Solitude and East of Eden, for example. Then again, she’s also responsible for promoting Deepok Chopra and Dr. Phil on her show, so I guess that balances out what good she does for literature.
McCarthy’s writing makes me weary and the lack of punctuation and character identification is a gimmick instead of literary innovation.
Are you reading a book or playing a videogame? That’s exactly the type of problem (puzzle) solving you do in a typical post-apocalyptic action-adventure game.