FEATURED AUTHOR
ED ROMNEY

My book Living Well on Practically Nothing is a treasure trove of advice on cultivating and reaping the benefits of frugality, a subject I learned well through experience.

I was born in 1931 during the Great Depression. The Romney family had lost its money by then, and by 1933 my father had lost his job, too. We relocated to rural New Hampshire and moved into a 200-year-old Cape Cod that was heated with wood fireplaces and a kerosene range in the kitchen.

While my father tried to earn a precarious living taking photographs and fixing radios for local people, my mother and the rest of the family practiced many economies to make ends meet, which I will always remember. I recall Dad's buying or trading for half of a cow one winter, which he kept in a large wooden crate on the porch. It was so cold in New Hampshire that the meat never thawed. Dad would take a hacksaw and an axe and chop frozen meat off it as needed. The cow lasted all winter.

The Depression was frightening, and as a youngster I often considered what we would do if we got even poorer. I was fascinated with the woods out in back of our colonial house and thought I would like to live out there like Hansel and Gretel. At about age 4 I ran away from home and had a grand time in the woods until they finally found me. It was a friendly place. As a teen, I became an active hunter, backpacker, camper, and hiker and spent a lot of time alone in the woods at a survival level (an interest that has continued all my life).

Prior to 1929, the Romney family had been socially prominent. Some of our friends and relatives snubbed us once we were poor, but others really enjoyed my parents and remained kind and helpful. These people became mentors to me, and I learned much more from them than I ever learned in the context of formal education. (When I entered grammar school, I was disappointed to find that my teachers were not as bright and interesting as the people around my dad.) Among those who stand out in my mind are Roger Babson, our cousin the economist who predicted the crash of 1929 (my dad didn't listen) and founded Babson College and Babson Park in Florida; his friend Igor Sikorsky, who was an early airplane designer in czarist Russia and invented the helicopter; Vannevar Bush, my Uncle Conrad's college classmate who was an MIT professor and the founder of Raytheon; George M. Bryne, another cousin, who built many of the canals and tunnels around Boston, fought with labor unions, and had yachts; Frank Blanchard, the reptile biologist, explorer, and National Geographic writer who could charm snakes and found them everywhere (he was an environmentalist before anyone else was); and Richard E. Byrd Jr., who had explored the South Pole with his late father, Admiral Byrd, and was also a masterful, intuitive self-taught mechanic who loved antiques, boats, and old cars. These people were most inspiring to me, and they played a crucial role in shaping the philosophy and attitude that guided my life and laid the foundation for Living Well on Practically Nothing. My teachers and professors, on the other hand, provided little in the way of enlightenment. Most ignored me. So I coasted through school and college fairly easily, doing little work and reading everything but my lessons. Nevertheless, I did manage to graduate and earn an MA degree under the GI Bill.

My first few jobs, teaching college and trade school, were poorly paid. But because I was able to read and prepare lessons very quickly, I had a lot of free time. I looked for other ways to make money and soon discovered that antique furniture, antique cars, World War II pistols, and old lever-action rifles could be bought very cheaply, fixed up, and sold at a profit. (I bought the 1888 Kodak shown at above for $50 and sold it to a museum for $2,000!) I learned the principles of antiquing by working for Harold "Elephant" Reed, who in the 1940s, claimed to be the largest antique dealer in the world. (The details of this experience are highlighted in my book.) I had learned how to do most car repairs, including changing and rebuilding an engine, from my dad, who drove a Model A Ford for about 200,000 miles in the 1930s and then kept a 1940 Ford for about 180,000 miles. Capitalizing on that experience, I bought nice antique cars for as low as $45 in the 1950s and '60s, which lasted for years and sold at a profit. I soon learned to restore radios, refrigerators, and many other appliances as well. This brought in lots of extra money, and in a short while my family and I were living very well for much less money than others spent. About that time I started saving money and discovered that if you never listened to brokers and never bought any mutual funds, you could do quite well in the stock market. Fortunately, I started investing when stocks were relatively cheap.

In 1960 I went to work for International Correspondence Schools, where I learned all about the mail order business. In 1962 I became the civil defense (CD) training coordinator for the state of Vermont, with 50 instructors under me. I was already an enthusiastic survivalist and CD volunteer, and I had learned all about controlling people and fighting radiation, blast, and the fireball at National Civil Defense headquarters in Battle Creek, Michigan. So I gave the state of Vermont's course a strong survivalist emphasis, and although it was very popular, the liberals almost got me fired for being too gung ho. Fortunately, my friends pulled me through.

After working in civil defense I took a variety of other hum-drum jobs, and in 1969 I decided to go on my own, selling books and second-hand items by mail and doing some free-lance writing. At first the business was not successful, and we had a very hard time. Eventually, though, I got the formula right. Our most successful products are the books we sell on camera and radio repair. (I also enjoy taking pretty pictures, some of which have been published, earning extra money. I took the photo below with a secondhand Agfa camera I bought for $10.) As the updated edition of the Living Well book explains, it was the computer and the Internet that really saved the business.

I decided to write the first Living Well book in 1990 for the benefit of my kids, my nieces and nephews, and other young people. I was struck by the fact that young people today seemed to have no perception of what life is really like and no awareness of any kind of living except punching a time clock or teaching school – and borrowing money. I felt that writing the book would be a good way to pass along some of the insights culled from my own experience. Well, my son, Edward C.W. Romney, took the information in my book quite to heart. He started a pallet factory on $2,000 and built it up to a large enterprise that is now grossing $1.6 million a year. He is not the exception, however; many other people have written me letters describing how the first edition of Living Well on Practically Nothing has changed their lives. To me this makes all the effort worthwhile. I hope the new, expanded and updated edition will help people even more.

Q&A

Paladin: What were some of the most valuable lessons you culled from your experience of being poor?
Romney: Keeping one's pride, keeping clean and neat regardless, resisting status completely, never buying anything for vanity only, maintaining a low profile, anonymity. I am far from poor now but still wear old clothes and drive small or older cars or an old pickup (though we do own an older Cadillac that looks almost new that we use for honored guests and special occasions).

Paladin: Can you give us some examples of some of the resourceful things your family did when you were young in order to make ends meet?
Romney: Mother's wonderful, low-cost homemade bread, baked beans, boiled dinners, and pies were made on a cook stove that also heated the house. We also heated the house with wood fires (I chopped and sawed a lot of the firewood). And by working with Dad we learned to build and fix things. We were given (or bought for a few cents) radios, photographs, and all sorts of appliances and instruments. Dad's shortwave and ham radios saved on postage and long distance phone calls (which were then very expensive) and provided news and entertainment. We heard Hitler (who was frightening), Churchill, Radio Nederlands, and all kinds of programs. And my family had a wonderful knack for self-entertainment: Mother played piano to almost concert level and painted pictures (she had studied painting in Paris, so it was her career and fun too); other relatives sang, played violin or cello, or recited poems; and instead of movies and nights out, which could not be afforded, we had fascinating philosophical discussions around a dinner table (not acrimonious, but good-natured sharing of viewpoints and experiences). Like all New Englanders, we had a huge attic and kept everything, so we had more than 1,000 books—classics—and I read extensively when I was home alone and the snow was blowing. I was greatly influenced all my life by William Shakespeare, Arthur Koestler and Albert Schweitzer, Goethe's Faust, and many other fine classic works that make one a worldly and sophisticated person. Other treasures were up there too: old letters, pictures, fans, clothing, clocks, a round trunk that traveled cross country, and much more. When we traveled, we had friends in most places who let us stay overnight and vacation (many had summer camps), so we avoided paying the huge resort and motel costs one sees today. As a result of growing up poor, we learned disdain for people with unearned wealth and respect for good businessmen, which helped us avoid being cheated or fooled. And we learned NEVER to borrow money, which was considered akin to writing a bad check.

Paladin: Can you recall some of the hardships you endured?
Romney: When it comes to hardships, the old cars stand out in my mind. In those days they weren't nearly as reliable, and the brakes were bad too. One time, the brakes failed on the '37 Ford woodie wagon while we were coming down several thousand feet from the mountainous Skyline Drive (there was no backup system then). There was no stopping it; we were going too fast to shift to second gear. The old, top-heavy wagon took the narrow two-lane road's sharp curves at 65 miles per hour. Luckily, it didn't tip over and we survived, but I was petrified! Once the brakes on Dad's '40 Ford failed when a brake hose split wide open. I got the car home in second gear, sometimes scuffing the curb to slow it down, and on the way I ran into the car in front of me fairly gently. There was no damage, because bumpers were very strong then, but the driver in front was not pleased. Tires were also poor before nylon cord and synthetic rubber were invented. I remember getting a flat in a long tunnel on the Wilbur Cross Turnpike in Connecticut with the '37 Ford Wagon. The old car rolled around terribly but stayed upright, and I drove it slowly out of the tunnel on the rim with angry motorists following behind. I replaced it with the spare, which was in a stylish metal "Continental" case on the tailgate. But the spare, which was aged too, failed after a few miles, and I had to buy a new tire in a turnpike gas station, which cost today's equivalent of $250 and took all of our savings. In the 1950s, we had only one car, and if it wouldn't start and we had to go to work or class, it was terrible. There were no neighbors to drive us, no garages nearby, and if we didn't get there, we would be in deep trouble. (In those days there was no forgiveness like today.) Once, just before it was time to go to work, I discovered the water pump on my Model A Ford had a bad bearing. I used coat hanger wire, and at the last moment I got it going. Then, halfway to work, it set up an awful clatter as the impeller tore up the cylinder head. I just made it.

Paladin: Now that you make a comfortable living, do you ever splurge and enjoy your money frivolously, or are you a die-hard penny-pincher?
Romney: We splurge. I enjoy dining out and dancing and traveling the world with my wife, Sara, who works very hard in the business. We just bought a new 2002 Saturn, and we live in a good house in a safe section of town.

Paladin: Are there any luxuries you allow yourself? What is your take on the old saying, "You can't take it with you"?
Romney: As we get wealthier, we take for granted some of the things that were really luxuries once. We no longer ever eat at McDonald's; it must be Cracker Barrel or Steak House. And instead of changing my own oil in winter, I have it done now. But we NEVER spend to show off or for vanity. I still wear a Timex watch and wear used clothing. Dad said he expected me to do better financially in life than he did, and I told my son the same. This is how you "take it with you."

Paladin: In your view, what are the essential ingredients of success?
Romney: Willpower, persistence, and good judgment. It's also important to remember and profit from experience and to distrust most authority unless it proves itself.

Paladin: What are some things even the poorest person can do to save
money and accumulate wealth?
Romney: Ways to save money include having no debts, caring for property, not drinking alcohol, avoiding being a victim of crime, staying out of trouble, and not eating too much. To accumulate wealth, try keeping all small change and then banking or investing it. And buy stock direct and have all dividends reinvested – never sell it.

Paladin: What do you see as the most important lessons to be gained from reading your book?
Romney: Old used things . . . real classics . . . bought cheap are often better than new things. Education is often a trap and not always a boon. Working for yourself is better than having a boss, unless you are young and need a mentor. You can live well for much less in some parts of the country than others, but job opportunities may not be good in those places. The Internet will hitch you to the world. Distrust the media.

LIVING WELL ON PRACTICALLY NOTHING
Revised and Updated Edition