Being cheap is cool again

The era of conspicuous consumption is over.

According to today's article A Race to Keep Up With the Tightwads, in The Washington Post, "people ... are no longer concerned about keeping up with the Joneses. Now the goal is to fall far behind them."

According to a recent telephone survey of 1,000 people ... about 80 percent of those surveyed said they are more conscious of spending now than at the beginning of the year. A Gallup poll in April showed 59 percent of Americans enjoy saving money, compared with 48 percent in April 2001. The percentage of people who said they enjoyed spending money dropped to 37 percent in April from 45 percent in 1991.

What are they doing to save money?

• Making pizza instead of ordering it delivered. It's very easy to make pizza crust. When my wife first taught me how to make pizza crust, I was flabbergasted at how easy it was. Here's a link to two easy recipes, including one without yeast for those of you who are afraid of yeast.
  
  
• Clip coupons from popular websites such as The Coupon Clippers.
  
  
• Buy something only if you really need it -- and if it's on sale.

In today's Small Change column, Nancy Trejos gives four websites for auctioning items or scoring bargains:

Overstock.com
Sam’s Club Auctions
Shopgoodwill.com
Ubid.com

I looked at Ubid.com, which is good for electronics, and I will keep it in mind when I am in the market for a new phone.

The best entertainment is free

Open Source Music: The Green Tightwad has recently discovered musopen.com, a resource of music recordings and sheet music, all of it in the public domain.

Its motto is "free access to music anywhere in the world."

I happened to hear a Brahms recording on WETA (the classical music station in DC) that I wasn't familiar with, and my wife and I liked it so we waited until the end for the announcer to identify the music. It turned out to be Brahms' Double Concerto in A Minor, Opus 102. Lo and behold, it's also on musopen. You don't have to pay for a music download. The version on musopen is played by the Skidmore College Orchestra. (In 2006, Newsweek/Kaplan identified Skidmore as a 'New Ivy,' an elite school providing an excellent education outside of the Ivy League, according to musopen.)

I have embedded the Brahms double concerto on my blog, just to give you a sample.





So the next time you need music for, say, your wedding, check if it's on musopen. Musopen has done some terrific things. According to Arstechtnica, musopen "has recently rolled out a new version of its web site, added freely-downloadable sheet music, and raised enough cash to professionally record the entire set of 32 Beethoven piano sonatas and place them in the public domain." Three cheers for Aaron Dunn, who started the site when he was in college. Donations, of course, are welcome.

Videos from PBS are now online: The Public television Service today launched its new video portal that allows online viewers to stream an array of its best-known shows over the Web. Pretty much the entire universe of PBS is now available online! You can watch programs in their entirety, just like Ian McKellen in King Lear, which was just broadcast some weeks ago.

These are just some of the shows available just one click away:

• American Masters
• Antiques Roadshow
• FRONTLINE
• Great Performances
• Masterpiece Theater
• NOVA