Review: Frugal Food & Fitness

One of my personal finance blogging buddies is a Canadian female who is athletic (finishing two educated (in topics as diverse as journalism and computer science), and irrepressibly female (she’s posted underwear pictures–just the undies, not her in them!–on her blog multiple times). 55 pages of material that are not available on her blog.

The book is split into three parts: Frugal Food, Meals and Recipies, and Frugal Fitness. Just the fact that the material presented here is new–meaning not on her blog–is amazing. As a blogger myself, I find it very hard to believe another blogger who posts as often as Squawkfox does has the time to come up with a 55 page book of original material, but apparently she does.

Squawkfox is an aspiring photographer, and this book shows it. She does lots of food photography in this book (this is not an easy subject to photograph, trust me!) to go along with some general and specific information on food (including quite a bit of education on the whys and hows of soaking dried beans–including frugal reasons as well as educational ones). The second part of the book–the recipes–may be the most practical. They are cheap, fast to make, and the ones I tried were great! In particular I liked the Spaghetti with Sneaky Black Eyed Pea Sauce (I’m a sucker for pasta). Finally, our author comes up with some great ideas on how to get into fitness frugally. As a cyclist and runner myself, I try to encourage the same kinds of activities. Squawkfox does a great job of giving bite sized suggestions as to how to get going on improving your physical condition.

In conclusion, I really like this eBook, and the price is unbeatable (the only way it would be better is if she paid me to read it). Squawkfox does a great job of taking some very basic needs–food and exercise–and making them seem easy and fun for people to take on, as well as frugal. All in all, I would call this a great job by one of my fellow personal finance bloggers. Well done, Squawkfox!