Out Of Ideas, Tightwad Gazette Publisher Plans To Shut Down The `Bible Of Frugality'

LEEDS, Maine - The Tightwad Gazette, the bible of frugality, is folding - in part, because when it comes to ideas, the publisher is broke.

"It's tremendously hard to find subjects that apply to everyone. At some point you have to repeat yourself," Amy Dacyczyn said.

The newsletter she founded six years ago will cease publication at year's end.

"I'd like to do something else," said the 40-year-old mother of six, whose name is pronounced "decision. . . . I don't have very specific plans. I think the idea of having multiple careers in a lifetime is a very interesting prospect."

Dacyczyn is working on a third book based on the monthly newsletter, which is read by an estimated 45,000 penny-pinching households nationwide and costs $12 for a one-year subscription. (Dacyczyn recommends getting 11 friends together and sharing the cost.)

Among the ideas offered by the Tightwad Gazette: giving a bouquet of pussy willows tied with a red bow in place of flowers for Valentine's Day, or bending empty tuna-fish cans into cookie cutters.

Dacyczyn said she realized the effect of her newsletter when she read a Reader's Digest article about a couple who said they had saved $40,000 - the amount of their annual income - in 10 years partly by using her tips.