Sarah Strohmeyer: The Penny Pinchers Club
Book Club Discussion

July 30, 2009. Queenie D talks money, debt, and love with Sarah Strohmeyer, author of
The Penny Pinchers Club.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Sarah Strohmeyer

How did the idea for the Penny Pinchers originate? Do you know of such a club?

I don't really know of such a club, though there are online versions. I got the idea because my library has a "pot" where you can drop off coupons you don't want and pick up ones you do. And I thought, what if this were expanded so that people met in the library to exchange money saving tips and support as well as coupons?

That got me wondering what kind of person would carve out time to do that sort of thing – a home-schooling Earth mother, an older woman with a troubled financial history, someone court ordered to join, a single woman looking for love with a financially responsible man. Those were the characters I imagined.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Sarah Strohmeyer

Are Kat and Viv's parents in love? Or are they from the generation that stayed together but lived separate lives?

That's a good question. I think the answer depends on how you define love in that generation. The reason why I included them is that I was trying to illustrate how for women of that era, women who didn't "work outside the home," as we say, saving was a source of income. They had to manipulate the system in order to get money of their own, especially if their husbands gave them allowances that they were to use to pay for groceries, kids clothes, their clothes and any other perks.

This provided a huge incentive to save since the more money these women were able to sock away from their husbands' allowances, the more they had to their name. My mother was able to save quite a chunk that she used to buy stock. Of course, how did she spend her earnings? By slipping the kids cash. That's a mom for you.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Sarah Strohmeyer

This novel places the most emphasis on financial issues in a marriage. Other issues arise but at the root of all is a fundamental disagreement over money. I tend to believe that a saver and a spender have a better chance of making it in the long run because they balance each other out. Do you think that Kat and Griff would have a chance if they were both more honest about their feelings over finances? It seems that the lack of communication about acceptable spending and budgeting is the true downfall for them.

This is another good point – kudos to you! As I tried to show in the book, honesty about finances is almost as tough as honesty about sex – maybe even more so. We attach so much meaning to a paycheck in our society that men, especially, get very ruffled if they perceive an implication that they're not earning enough. It's the one situation where more zeroes you have, the more important you are.

This is why Kat's so reluctant to bring up money with Griff, though it's kind of insulting to Griff. I think he's secure in his own intelligence and life's work to talk honestly about "figures on a piece of paper." Then again, there is a moment where he feels guilty for not earning more, so who knows?

I firmly believe that one reason why couples don't talk openly about money is that they were never raised to as kids. In my own upbringing, I was told to save, but I was never told how my parents did it. To this day, I have no idea how much money my father earned or how he and my mother worked out a budget. I just know we were always the last in our neighborhood to get anything cool – which was why I overreacted as a mother by going in the opposite direction. We had the first Wii that my kids never play with. Sad, but true.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Sarah Strohmeyer

Laura was not much of a presence in the story. Her upcoming college career was a motivator for Kat to save, but other than that she was a non entity. Why did she not play a larger role in this novel?

Well, as the parent of a teenager about to enter college I can tell you kids kind of disappear senior year. They do their own things, have their own friends, their own jobs, etc. Also, they are extremely self centered. Their world with its little dramas and inconveniences is at the center of the universe. Parents exist to provide a bed, food, maybe some money and clothes and a car. Other than that, we – sniff – are invisible.

Also, it was at this stage in their family – when Laura was not so much of a presence – that Kat and Griff were finally able to look at their marriage. I just read a Nora Ephron quote that kids are like the bomb that goes off and it's not until the leave that the dust settles and you see where you and your husband are. It's never the same after kids. That's why Laura had to be in the background, to focus the story on this couple just beginning to deal with the aftermath of childrearing.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Sarah Strohmeyer

Towards the end Kat says, "what I did know was that true love is proved not by what it does for us, but what it makes us do for those we love." Is it possible that when you truly love someone, you are willing to give them up to make them happy?

Sigh. You know, I've read that. And as a kid I gave up my beloved pet rabbit so she and her mate and her bazillion little bunnies could live in a preserve where their descendants, to this day, run free.

I think the closest I'm getting to that statement is in being a parent of a kid going off to college. I love her and she loves me. We're best friends. But I have to let her go. That's really, really hard because letting go means letting her make her own mistakes. Eeep!

As for letting my husband go so he can hang out with some twenty something babe. Sure, that's fine. Of course, he won't be doing that with his testicles seeing I will have taken care of them with my rusted garden clippers. But, other than that, I'd definitely let him go.

Book Club Discussion: Interview with Sarah Strohmeyer

Can you tell us anything about your current writing projects?

It's a book about women's friendships, loss, love, risk, change and cocktails. I hope it's really, really good. Trying to make each book better, you know.

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