Lauren Weber

Lauren Weber learned about being cheap at the feet of a master: her father rationed toilet paper, kept the heat at 50 degrees through freezing New England winters, and rarely used his car’s turn signals (to prevent them from burning out). Her first book, a history and analysis of frugality, is called In Cheap We Trust: The Story of a Misunderstood American Virtue. It’ll be published in September 2009 by Little, Brown.

Lauren was formerly a staff reporter at Newsday and Reuters, and has also written for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, American Banker, and other publications. She graduated from Wesleyan University and was a Knight-Bagehot journalism fellow at Columbia University Business School in 2006-2007. She lives (cheaply) in New York City.