At the age of fourteen, Roth became a paperboy.  This was in the days when Oklahoma had a morning and an evening newspaper.  He became so proficient that he eventually had three routes.  Roth was known as a “real go-getter.”  For the most part, he used the savings from his paper routes, a small scholarship, and money earned from driving trucks for The Daily Oklahoman during the hot Oklahoma summers to put himself through Central State College (now the University of Central Oklahoma) in Edmond, Oklahoma, which is now a suburb of Oklahoma City.  

Roth joined with two other students while in college and began the newspaper Dialogue.  While Dialogue could certainly not be considered “radical,” it did question authority, and the authorities did not like to be questioned.  Although he was selected as a biographee for the National Student Register for both 1969 and 1970, Roth had his first run-in with “the establishment” when the administration of Central State College attempted to deny him and the two other students permission to do student teaching.  He learned to stand up to authority at that time and he was, after appearing before the administration of the college, permitted to do his student teaching and finish his degree.  The Dialogue story is considered so interesting that a then-current student did a term paper on it a couple of years ago, proving once again that the past never dies.  Strangely enough, Roth was unable to find a permanent teaching position in the Oklahoma City area school systems when he graduated in 1970.

At the insistence of his mother, Roth took the Federal Service Entrance Exam and was offered a job in Defense procurement in Columbus, Ohio, in 1971, beginning the career that would span nearly 24 years and take him from Columbus to New York, Los Angeles (twice), Boston, San Jose (twice), Kansas City, and Austin.  Of these cities, Roth most liked Kansas City and, when he exited corporate America, Kansas City is where he moved.  And where he plans to stay “until I am cremated.” 

Until the 1990’s, Roth concentrated on his career.  In 1982 he lost a job in Kansas City that meant a great deal to him, and he moved to Los Angeles.  About his first stint in Kansas City he says, “Those were the best years of my life.  And I was lucky.  I knew they were the best years while I was living them.”  

Roth faced another forced move in 1987 when the program he was working on in Austin, Texas, failed and he was transferred to San Jose, California.  The Austin fiasco couldn’t have happened at a worse time.  Real estate had devalued and he, like thousands of other people, took a beating on his property when he sold it.  Roth went into a deep depression.  When he came out of it, though, he was determined never to be a victim again.  He bought the house in Kansas City that, seven years later, became his “retirement” home.  

Roth started his sideline career as a writer on the topic of frugality just as the rest of the country was realizing the Roaring Eighties were running out of steam.  In 1990 he published his own book, Living Cheap: THE Survival Guide for the Nineties.  He sent the book to every magazine and newspaper writer he thought might be interested in it.  In 1992 one of these books found its way to Nick Ravo of the New York Times.  Ravo mentioned it in an article titled “Nouveau Cheap.”  And, in spite of Roth’s suggestion that people get the book from their library, the little self-published book sold over five thousand copies, and it’s still selling.  

Roth began writing Living Cheap News in 1992 as an urban response to such newsletters as The Tightwad Gazette which, while very good, are written primarily for people who have more time to practice frugality than do most two-income urban families.  Living Cheap News had about 1,800 subscribers.  Of course, its readership was much higher because of shared subscriptions, library subscriptions, and so on.  In 1999 Roth decided he had pretty much said what he wanted to say and retired Living Cheap News.

All this time, Roth traveled extensively.  He has three trips to the South Pacific under his belt, he visited his grandfather’s Transylvanian homeland, and he toured Great Britain in 1990.  Roth visited Moscow and St. Petersburg in 1992, living with Russian families as a way to get to know the people.  He stopped over in Budapest on the return trip.  In 1995 he returned to Romania, visited some friends who emigrated from Romania to Germany, and visited Prague.  In 1998 he toured Croatia; in 1999 he went to Spain; and a return trip to Eastern Europe (including a visit to Auschwitz) has already been booked for this fall.  

Roth does all of this on the cheap, of course.  He uses frequent flyer miles, and he made his own hotel reservations in Prague by mail for half the price a travel agent could get for him.  He loves to visit Eastern Europe because it is cheap and because it is still foreign.  “When the first Disney World Bucharest goes in, I’ll turn in my passport,” he says.  

After the fall of the Iron Curtain, Roth witnessed firsthand the demise of the Defense Industry.  Unlike his colleagues, however, Roth did not view this demise as bad by definition.  He hoped the “Peace Dividend” would  be put to good use.  He hoped for lower taxes, civilian projects and the like.  He hoped.  But Roth was not surprised to see Cold Warriors fighting for dollars to continue projects that had become welfare projects for middle-class Defense workers.  

He witnessed his employer, which he refers to as “Company L,” become more profitable by shedding employees.  He wanted Company L to shed him as well, but he was consistently rated too high to be laid off.  He had, after all, saved Company L several millions of dollars.  Eventually it became clear to Roth that he was going to have to lay Company L off.  After selling his California townhouse and waiting out the lease on his Kansas City house, he gave Company L a generous two-months’ notice.  Company L did not take the notice seriously for a month.  

On February 3, 1995, Roth left Company L.  He began his trip to Kansas City on the same day.  And, as he says, “When I left corporate America, my world went from black and white to color.”

Roth’s last self-published book, Beating the System, is both the story of his own exit from corporate America and a map for others who want to find their way out of the madness of the modern American workplace as well.  Roth’s The Best of Living Cheap News was published by Contemporary Books in 1996, and his The Simple Life was published by the Berkley Publishing Group in 1998.  Roth has been a contract consultant for a local architect and engineering firm for the past three years.

You can contact Larry Roth at Livcheap@aol.com.