Save money on books so you can splurge on something else. I did. Can you top this?

Do you know about Alice’s Law of Compensatory Cash Flow? I’m experiencing it right now, thanks to the Boise Public Library.

In case you don’t know about the law, let me tell you. Then I’ll tell you how the library encourages it.

Calvin Trillin, a New Yorker writer who makes me laugh so hard I cry, revealed the meaning of Alice’s Law in his book Alice, Let’s Eat (https://amzn.to/3HtAJrd). It goes like this:

“Any money not spent on a luxury you can’t afford is the equivalent of windfall income.”

Thinking about buying a new cell phone? If you don’t, that is the equivalent of new money in your pocket, ready to be spent on something else. Want to go out to a fancy dinner and you don’t? Again, boom, surprise windfall income.

I’ve loved and used that law for years, but I never realized how much the library urges me to use it even more.

During the pandemic, I think I’ve become one of the library’s biggest users. I go five days out of seven to load up on more books, using the curbside pickup. I feel like I know the employees, just from their voices.

But the best part is the little ticket that they slip into my books. Let’s use last Thursday as an example. I picked up five books and then read the ticket:

“You just saved $138.94 by using your library.”

Goodness. Saved $138.94, which according to Alice’s Law would mean I have a $138 windfall income. But the best part is the next line:

“You have saved “$5,596,70 this past year.”

Just think what I could buy with that windfall. So when I go to the grocery store, I feel smug applying Alice’s Law of Compensatory Cash Flow, buying an avocado or pears or some salsa with my windfall.

Of course another way to use my windfall is to give it back to the creative librarians who tell me what I’ve saved. So this year, I did. Admittedly, not the whole $5596.70 but some of it.

Just because of all the money I’ve saved.

Nancy Napier is a distinguished professor at Boise State University in Idaho. nnapier@boisestate.edu. She is co-author of “The Bridge Generation of Vietnam: Spanning Wartime to Boomtime.”