How to be Cheap to be Generous

Mary Hance writes the Ms. Cheap column for The Tennessean. The column, which is celebrating its 23rd anniversary this year, focuses on being a smart, frugal consumer.

Mary joined the Nashville Banner as a copy clerk in January of 1976. Over the years at the Banner, she covered Metro government, state and federal courts, the police beat, was a business writer and the newspaper’s assistant business editor. She wrote editorials and features and served as children’s book editor for 13 years.

In March 1994, her Ms. Cheap column made its debut in the business section of the Banner, as a frugal consumer column.

She moved to the Tennessean in February 1998, after the death of the Banner. Her Ms. Cheap column appears in The Tennessean on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays in the newspaper’s features section, and Tennessean.com/mscheap She is also active on Facebook.com/mscheap and on Twitter as Ms_Cheap.

She has also written four books, Ms. Cheap’s Guide to Nashville, and Ms. Cheap’s Guide to Getting More for Less, 99 Things to Save Money in Your Household Budget, and Love for a Lifetime, Daily Wisdom and Wit for a Long and Happy Marriage.

She appears weekly on Thursdays on Talk of the Town on NewsChannel5.

Her Ms. Cheap Penny Drive for Second Harvest Food Bank has become a signature initiative, and has raised almost $300,000 for Second Harvest.

A native of Senatobia, Miss., she grew up in Mississippi and Memphis and is an honors graduate of the University of the South at Sewanee. Her husband Bill retired after 25 years as the director of news and public affairs at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and now owns and operates Billy’s Corner service station and beer emporium in Sylvan Park.

They have two daughters, Elizabeth, 34, a pulmonary nurse at St. Thomas Hospital and Anna, 32, who is the owner of Studio Novo, a boutique gym with locations on White Bridge Road and CoolSprings. They also have two granddaughters and one grandson. The Hances are members of Christ Church Episcopal Cathedral and are active supporters of Second Harvest Food Bank.