How to Beat the High Cost of Living is a film about three women: one unmarried, one divorced, and one still in wedlock. Jane (Susan Saint James) is stuck living with her stifling father and child, desperate for alone time with her boyfriend, but without the money to make any changes to her life. Elaine (Jane Curtin) has been abandoned, penniless, by her cheating husband and can no longer pay the bills. Louise (Jessica Lange) is happily married, however the couple is struggling to make ends meet and need money to keep her unprofitable antique store afloat and the IRS off their backs. The three come together with an unlikely plan: steal the money from a mall contest and use it to get their lives back on track. They simply have to break into the mall by night and take the large clear ball holding thousands of dollars of prize money; however, in this comedy nothing ever goes quite according to plan.moreless