Speaker 1: Episode three sixty seven Best Budgeting Tips for twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to
Speaker 2: save money, embrace simplicity, and liver it your life. Here
Speaker 2: your hosts Jen and Jill.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Frugal Friends podcast.
Speaker 3: My name is Jen, my name is Jill.
Speaker 1: And today our last episode in twenty twenty three, as
Speaker 1: we prepare for twenty twenty four, we want to help
Speaker 1: you succeed with your budget more often in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: It's not going to be perfect. You are never going
Speaker 1: to have a perfect budget, but you can succeed week
Speaker 1: to week more often if you have some of these
Speaker 1: practical tips and these are not regurgitated tips from the internet.
Speaker 1: You could google best budgeting tips, and I assure you
Speaker 1: you will probably not see these on there.
Speaker 3: I love that hot take to close out twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: We're doing it. We usually when we record episodes, look
Speaker 3: to the internet. What's a search going to reveal on Google?
Speaker 3: And we kind of go through and give you the
Speaker 3: top two articles what they say, our take on it.
Speaker 3: This one, This one's straight from us. It's something else
Speaker 3: we're doing because you know what, it's our podcast. And
Speaker 3: also we've been doing this for nearly six years, so
Speaker 3: this is a curated list of everything we've learned what
Speaker 3: we think will be the heavy hitters in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: just for you, just to close out this year.
Speaker 1: Yes, but first, this episode is brought to you by
Speaker 1: No Spend January. If you got a little caught up
Speaker 1: in holiday shopping fomo and made some purchases that you
Speaker 1: didn't necessary really need, you bought some white elephant gifts
Speaker 1: that were maybe too nice for the party, and if
Speaker 1: you want to do a no spend challenge to get
Speaker 1: back on track, if you want to do a no
Speaker 1: spend challenge with friends who've done it before, then welcome
Speaker 1: to No Spend January.
Speaker 4: Friends.
Speaker 1: We are doing No Spend January with you all month,
Speaker 1: so every issue of the Friend Letter will have helpful
Speaker 1: tips three times a week. I Jen will be posting
Speaker 1: on the Frugal Friends podcast Instagram and Modern Frugality on TikTok,
Speaker 1: and we will be navigating together the thoughts, challenges successes
Speaker 1: of a no spend challenge. So this is us holding
Speaker 1: your hand and doing a no spend challenge that is
Speaker 1: not just for the sake of saving money recouping some
Speaker 1: of the losses from November and December, but also will
Speaker 1: help you identify what are the spending habits that I
Speaker 1: created in twenty twenty three that I don't love and
Speaker 1: what do I need to work on in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four to make my spending and my money work better
Speaker 1: for me? And that's really what a no spend challenge is.
Speaker 1: It helps you just identify the things you need to
Speaker 1: work on faster.
Speaker 4: So that you can reach your goals that much faster.
Speaker 1: So head to frugalfriendspodcast dot com to get the friend letter.
Speaker 1: You're going to get all of those tips in there.
Speaker 1: And then also if you're already on the friend friend letter,
Speaker 1: head to Instagram, get on the Frugal Friends podcast account,
Speaker 1: follow Modern Frugality on TikTok and Instagram, and you'll be
Speaker 1: able to see everything in those places. We're coming at
Speaker 1: you both of the places that you spend the most
Speaker 1: time because we want to help you as much as possible.
Speaker 3: It's a great way to kick off twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: So it's like your this is a bonus to this episode.
Speaker 3: A lot of times when we do challenges, we're not
Speaker 3: always doing them exactly side by side with you. This
Speaker 3: time we are Jenna and I both need it too.
Speaker 3: We need to know spuddy January. So we're gonna do it.
Speaker 3: We're going to encourage you to do it. Let's do
Speaker 3: it together. It's more fun that way.
Speaker 4: M hm. Yes.
Speaker 1: So if you are interested in getting your money right
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four, getting on track with budgeting, then
Speaker 1: we have a ton of budgeting episodes that are very
Speaker 1: specific to types of budgeting, making more forgiving less restrictive budgets.
Speaker 1: One of our favorites is episode two thirty seven, Kukipo kokebo.
Speaker 4: I don't know how to pronounce it.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, but it's the Japanese art of mindful
Speaker 1: budgeting and we love this Japanese philosophy on budgeting. It
Speaker 1: is something we talk about quite frequently, and so we
Speaker 1: dive deep into it into thirty seven. We also did
Speaker 1: episode three ten while I was on maternity leave. Our
Speaker 1: friend Alison from Inspired Budget came in to fill in
Speaker 1: for me and did this episode with Jill what We've
Speaker 1: learned from seventy five plus real people budgets. She reviews
Speaker 1: budgets every week on her Inspired Budget Instagram accounts, so
Speaker 1: she has a lot of insight to what people are
Speaker 1: doing with their budgets. And we also are our episode
Speaker 1: from last year, episode two seventy one, the best money
Speaker 1: saving tips for twenty twenty three still applied to twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. That episode holds up. Yeah, it aged well,
Speaker 1: and so it's still a good one. We're not also,
Speaker 1: we're not giving the same tips that we gave in
Speaker 1: that episode, So that one's a good one to listen to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but stay here because we're talking about twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: Now that's where we're at.
Speaker 1: Yes, and so we're we're going into this episode with
Speaker 1: the mindset of we want to help you, not just
Speaker 1: plan your money better, because the plan is custom to you,
Speaker 1: it's unique to you. We can't tell you to do
Speaker 1: like a fifty to thirty twenty budget, to spend fifty
Speaker 1: percent of your money here, thirty percent here, twenty percent here.
Speaker 1: Nobody can really tell you that because if you're in
Speaker 1: a high cost of living area, your housing is probably
Speaker 1: more than fifty percent. So these things don't necessarily apply
Speaker 1: to you. So you really have to determine the ratios
Speaker 1: of what you save what you spend. The tips that
Speaker 1: we are going to give you today are going to
Speaker 1: help you expand your budget more so, you're making the plan.
Speaker 1: But sometimes the plan does not work. And so when
Speaker 1: the plan's not working, what do we do? Where do
Speaker 1: we go? And those four tips are what we're going
Speaker 1: to give you today. If you do even just one
Speaker 1: of them, you will be on the path to a
Speaker 1: more successful twenty twenty four. If you do all four
Speaker 1: of them, call us up. We want to talk to you,
Speaker 1: and we want to celebrate with you.
Speaker 3: Yes, and then we'll invoice. You just cannot invoice. We won't. No,
Speaker 3: we definitely don't do that. We don't do that to
Speaker 3: any of our listeners, not a single one. Yes.
Speaker 1: And this episode was really inspired by a quote that
Speaker 1: I read in an article when I was doing some research.
Speaker 1: And this is from a guy who says, I bought
Speaker 1: a very modest house and did all these things that
Speaker 1: we felt like we were supposed to do, like live
Speaker 1: within our means, don't overspend, save, and it all just
Speaker 1: keeps getting further away from being able to take the
Speaker 1: next step. And this is a guy from Dayton, Ohio
Speaker 1: who is an analytics engineer. And when someone with a
Speaker 1: like white collar job is saying like I did everything
Speaker 1: right right. I bought this starter house like they told
Speaker 1: me to, I put this much down, I did all
Speaker 1: these things that these financial podcasts were telling me to do.
Speaker 1: But the current state of where we are, it just
Speaker 1: feels like it's getting further and further away from what
Speaker 1: reality is. And so we can't give you any groundbreaking advice.
Speaker 1: But hopefully if you can take away a few changes,
Speaker 1: a few lifestyle changes from this episode, then hopefully it
Speaker 1: will help you feel like you're treading water a little better,
Speaker 1: or that you're treading less. That these are lifestyle changes
Speaker 1: that will will help you maybe feel like you're on
Speaker 1: solid footing soon.
Speaker 3: Treading water in the shallow end of the pool where
Speaker 3: when you get hired you can stand up for a
Speaker 3: little bit.
Speaker 1: Yes, right, So our first tip, our first budgeting tip
Speaker 1: for twenty twenty four drum roll please.
Speaker 3: But that was my mouth. It wasn't a drum. I know,
Speaker 3: It's like, oh, it sounded so much like drums.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know if I wasn't listening to you.
Speaker 1: Our first ship is to earn more money.
Speaker 4: I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that.
Speaker 3: We don't like to talk about that I know you
Speaker 3: don't expect it.
Speaker 1: In frugality, right overspending, we say this, overspending will destroy you,
Speaker 1: but saving money won't save you. So we think about
Speaker 1: this in the eighty twenty rule, twenty percent of your
Speaker 1: effort will get you eighty percent of your results. Twenty
Speaker 1: percent of your effort is going to produce eighty percent
Speaker 1: of the change that you see in your budget. Like,
Speaker 1: look at your budget. The income section is so small,
Speaker 1: yet it dictates the size of every other section, and
Speaker 1: so you can't forget about the eighty percent. But you
Speaker 1: have to focus on that vital twenty percent. And another
Speaker 1: term for the eighty twenty rule is the vital few
Speaker 1: and the useful men. As frugal people, sometimes we want
Speaker 1: to focus on the useful many because they are useful,
Speaker 1: they do make a difference, and they have low barriers
Speaker 1: to entry. Honestly, it's easier to do a lot of
Speaker 1: the money saving tips that we give you, and that's great.
Speaker 1: Starting with those things is great, But if we forget
Speaker 1: about these vital few, we start to feel like we
Speaker 1: are treading water because the small things add up. But
Speaker 1: we have to the price of goods has increased too
Speaker 1: quickly over the last two years to still be making
Speaker 1: what you made two years ago, or to still be
Speaker 1: content with a three to five percent income increase. The
Speaker 1: retirement savings will you set in twenty nineteen is probably
Speaker 1: no longer enough because that usually accounts for a three
Speaker 1: percent increase in inflation, right, and we know we've seen
Speaker 1: way more than that triple that in some cases. So
Speaker 1: if you haven't reevaluated what you're earning or even what
Speaker 1: you're saving for retirement, now is the time to do it.
Speaker 1: Because the income goals that you had maybe four years ago,
Speaker 1: they need to be higher. And so I know, I
Speaker 1: know a lot of people listen to our show because
Speaker 1: they don't want to increase their income or think they
Speaker 1: can't increase an income. So we've kind of pivoted a
Speaker 1: lot of our content to be about sparking creativity and
Speaker 1: creating a mindset about to say how before I can't?
Speaker 1: So like, how can I save money on this? Instead
Speaker 1: of I can't save money on this? Because training those
Speaker 1: like creative and resourceful muscles with savings will help you
Speaker 1: when it comes to these harder things like increasing your income.
Speaker 1: It'll help you get gain the skills that you need
Speaker 1: to get creative and resourceful with your income.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think this is one that can feel uncomfortable,
Speaker 3: especially in this space, like you just said, Jen, where
Speaker 3: people might be coming to frugality as kind of this
Speaker 3: way to not need to increase and identify contentment and enough,
Speaker 3: And we're also advocating for those things. But I think
Speaker 3: going back to the statement that you said at the
Speaker 3: very beginning this quote about I was doing all of
Speaker 3: the right things, and it just feels like I'm still
Speaker 3: on this hamster wheel, to paraphrase, And I think a
Speaker 3: lot of us can relate. I've heard from people in
Speaker 3: the upper middle class financial bracket, middle middle class, lower
Speaker 3: middle class kind of everybody feels impacted by what has
Speaker 3: transpired economically over the last couple of years. And what
Speaker 3: it meant five years ago to make an annual household
Speaker 3: income of one hundred thousand dollars is not the same
Speaker 3: as what it meant now. It doesn't mean the same
Speaker 3: as what it meant five years ago. So I think
Speaker 3: we have to be willing to look at this too.
Speaker 3: When we talk about holding the tension and living in
Speaker 3: the radical middle, it's going to be looking at practices
Speaker 3: of saving. But also practices of spending and earning more.
Speaker 3: We can also look at other ways to earn money
Speaker 3: creatively that maybe don't require a heavy mental, emotional, physical
Speaker 3: load from me, but allows me to be able to
Speaker 3: have some of that excess income that is required this
Speaker 3: day and age. Not advocating for hustle culture rat race,
Speaker 3: you're never going to get off that hamster wheel. But
Speaker 3: if you are in this point of seeing, man, what
Speaker 3: was enough is not enough anymore? This salary is not
Speaker 3: cutting it. This is also an encouragement to say you're
Speaker 3: not alone and you're not wrong, and it's not like
Speaker 3: you're doing something error. If you're finding that suddenly things
Speaker 3: feel like a bit of a pinch. It's not as
Speaker 3: if to say, yeah, you just you've got to cut, cut, cut,
Speaker 3: cut cut. Sometimes we can't cut anymore. And this is
Speaker 3: the side of the spectrum that we need to look
Speaker 3: at of where can we make more? But it doesn't
Speaker 3: always necessarily mean that you've got to hustle more. We
Speaker 3: can be implementing some of this creativity that eighty twenty
Speaker 3: rule that could allow us to earn more but not
Speaker 3: require backbreaking labor of us. And that's kind of all
Speaker 3: the rest of our archive, but I think it's worth mentioning,
Speaker 3: especially for twenty twenty four, that we might need to
Speaker 3: consider earning more. I think this is a very useful,
Speaker 3: helpful tip.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I definitely want to reiterate what Jill said
Speaker 1: is that we don't advocate for hustle culture. It's toxic
Speaker 1: to some extent. If you want to be an entreprene newer,
Speaker 1: if you feel like you are not, you don't want
Speaker 1: to work for someone for the rest of your life,
Speaker 1: then you should definitely start a side hustle. Starting a
Speaker 1: side hustle is a great way to transition from working
Speaker 1: for someone to working for yourself. But I think we've
Speaker 1: gotten so caught up with all these side hustles that
Speaker 1: it has given employers an excuse not to pay more.
Speaker 1: And I think there are creative ways to extract more
Speaker 1: money from the career path, the nine to five career
Speaker 1: path you've chosen, especially if you don't want to become
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur, and so I would really encourage you when
Speaker 1: you're thinking about increasing your income, don't jump straight to
Speaker 1: side hustles, because that's been what everybody on every podcast
Speaker 1: has been talking about for years, Like five to ten years.
Speaker 1: At this point, let's stop for just a minute, stop
Speaker 1: thinking about side hustles until you've extracted every last penny
Speaker 1: available from your chosen career path. So for a while
Speaker 1: that we were recommending job hopping, and for some industries
Speaker 1: that's still good. For others it's not. Uh, But there
Speaker 1: are a lot of ways, through education, through networking, all
Speaker 1: of these ways to extract a higher salary within your field.
Speaker 1: We're not going to go deep into that right now
Speaker 1: because we have two really great podcast episodes that are
Speaker 1: essentially masterclasses for increasing your income in your chosen profession.
Speaker 1: The first is Intentional Strategies to Increase your Income with
Speaker 1: Rich Jones. That's episode three oh five, and then how
Speaker 1: to negotiate a higher salary in any field with Mandy
Speaker 1: Woodruff Santo's that's episode two sixty three. So write down
Speaker 1: episode three oh five episode two sixty three. These are
Speaker 1: near required listening for all frugal friends. And Mandy's episode
Speaker 1: isn't just negotiating higher salary. She gives such wisdom on
Speaker 1: finding new jobs. She was the one that taught me, like,
Speaker 1: if you want a really successful career, you don't find
Speaker 1: jobs by going through the front door, like by going
Speaker 1: through Indeed and LinkedIn and all these places. You go
Speaker 1: through the side door, you network, you make connections, and
Speaker 1: you reach out to people, and you go through the
Speaker 1: side door. And that was just like such crazy wisdom.
Speaker 1: So I really love her episode to sixty three. And
Speaker 1: they're going to give you a lot of helpful tips
Speaker 1: to earn more money at your job in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: so that you have more room in your twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four budget to a make ends meet if that's where
Speaker 1: you're at, or b to do the rest of the
Speaker 1: things on this list to you invest.
Speaker 3: More all of that. Yes, I have long term takeaways
Speaker 3: from both of those podcast episodes. Can't recommend that enough.
Speaker 3: But let's get to number two on our list, our
Speaker 3: curated list, waste no food, stop doing it. Stop wasting food.
Speaker 3: When we talk about the eighty twenty rule and what
Speaker 3: are the vital few and the useful many, the vital
Speaker 3: few are these most expensive parts of our spending monthly,
Speaker 3: and food is at the top of that list, alongside
Speaker 3: housing and transportation and bills and clothing. And I love
Speaker 3: this one kind of quote slash statistic from an article.
Speaker 3: We are going to look at this particular article because
Speaker 3: it's worth highlighting at the start of this tip. This
Speaker 3: is from USA to Day. This one really stood out
Speaker 3: to me and made me chuckle. So they were talking
Speaker 3: about five facts about food waste revealed from this survey
Speaker 3: that they did, and the number one fact revealed was
Speaker 3: that the price of food is the primary food related
Speaker 3: concern among eighty one percent of US households. Sidebar, we
Speaker 3: can affirm this. It is the number one requested type
Speaker 3: of episode from our listeners. Talk to me about food.
Speaker 3: Tell me how to reduce my grocery build tell me
Speaker 3: how I can save on my food. You name it
Speaker 3: all angles. You all want to know about food. I
Speaker 3: get it. I love food too. Okay, back to this article.
Speaker 3: Yet only thirty three percent are aware that the average
Speaker 3: American household could save at least at least fifteen hundred
Speaker 3: dollars a year by eliminating food waste, which is a
Speaker 3: little comical to me at least. That's how it's landing
Speaker 3: with me that we all want to know about how
Speaker 3: to save money on food, and yet we all are
Speaker 3: wasting various degrees of food and that is easy up.
Speaker 3: That's one of the things that's eating up our food
Speaker 3: budget by literally us not eating our food that we
Speaker 3: have purchased. To throw another stat at you, in October
Speaker 3: twenty twenty, the Census Bureau survey showed a four person
Speaker 3: household spent an average of two hundred and thirty eight
Speaker 3: dollars a week on food at home. Three years later,
Speaker 3: so twenty twenty three, to do some quick math, a
Speaker 3: similar survey showed that that figure had jumped to three
Speaker 3: hundred and fifteen dollars. That's roughly thirty two percent more.
Speaker 3: Part of that has to do with inflation, so that's
Speaker 3: an extra four thousand dollars extra a year on food
Speaker 3: at home. We can probably surmise that we're still wasting
Speaker 3: about the same amount, so that just means that our
Speaker 3: annual waste amount has increased as well. So I think
Speaker 3: we really need to be looking at what are we
Speaker 3: doing with the food that we purchase. Certainly there's things
Speaker 3: that we can be doing ahead of time of how
Speaker 3: do I purchase just the things that I need. Other
Speaker 3: hacks on how to reduce food waste. We've got episodes
Speaker 3: i'll talk about in a minute that I can direct
Speaker 3: you to on that. But then it's what comes next
Speaker 3: our ability are practicing and growing of that muscle of
Speaker 3: being able to eat what we already have at home.
Speaker 3: The largest known representative study of food waste in the
Speaker 3: United States has revealed that every state's habits when it
Speaker 3: comes to discarding groceries. Is this that we're wasting households with?
Speaker 3: And then this is wild too. More statistics for you,
Speaker 3: just to fire you up. Households with higher levels of education,
Speaker 3: higher levels of income, and lower age tend to waste
Speaker 3: more food. And to go further on, households with children
Speaker 3: tend to waste more foods per week, more food per
Speaker 3: week about eight and a half cups than those without
Speaker 3: children about five point one cups. That makes sense. I
Speaker 3: get that I don't have kids. This is Jill talking
Speaker 3: Jen do too. She's collecting them right now. And other
Speaker 3: parents that we're friends with. This is a common kind
Speaker 3: of round the table, living room conversation of man, we
Speaker 3: don't want to be but we find ourselves throwing away
Speaker 3: so much food when we have kids in the house.
Speaker 3: And this isn't to shame you all. None of this
Speaker 3: is shame. There are more barriers to reducing food waste
Speaker 3: and reducing food costs when you've got little ones at
Speaker 3: home when it's not just you that you're responsible for,
Speaker 3: but other people who maybe aren't as informed or not
Speaker 3: as willing to make some of the decisions that you'd
Speaker 3: make with food and might be picky the food got
Speaker 3: thrown on the floor. What are you gonna do? I
Speaker 3: get it. But I think opening our eyes to this
Speaker 3: reality as well when we're talking about how to save
Speaker 3: on groceries, how to save on this big ticket monthly cost,
Speaker 3: is how can we implement that creativity we've already talked
Speaker 3: about to make sure that we're eating the food that's
Speaker 3: in our house. So again, to steer you back to
Speaker 3: some of the archives, we've got some great episodes on
Speaker 3: this particular tip. If this seems to be one of
Speaker 3: the areas that you're like, yeah, that's me, how do
Speaker 3: I reduce my food waste? I'm going to steer you
Speaker 3: to episode two ten, which was Tips to Live Zero
Speaker 3: Waste Frugally. So we're not just talking about food there,
Speaker 3: We're talking about all types of waste. But that too
Speaker 3: is going to lower our bills across the board, from
Speaker 3: from our food to our miscellaneous budget, cleaning products, you
Speaker 3: name it. That episode's going to really help. So episode
Speaker 3: two ten is another good one to queue up. And
Speaker 3: then we've got episode one seventy six, which is an interview.
Speaker 3: We also love our interviews that is zero waste Ish
Speaker 3: cooking with Debt, Kick and Mom. So we've got this
Speaker 3: this woman who is also cooking at home, teaching us
Speaker 3: how to zero waste with our food, make use of
Speaker 3: all the ingredients that we already have in our house.
Speaker 3: I'm also going to do another plug for this no
Speaker 3: spend challenge that we're doing in January again, Get the Fruit,
Speaker 3: Get the Friend Letter, Frugal friendspodcast dot com. Follow us
Speaker 3: on Instagram because that's going to be a big One
Speaker 3: of the no spend challenge is how do we use
Speaker 3: up what's in our pantry, in our fridge. How do
Speaker 3: we keep ourselves from takeout restaurants that kind of a thing.
Speaker 3: This is this is a big one for our budgets.
Speaker 3: So follow along there, listen to those episodes two ten,
Speaker 3: one seventy six and just start taking note of what
Speaker 3: am I waste, saying how much food is going into
Speaker 3: the garbage and connecting that to your budget, recognizing that
Speaker 3: if I can reduce this, it's only going to help
Speaker 3: my wallet, not to mention all the other peripheral helpful
Speaker 3: impacts on the environment, on our nutrition, you name it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to emphasize that the study that we're
Speaker 1: referencing is on usable food, consumable food, so not inedible
Speaker 1: food scraps. So this is thirty percent of food that
Speaker 1: American homes are wasting. And if you're looking at it
Speaker 1: from an environmental perspective, like yes, manufacturers do waste far
Speaker 1: more food than American homes. But if you're looking at
Speaker 1: it from a budget perspective, forget meal planning, forget groceries,
Speaker 1: forget takeout. Just using the food that you have before
Speaker 1: it goes bad in a creative way so that you
Speaker 1: actually enjoy it.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 1: It is life changing to your budget when you can
Speaker 1: get resourceful and say, like, I'm not too good to
Speaker 1: eat this three d you know, to repurpose this three
Speaker 1: day old leftover, I am, you know, gonna look through
Speaker 1: for the oldest yet not expired sauce in my fridge
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna use it up today.
Speaker 4: Like to look through these things. I think the.
Speaker 1: The stat that the households that had the highest levels
Speaker 1: of education, levels of income, and lowest age. Wasting more
Speaker 1: food was super convicting to me because like, I don't
Speaker 1: consider myself like that bougie or like that, you know,
Speaker 1: scared of eating food, but I still waste food. As
Speaker 1: somebody who has two kids, I'm very cond just about
Speaker 1: food waste, and I don't consider myself like too good
Speaker 1: for three day old leftovers. And I'll push it. To
Speaker 1: be honest, this is.
Speaker 3: Once it hits a week, that's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I will I will still waste food. I'll
Speaker 1: still throw out my own food, not even my kids foods,
Speaker 1: just because I look at something and I don't want
Speaker 1: to eat it, and I don't want to repurpose it.
Speaker 1: And so these skills of repurposing and cooking for you,
Speaker 1: not for somebody you want to be.
Speaker 4: I think that's.
Speaker 1: Really going to be what helps with this food waste thing,
Speaker 1: because we all have like we all want to eat
Speaker 1: a certain way, but that doesn't mean that you really
Speaker 1: are they You really are the type of person that
Speaker 1: eats that way. So start cooking for you, start cooking
Speaker 1: for your family, and being more concerned with if if
Speaker 1: your budget is your biggest concern, right, if your health
Speaker 1: is your biggest concern we're having two different conversations. But
Speaker 1: if you are eating at home, you are by proxy
Speaker 1: eating healthier than takeout, So you're already winning there. But
Speaker 1: start cooking for you and not for the person you
Speaker 1: want to be in the future while you're trying to
Speaker 1: get your food waste under control. And yeah, the now
Speaker 1: Spend challenge is going to be great for me to
Speaker 1: go through my pantry and my freezer and kind of
Speaker 1: do a cleansing of the kitchen. I don't have a
Speaker 1: big stockpile or anything, but I still have stuff that
Speaker 1: has been sitting in there and I want to use
Speaker 1: it up. I don't want it to sit there anymore.
Speaker 1: So this is really going to be my January will
Speaker 1: be my kitchen cleanse, all right. So our next tip
Speaker 1: for twenty twenty four to free up more space in
Speaker 1: your budget to make your money plan work for you
Speaker 1: is to pay off any debt over ten percent and
Speaker 1: to never pay double digit interest again in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four or any year moving forward. And so we'll look
Speaker 1: at another article about like we'll cite some facts from
Speaker 1: this Motley Fool article on average American household debt and
Speaker 1: while inflation cooled in twenty twenty three, the average debt
Speaker 1: is up in nearly every category compared to twenty twenty.
Speaker 4: So this includes.
Speaker 1: Total household debt, credit card debt, mortgage debt, auto loan debt.
Speaker 1: The debt total is up by over two and a
Speaker 1: half trillion dollars since twenty twenty and so the Federal
Speaker 1: this is all like data from the Federal Reserve. It
Speaker 1: tracks the nation's household debt payments as a percentage of
Speaker 1: disposable income, and the most recent debt payment to income
Speaker 1: ratio that we have for this episode is from the
Speaker 1: second quarter of twenty twenty three, and it's showing that
Speaker 1: nine point eight percent of income is used to pay
Speaker 1: debt in some kind, which honestly is not that bad
Speaker 1: if you're including mortgage.
Speaker 4: Payments in there.
Speaker 1: But we're using that percentage to kind of guide our
Speaker 1: new recommendation. We used to recommend pay off anything over
Speaker 1: five percent, pay off any debt over five percent, but
Speaker 1: that's becoming increasingly more difficult to do. So if you're
Speaker 1: somebody who's bought a house or a car or gone
Speaker 1: to school recently, then start with ten percent. If you're
Speaker 1: looking at all your debt and you're like there's no
Speaker 1: way I have too much debt over five percent. I
Speaker 1: can't then start with ten percent. If that's not you,
Speaker 1: we still do highly recommend that any debt you have
Speaker 1: over five percent that you payoff quickly. And we don't
Speaker 1: mean just like prioritize it. I mean pay it off
Speaker 1: like your pants are on fire. We are not in
Speaker 1: the camp that all debt is bad, but there is
Speaker 1: some debt that holds you back more than others, and
Speaker 1: that's high interest debt.
Speaker 4: So pay put it.
Speaker 1: Is it behooves you to put your entire life on
Speaker 1: hold to pay off any debt that's above ten percent first,
Speaker 1: but if you're able to, then any debt over five percent.
Speaker 1: And so here are some of the stats from the article. So,
Speaker 1: the average revolving credit card debt is about six over
Speaker 1: six thousand dollars. It's about sixty three hundred dollars, and
Speaker 1: that debt has an average of twenty percent in interest.
Speaker 1: That your credit card debt should be at zero, and
Speaker 1: it should be revolving at zero. And so that is
Speaker 1: the first priority. If you're having trouble with your budget
Speaker 1: and you have revolving credit card card debt, that's the
Speaker 1: first place to focus on. We definitely focus on increasing
Speaker 1: your income and reducing your food ways, but your number
Speaker 1: one goal should be to pay off that credit card debt,
Speaker 1: and the next highest is personal loans. Those will have
Speaker 1: a ten to twelve percent rate. People with personal loans
Speaker 1: have an average about eleven or twelve thousand dollars in
Speaker 1: that so that would be your next one to pay off.
Speaker 1: And then not as common but still out there, private
Speaker 1: student loans. Those can be up to a sixteen percent rate,
Speaker 1: and people with private student loans usually have about fifty grand.
Speaker 1: So those are the things that we want to focus
Speaker 1: on before we do anything else. And once you have
Speaker 1: paid off, I would say maybe focus on your credit
Speaker 1: card debt first if you've got it, and then put
Speaker 1: yourself in a place to never get in credit card
Speaker 1: debt again. So that would be an emergency funds so
Speaker 1: that you don't have to worry about that again. And
Speaker 1: you may want to save your emergency fund first, that's
Speaker 1: fine as long as you don't lose the motivation to
Speaker 1: get rid of that high interest debt. This is what
Speaker 1: holds people back from being able to invest. It's what
Speaker 1: promotes lifestyle inflation that keeps you in this this cycle
Speaker 1: of paycheck to paycheck living where even if you earn more,
Speaker 1: you're still living paycheck to paycheck because of these habits
Speaker 1: that perpetuate high interest debt. And so this is kind
Speaker 1: of like that kitchen cleanse, but for your finances. This
Speaker 1: is a financial cleanse to get rid of that high
Speaker 1: interest debt and they never get it back again.
Speaker 3: And this one may need to go hand in hand
Speaker 3: with number one, which was to earn more. Sometimes we
Speaker 3: will be looking to who increase our income for maybe
Speaker 3: the sole purpose of paying down debt, and that in
Speaker 3: that situation might be where if you've exhausted your options
Speaker 3: in getting every last penny out of your chosen career path,
Speaker 3: then are there any low barrier to entry flexible side
Speaker 3: hustles that you could consider for a time. I'm not
Speaker 3: going to advocate that we all need to have side
Speaker 3: hustles indefinitely. Sometimes we choose to get some side work
Speaker 3: for a purpose, like getting rid of that twenty percent
Speaker 3: interest credit card debt. Is there something that you could
Speaker 3: do for three to six to nine months that is
Speaker 3: really going to make a debt and catapult you for
Speaker 3: the rest of twenty twenty four into twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: So those are the types of circumstances where you'd want
Speaker 3: to maybe consider a little bit above and beyond for
Speaker 3: a huge long term impact. That's the eighty twenty There
Speaker 3: you go, that's eighty twenty.
Speaker 1: Eight for those reasons for these quick side hustles to
Speaker 1: pay off debt like this, we have a Frugal side
Speaker 1: Hustle series, So if you need something to do for
Speaker 1: about six to nine months, we have several These are
Speaker 1: side hustles that are low costs to start but can
Speaker 1: have the potential to build into a business if entrepreneurship
Speaker 1: is something you're interested. So not every single frugal side
Speaker 1: hustle that we talk about in the series, we have
Speaker 1: about I think six to eight at this point is
Speaker 1: going to be good for paying off debt.
Speaker 4: But if it's.
Speaker 1: Something you're already like, we have a bookkeeping episode. If
Speaker 1: you are already familiar with bookkeeping, that's something you could
Speaker 1: take on as a side hustle, figure out how to
Speaker 1: take some clients, get the nuts and bolts for them,
Speaker 1: and then you know, potentially keep doing it if you
Speaker 1: like it, or once your high interest debt is paid off,
Speaker 1: you drop it. That's I kind of think our recommendation
Speaker 1: for this one. There's the debt snowball, the debt avalanche,
Speaker 1: and we have episodes that go into.
Speaker 4: More detail on that.
Speaker 1: But I think for high interest debt, we're definitely team
Speaker 1: avalanche because.
Speaker 4: It's so so insane.
Speaker 1: The interest rates are so insane right now, So I
Speaker 1: think your best bet is to focus on your lifestyle habits,
Speaker 1: not the method.
Speaker 4: In which you're paying off debt.
Speaker 1: To just do that high interest stuff, real real, real,
Speaker 1: real fast before you can think.
Speaker 4: Better of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And for our last and final tip for twenty
Speaker 3: twenty four, that is a heavy hitter for your finances
Speaker 3: long term is investing. We are going to encourage you
Speaker 3: to invest every month, no matter how and when we're
Speaker 3: talking about investing on this particular podcast, it's primarily for
Speaker 3: the purpose of retirement. We're not talking about kind of
Speaker 3: short term investments and using that as like a side hustle.
Speaker 3: That's just not what we do here, investing for retirement.
Speaker 3: So what we know about investing is that for those
Speaker 3: of us who are average income earners, time is on
Speaker 3: our side. We want to be investing early and often
Speaker 3: rather than waiting. This can still give us some of
Speaker 3: the benefits that those who maybe start later but have
Speaker 3: a ton of money to do it with can have.
Speaker 3: So if you invest every month for forty years, you
Speaker 3: only need to save one hundred eighty four thousand dollars
Speaker 3: of your own income to get one million dollars invested
Speaker 3: one hundred eighty four thousand to one million million. And
Speaker 3: that again is because it's time in the market. That's
Speaker 3: forty years. For many of us. We may not have
Speaker 3: started in our twenties. That's not going to be entirely possible,
Speaker 3: but that doesn't mean it's unattainable for you. If you're
Speaker 3: in your thirties forties, still start now. We don't have
Speaker 3: to wait until all of our debt is gone before
Speaker 3: we're investing again. We the frugal friends are definitely in
Speaker 3: the camp of we can do multiple things at the
Speaker 3: same time, especially when we're utilizing automation. We don't have
Speaker 3: to have our sits on this all day every day.
Speaker 3: We can set up some of this automation and be
Speaker 3: doing multiple things at the same time, just in the background. Versus,
Speaker 3: if you wait ten years and invest every month for
Speaker 3: thirty years, you'll need to have two hundred and ninety
Speaker 3: thousand dollars of your income invested in order to reach
Speaker 3: that one million dollars. Still great if you're in your thirties,
Speaker 3: but as you can see, the number increases pretty pretty
Speaker 3: hefty to go from investing for thirty years versus forty years.
Speaker 3: So you could save one hundred and twelve thousand dollars
Speaker 3: just by investing ten years earlier. So this is just
Speaker 3: your sign to start now. Time spent in the market
Speaker 3: is more valuable than trying to time the market.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is more of a budgeting tip to
Speaker 1: protect your future budget. So you are going to have
Speaker 1: bills for the rest of your life. Even if you
Speaker 1: own a home and you plan for it to be
Speaker 1: paid off, You're still going to have home insurance, You're
Speaker 1: still going to have lawn maintenance, You're still going to
Speaker 1: have taxes.
Speaker 4: This is an.
Speaker 1: Assurance that in the future you will have an income
Speaker 1: to budget for these expenses. We don't want to just
Speaker 1: think about the budget this month in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: we want to change our perspective to be thinking about
Speaker 1: the budgets in the upcoming months of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: We want to think about our budgets five years from now,
Speaker 1: and we want to think about our budgets in thirty
Speaker 1: or forty years from now, and we don't have to
Speaker 1: dwell on them.
Speaker 4: We don't have to. They don't They should not be
Speaker 4: our biggest focus.
Speaker 1: That's why we It behooves us to start earlier, even
Speaker 1: with a little So I did a couple calculations in
Speaker 1: preparing for this episode, and the one hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: four thousand dollars that is, let me pull it up,
Speaker 1: that is about three hundred and eighty three dollars a month.
Speaker 1: So if you contribute three hundred and eighty three, and
Speaker 1: normally math you would think, okay, if I start at
Speaker 1: twenty five and I contribute three hundred and eighty three
Speaker 1: dollars a month to my roth IRA, then I am
Speaker 1: going to have to invest more than if I start
Speaker 1: in ten years, because the extra ten years will be
Speaker 1: more money. When the alternative is true, If you just
Speaker 1: contribute three hundred and eighty three dollars a month for
Speaker 1: forty years at a seven percent rate of return, that
Speaker 1: is a million dollars, whereas the thirty five that jumps
Speaker 1: up to eight hundred and twenty one dollars a month.
Speaker 1: That you would have to contribute every month, and at
Speaker 1: that point you're beyond an IRA and you have to
Speaker 1: split it between the four oh one K and the IRA.
Speaker 1: So it it's so important. Even if you can't do
Speaker 1: three hundred dollars right now, if you're working on that
Speaker 1: high interest debt, I think that's more of a priority
Speaker 1: than investing. But once you get that high interest anything
Speaker 1: over ten percent paid off, even if you're not completely
Speaker 1: debt free, start investing.
Speaker 4: Do something.
Speaker 1: Even if it's fifty dollars a month, one hundred dollars
Speaker 1: a month, just make it a point to get one
Speaker 1: percent better every month. So or whatever percentage. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to do exact percentages, but maybe it's fifty dollars
Speaker 1: this month, it's seventy five dollars next month, we're going
Speaker 1: to eighty the next month. Get a little bit better
Speaker 1: every month. But start today, start.
Speaker 3: Now, And for anyone who has not been listening to
Speaker 3: us for a while, we're talking about our four to
Speaker 3: oh one k's getting the employee match if it's offered
Speaker 3: at your place of employment, your roth iras or traditional iras,
Speaker 3: that these are what we're talking about investing in for retirement.
Speaker 3: We've got episodes that go more into that how to
Speaker 3: invest simply, so definitely go back into the archives for
Speaker 3: that as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the the idea that we want to
Speaker 1: get across to our listeners in twenty twenty four and
Speaker 1: this is how we're planning our episodes in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: And you can be part of that. If you're one
Speaker 1: of our friend letter subscribers. Then we do a poll
Speaker 1: in every newsletter where we get feedback from you on
Speaker 1: what you want to hear on the show, how you
Speaker 1: want the information presented, what's most valuable to you. But
Speaker 1: the direction that we kind of want to guide you
Speaker 1: in is to just take little actions. Now, let's forget
Speaker 1: this mindset that has been drilled into us that we
Speaker 1: have to go all or nothing, that in order to
Speaker 1: change we have to overhaul our entire life. That if
Speaker 1: we're not following a perfect budget, then we're not capable
Speaker 1: of budgeting that one percent better is better. That we
Speaker 1: need to make budgets that fit our life, not fit
Speaker 1: our lives to a perfect budget. And so if you
Speaker 1: can look at what you're spending, and this is why
Speaker 1: we love to you know, telling people do a ninety
Speaker 1: day transaction inventory. Look at what you spent over the
Speaker 1: last ninety days. That's going to tell you who you
Speaker 1: are right now, for better or for wisp whether you
Speaker 1: like it or not.
Speaker 4: What you've spent over the.
Speaker 1: Last ninety days tells you who you are, and then
Speaker 1: you get to decide from there. Do I like what
Speaker 1: I see? Do I love what I see? Am I
Speaker 1: buying what I love? If you're not, then you can
Speaker 1: change it. But you get to decide what you love.
Speaker 1: Nobody else decides for you. Don't just like you. You
Speaker 1: shouldn't meal plan or cook for somebody else or somebody
Speaker 1: you want to be. You shouldn't budget for somebody who
Speaker 1: you are not. I know people say fake it till
Speaker 1: you make it, or dress for the job you want.
Speaker 4: That doesn't here.
Speaker 1: We really have to be looking at who we are
Speaker 1: and then looking how can I get better? How can
Speaker 1: I get my definition of better? How can I make
Speaker 1: my budget look more like something I'm really proud of? Uh,
Speaker 1: and forget everyone else. I want to be proud, and
Speaker 1: hopefully that pride includes reaching your financial goals, paying off debt,
Speaker 1: and investing.
Speaker 4: But we can't tell you what that looks like. Hopefully
Speaker 4: it does.
Speaker 1: But I think that's going to be the biggest takeaway
Speaker 1: we want people to get from this episode and from
Speaker 1: episodes in twenty twenty four is that one percent better mentality.
Speaker 3: And so much of this is the intangibles that what
Speaker 3: we talk about here is beyond just behaviors and how
Speaker 3: we can manipulate numbers and percentage points, but our whole
Speaker 3: person and how this intersects with our financeial selves alongside
Speaker 3: every other aspect of who we are, how we move
Speaker 3: through life, how we're showing up in the world, what
Speaker 3: we want to see for ourselves now and in the future,
Speaker 3: and that requires digging deeper, that requires individualizing these things,
Speaker 3: and it also creates space for so much freedom and
Speaker 3: flexibility that it's not a one size fits all. But
Speaker 3: that's why there's no exact hack for how your budget
Speaker 3: can do better, because it's so much more dynamic than that,
Speaker 3: and it includes looking at and diving into all aspects
Speaker 3: of who we want what we want. And that's the
Speaker 3: whole archive of the Frugal Friends podcast that we will
Speaker 3: just continue to talk about in twenty twenty four of
Speaker 3: how do we integrate all of this together and take
Speaker 3: what we're learning in every aspect of life and allow
Speaker 3: our one percent better in our relational life, to allow
Speaker 3: us to be one percent better in our financial life.
Speaker 3: Wherever we are improving ourselves or aiming at our best
Speaker 3: possible self and well being, it will have a positive
Speaker 3: impact on our finances also, and I'm here for that,
Speaker 3: and I'm here for it not being the same for
Speaker 3: everybody and doing some of that work of what is
Speaker 3: our thought life filled with what's happening in our emotions.
Speaker 3: That's going to then play into the actions of the
Speaker 3: budget and the numbers. But we've got to start there,
Speaker 3: and we're here for you. You know what else we're
Speaker 3: also here for and we're here for ourselves on this
Speaker 3: one too.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty four and beyond, we will be here
Speaker 1: for it.
Speaker 5: The Villa of the week, that's right, it's time for
Speaker 5: the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby
Speaker 5: was born and his name is Williams. Maybe you've paid
Speaker 5: off your mortgage, Maybe your car died and you're happy
Speaker 5: to not have to pay that bill anymore. Duck bills,
Speaker 5: Buffalo bills, bill clean. This is the bill of the week.
Speaker 6: Hi Jin and Jill, I am a longtime listener here
Speaker 6: Rachelle Pond, and I am happy to get back on
Speaker 6: here and share a new Bill of the week with
Speaker 6: you guys. Recently, our washing machine was just having like
Speaker 6: some serious issues. It was making like a burning smell
Speaker 6: and it was like smoking, and it sounded like it
Speaker 6: was a rocket ship like about to take off in
Speaker 6: the space. Like it was so loud, not cleaning their
Speaker 6: clothes well moldy, just like just like a gross situation.
Speaker 6: And my husband out, you know, we contemplated, like what
Speaker 6: are we gonna do? Are we gonna try to should
Speaker 6: we just get another one? And you know, I my
Speaker 6: brain space right now. I'm currently expecting our third child
Speaker 6: and I need a washing.
Speaker 4: Machine as soon as possible.
Speaker 6: And so I told my husband, hey, this is exactly
Speaker 6: why we have an emergency fund. And so we went
Speaker 6: out and bought a new washer and dryer and it
Speaker 6: was such an easy choice to make. And this is
Speaker 6: everybody's reminder to go and get you save an emergency
Speaker 6: fund because it makes these things less of an inconvenience.
Speaker 6: But anyway, I'm definitely looking forward to paying that because
Speaker 6: we worked hard to make that happen. Anyway, Thanks you guys,
Speaker 6: and I appreciate, appreciate you, Chelle.
Speaker 4: So good to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Yes, we recognize our long term our long time listeners,
Speaker 1: and it's always sweet to feel feel like we're having
Speaker 1: a phone convote with you.
Speaker 4: So congrats.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think you've left a bill for us in
Speaker 3: the past. So excited to hear this updated one. And really,
Speaker 3: there were so many adjectives to describe your washing machine.
Speaker 3: I mean, all of the things are happening, from burning
Speaker 3: to mold. It sounded unredeemable. And when you're expecting a
Speaker 3: third child, I support you. Sometimes you just need to
Speaker 3: get the thing that works, and you need it now,
Speaker 3: and especially when you've already got money set aside because
Speaker 3: you've prepared for rainy days like this and you're not
Speaker 3: going into debt for it and you can solve your issue.
Speaker 3: Sometimes money just solves our issues.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah done.
Speaker 1: That's the thing about having an emergency fund and having
Speaker 1: at least some cushion so that you don't have to
Speaker 1: go into high interest debt. These situations are not emergencies.
Speaker 1: They just become inconveniences. And that is financial freedom. It's
Speaker 1: not just having money in the bank. It's the freedom.
Speaker 1: It's the emotional and mental freedom from the stress that
Speaker 1: money brings. That's financial freedom. And that's what a financial cushion,
Speaker 1: an emergency fund does for you. It takes the things
Speaker 1: we are used to being, these emergencies, these traumatic events,
Speaker 1: these crises where we make really poor decisions because we're
Speaker 1: so stressed on top of everything else we've got going on.
Speaker 1: It just double down on the bad decisions. It takes
Speaker 1: those and just turns them into like annoyances. And I
Speaker 1: will take an annoyance over an emergency any day. That's
Speaker 1: financial freedom. So well done, Rachelle.
Speaker 3: If you all listening have been a lot long time listener,
Speaker 3: or your brand spanking new, if you've got a gross
Speaker 3: washing machine or you'll love your washing machine, if you've
Speaker 3: got an emergency fund, or you don't have an emergency fund,
Speaker 3: or your name is just Bill, call us up, leave
Speaker 3: us your bill of the week. The more vague, the better. Also,
Speaker 3: if it's a useful tip, we're here for it. If
Speaker 3: it's celebratory, that's great. Fugal friendspodcast dot com slash Bill,
Speaker 3: we cannot wait to hear it. And now it's time.
Speaker 4: For you, all right.
Speaker 1: So in our vulnerability around this week, we are talking
Speaker 1: about our own personal biggest money lessons of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: because if you're not growing, you're dead.
Speaker 4: And if you're not learning, you are sad sadness.
Speaker 3: Wow, So jieh, I did lord to learn this year?
Speaker 3: Well this, I learned this. It's not related to money.
Speaker 3: Your feet and your ears keep growing throughout life. They
Speaker 3: don't stop growing. And I think your nose is that
Speaker 3: true too. I might be spouting off facts that aren't listen.
Speaker 3: I don't do it, aren't real. Yeah, it's what we
Speaker 3: do over here at the podcast.
Speaker 1: Definitely grow when you are pregnant. That is one hundred
Speaker 1: percent fact. And sometimes they don't grow back, they don't degrow.
Speaker 3: Okay, money lesson, A little bit of money. Action. For me,
Speaker 3: my money lesson was action. I Twenty twenty three was
Speaker 3: the year I kind of started to get it together.
Speaker 3: I know I've said that I've been doing this.
Speaker 1: Podcast show Jill started getting things together in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4: Maybe don't listen to any episodes for this year.
Speaker 3: Getting it together in some in some real ways for sure.
Speaker 3: I think I finally had the mental space in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three to do some of the tasks of personal finance,
Speaker 3: like really getting an eye on where I'm banking, moving
Speaker 3: some things around into better banking situations. For example, I
Speaker 3: a high yield savings account. Don't be sleeping on this, everybody,
Speaker 3: don't be sleeping How.
Speaker 1: Skill to get a high yield savings account? For five years?
Speaker 3: Oh? And I would have told it everybody else to
Speaker 3: do it? Do it?
Speaker 2: Do it?
Speaker 3: Get yourself off highield savings account? Was I doing it? No?
Speaker 3: Because I was so maxed out? And you know what
Speaker 3: if that's you two, I get it, I get it,
Speaker 3: but hey, there's a few more days left in the
Speaker 3: holiday and in twenty twenty three, do it. Do not
Speaker 3: sleep on this, because here here's the thing, friends, high
Speaker 3: old savings account is just it sounds like it's a
Speaker 3: savings account. You can put money in, you can take
Speaker 3: money out, there's no rules about how long you got
Speaker 3: to keep money in, there's no restrictions on being able
Speaker 3: to take money out of it. This is where your
Speaker 3: emergency fund should be. This is where any extra savings
Speaker 3: should be housed. We are loving CIIT. I mean, they're
Speaker 3: not entirely sponsoring us, but they are an affiliate. But
Speaker 3: we also do believe in them for all friends podcast
Speaker 3: dot com slash ciit. That does help us out. But
Speaker 3: also they are offering the best interests back on your money.
Speaker 3: So they've got last time I checked, which was yesterday,
Speaker 3: because now I'm all on this high old savings account kick.
Speaker 3: They're offering like four point sixty five very close to
Speaker 3: five percent back on your money. And it is what
Speaker 3: it sounds like. So if you've got thousands of dollars
Speaker 3: in just a regular savings account that is getting you money,
Speaker 3: you need to put it here. Because I'm getting like
Speaker 3: a hundred to two hundred dollars a month just on
Speaker 3: my money. My money is making me money, and that's
Speaker 3: not even in like the stock market investment account. This
Speaker 3: is just a high yield savings account. So I'm probably
Speaker 3: getting loud and it sounds like I'm yelling at you,
Speaker 3: But my money lesson can be your money lesson. Get
Speaker 3: it in order. You know what else I'm doing. This
Speaker 3: is going to happen before twenty twenty three is over
Speaker 3: for me? Term life insurance. Yeah, I tell everyone else
Speaker 3: to do it.
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: Have I told everyone else to do it? I? Have
Speaker 3: you've heard me? I've told you to do it? Have
Speaker 3: I done it? No? You want to know why, because
Speaker 3: I'm over here, like I don't have kids, this is
Speaker 3: this is no big deal. And now I'm like, no,
Speaker 3: if I die, I need to leave some money for
Speaker 3: my husband and my family, who hopefully will bury me
Speaker 3: somewhere that is legal to bury a body, and they're
Speaker 3: going to need money for that. So term life insurance.
Speaker 3: And there's more reasons to have money left behind than
Speaker 3: just burying you and legal places.
Speaker 4: But that's that's beautiful.
Speaker 1: I I'll be honest. I also don't have term life insurance,
Speaker 1: but it's for different reasons. But Travis does have term
Speaker 1: life insurance and because at one point he was more
Speaker 1: likely to die.
Speaker 4: Those lines of blurred.
Speaker 3: Now so we've been here for close to six years.
Speaker 3: We don't know how much longer we'll be here. Right
Speaker 3: for Friends podcast dot Com slash Ladder, Yes, that is.
Speaker 4: The one that we love the most currently.
Speaker 3: This is who I'm using.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's amazing. I while we're on the vulnerability train,
Speaker 1: I do have multiple high yield savings accounts and love them,
Speaker 1: but my emergency fund has been in an investment account
Speaker 1: for the last several years. Oh, Jen, right, And which
Speaker 1: is what nobody should do. Which we tell everyone don't
Speaker 1: do thish, and this is I'm gonna be I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be completely honest with you. We are not the only
Speaker 1: people with personal finance podcasts that are not doing what
Speaker 1: we tell people to do. But I am actually gonna
Speaker 1: try again to get life insurance.
Speaker 4: I have waited the.
Speaker 1: Amount of days that I think is valid to wait
Speaker 1: to try again, and I'm gonna use Ladder to try
Speaker 1: this time. So definitely high old savings accounts and yeah,
Speaker 1: Frugal Friends podcast dot com, slash c I T that's
Speaker 1: a given, and then life insurance for me my biggest
Speaker 1: money lesson this year besides don't put your emergency fund
Speaker 1: an investment account, which is the lesson I've always known.
Speaker 3: But you also do have money in a high yield
Speaker 3: savings account, so you're not. I mean, I think our
Speaker 3: listeners need to hear that correctly, That it's not as
Speaker 3: if you don't have money accessible to you when you
Speaker 3: need it.
Speaker 1: Correct So I guess I could say that that is
Speaker 1: that has just been in my head marked is my
Speaker 1: emergency fund, but I could just as easily say this
Speaker 1: other money over here is the emergency fund, and this
Speaker 1: money is not you're.
Speaker 3: You're just squirreling. You've got you've done for Galaxy squirrel
Speaker 3: and mindset so well that you you've got a lot
Speaker 3: of different accounts that you are kind of at the
Speaker 3: point where you can play a little bit because yeah,
Speaker 3: we're not talking your paycheck to paycheck and you've got
Speaker 3: no accessible fund. So that's an important caveat there.
Speaker 4: This is true. Thank you, Jill, Thank you for trying
Speaker 4: to save me.
Speaker 3: We we don't want those one stars.
Speaker 1: So my biggest money lesson this year has been the
Speaker 1: just another lesson in I still have scarcity mindset issues
Speaker 1: that I need to work on. So Travis took a
Speaker 1: pay cut this year to work a job that was
Speaker 1: a much better schedule. And this is a job that
Speaker 1: he can work for one to two years and will
Speaker 1: give him a lot better. It will give him a
Speaker 1: totally different skill set in his industry and he can
Speaker 1: go and take the skills that he's gained from this
Speaker 1: job and his previous jobs to do something much better.
Speaker 1: But we had to make the decision that for a
Speaker 1: couple years we're going to be living on a pay cut,
Speaker 1: and that was very hard for me as somebody who
Speaker 1: loves safety and stability, and had already inflated my lifestyle
Speaker 1: to a certain extent, part of that extent being formula.
Speaker 1: I stopped breast feeding, and formula is expensive, but I
Speaker 1: hated breastfeeding and I could afford to buy formula. And
Speaker 1: then Travis wanted to take a picot and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm already like the ship has sailed from this back, yo,
Speaker 1: So I kind of had to look at I really
Speaker 1: had to look at the ways that I had inflated
Speaker 1: my lifestyle and deflate it. So this second half of
Speaker 1: the year has really been spent looking at ways to
Speaker 1: deflate my lifestyle, not because it hadn't inflated that crazy,
Speaker 1: just because the price of goods has gone up so
Speaker 1: much and we're making, you know, a significant amount less,
Speaker 1: not like crazy, but but it's noticeable. So that has
Speaker 1: been and that's one of the reasons I'm doing no
Speaker 1: spend January too. It was my idea that we do
Speaker 1: know'spend January because I am actively looking for ways to
Speaker 1: deflate my lifestyle to no fault of my own, just
Speaker 1: life circumstances have changed, and I've got to find ways
Speaker 1: to cut back that will not make me feel deprived.
Speaker 3: We both are saying our top tip for twenty twenty
Speaker 3: four is earn more, and yet simultaneously, both Jen and
Speaker 3: I are actively earning less in twenty twenty four than
Speaker 3: we did previously, but it's with a purpose and a
Speaker 3: goal in mind. I think there's part of this where
Speaker 3: we can create some freedom and flexibility for ourselves as
Speaker 3: we implement on these tips that we've talked about over
Speaker 3: the past five years that allow for some of that
Speaker 3: job flexibility, we are able to implement creativity and problem
Speaker 3: solving to be able to go after careers and jobs
Speaker 3: and lifestyles that don't require so much. But also for
Speaker 3: certain times, right there are seasons that we move in
Speaker 3: and out of. There may be seasons where we have
Speaker 3: to earn more because we want that high interest credit
Speaker 3: card debt gone, or there's seasons where it's actually more
Speaker 3: important for us to free up our time so we
Speaker 3: can go after this job that were entrepreneurial. We want
Speaker 3: to have our own small business, and so it's going
Speaker 3: to mean some sacrifice in this other area. So this
Speaker 3: is that no one size fits all situation. While we're
Speaker 3: talking vulnerability, that's another reason we're doing a no it's
Speaker 3: been challenge.
Speaker 1: So wherever you find yourself, we're here for Google Friends
Speaker 1: will be making more in twenty twenty four. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just twenty twenty three. We took intentional pay cuts so
Speaker 1: that in twenty twenty four we would have more space
Speaker 1: to earn more it.
Speaker 3: I love it. We're all moving and shaking, taking what works,
Speaker 3: leaving the rest behind. There are times when I'm doing
Speaker 3: all four of these tips we just said, and times
Speaker 3: when I'm just doing one or two of them. So
Speaker 3: hopefully you can find yourself there too. Hopefully you'll be
Speaker 3: along for the ride with us in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: especially that January No Spend Challenge, Frugal friendspodcast dot com,
Speaker 3: get the friend Letter, follow us on Instagram. Thanks for
Speaker 3: listening you all. You know what. We also love reading
Speaker 3: your kind reviews. So many of you are leaving such
Speaker 3: thoughtful reviews. This one comes from Hannah M who titled
Speaker 3: it Dynamic Duo in all caps. We love all caps.
Speaker 3: We also love alliteration. Thanks Hannah. She said, Jen and
Speaker 3: Jill are the best. Both my husband and I love
Speaker 3: listening to them and their fun twist of frugality. They
Speaker 3: make saving money fun. This year, we've started our journey
Speaker 3: to becoming debt free. On days when I just want
Speaker 3: to go to Target to buy decorative pillows or cozysucks,
Speaker 3: cue up the pod to keep me motivated and focused
Speaker 3: on the goal. Thanks Jen and Jill for changing the
Speaker 3: frugal game. You're welcome, man. I'm here for you. I
Speaker 3: am here for you keeping you out of Target and
Speaker 3: away from Starbucks. If that's it.
Speaker 1: We are the useful many. We are here for you
Speaker 1: in your day to day life, and we're so thankful
Speaker 1: that you keep us around. So thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed the show, please take a minute to
Speaker 1: leave a rating and review. If you've listened to a
Speaker 1: specific episode of the podcast that really gave you some
Speaker 1: new insight or helped you in some way, please cite
Speaker 1: that episode in the review so people know kind of
Speaker 1: what shows they might want to queue up first, even
Speaker 1: if the latest few are not for them.
Speaker 4: So thank you so.
Speaker 3: Much, See you next time.
Speaker 4: Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Siriani.
Speaker 3: Jen, what do you think is going to be the
Speaker 3: hardest part of no Spend January?
Speaker 4: Takeout?
Speaker 3: Recording videos every single day?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: That I think I will not have time to go
Speaker 1: out and spend money, because I'll be spending so much
Speaker 1: time overthinking what I'm posting to TikTok and Instagram. I
Speaker 1: think that's really I think, really that's the lesson that
Speaker 1: we're going to learn.
Speaker 4: By the end of January.
Speaker 1: If you want to stop spending money, challenge yourself to
Speaker 1: post thirty videos in thirty days on Instagram. I really
Speaker 1: think that's going to be our takeaway. So I think
Speaker 1: we should do it.
Speaker 4: We should.
Speaker 3: We should revisit our days of when I was in
Speaker 3: an RV living in your backyard, and we pulled our
Speaker 3: food together for dinner almost every night. We did quarantee
Speaker 3: the beginning of the beginning of the pandemic together and
Speaker 3: actually there's some fond mems there, so that can help us.
Speaker 3: We can like, what food do you got? What food
Speaker 3: do I got? Let's make something of it. Oh my gosh, I.
Speaker 1: Miss those I was thinking about those days the other day,
Speaker 1: and I really think that we should come together pool
Speaker 1: our resources.
Speaker 4: Now you have a bomb kitchen.
Speaker 1: It's not a dumpster fire anymore, it's the bomb and
Speaker 1: we should hang out there.
Speaker 3: Umster fire anymore. Oh, such a good thing.
Speaker 4: Okay, Yeah, looking forward to it.
Speaker 3: Bye bye,