Speaker 1: Budget Better Bonus Series Step two Make changes Now.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to
Speaker 2: save money, embrace simplicity, and liver your life. Here your
Speaker 2: hosts Jen and Jill.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen,
Speaker 1: my name is Jill, and we are back with Part two,
Speaker 1: which is step two of our Budget Better Bonus series,
Speaker 1: and we are looking at current changes to make once
Speaker 1: you have looked at your past transactions.
Speaker 3: So if you tuned in yesterday, if you're following along
Speaker 3: with us kind of in real time, yesterday we talked
Speaker 3: about a ninety day transaction inventory, being able to look
Speaker 3: at the past. Today we're talking about a thirty day
Speaker 3: no spend challenge, so what things we can do in
Speaker 3: the present, And we're going to talk about making a
Speaker 3: spending plan so future. So we're doing the whole ghost
Speaker 3: of Christmas, past, present and future for you in between
Speaker 3: the holidays.
Speaker 2: And I was just fun.
Speaker 1: I wish I had watched the Christmas Story. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: wish i'd watched to prepare, but I didn't. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3: You've never watched any of the rest.
Speaker 1: Have well, the Muppets version is the best, but are
Speaker 1: just like not up on it right now. Okay, so
Speaker 1: let's talk about changes to make now. The reason we
Speaker 1: start with the past is that we in our heads
Speaker 1: might have an idea of what changes we need to make,
Speaker 1: but more often than not, those ideas are not rooted
Speaker 1: in reality. They're rooted in fear or misconception or somebody
Speaker 1: else's ideology. So we look at our past, and we
Speaker 1: look at real numbers, but we also look at emotional
Speaker 1: weight too. Some sometimes numbers may be minimal, but the
Speaker 1: mental load of that action is really great. So we
Speaker 1: want to balance by making changes, figuring out what changes
Speaker 1: we want to make that benefit us most, both financially
Speaker 1: and mentally. And so the way that we do that
Speaker 1: in a really efficient way is a thirty day no
Speaker 1: spend challenge. And the reason we do that is because
Speaker 1: when you take thirty days, not a year, not two years,
Speaker 1: we want to learn how to spend, not how not
Speaker 1: to spend right, So we do thirty days to take
Speaker 1: time and pause before we make current spending decisions, and
Speaker 1: equipped with the knowledge we just got from our transaction inventory,
Speaker 1: we can better understand our propensity to make some of
Speaker 1: the decisions we would have made outside of the No
Speaker 1: Spend Challenge, but for thirty days, we want to have
Speaker 1: an automatic no to any discretionary purchase so that we
Speaker 1: are given time to think about the triggers, think about
Speaker 1: the route behind it. So whether it's social activity, all
Speaker 1: those things we talked about yesterday, we have space to
Speaker 1: think about the root cause and we have space to
Speaker 1: get creative with how we meet the desire or the
Speaker 1: need that we're really trying to get at. We say
Speaker 1: that frugality it's not about wanting less, training yourself self
Speaker 1: disciplining yourself to want less, to desire less, but to
Speaker 1: just meet your needs differently in a way that doesn't
Speaker 1: cost you as much money or maybe it's your other resources,
Speaker 1: maybe doesn't cause you as much time or mental load
Speaker 1: or physical space. That's what we want to do, and
Speaker 1: we don't do that unless we for ourselves to take
Speaker 1: space for creativity. And that's what the No Spend Challenge
Speaker 1: really allows us to do. It gives us a reprieve
Speaker 1: from the decision fatigue that comes with making spending decisions
Speaker 1: and gives space to get creative, innovate, play around, and
Speaker 1: then go back and learn from those thirty days.
Speaker 3: This might sound a little bit radical or extreme, and
Speaker 3: you know us, we don't love extremes. We love the
Speaker 3: radical middle. But the radical middle is only found by
Speaker 3: understanding the extremes and picking and choosing from those extremes
Speaker 3: what is actually beneficial. There's a reason that we're drawn
Speaker 3: to either end of the spending spectrum, and so to understand, well,
Speaker 3: what is good about this end of the spectrum and
Speaker 3: what can I take with me that will lead to
Speaker 3: some degrees of longevity in spending better. So part of
Speaker 3: our understanding for this no spend challenge and the benefit
Speaker 3: of it comes from the research of doctor Ann Lemke
Speaker 3: in her book Dopamine Nation, which we do reference in
Speaker 3: our book by What You Love without Going Broke, And
Speaker 3: she does this work with people around addiction, all types
Speaker 3: of addiction, and has them do essentially a dopamine fast,
Speaker 3: so like removing themselves from engaging in whatever that activity is,
Speaker 3: whether it be shopping is one example, but kind of
Speaker 3: all ends of the spectrum with addiction, and recognizes that
Speaker 3: in stopping for thirty days that there's actually some really
Speaker 3: great even physical neurological benefits where there is rewiring of
Speaker 3: the neural pathways and a decreasing need for the levels
Speaker 3: of dopamine that the body and the brain were accustomed to. Now,
Speaker 3: dopamine's not wrong, there's nothing like. It's a beautiful thing
Speaker 3: that our body does and releases, and it is good
Speaker 3: to engage in some of these activities that give us
Speaker 3: that happy hormone. But sometimes especially for us when it
Speaker 3: comes to money and spending money, we have this release
Speaker 3: in our brains when we make an impulse purchase, usually
Speaker 3: just before we make the purchase, and so this is
Speaker 3: a thirty day no spend challenge is a way to
Speaker 3: kind of also interrupt not just those habits, but our
Speaker 3: engagement with the dopamine releases within our bodies and the
Speaker 3: ways that that's connected with some of our spending decisions
Speaker 3: and behaviors. Not to always and forever continue to deprive ourselves.
Speaker 3: Even the research in dopamination points to reincorporating some of
Speaker 3: these actions back into place, but in healthier ways with
Speaker 3: the addition of other coping mechanisms. So we visit this
Speaker 3: extreme of a no spend challenge to be able to
Speaker 3: understand ourselves better, reset those dopamine receptors, create new and
Speaker 3: different neural pathways, and understand what else can we be
Speaker 3: engaging in going forward, What creative ways of solving our problems,
Speaker 3: meeting our needs, getting out our values can we be
Speaker 3: doing and maybe even more accurately to the need. There
Speaker 3: are times that we might just spend because it's all
Speaker 3: we know to do, it's what we've been trained and
Speaker 3: socialized to do. But when we have an opportunity to
Speaker 3: opt out, like I view a no spend challenge as
Speaker 3: kind of opting out of consumerism, opting out of consumption,
Speaker 3: not for forever, but to be able to learn ourselves,
Speaker 3: learn the world around us, learn what we actually enjoy
Speaker 3: spending money on. That's what this provides, an opportunity to do,
Speaker 3: an opportunity for learning that. Then we can more easily
Speaker 3: find our radicals from there.
Speaker 1: All right, so let's talk about what to expect on
Speaker 1: a no spend challenge. I'll say, first off, when you
Speaker 1: are going on a path and you decide to change directions,
Speaker 1: whether like whether you're walking or you're in a car,
Speaker 1: you will experience friction as you stop and physically change
Speaker 1: your direction. You the further you are changing your direction,
Speaker 1: the more friction you experience. And that's so that you
Speaker 1: don't fly off the path. Friction is healthy, and friction
Speaker 1: is what you will be experiencing during a no spend challenge.
Speaker 1: The entire month is a challenge. That's what we call
Speaker 1: it a challenge. If it's not challenging for you, you're not
Speaker 1: learning anything. So mistakes will be made, things will be
Speaker 1: done out of habit that you didn't want to do.
Speaker 1: These are not failures. This does not mean you stop
Speaker 1: and then just try again next month. These are part
Speaker 1: of the process, part of the challenge, part of the learning.
Speaker 1: So embrace the friction, lean into it, and view it
Speaker 1: as healthy. View these difficult difficulties as healthy learning experiences.
Speaker 1: So right off the bat, know that. And in doctor
Speaker 1: Lemke's studies, she found her patients the first two weeks
Speaker 1: of their fasting, they were miserable. The brain's reward pleasure
Speaker 1: pathways were starting to reprogram, but weren't there yet. So
Speaker 1: in her patients sustaining specifically from like physical things like
Speaker 1: cannabis or sugar, their physical withdraw symptoms peaked in the
Speaker 1: second week, So you could be experiencing some of that too,
Speaker 1: if a lot of your overspending is on food related things.
Speaker 1: But after four weeks, the pathways she found were almost
Speaker 1: totally rewired, and most patients reported positive experiences. So even
Speaker 1: during those tough times, know that research shows that good
Speaker 1: experiences are on the way even when we're looking. The
Speaker 1: brain can do fantastic things in four weeks, even like
Speaker 1: the brain's gray matter when it shrinks from alcohol abuse,
Speaker 1: can begin reversing within just two weeks of abstinence. And
Speaker 1: we say in the book seventy seven percent of athletes
Speaker 1: with mild traumatic brain injuries recover within four weeks. So
Speaker 1: there is a lot happening in this challenge, so be
Speaker 1: prepared for it to be difficult, but keep going.
Speaker 3: So in addition to not doing it perfectly and absolutely
Speaker 3: coming upon barriers, you're also you also can expect that
Speaker 3: you're going to be able to exercise some of your creativity.
Speaker 3: So with a no spend challenge, you are deciding what
Speaker 3: you are and aren't spending on. You've made the list
Speaker 3: of what we're saying no to. We definitely recommend as
Speaker 3: many discretionary categories as possible. Right obviously we're still saying
Speaker 3: yes to keeping a roof over our heads and being
Speaker 3: able to buy gas to get to work, but we
Speaker 3: get to decide all these other categories. Whether it's we're
Speaker 3: not spending on food out, or we're also pairing it
Speaker 3: with a pantry challenge and we're only eating the things
Speaker 3: that we already have in our cupboards and in our freezers,
Speaker 3: or we're not spending on activities out, you name it,
Speaker 3: or maybe all of it is going to happen for
Speaker 3: you if you really want to just like throw it
Speaker 3: all at the wall and learn about yourself. It will
Speaker 3: also force you to engage in some unique problem solving
Speaker 3: and creativity. And we recommend that you don't say no
Speaker 3: to fun. This is just saying no to a lot
Speaker 3: of categories of spending for a short period of time.
Speaker 3: But what we can do is look at where are
Speaker 3: there free activities happening? In What ways can I be
Speaker 3: the initiator of some of these fun events? What are
Speaker 3: the things that I'm finding are really difficult pain points
Speaker 3: for me? Like I was about to pull out my
Speaker 3: credit card and I didn't like what I felt It
Speaker 3: came across some of that friction. What can I do instead?
Speaker 3: Because it does need to be replaced with something. This
Speaker 3: is not just about deprivation, it's about recreating some patterns
Speaker 3: of behavior finding alternatives, learning more about what we like,
Speaker 3: what lights us up. So even in some of the
Speaker 3: planning process, I would recommend having a list of maybe
Speaker 3: things you want to try, hobbies, you want to re
Speaker 3: engage in, things that you think you might want to
Speaker 3: do when you come upon some of this friction and
Speaker 3: maybe be prepared expect to be surprised by yourself. That
Speaker 3: you may find that there are things that are easier
Speaker 3: in this process than when you thought what you thought,
Speaker 3: and possibly parts that are more difficult in areas that
Speaker 3: you didn't think. Either way, you're going to learn about yourself.
Speaker 3: So that's a huge expectation that you can have.
Speaker 1: All right, So how do we prepare for a no
Speaker 1: spend challenge? There's three steps to a no spend challenge, preparing, abstaining,
Speaker 1: and learning. So the first is to prepare, and that
Speaker 1: ninety day transaction inventory is part of that. You set
Speaker 1: yourself up for failure if you don't know what to
Speaker 1: expect to be difficult when you start this no spend challenge.
Speaker 1: But after your ninety day transaction inventory, you have a
Speaker 1: good idea of what's going to be difficult in the
Speaker 1: upcoming month, and you can prepare for that. So whether
Speaker 1: that's needing to change a route to where you how
Speaker 1: you get somewhere to avoid passing a place that you
Speaker 1: spend at habitually, or it's making your coffee at home
Speaker 1: before you leave to go somewhere where you're you know,
Speaker 1: buying coffee habitually, or you have a habit of doing
Speaker 1: an activity where you always end up spending money, like
Speaker 1: maybe going to Target when it's hot outside, like figuring
Speaker 1: out where else I can go that can also get
Speaker 1: me out of the heat. So this is how we prepare. First,
Speaker 1: we're making that list of activities, and that's one of
Speaker 1: the resources when you order when you get buy what
Speaker 1: you love without going broke. Our resource page also has
Speaker 1: a list of like fifty two activities that you can
Speaker 1: do instead of spending money to help you with that.
Speaker 1: But then also there are things obviously that you're going
Speaker 1: to spend on that you're not impulse spending that may
Speaker 1: but may lead to impulse spending, like gas. Nobody's impulse
Speaker 1: spending on gas, But sometimes being at the gas station
Speaker 1: leads us to going inside to get something. So can
Speaker 1: I go to it different gas station or can I
Speaker 1: just be prepared with that information. Grocery shopping, I always
Speaker 1: grocery shop on a no spend challenge. Some people don't.
Speaker 1: But if there are ways that I can stay out
Speaker 1: of the grocery store, do I just need to check
Speaker 1: to see if there's anything I need to stock up
Speaker 1: on before the month starts. To make it less likely
Speaker 1: I have an unplanned trip to the grocery store.
Speaker 3: I make so much less impulse food grocery decisions when
Speaker 3: I order my groceries online, Like, you're not walking the aisle.
Speaker 3: So that's even a strategy, even if it's not something
Speaker 3: you do regularly, it's a strategy you could try during
Speaker 3: this time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, and then next we abstain, So we practice,
Speaker 1: and we are fasting from the dopamine inducing habit, not
Speaker 1: from dopamine itself. So that's what we're doing when we
Speaker 1: abstain for one month. And we would recommend also adding
Speaker 1: in maybe some gratitude journaling or just journaling in general.
Speaker 1: We don't want you to add more to your plate.
Speaker 1: We think a subtractive method is most helpful. That's literally
Speaker 1: what a no spend challenge is. It's a subtractive solution
Speaker 1: to our problems versus an additive, but gratitude journaling can
Speaker 1: help with some of this internal motivation to want to
Speaker 1: keep going when we can sit and be thankful for
Speaker 1: what's in the present despite not having all the additives
Speaker 1: that we would have normally. And then last is reflecting
Speaker 1: or learning. So once we get done with the thirty days,
Speaker 1: we are then looking back again before we go forward,
Speaker 1: and we are thinking about, Okay, what things do I
Speaker 1: want to take with me from this month and what
Speaker 1: things do I want to leave behind? And this is
Speaker 1: where we're going to start making some long term sustainable
Speaker 1: bolt changes and really finding our radical middle.
Speaker 3: You know what is the radical middle for me? And
Speaker 3: I feel like last long term sustainability.
Speaker 1: The Lightening Round.
Speaker 3: I know we're throwing you for a loop here with
Speaker 3: this one. Uh, with these little shorter bonus episodes, we
Speaker 3: don't have a bill of the Week, but we do
Speaker 3: have a Lightning Round because we can't forget our pups.
Speaker 3: So for today's Lightning Round, we are asking each other
Speaker 3: what was the most difficult part of your last no
Speaker 3: spend challenge?
Speaker 1: So for me, I had I was posting about it
Speaker 1: last year. I did no spend January. I posted every
Speaker 1: day a little tip or a little you know, whatever
Speaker 1: I was feeling or learning, and that was for our listeners,
Speaker 1: like we were all doing it together and I was
Speaker 1: doing it for them. But I found that people in
Speaker 1: my life were seeing them, and when I wanted to
Speaker 1: spend money and not tell anyone, they wouldn't let me
Speaker 1: because they were with me and seeing me with the
Speaker 1: money and they knew I was on the No Spend Challenge.
Speaker 1: So I would highly recommend talking about it on social
Speaker 1: media because it's going to help. But a lot of
Speaker 1: our impromptu spending comes from people outside of us, and
Speaker 1: if they don't know you're doing the No Spend Challenge,
Speaker 1: they don't know to help you. They don't know they
Speaker 1: can help you or hurt you. And so the most
Speaker 1: difficult part was not being able to not follow through
Speaker 1: because I had accountability. So creating accountability on social media
Speaker 1: is highly valuable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for me. The most difficult part is when there's
Speaker 3: invitations to things that are going to cost money. And so, yeah,
Speaker 3: sometimes you can offer an alternative to people, well, I'm
Speaker 3: doing this challenge instead of that, would you want to
Speaker 3: go to this free event with me? Come over? But
Speaker 3: sometimes there were just events that they're going to this concert.
Speaker 3: They just invited me to go with them, and I'm
Speaker 3: opting out of that just for this very very short season.
Speaker 3: But that's one of the more difficult parts of it
Speaker 3: for me, is there is truly something going on that
Speaker 3: I could participate in, but I'm choosing not to kind
Speaker 3: of for the sake of this other learning that I'm
Speaker 3: engaging in.
Speaker 1: We can rationalize that things that come up during the
Speaker 1: no spend challenge are you know, once in a lifetime
Speaker 1: or never happen, YadA YadA. And this happens with events
Speaker 1: and with sales, like if there's a sale on something,
Speaker 1: people will want to take advantage of it because they
Speaker 1: don't know when it will happen again. And this is
Speaker 1: another way that the transaction inventory can help you because
Speaker 1: then you can go back and look, Okay, has this
Speaker 1: person invited me to something that I've spent money on? Yes,
Speaker 1: several times, so it is totally reasonable for me to
Speaker 1: ask them to do something that doesn't spend doesn't cost money,
Speaker 1: or have I done this in the last three months? Yes, Okay,
Speaker 1: it will come up again. Maybe it doesn't come up
Speaker 1: every month, but do I need to do it every month?
Speaker 1: Is maybe twice a year, Okay, So you can start
Speaker 1: to ask yourself these questions because you're looking at real data,
Speaker 1: and especially when you're looking back at your shopping and
Speaker 1: your food purchases and you're like, Okay, how many times
Speaker 1: have I bought something just because it was on sale? So, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's sale's going to come up again. It's not a
Speaker 1: once in a lifetime. You can skip it while you're
Speaker 1: on the no spend challenge nine times out of ten,
Speaker 1: but you can also look back and if there truly
Speaker 1: is something that's once in a lifetime that you've been
Speaker 1: waiting for, or a sale that normally sales can be
Speaker 1: planned for. So if you know, like, oh, the annual
Speaker 1: sale is coming up this month, but I also want
Speaker 1: to do a no spen challenge, I'm just going to
Speaker 1: take this out of it and spend on this this
Speaker 1: one time because I know I'm planning for this particular sale.
Speaker 1: But I would say nine point nine times out of
Speaker 1: ten that doesn't happen. Yeah, it's the other way around.
Speaker 3: Now, we know we're giving you a lot of action
Speaker 3: steps in this budget Better Bonus series, but don't feel
Speaker 3: like you have to implement on them all at once.
Speaker 3: These are episodes that you can come back to to
Speaker 3: help guide you in this process. Again, the book is
Speaker 3: a really good guide for it. The resources page that
Speaker 3: comes along with the book is a really good guide.
Speaker 3: But we are still going to recommend that you begin
Speaker 3: with that ninety day transaction inventory and then plan a
Speaker 3: point in the future where you're going to do a
Speaker 3: no spend challenge. We are actually going to be talking
Speaker 3: about no spend challenges in the February Friend letter, so
Speaker 3: that could be a really good time to plan. If
Speaker 3: you're not getting the friend that are already Frugal friendspodcast
Speaker 3: dot com join us in that we'll be posting more
Speaker 3: about and of walking you through this no spend challenge.
Speaker 3: You can even go back into our Instagram archives a
Speaker 3: bit to see Jen's journey last year with a no
Speaker 3: spend challenge. So you decide when you want to do it,
Speaker 3: but know that it doesn't have to happen all at once.
Speaker 3: We're just giving you the tools and resources and we
Speaker 3: will be back again with our third and final installment
Speaker 3: of our Budget Better Bonus series, which will be step
Speaker 3: three how to plan for the future making a better
Speaker 3: spending plan. See you then
Speaker 1: Google Friends is produced by Eric Siriani.