Speaker 1: Episode four fifty eight, The Key to Simple and budget
Speaker 1: friendly meal Plans with Mandy Clen's.
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 today we are talking about
Speaker 1: a listener favorite topic, which is meal planning, specifically budget
Speaker 1: friendly with our friend Plandy Mandy Mandy Clen's.
Speaker 3: It's such a good one. It's not just a listener favorite,
Speaker 3: it's our favorite thing to talk about food. And we
Speaker 3: really rapid fired a lot of questions at Mandy, questions
Speaker 3: we were not prepared to ask, just decided to ask
Speaker 3: in the moment, and she rapid fired back at us. Yeah,
Speaker 3: some really great stuff. So I'm glad we're here. I'm
Speaker 3: glad you're here. But first, this episode is brought to
Speaker 3: you by shaking things up. Who doesn't love a fresh take,
Speaker 3: a little plot twist, a new perspective. It's what we
Speaker 3: need when we're in a food slump, and the little
Speaker 3: inspiration couldn't hurt in other parts of our lives as well,
Speaker 3: which is why we've written the Friend Letter. We send
Speaker 3: it to your inbox for free, three days a week
Speaker 3: with alerts of free food, ways to save money, and helpful,
Speaker 3: helpful perspectives on money. So get Shook, Get the Friend Letter,
Speaker 3: fruglefriendspodcast dot com. I rebranded it. You're welcome, Get Shook.
Speaker 1: I love that for you, all right. So if you
Speaker 1: are interested in lowering your grocery bill, then we have
Speaker 1: a ton of great episodes for you. We've got episode
Speaker 1: four sixteen Simplified Meal Planning, which we talked about low
Speaker 1: ingredient meal plans, Episode four thirty three Tips for Grocery
Speaker 1: Shopping on a Budget, where we talk about specifically being
Speaker 1: in the store grocery shopping or on the app grocery shopping.
Speaker 1: And then episode three point fifty four Meal Planning for
Speaker 1: people who hate to cook, which is similar to us.
Speaker 1: So we talk about some tips to get that make
Speaker 1: a meal plan that's sustainable that you will stick to.
Speaker 1: That's really the highlight of that episode is sticking to
Speaker 1: So Mandy Clents she is a stay at home mom
Speaker 1: turned frugal grocery shopping expert and on her platform Planedy Mandy,
Speaker 1: she shares budgeting tips, systems, and recipes every day. She's
Speaker 1: passionate about saving money and helping other people learn the
Speaker 1: skills that she has, and we had a really great
Speaker 1: interview with her, so I'm excited to share with you.
Speaker 3: Let's get into it.
Speaker 1: Mandy, Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. We are so
Speaker 1: excited to have you here. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: having me.
Speaker 3: Food is my favorite thing to talk about and we
Speaker 3: have to eat it every day. Food decisions happen daily.
Speaker 3: So if we can help ourselves make better spending decisions,
Speaker 3: just better food decisions, I'm here for it. So I'm
Speaker 3: so excited to have you.
Speaker 1: Yes. Yes, food is life.
Speaker 4: It's like you can't really avoid it, especially when it
Speaker 4: comes to your budget.
Speaker 1: Yes, all right, so give us a little background. What
Speaker 1: led you to being passionate about budget friendly meal planning?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Absolutely, I would love to say that it was something
Speaker 4: that I just enjoyed doing, like, oh, I love being
Speaker 4: in the kitchen. But in all honesty, I got into
Speaker 4: budget cooking because I was a really young mom of
Speaker 4: three kids. I had all three of my kids by
Speaker 4: the time I was twenty four, and my husband and
Speaker 4: I were kind of drowning financially, and I was in
Speaker 4: this position where I couldn't really work outside of the
Speaker 4: home because I wasn't going to make more than what
Speaker 4: child care.
Speaker 1: Was going to cost.
Speaker 4: And so I kind of had to start getting creative
Speaker 4: and thinking how can I help our finances without actually
Speaker 4: making more money, And what felt in my control at
Speaker 4: that time was cooking and dropping our grocery budget. And
Speaker 4: so that's really that was about ten years ago. That's
Speaker 4: kind of where it all started. And I didn't grow
Speaker 4: up cooking or learning how to cook, and so over
Speaker 4: the last decade it's just kind of been me figuring
Speaker 4: it out as I go and getting a little bit
Speaker 4: better each week.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's amazing that you were able to identify that
Speaker 3: at such a young age. We talk about the Big
Speaker 3: three on this podcast, so the things that take up
Speaker 3: the majority of our budget being housing, transportation, and food costs,
Speaker 3: and food being the one thing that we can have
Speaker 3: a little bit more control over in the day to day.
Speaker 3: Certainly it's important to make good housing and transportation decisions,
Speaker 3: but these are decisions that are that were being faced
Speaker 3: with regularly. So to be able to identify that at
Speaker 3: such a young age, this is an area where I
Speaker 3: can make some big shit gifts and really see it
Speaker 3: take root in our finances and see it benefit our
Speaker 3: family is really amazing. And that you did that ten
Speaker 3: years ago. I imagine that's still helpful for you now
Speaker 3: seeing the rising costs of food now, like you're already
Speaker 3: prepared for it.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 4: My husband and I talk often that, of course we
Speaker 4: would never want to go back to that phase where
Speaker 4: we were struggling so much, but it changed the rest
Speaker 4: of our life with how we deal with our money.
Speaker 4: I think anyone who's gone through a phase of being
Speaker 4: broke quote unquote, it really makes you more responsible when
Speaker 4: you grow in the future and have more income to
Speaker 4: deal with that you're not broke anymore, but you kind
Speaker 4: of still understand the responsibility factor because you never want
Speaker 4: to go back.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Do you have any funny stories from when you
Speaker 1: first started trying to get your budget your grocery budget together,
Speaker 1: Like big mistake you made or something that you like
Speaker 1: overcame that you look back now on and it was
Speaker 1: maybe devastating then, but it's now. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, my mind immediately goes to Chili Rianno castrole,
Speaker 4: which I'm sure makes no sense, but when I was
Speaker 4: first learning how to cook, you know, you don't have
Speaker 4: the disposable income to mess up is really what it
Speaker 4: comes down to. So I was cooking because we needed
Speaker 4: the money, but if I messed up, the steaks felt
Speaker 4: really high. And this one night I made chili Riano
Speaker 4: castrole and I thought it was going to be so great,
Speaker 4: and I brought it out to my husband and I
Speaker 4: was kind of looking at it, like that's not what
Speaker 4: that's supposed to look like. And we both kind of
Speaker 4: had this moment where we're like, well, we're eating this
Speaker 4: because we don't have money to go get anything else.
Speaker 1: But also this definitely was not what it was supposed
Speaker 1: to be.
Speaker 4: I think just little moments like that where you really
Speaker 4: don't have the wiggle.
Speaker 1: Room and so if you do mess up.
Speaker 4: Along the way, it's like, I guess we're eating like
Speaker 4: aggy soup with some peppers on it tonight. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: Did you figure out like what went wrong? Or are
Speaker 1: you just like the recipe was just not it. I
Speaker 1: have been so intimidated since that day. I've never even
Speaker 1: tried that recipe again.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 1: It was a nailed it moment, like the yes.
Speaker 3: Got it so you're about ten years into now having
Speaker 3: meal planned in a budget friendly kind of way. I'm
Speaker 3: curious at this point, could you walk us through your
Speaker 3: typical meal planning process from start to finish? What does
Speaker 3: it look like for you?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely so.
Speaker 4: Whenever I talk about this, I always tell people, even
Speaker 4: as someone who's done it for ten years, I really
Speaker 4: try and stay in the cycle of being a beginner
Speaker 4: because I think that no matter how good you get
Speaker 4: at meal planning, you kind of become competitive with yourself
Speaker 4: and you can always save a little bit more. So,
Speaker 4: I actually have six steps to an effective budget, and
Speaker 4: this is kind of how they go, and I'll summarize
Speaker 4: because it could be a whole lesson. But the first
Speaker 4: thing that I always start with is an audit, so
Speaker 4: basically figuring out what am I spending, And especially if
Speaker 4: you're new at budgeting, this is such an important step,
Speaker 4: just tracking what you've actually spent in the last week
Speaker 4: or the last month, so you can see where your
Speaker 4: improvement or your decline is. After I kind of figure
Speaker 4: out where I'm at, the second thing I do is
Speaker 4: I figure out areas of improvement, So where could I improve,
Speaker 4: Where did I overspend or what did I buy that
Speaker 4: wasn't necessary, or what a habit that's not helping my budget.
Speaker 4: Then I set goals where I want to change my
Speaker 4: budget for that following week, something that I could improve,
Speaker 4: like maybe I'm going to eliminate a snack that I'm
Speaker 4: buying with a homemade recipe instead, and little things like that,
Speaker 4: and then I use my systems. So I have developed
Speaker 4: a bunch of systems over the last ten years that
Speaker 4: really just helped.
Speaker 1: Me stick to the meal plan.
Speaker 4: Because I think it's really easy to write stuff down,
Speaker 4: it's one hundred times harder to actually follow through with it,
Speaker 4: especially if you're busy, especially if you have little kids.
Speaker 4: So I have some systems that I use, like a
Speaker 4: breakfast freezer, stock once eat twice meal plan type of thing.
Speaker 4: So I just figure out what I'm going to use
Speaker 4: for that week to help me stick to the plan,
Speaker 4: and then I actually write down my meal plan. So
Speaker 4: when I'm meal planning, I plan for a seven to
Speaker 4: ten days stretch at a time, really because I'm trying
Speaker 4: to stay out of the grocery store. The more often
Speaker 4: you go into the grocery store, the more money you're spending.
Speaker 4: It's just inevitable that we're going to walk down a
Speaker 4: hall or an aisle and just be oh, I need
Speaker 4: mao or I need this and that looks good. So
Speaker 4: I try and stay out of the grocery store as
Speaker 4: much as I can, just to reduce that impulse buying.
Speaker 4: So I plan seven to ten days at a time,
Speaker 4: and I actually write down a recipe for every meal
Speaker 4: of the day. So when I'm planning an individual day,
Speaker 4: I have a detailed breakfast, not anything extravagant, but just
Speaker 4: exactly what we're.
Speaker 1: Eating for that meal.
Speaker 4: I don't do any kind of rough planning like oh,
Speaker 4: we have cereal or we have bagels. I really write
Speaker 4: down We're going to have blueberry bagels with sausage links
Speaker 4: and Greek yogurt. We're going to have waffles with fresh
Speaker 4: fruit and yogurt.
Speaker 1: Yogurt.
Speaker 4: It's a big thing in my house apparently, So I
Speaker 4: write that down for each meal of the day, breakfast, lunch,
Speaker 4: and dinner. So what I end up happing is a
Speaker 4: seven to ten day stretch of three meals a day,
Speaker 4: so that when I go grocery shopping, I can do
Speaker 4: a verified grocery list, which just means I'm actually in
Speaker 4: my kitchen. I do a lot of grocery shopping on apps,
Speaker 4: so I'm actually in my kitchen looking at my specific
Speaker 4: meals and only buying what I actually need from the storm.
Speaker 4: So that's kind of the planning process, and when I
Speaker 4: go to implement it, it just gives me a lot
Speaker 4: of flexibility because I have all of those meals for
Speaker 4: that seven to ten day stretch, and if I have
Speaker 4: to move them around or shift things a little bit,
Speaker 4: I'm able to do that really easily because it's so
Speaker 4: in depth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love the in depth breakfast, lunch, dinner, and
Speaker 1: I'll go with snacks too. I personally need that. Jills
Speaker 1: like the opp is that she's kind of you know,
Speaker 1: the options and pick front.
Speaker 3: Oh who secusing.
Speaker 1: I need that structure or I'll forget to eat and
Speaker 1: then I'll get hungry and then I'll need something bigger
Speaker 1: than what I had planned and then like things go awry.
Speaker 1: So yes, I love that that point about really going
Speaker 1: in depth and making the specific and obviously you can
Speaker 1: deviate from the plan, but if you don't have a
Speaker 1: plan to start with, you're like setting yourself up for failure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think a lot of times where people
Speaker 4: fail with meal planning, is they it's not in depth enough,
Speaker 4: and then they hit what you're talking about, right, like
Speaker 4: almost a defeated mindset because they're like, darn, now, I'm hungry.
Speaker 4: I'm going to opt for stuff that I wouldn't have
Speaker 4: if I would have just had a plan to go with.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to go through the drive through. By
Speaker 1: the way, like the average.
Speaker 4: American family is spending about ten percent of their annual
Speaker 4: income eating out, and I think a lot of if
Speaker 4: that simply comes from having to find a plan B
Speaker 4: because they didn't really have the Plan A to begin with,
Speaker 4: and so they're kind of in this like flying by
Speaker 4: the seat of their pants mode, and we just don't
Speaker 4: make the best financial decisions.
Speaker 1: When we're in that mindset. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you're accurate in saying it could sound
Speaker 3: as though you have to be a very specific personality
Speaker 3: type to be able to do this, like a type
Speaker 3: a person who is very detail oriented. But I appreciate
Speaker 3: that what you're describing is that if we don't do
Speaker 3: it that way and we just write down, oh, we're
Speaker 3: going to have like burritos, but we don't know whether
Speaker 3: or not we have the tortillas or the beans or
Speaker 3: the rice or the salsa. Then we end up either
Speaker 3: not having it and scrapping the meal and then going
Speaker 3: out to eat, or if it's not written down, we've
Speaker 3: not done the inventory of what's in our pantries. We're
Speaker 3: then re buying things that we don't need because we
Speaker 3: weren't so detailed with it. But to that point, I'm
Speaker 3: curious if you've run into this at all. For people
Speaker 3: who might claim, like, I can't be that detailed, I'm
Speaker 3: not that detailed of a person, are there ways that
Speaker 3: we could kind of get over that hump? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Well, I always tell people this really is a skill.
Speaker 1: It is at the end of the day.
Speaker 4: It's a skill that you kind of have to learn
Speaker 4: and get a little bit better with each month. But
Speaker 4: for beginners, I say start small. I think when we're
Speaker 4: talking about grocery budgets, it's everybody's dream to go zero
Speaker 4: to one hundred and all of a sudden they're saving
Speaker 4: hundreds of dollars a month compared to the last month.
Speaker 4: I just don't think it's realistic because there are a
Speaker 4: lot of things that go into meal planning, Like as
Speaker 4: someone who's done it for ten years, I kind of
Speaker 4: have a system for every meal of the day and snacks,
Speaker 4: and that didn't happen overnight. So my biggest suggestion is
Speaker 4: to start small and tackle one thing at a time.
Speaker 4: So if you're someone who can't make a seven to
Speaker 4: ten days stretch because maybe just cooking that much is
Speaker 4: overwhelming to you and you don't know how you're going.
Speaker 1: To do that, eliminate one day a week that you're
Speaker 1: eating out.
Speaker 4: Plan one extra meal per week where you're like, Okay,
Speaker 4: this day, I'm not eating out and I'm going to
Speaker 4: have breakfast, lunch, and dinner from home. And then once
Speaker 4: you master that and it feels a little more capable,
Speaker 4: add another day on for that next week, and just
Speaker 4: kind of tackle it in baby steps rather than trying
Speaker 4: to do one big overhaul. It's just going to be
Speaker 4: much more realistic for the average person. Okay, so let's
Speaker 4: talk about these systems that you were mentioning, because the
Speaker 4: biggest barrier to meal planning, especially when you're trying to
Speaker 4: get like in depth, is the time that it takes
Speaker 4: to plan and setting that time aside every Saturday or
Speaker 4: Sunday to make the plan, and it can take a
Speaker 4: long time if you're not like working with systems, so like,
Speaker 4: what what do you do to make this like sustainable? Yeah,
Speaker 4: my biggest tip is to make your time that you
Speaker 4: are spending in the kitchen count for multiple meals. To
Speaker 4: give an example, a lot of times people just plan
Speaker 4: on making a breakfast, right and they're in the kitchen.
Speaker 4: Let's say they're making blueberry pancakes.
Speaker 1: They make the.
Speaker 4: Blueberry pancakes, the meals done, now they have to clean
Speaker 4: it all up. My mindset is to sort of make
Speaker 4: that time that you're making blueberry pancakes count for a
Speaker 4: ton of future days. So you're already there, You're already
Speaker 4: in the kitchen making the batter, making the mess, having
Speaker 4: to do all the cooking. Instead of just making blueberry
Speaker 4: pancakes for that day, let's make an extra three dozen.
Speaker 4: That sounds crazy, but when you actually look at the
Speaker 4: time it's taking, it's really not adding much more time
Speaker 4: because you were already there doing all of the starting steps.
Speaker 4: So following through with a couple extra batches of pancakes,
Speaker 4: it's saving you the time in the future.
Speaker 1: I always say, my future self will thank me for
Speaker 1: making these snacks.
Speaker 4: Just systems that duplicate recipes in really large batches is
Speaker 4: my biggest tip.
Speaker 1: I use this for breakfast.
Speaker 4: I have something called a breakfast freezer stock, and basically
Speaker 4: what it means is exactly what I just explained anytime
Speaker 4: I'm making something for breakfast, because this is a huge
Speaker 4: way to reduce your budget. Homemade breakfast items are pennies
Speaker 4: on the dollar compared to what you're spending at the storm,
Speaker 4: and most of them are so simple. And so whenever
Speaker 4: I'm making something, I make at least two batches, sometimes three, and.
Speaker 1: Then I throw them in my freezer.
Speaker 4: And on busy mornings when I don't have time to
Speaker 4: think about all of this, because that's just reality, I
Speaker 4: can take something out of the freezer stock that I
Speaker 4: made a couple weeks ago, pop it in my microwave
Speaker 4: or my soster oven, and I'm sticking to my plan
Speaker 4: because I created my own convenience.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: One of the things that stands out to me about
Speaker 3: what you're doing and some of the systems that you've
Speaker 3: created is both the meal planning and the budget friendly
Speaker 3: aspect of it. I feel like I have recently been
Speaker 3: able to combine the two, but I think oftentimes when
Speaker 3: we start out, it's meal planning. I can make a
Speaker 3: meal plan, I can look up recipes and da da
Speaker 3: da da. But then ingredients from one thing don't carry
Speaker 3: over to the next, and a lot of times will
Speaker 3: only meal plan for dinner. I don't know why, but yeah,
Speaker 3: most of us eat three meals a day, maybe two.
Speaker 3: But still there's more than just dinner and snacks that
Speaker 3: we're eating. And so I'm curious for you how that merges,
Speaker 3: how you are able to when you're sitting down to
Speaker 3: make a meal plan. Combining it with this is going
Speaker 3: to be cost effective too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I always say I'm an ingredient household. I
Speaker 4: make a lot of things homemade, and to some people
Speaker 4: that feel really overwhelming because they immediately think that takes
Speaker 4: a ton of time. But basically the way that I
Speaker 4: have molded the two together is I've learned how to
Speaker 4: make really basic things from ingredients rather than buying those
Speaker 4: premate at the store, like muffins, you know, simple things
Speaker 4: like that, but also doing it in that batch style cooking.
Speaker 4: So the way I've been able to combine it is
Speaker 4: kind of taking two different systems and melding them into one.
Speaker 4: Because you have those people on Instagram, you know, like
Speaker 4: the Nora Smiths, they're making all of these homemade things.
Speaker 1: Mine aren't extravagant, though.
Speaker 4: I think the biggest key to success is almost lowering
Speaker 4: your standard instead of trying to meal plan these extravagant meals.
Speaker 1: What if we just meal planned simple things.
Speaker 4: Because when you go simple, the ingredients are basic and
Speaker 4: it's cheap, but also it's easy to make and it's
Speaker 4: easy to batch prep and then you can kind of
Speaker 4: meld the two into one.
Speaker 3: How much time would you say you are spending both
Speaker 3: meal planning and prepping all of these ingredients and meals.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the meal planning itself is honestly not that much time,
Speaker 4: I think, especially once you get in the routine of
Speaker 4: knowing what your family enjoys, like our breakfast items. I
Speaker 4: kind of have my five to seven go to things
Speaker 4: and we just rotate through those. So for me, that
Speaker 4: is more of an autopilot thing.
Speaker 1: The dinners.
Speaker 4: My business is based around writing a whole new meal
Speaker 4: plan for people every month, so I do have to
Speaker 4: get more creative with that probably than the average person.
Speaker 1: So I can't put the same thing out every month.
Speaker 4: But I would say overall, maybe like thirty minutes to
Speaker 4: an hour a week where I'm like actually planning out
Speaker 4: what we're eating.
Speaker 1: And then as far as the.
Speaker 4: Cooking, I for someone who has a cooking platform, I
Speaker 4: hate being in the kitchen. It is probably my least
Speaker 4: favorite place to be. So I don't even cook every
Speaker 4: day because I'm using that batch prepping. So I cook
Speaker 4: dinner about every other night. I cook breakfast like those
Speaker 4: big bul bulk batches maybe three times a month, and
Speaker 4: then lunch is usually just simple things that I'm throwing together.
Speaker 4: So I really am not spending a ton of time
Speaker 4: in the kitchen. I would gamble to say even less
Speaker 4: time than the average person who's not me planning.
Speaker 3: Can you give us some examples of your throat together lunches?
Speaker 3: This is just for me, Yeah, really absolutely, Lunch is
Speaker 3: such a stumper for me.
Speaker 4: You're probably gonna be underwhelmed by what I say. Because
Speaker 4: simplicity is my go to. I always try and pair
Speaker 4: high protein, so salami, cheese, crackers. That's one of my
Speaker 4: kid's favorites. Quesadillas and guac with some kind of you know,
Speaker 4: fresh fruit, and maybe like a Greek yogurt dip.
Speaker 1: My kids love leftovers for some reason, so we'll dose.
Speaker 4: Like we had a friends giving this last weekend, so
Speaker 4: we've been reheating the meat and the side dishes from that.
Speaker 4: I hate wasting food, so that's always my go to.
Speaker 4: Stuff that's prepared. Chicken salads, big batches of chicken salads.
Speaker 4: Simple things that are kind of almost pre assembled or
Speaker 4: just really easy to throw together.
Speaker 1: Because we're on the go a lot, so we just
Speaker 1: don't have time.
Speaker 4: I see a lot of really extravagant prepped lunches, and
Speaker 4: I think that's wonderful. I'm a family of five with
Speaker 4: three kids, and so it's just not as easily to
Speaker 4: implement for me, so I go simple components.
Speaker 1: Components are a.
Speaker 4: Big key, So keeping things in your fridge, Like I
Speaker 4: do a big batch of hard boiled eggs every weekend
Speaker 4: to last us the whole week. I have pre prepared
Speaker 4: fresh washed fruits ready to go in the fridge. Everything's
Speaker 4: kind of like prepared so that when we're in that
Speaker 4: rush and we need something fast for lunch, we can
Speaker 4: grab it, throw it on a plate, eat it and
Speaker 4: be done.
Speaker 1: And what does your prep look like? So I know
Speaker 1: you're doing those breakfast bulk batches like three times a month,
Speaker 1: But what is your how long does your weekly prep take,
Speaker 1: and kind of what does it look like.
Speaker 4: So I don't do it all at once, and I
Speaker 4: will say that I think that is really important for
Speaker 4: the average family. I'm not one of those people who
Speaker 4: spends five hours on a Sunday doing stuff because I
Speaker 4: don't want to spend five hours on my Sunday doing that,
Speaker 4: and I don't think anybody else does either. So kind
Speaker 4: of what my routine is is when we come home
Speaker 4: from the grocery store, as I'm unpacking everything, that's when
Speaker 4: I'm sort of rinsing and washing my fruits, throwing them
Speaker 4: in the containers, getting them in the fridge. That's my
Speaker 4: routine with that, and then my dinners, like I told
Speaker 4: you was about every other night, and the breakfast prep
Speaker 4: I tend to try and double down. So I will say,
Speaker 4: we're having those blueberry pancakes for breakfast, and as we're
Speaker 4: having that for breakfast is what I'm also making those
Speaker 4: extra batches and getting them in the freezer. So the
Speaker 4: sacrifice there would maybe be I'm not sitting down and
Speaker 4: having that blueberry pancake breakfast with my family. I'm in
Speaker 4: the kitchen and talking to them as they're eating their pancakes,
Speaker 4: and I'm making those extra batches to get them in
Speaker 4: the freezer. So I try and do it in little
Speaker 4: spurts rather than one big trip, so that it kind
Speaker 4: of fits a little better into our busy schedule.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but then you can have like seven other blueberry
Speaker 1: pancake breakfast with them because you're not making more.
Speaker 4: Yes, And so I think most people have kids, they're
Speaker 4: getting out the door to school in the morning, or
Speaker 4: if you don't have kids, you're still trying to get
Speaker 4: out the door to work. So my thing is I
Speaker 4: want to be able to have a well rounded breakfast
Speaker 4: in five minutes on a busy morning. And so when
Speaker 4: you have things like those pancakes in your freezer, you're able.
Speaker 3: To wake up.
Speaker 4: They reheat perfectly in the microwave, toss them with a
Speaker 4: little bit of Greek yogurt and fresh fresh fruit. Homemade
Speaker 4: pancakes are significantly more nutritious, and you have a well
Speaker 4: rounded breakfast and you warmed it up in thirty seconds
Speaker 4: in the microwave and tossed it on a plate. So
Speaker 4: that is really I always think about my future self like, Okay, yes,
Speaker 4: I'm making three dozen pancakes right now instead of sitting
Speaker 4: down and eating these pancakes with my family. However, on
Speaker 4: those mornings when I'm trying to get everything going, I'm
Speaker 4: able to have breakfast in five minutes.
Speaker 3: One of my biggest barriers when it comes to meal
Speaker 3: planning is the inspiration week to week, month to month.
Speaker 3: I will often just go. I do keep a written list,
Speaker 3: similar to my spending plan. It's all just written down
Speaker 3: with pen and paper, so I will write down, like
Speaker 3: what are we going to do? I just do lunch
Speaker 3: and dinner because breakfast is like always the same. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but I just feel like I get in such a
Speaker 3: rut where I then will just redo the last two
Speaker 3: weeks and that works for a time, but I feel
Speaker 3: like the flexibility, the variety is also what I'm looking for.
Speaker 3: I'm curious how you do that, since you've said you
Speaker 3: have to put a little bit more effort than maybe
Speaker 3: the average person to get content out to your followers.
Speaker 3: Where do you find inspiration for meal ideas? What tips
Speaker 3: do you have to kind of spark that creativity in
Speaker 3: the kitchen?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely so.
Speaker 4: Of course I have my go tos as well, just
Speaker 4: stuff that I kind of keep in the back pocket
Speaker 4: when I can't fill those last couple of days, the
Speaker 4: spaghetti's and the chilies of the world that everybody is
Speaker 4: used to throwing in. I think when you're in a rut,
Speaker 4: I always suggest Pinterest to people. You have people on
Speaker 4: Pinterest like me right who their job is to kind
Speaker 4: of come up with food ideas, and you can use
Speaker 4: it as a keyword search. I think a lot of
Speaker 4: people are kind of sleeping on Pinterest a little bit
Speaker 4: because they're not actually using it the way that it
Speaker 4: works best. So if you're trying to come up with meals,
Speaker 4: you can plug in chicken pasta recipe, beef protein recipe,
Speaker 4: and it pulls up stuff almost like a chat GPT would,
Speaker 4: and you have the recipes ready to go right there.
Speaker 1: Personally, for me, I try and mix flavors together. So
Speaker 1: I'll give you an example.
Speaker 4: A couple weeks ago, I had a second pack of
Speaker 4: ravioli tortellini type of things because I bought a twopac
Speaker 4: from Costco. But my kids really wanted my homemade mac
Speaker 4: and cheese, and I was like, I'm going to combine
Speaker 4: these two things, like you can't go wrong with a
Speaker 4: tornalini pasta, but then making it as a mac and
Speaker 4: cheese recipe, and I sort of just combined the two
Speaker 4: flavors together and I made a tortellini and cheese.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 5: So it was delicious, by the way, Yeah that's amount
Speaker 5: of cheese. Yes, yes, it was my daughter. She's our
Speaker 5: carved monster and she was in heaven.
Speaker 1: She loves it.
Speaker 4: But I just try and mix flavors to come up
Speaker 4: with something a little different. I also love a good
Speaker 4: protein that's really flexible. One of the things that I
Speaker 4: have done in some of my newer meal plans is
Speaker 4: something that I call a variation option, and I think
Speaker 4: that this is really helpful for exactly what you're talking about,
Speaker 4: which is like burnout of certain flavors. So for me,
Speaker 4: I don't like cooking every day, so I tend to
Speaker 4: double batch a recipe. So if I'm making, you know,
Speaker 4: just basic beef tacos, I'm going to double that basic
Speaker 4: beef taco recipe so that we can have a second
Speaker 4: meal from it later in the week. But some people
Speaker 4: don't like having the same thing two times, and so
Speaker 4: I started giving a variation option, and it was basically, hey,
Speaker 4: here's these components you already had for this first meal.
Speaker 4: I'm using tacos as an example because it's just simple
Speaker 4: and everybody knows what I'm saying. But you have these
Speaker 4: beef tacos, and now this second meal, here's what you
Speaker 4: need to add these two things to turn it into
Speaker 4: a beef burrito bowl or enchiladas, kind of taking those
Speaker 4: same things that you already spent time prepping, but turning
Speaker 4: it into a new meal so it tastes a little
Speaker 4: bit different and you're not having to have that burnout flavor.
Speaker 1: I think what you are saying is the key. I
Speaker 1: think it's the key to this episode because we always
Speaker 1: say how in frugality, the real way to save money
Speaker 1: is to give yourself parameters that foster creativity. When we
Speaker 1: always have money in order to solve our problems, then
Speaker 1: we don't give ourselves the space to get creative to
Speaker 1: save money in certain ways. And a lot of times
Speaker 1: that those restrictions are, you know, imposed by the money
Speaker 1: that we have. Even when we increase our incomes, we
Speaker 1: want to self impose those restrictions to continue to not
Speaker 1: let our lifestyles inflate. Right, And so what you're doing
Speaker 1: is you are prioritizing space to be creative and that
Speaker 1: I mean, that's how you come up with things like
Speaker 1: tortalini mac and cheese. Right, It's not something you maybe
Speaker 1: will do all the time or whatever, but it's the
Speaker 1: space to get creative with the variations, the repurposing and
Speaker 1: all that. Like, at the end of the day, that's
Speaker 1: going to be like the real key to reducing your
Speaker 1: food waste and eating more of the foods you have
Speaker 1: at home.
Speaker 3: I feel like that repurposing piece is a hard one
Speaker 3: to teach. I think it aligns with what you're saying, Mandy,
Speaker 3: that this is a skill that we can build over time.
Speaker 3: But with that, I'm curious if you have anything to
Speaker 3: say about prioritizing repurposing ingredients throughout the week, some simple
Speaker 3: to on how to think about this, because I know
Speaker 3: you've also mentioned eliminating food waste and that's part of
Speaker 3: this equation and keeping this kind of budget friendly meal planning.
Speaker 3: So when we sit down and make a meal plan,
Speaker 3: rather than just oh, that looks good, and that looks good,
Speaker 3: and that looks good. Any quick tips for us on
Speaker 3: how we can make sure these ingredients flow through the
Speaker 3: week that we aren't wasting stuff absolutely.
Speaker 4: So the first thing is similar proteins. I think we
Speaker 4: kill our grocery budget a lot when we try and
Speaker 4: have too much variety in one grocery shopping trip, because
Speaker 4: when you think about it, the best, most frugal way
Speaker 4: to buy proteins is in bulk. I buy a lot
Speaker 4: of my protein at Costco. When you're doing that, though,
Speaker 4: if you're then saying, oh, we're going to have a
Speaker 4: steak meal and a chicken meal, and a pork meal
Speaker 4: and a ground beef meal, you're having to buy a
Speaker 4: lot at one time, and not that it won't get
Speaker 4: used right, because you can use your meat, you know,
Speaker 4: for a long period of time. But for me, I
Speaker 4: really try and stick to a solid weekly budget. My family,
Speaker 4: I try and spend just eighty dollars a week on
Speaker 4: our dinners. So if I'm trying to fit all of
Speaker 4: that diversity into one week, it's blowing my grocery budget up.
Speaker 4: And I think a lot of times we then forget
Speaker 4: it's in the freezer, we don't use it.
Speaker 1: It doesn't sound good.
Speaker 4: So I try and stick to similar proteins. So let's
Speaker 4: say in the week, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna make
Speaker 4: chicken and beef meals this week, and it helps me
Speaker 4: narrow in on what I'm buying. Also, a lot of
Speaker 4: times you have side dishes that you can use for
Speaker 4: multiple meals, so especially during the summer seasons, I mean
Speaker 4: any season, but my family loves a good cold pasta salad,
Speaker 4: and during the summer we tend to have that more
Speaker 4: often with the warmer weather. But I know that pasta
Speaker 4: salad recipe is huge and we're not eating that in
Speaker 4: just one meal, so I will tend to side share,
Speaker 4: meaning like I make that big batch of pasta salad
Speaker 4: and it's a side dish for a couple of different
Speaker 4: meals that we're having during the week. I think a
Speaker 4: lot of side dishes can reheat perfectly to that side
Speaker 4: share so that you're not wasting food and making a
Speaker 4: big old batch of something and then tossing it the
Speaker 4: next day. And then also similar produce, so things like
Speaker 4: bell peppers. One bell pepper right now at the store
Speaker 4: is like a dollars fifty to a dollar eighty, but
Speaker 4: you can get a three pack for like three dollars,
Speaker 4: So I tend to opt for the three pack, and
Speaker 4: maybe I'm making a couple different meal that week that
Speaker 4: include bell peppers. So just kind of trying to take
Speaker 4: what you have on your grocery list and make multiple
Speaker 4: meals out of it instead of having a ton of variety,
Speaker 4: because and you inevitably will have to buy more than
Speaker 4: what you're probably going to use in that recipe, and
Speaker 4: then if you don't have plans for the rest of it,
Speaker 4: it's going to waste. And my biggest pet peeve is
Speaker 4: throwing food away because you're literally dumping dollars in the
Speaker 4: trash can.
Speaker 3: And like you said earlier, chat, ept and Pinterest and
Speaker 3: just the internet can be really helpful with this if
Speaker 3: we don't have the ideas in our brains. Okay, I've
Speaker 3: got one extra bell pepper and some shredded chicken. What
Speaker 3: do I do with this? And let the internet decide
Speaker 3: for you? Yeah? Absolutely, you know what.
Speaker 1: I don't ever let the internet decide for me so
Speaker 1: many things, but not this one thing. This needs to
Speaker 1: come right from.
Speaker 3: It and it brings variety.
Speaker 6: The bill of the week, that's right, it's time for
Speaker 6: the best minute of your entire week.
Speaker 2: Maybe a baby was born and his name is William.
Speaker 1: Maybe you paid off your mortgage.
Speaker 2: Maybe your car died and you're happy to not have
Speaker 2: to pay that bill anymore.
Speaker 6: Duck bills, Buffalo bills, Bill clon.
Speaker 1: This is the bill of the week, Mandy. Every week
Speaker 1: we yell at our guests and our faithful listeners to
Speaker 1: share with us their bill for the week, and we
Speaker 1: would love to hear yours.
Speaker 4: Okay, my bill of the week is a friends giving bill.
Speaker 4: So my friends, we do a friends giving celebration every year,
Speaker 4: and this year I actually wrote a helpful holiday guide
Speaker 4: for the holidays, and I wanted to test it all out,
Speaker 4: and so I actually catered a friends giving for about
Speaker 4: thirteen people, and I made all of the side dishes
Speaker 4: for seventy dollars. So we had a pumpkin cobbler with
Speaker 4: vanilla ice cream. We had a baked mac and cheese.
Speaker 4: We had a mashed potato casserole with homemade gravy. I
Speaker 4: made dinner rolls and biscuits, and a garden salad. I
Speaker 4: had about seven different side dishes that fed thirteen people
Speaker 4: plus leftovers, and I only spent about seventy dollars at
Speaker 4: the grocery store.
Speaker 3: That's amazing. That's a great bill. I love that bill
Speaker 3: for feeding that many people, and you made all that
Speaker 3: food yourself.
Speaker 4: Okay, it's honestly the simplest recipes, the biggest crowd pleased.
Speaker 1: But yes I did.
Speaker 4: I made all of those in about two hours to cater.
Speaker 3: Now, Jill and I are like, what what am I
Speaker 3: doing wrong? What am I doing wrong? I get.
Speaker 4: I think most people aren't making that much food in
Speaker 4: one stretch, So I always had to say that you
Speaker 4: could make a lot of those dishes in ten to
Speaker 4: fifteen minutes. In the kitchen, I was catering almost the
Speaker 4: whole thing, So I did all of it in about
Speaker 4: two and a half hours. Yeah, that doesn't include baked
Speaker 4: times for everything. Obviously stuff had to get popped in
Speaker 4: the oven.
Speaker 3: But we have to find more friends who have food
Speaker 3: Instagram accounts.
Speaker 1: We have so many budgeting friends and animalism friends, and
Speaker 1: you know where we have really dropped the ball. He
Speaker 1: is food fluencers, and I think you have really lit
Speaker 1: the fire under us too.
Speaker 3: We're moving, We're moving your way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, come on over to Kansas City. My friends.
Speaker 4: They definitely weren't upset when I said, Hey, can we
Speaker 4: have a friend's giving in October so I can make
Speaker 4: all these dishes and try them out.
Speaker 1: They said, yes, absolutely.
Speaker 3: What was your favorite thing that you made?
Speaker 1: The pumpkin cobbler?
Speaker 4: Honestly, honestly, I unfortunately had leftovers and I've been eating
Speaker 4: it every night since then. I can't even explain. So
Speaker 4: this pumpkin cobbler, it's very basic. Cobblers are so simple,
Speaker 4: So if you're a newbie at baking, you gotta get
Speaker 4: this recipe. But essentially, when you go to bake it,
Speaker 4: you top it with you know, brown sugar and sugar.
Speaker 4: This is not a healthy one, and then you pour
Speaker 4: water over it, which sounds crazy, but what it does
Speaker 4: is when it bakes, it makes a caramel sauce that
Speaker 4: lines the whole bottom of the pan, so it's a
Speaker 4: pumpkin cobbler, and when you scoop it out, the whole
Speaker 4: underneath is like this gooey caramel, and then you serve
Speaker 4: it with warm vanilla ice creams.
Speaker 1: It made me say pumpkin pie.
Speaker 3: Who it sounds so good. I guarantee I would mess
Speaker 3: that up, like the second you start to pour over it, like,
Speaker 3: I don't think it'd come out that way. It would
Speaker 3: be no chili Ryano's for me? What is this mush.
Speaker 1: I'm convinced it's a no fail.
Speaker 4: I was skeptic the very first time I made it,
Speaker 4: a long time ago. I was very skeptical to say,
Speaker 4: is this gonna work out? Because this feels like a
Speaker 4: lot of water, But it just it basically goes around
Speaker 4: the battle into the bottom.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna have to take your word for it. That's amazing, though, Mandy.
Speaker 3: Well done for all of you listening. If you have
Speaker 3: a bill that you want to share, if it's about
Speaker 3: just dumping water over something and it turning into some sweet,
Speaker 3: sweet pumpkin goodness, or if it's about the money that
Speaker 3: you didn't have to spend this holiday season, or the
Speaker 3: money you didn't mind spending, you know the drill, Frugal
Speaker 3: friendspodcast dot com, slash bill. Leave us your bill. We
Speaker 3: can't wait for it. And now it's time for the man.
Speaker 1: I wish someone would pour water on meme.
Speaker 3: I'm pour some sug on me. Water and water and.
Speaker 1: Water high duration. Yeah. Okay, So for today's lightning round,
Speaker 1: we want to know what's on your meal plan this week.
Speaker 1: Maybe that you're most excited about.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 4: Right when we're filming this, it's around Halloween and my
Speaker 4: kids love a good themed meal. So we had a
Speaker 4: mummy cow zone, which was just a cow zone, and
Speaker 4: then I wrapped it.
Speaker 1: Up and made it look like a mummy. That's where
Speaker 1: we all shoot.
Speaker 4: Croc bot carneadas burritos. Three ingredient carneadas in the crop pot,
Speaker 4: shredded up. Make burritos with it delicious. A ravioli bake
Speaker 4: also so simple. Throw a bunch of stuff in a
Speaker 4: nine x thirteen Gowey goodness pasta.
Speaker 1: We had mummy dogs. That's a good one.
Speaker 3: Please tell me that's hot dogs. Please tell me that
Speaker 3: is just some hot dogs? Is parents tell you I
Speaker 3: love hot dogs? Yeah, can tell you I love secrets.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be a mummy.
Speaker 4: You can just make this recipe. It's hot dogs wrapped.
Speaker 4: I make a homemade crescent dough. But if you're not
Speaker 4: a homemade girly, you can just do crescent dough from
Speaker 4: the store and you wrap them up in crescent dough
Speaker 4: and bake them. And it's like this beautiful blend between
Speaker 4: hot dogs and corn dogs. But it's also a few
Speaker 4: It would be great for New Year's.
Speaker 1: Everybody would love you for New Year's. It's so good.
Speaker 1: Ye in a blanket, jeels it a blank.
Speaker 3: I'm somewhere else now, I am not podcasting. I'm imagining
Speaker 3: hot dogs.
Speaker 1: Okay, well i'll go. I'll let you back to us
Speaker 1: and I will go. Okay, so I will pull up
Speaker 1: my meal plan right now because I don't. My brain
Speaker 1: doesn't hold information for long.
Speaker 3: You keep it digitally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do, Yeah, of course. So tonight actually we
Speaker 1: had an emergency Sunday, so I couldn't make what I
Speaker 1: wanted to make Sunday, so that pushed everything forward or back,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Last night was salads. I actually had
Speaker 1: a salad with just like chicken rotissrie chicken on it,
Speaker 1: but we had a leftover rotissery chicken. And I saw
Speaker 1: on Instagram this recipe for a five ingredient Offga Lemono soup,
Speaker 1: and I love Greek food, and so I tried it
Speaker 1: and it turned out pretty good.
Speaker 3: I brought me.
Speaker 1: The leftovers today for lunch, but I didn't have it
Speaker 1: last night. I had a salad last night and brought
Speaker 1: because it only made two servings because it was only
Speaker 1: half a rotissery chicken. I got unstuffed peppers, sheet pan
Speaker 1: roasted chicken with veggies and my veggies are I have brussels, breads, asparagus,
Speaker 1: and carrots. Yeah, so I don't. I will probably make
Speaker 1: all of them at the same time, but only due
Speaker 1: to because I I think I have more sheet pan chicken.
Speaker 1: We'll see spaghetti and meatball and oh a roasted chicken
Speaker 1: apple kale salad. Yeah, yeah, I love me you go.
Speaker 1: Oh and then on Sunday, I got a rosemary lemon
Speaker 1: chicken bait.
Speaker 3: These are all new new words coming out of your mouth,
Speaker 3: like you're good at coming up with new things.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I'm gonna I'm gonna spoil this for people.
Speaker 1: I pay for an app, you know what, isn't me really?
Speaker 1: I pay for an app that has options and I
Speaker 1: plug them into my days, Like I've got my my breakfast, lunch, dinner,
Speaker 1: and snacks all planned out with recipes from.
Speaker 3: I love that. Yeah, there you go. You don't have
Speaker 3: to be a type a person. You can just know
Speaker 3: how to download that.
Speaker 1: Yeah for you money, Like if you want somebody else
Speaker 1: to do it for you, like Mandy, like you sell
Speaker 1: meal plans, Yeah, you could have Mandy do it for you,
Speaker 1: but you will have to pay some money. So honestly,
Speaker 1: it's a seasonal thing for me. Sometimes I want to
Speaker 1: do it myself and some seasons I don't want to
Speaker 1: do it myself. Yeah, and I pay. It doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be an all or nothing. Yes, very seasonal.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But you know what though, I think sometimes people over
Speaker 4: complicated in their brain because they think, oh, I'm spending
Speaker 4: a little bit of money, right like I'm paying this
Speaker 4: Plandy Mandy Girl twelve ninety nine.
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, yes you are.
Speaker 4: However, is it helping you save way more than that
Speaker 4: at the grocery store or is it helping you avoid
Speaker 4: stopping for takeout which is going to cost you a
Speaker 4: solid fifty dollars. I think people sometimes don't think about
Speaker 4: that income and out output of you're paying someone, but
Speaker 4: this is their job and they're probably doing it really
Speaker 4: well to help you save more than your stay.
Speaker 1: It helps me save time to make it sustainable so
Speaker 1: that I stick with it. And now that I have this,
Speaker 1: I eat out so much. Yeah, Like there was six
Speaker 1: weeks that I just didn't eat out at all.
Speaker 3: Not to mention the skill set that you build because
Speaker 3: you get to experience what an expert has created for you,
Speaker 3: Like we get to see through you Mandy, ten years
Speaker 3: of experience. Here's how you can reduce your food waste,
Speaker 3: rather than just trying to hack it yourself and feeling
Speaker 3: like really bummed that you can't do it yet because
Speaker 3: you're just starting out. So I've learned so much through
Speaker 3: like learning from other people on Instagram or yeah, just
Speaker 3: yourself for these podcast interviews. I don't think we can
Speaker 3: do it alone. I think sometimes we do have to
Speaker 3: pay for it, or we're going to spend the time
Speaker 3: researching it ourselves. Yeah, for me, speaking of paying for convenience,
Speaker 3: this week is a weird one for me. We just
Speaker 3: got back from like a two week trip to Europe,
Speaker 3: which was very lovely and very fun. And I will
Speaker 3: often when I'm gone for a long time give myself
Speaker 3: the gift of a meal delivery kit upon my return,
Speaker 3: and I take advantage of the intro offer. So this
Speaker 3: is a meal kit delivery I've never received before. So
Speaker 3: I paid eighty dollars for five meals, four servings each meal.
Speaker 3: There's only two of us in our household. But to
Speaker 3: your point, Mandy, I like to make a lot at once,
Speaker 3: and I'll either freeze it or it'll be another meal
Speaker 3: for another day. So essentially like ten meals for my
Speaker 3: husband and I for eighty dollars, So it wasn't even
Speaker 3: like that expensive. No, So I haven't had to go
Speaker 3: grocery shopping now in returning home, and it really kind
Speaker 3: of eliminates a lot of what I'll need to buy now.
Speaker 3: I'll need to get like some fruits and stuff for
Speaker 3: us to be able to have breakfasts. But it really
Speaker 3: has taken the stress out of kind of coming home
Speaker 3: and getting back into the rhythm and needing to have
Speaker 3: a meal plan and go grocery shopping and remember what
Speaker 3: I have in my pantry. It just it showed up
Speaker 3: the day we got back and food is decided, And
Speaker 3: that feels like such a kindness to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that really does help with you avoiding like eating
Speaker 1: out even more because you've been out on vacation. The
Speaker 1: last Yeah, once you want I get home is eat
Speaker 1: out more because I haven't had time to go.
Speaker 3: But it feels like whiplash to be like get back
Speaker 3: into the groove of things and like come up with
Speaker 3: what you're making and quick get yourself to the grocery store.
Speaker 3: It's just like I have a few days now before
Speaker 3: I have to get to the grocery store, which feels
Speaker 3: so so great. I'm not going to keep receiving the meals,
Speaker 3: but this is a really helpful like soft landing for
Speaker 3: this first week home.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a stepping stone.
Speaker 4: I heard someone recently say give yourself permission to be
Speaker 4: a beginner, and I really loved that because I think
Speaker 4: when you're talking about budget stuff, if you haven't learned
Speaker 4: those skills yet, you are a beginner and you're not
Speaker 4: going to do it great or like what you're saying,
Speaker 4: you have a transition period. It's like you don't have
Speaker 4: to commit to paying for that service forever, just a
Speaker 4: short period of time as a stepping stone, is okay,
Speaker 4: you're a beginner.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks so much Mandy for all of your insight
Speaker 3: and tips. For those who really want to learn more
Speaker 3: from you or even get your meal plans, how can
Speaker 3: they find you?
Speaker 4: You can find me on Instagram. On Instagram, I'm Plandy
Speaker 4: dot Mandy, and I actually share free recipe videos there
Speaker 4: every day so you can come and try some stuff
Speaker 4: out for free. My meal plans are also on Etsy,
Speaker 4: and those are fully built meal plans, pre shopped grocery cards,
Speaker 4: pre counted macros, the whole nine yards and I'm also
Speaker 4: planning Mandy on Etsy as well.
Speaker 3: Lovely, thanks so much, Mandy, Thanks.
Speaker 1: Of course, thank you. I love I loved all of that.
Speaker 1: And if you actually want to check out Mandy's meal plans,
Speaker 1: she's given us a thirty percent off code use frugal
Speaker 1: Friends thirty. Just search Plandy Mandy on Etsy where her
Speaker 1: meal plans are and use the code frugal Friends thirty
Speaker 1: for thirty percent off.
Speaker 3: I love that, Yeah, I love I love highering it
Speaker 3: out for convenience when it's needed. Now, as you just
Speaker 3: heard in our lightning.
Speaker 1: Round and when I was when we were talking about it,
Speaker 1: I was like, this sounds so like not stereotypically frugal.
Speaker 1: There's going to definitely be somebody that comes at us
Speaker 1: and is like they're talking about spending more money to
Speaker 1: save money on grow trees and in reality sometimes and
Speaker 1: this is and I hate this saying, and I'm gonna say, now, oh,
Speaker 1: are we going to say at the same time, good
Speaker 1: times you have to spend money to make money so
Speaker 1: close yes, but still true, say spend a little to
Speaker 1: save a lot, and that is not always the case.
Speaker 1: A lot of the times that comes like out of
Speaker 1: procrass to spending, where we spend when we don't need
Speaker 1: to to make us feel like we're doing something. But
Speaker 1: there are definitely seasons where spending a little to save
Speaker 1: a little time and sanity is what causes you to
Speaker 1: save more in the long run.
Speaker 3: And again I can't highlight enough how much it can
Speaker 3: teach us the skill that we need to eventually be
Speaker 3: able to do it on our own. That we can't
Speaker 3: just immediately start and have flawless low waste ingredient overlapping
Speaker 3: throughout the whole week. When we are able to purchase,
Speaker 3: you know, whether it's a meal kit or a meal
Speaker 3: plan or whatever it is, that can almost become a
Speaker 3: template for us over time. So I don't think we
Speaker 3: have to feel locked in, but it's nice to have
Speaker 3: these resources.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just talked to a friend who is
Speaker 1: doing YouTube and he's paying just for the thumbnails of
Speaker 1: his video, like three or four hundred dollars a thumbnail, right,
Speaker 1: And he told me I don't plan to do this forever, Like, yes,
Speaker 1: that is stupid expensive. That's obnoxiously expensive. You could get
Speaker 1: these done for fifty dollars piece. But he spends a
Speaker 1: lot of money because he wants to take time learning
Speaker 1: from somebody who's in the top of their game, who
Speaker 1: know who is obsessed with the psychology of YouTube thumbnails,
Speaker 1: and learn what they do to get these really high
Speaker 1: converting thumbnails so that eventually he can just do it himself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's great sometimes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not always about spending money all the time,
Speaker 1: but spending money in the seasons where it's most beneficial
Speaker 1: to you to save even more. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: We love reading your kind reviews, and if this episode
Speaker 1: helped you, I hope that you will leave a rating
Speaker 1: and review kind of like DJL nineteen fifty two happens
Speaker 1: to be five stars and they say funny and useful.
Speaker 1: I enjoy listening to the show very much. The stories
Speaker 1: of folks who have paid off significant debt are inspiring.
Speaker 1: Shows about investing and financial planning are educational. The show
Speaker 1: that discuss various strategies for saving money on everything from
Speaker 1: groceries groceries to clothing provide lots of useful tips. All
Speaker 1: information is provided with big doses of humor. Thank you, DJL,
Speaker 1: that's amazing. Thank you so much for leaving that review.
Speaker 1: It really does help us. And if you have not
Speaker 1: left us a review before, and you are enjoying the show.
Speaker 1: We really encourage you to do that. It only takes
Speaker 1: a minute and it helps us immensely. It helps potential
Speaker 1: new listeners find us, know what the show is about,
Speaker 1: and it just it's just good. It's just good for us.
Speaker 3: And then we read them on the show and that's
Speaker 3: fun too, So it creates content for us, So thank you.
Speaker 1: Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Siriani. Okay, Jen, great,
Speaker 1: Oh you have something from oh my last episode, we
Speaker 1: didn't get to talk about finn Con. Okay, so not
Speaker 1: many people will know what fin con is. It is
Speaker 1: for financial media creators. So your favorite podcasters, your favorite YouTubers,
Speaker 1: your favorite instagrammers, bloggers, bloggers, you know, your favorite media creators,
Speaker 1: favorite media creators.
Speaker 3: In the personal finance space.
Speaker 1: Only in the personal although I did. There was a
Speaker 1: interior decorator there who is there to meet? She's like,
Speaker 1: why am I here? She was there on purpose to
Speaker 1: meet real estate investor influencers to get her work in
Speaker 1: front of them. Yeah, because I mean real estate, like
Speaker 1: housing is still in personal finance. So I have to
Speaker 1: tell you that I am never more wined and dined
Speaker 1: than I am when I am at finn Con and
Speaker 1: I get to hang out with so many cool people
Speaker 1: and do so many things without my children.
Speaker 3: And without your business partner. We should probably update everyone
Speaker 3: that Jen goes to finn Con and I Jill choose
Speaker 3: not to. I went one time and that was enough.
Speaker 1: And everybody every year asks because I go and I
Speaker 1: room with my friend Caroline from carolinevnhil dot com and
Speaker 1: they always think Caroline is Jill, and then I say,
Speaker 1: she says, we're frugal friends, but we're not the frugal friends,
Speaker 1: and people are like, where's Jill? And this year I
Speaker 1: had to say, Jill's in Europe and they were like
Speaker 1: lucky and I was like mm hm, and they're like
Speaker 1: where and I was like, she told me that I
Speaker 1: don't remember because I haven't seen her in a month.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It was back to back hurricanes for us. And then
Speaker 3: and then I went to EU.
Speaker 1: Fin Con and everyone asked about you. Everyone said hello,
Speaker 1: thank you, and I ate I went to a surf
Speaker 1: and turf dinner and I ate an extra surf thank you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what was your favorite food and drink? Bevy you got?
Speaker 3: And being wined and dined at fin Con. Okay, so.
Speaker 1: I'm going to lose my frugal influencer card on this,
Speaker 1: but that surf and turf was the most immaculate dinner
Speaker 1: I've ever had.
Speaker 3: Well, it was provided for you. I forget to keep
Speaker 3: your card now.
Speaker 1: I was there on a fintech company's venture capital money,
Speaker 1: like yeah. And then the best drink I had was
Speaker 1: an espresso martini from the Ritz Carlton and it was
Speaker 1: so good. I went back the last day and I
Speaker 1: had too, but I didn't pay for either of them.
Speaker 3: That you're totally keeping all your cards right now, even
Speaker 3: your credit card had stayed in your pocket.
Speaker 1: The first one I did pay for it was a
Speaker 1: twenty one dollar oh wow. And I went back and
Speaker 1: intended to buy another twenty one dollar martini, and I
Speaker 1: was just lucky enough.
Speaker 3: That I could have two good paying for them. Wow.
Speaker 1: Because I walked out, two different friends got each round.
Speaker 3: Oh that's so kind of them. No, Wow, it pays
Speaker 3: it to have friends.
Speaker 1: It does pay to have friends for sure in the
Speaker 1: personal finance game for like ten, fifteen, twenty years.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad you had a nice time, and I'm
Speaker 3: so glad we're back together same Never leave me okay.