Speaker 1: Episode three eighty two, What we learned from No Spend January.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to
Speaker 2: save money, embrace simplicity, and liver a with your life.
Speaker 2: Here your hosts Jen and Jill.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my
Speaker 1: name is Jill, and we are talking about no Spend
Speaker 1: January today. I know it's the middle of February, but
Speaker 1: we're not recording this episode until the last till January thirtieth,
Speaker 1: so that we could really get all of it in
Speaker 1: because we usually record a month ahead of time.
Speaker 3: Right, so we are just wrapping up our no Spend
Speaker 3: challenge and hoping that this can be a good one
Speaker 3: to queue up. Really anytime you're thinking about doing a
Speaker 3: no spend challenge. We just did it in January, but
Speaker 3: you could do that at any point for a couple
Speaker 3: of weeks, for a whole month, And hopefully this might
Speaker 3: be inspiring towards that. With some of our successes and
Speaker 3: I don't know pseudo failures, did.
Speaker 1: We learning opportunities? Learning opportunities?
Speaker 4: It's either a blessing or a lesson.
Speaker 3: But first, this episode is brought to you by my
Speaker 3: favorite things literally My Jill favorite things. That's a sponsor,
Speaker 3: hot dogs, gum well, landscaped, mid century, one story homes,
Speaker 3: sunny showers, finished projects, living and a live plants five
Speaker 3: thirty pm in the summertime, the sound of loose stones
Speaker 3: under a slow moving car, the smell of shoe stores,
Speaker 3: and the front letter. It goes out three times a
Speaker 3: week to your email and is full of great things.
Speaker 3: More of our favorite things like what's free that week,
Speaker 3: Ways to save both big and small. We are getting
Speaker 3: even more granular on that, like how to get the
Speaker 3: best bang for your buck on pots and pans, kind
Speaker 3: of stuff and money, mindset shifts, journaling, prompts around finances,
Speaker 3: just all the goodie goodie good stuff. So make it
Speaker 3: one of your favorite things. Frugal friendspodcast dot com. Yes,
Speaker 3: those are very specific things specific.
Speaker 1: I think it's great to have, like list very specific
Speaker 1: things that you love, like the sound of rocks under attire.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, when I was little, about six years old,
Speaker 3: I realized that I loved that sound. And we had
Speaker 3: a little sidewalk in our backyard and I put pebbles
Speaker 3: all I collected pebbles for hours to then make a
Speaker 3: trail along the sidewalk of those pebbles that I could
Speaker 3: then ride my bike over just to hear the sound
Speaker 3: of stones undertires.
Speaker 1: That's very specific. Yeah, it's a little further than I
Speaker 1: thought you were going to take.
Speaker 3: My mom got it on videotape because she came out
Speaker 3: and was like, you know, you're gonna have to clean
Speaker 3: up all these stones. And I had a speech impediment
Speaker 3: at the time, and so in this little home video,
Speaker 3: I'm like, you mean not have to clean up every
Speaker 3: single single walk, every single single walk.
Speaker 4: I was just straw.
Speaker 1: That's Kai also gets that way with toys, like all
Speaker 1: his toys are strewn everywhere, and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's time to clean up. He's like, there's too many,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I know, there are too many.
Speaker 1: Let's get rid of the toys. I just had too
Speaker 1: many pebbles yet side right, Okay, imagine my life back
Speaker 1: and forth.
Speaker 3: The school, uphill both ways, I'm playing with rocks and
Speaker 3: still the rocks outside.
Speaker 1: Anyways, we're talking. We're talking even more about our lives
Speaker 1: in this No Spend January episode, And we also asked
Speaker 1: you in the friend letter, what was your hardest thing
Speaker 1: about No spend January, and we were so kind of
Speaker 1: shocked but not really to realize that most of you
Speaker 1: said passing up a good deal, so like next was
Speaker 1: definitely cooking at home or skipping and outing with friends.
Speaker 1: Very few of you were with me on skipping malades,
Speaker 1: but so many of you found it hard to pass
Speaker 1: up a good deal, and so we're going to be
Speaker 1: talking a little bit about that. But we did have
Speaker 1: a lot of you saying things like dining out was
Speaker 1: your biggest expense of twenty twenty three, so that was
Speaker 1: really hard. Not being able to stock up on a
Speaker 1: good deal was hard, which we talk about the utilitarian
Speaker 1: kind of impulse spending in our psychological reasons that we
Speaker 1: impulse by. That's a really good episode to listen to.
Speaker 1: But yeah, just a lot of different things that you
Speaker 1: guys have been doing that have become habits unintentionally or
Speaker 1: become coping mechanisms unintentionally. So that was kind of the
Speaker 1: reason that we wanted to host this no Spend challenge
Speaker 1: for everyone. So whether you did no Spend January or
Speaker 1: you want to do a no spend challenge or January,
Speaker 1: they're always useful in small doses occasionally, so some episodes
Speaker 1: that you can queue up besides the episode three seventy eight,
Speaker 1: the psychological reasons that we impulse by episode three forty
Speaker 1: how to prepare for a no spend challenge, and then
Speaker 1: also episode two eighty six should you try a no
Speaker 1: spend Challenge? So we delve into why a no spend
Speaker 1: challenge is not a method to just save as much
Speaker 1: as possible, to spend as little as possible. It is
Speaker 1: a method to learn about your spending, to reset and
Speaker 1: reprogram some of these habits, some of the ways we
Speaker 1: get our dopamine hits. And we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: that a little later, but this is going to be
Speaker 1: an interview of the two of us, Jill, So we're
Speaker 1: going to interview each other about how no Spend January went.
Speaker 1: And we kind of know this because we've been talking
Speaker 1: about it, but we're just going to share it with
Speaker 1: the greater community.
Speaker 3: Right. These are the conversations we have when we get
Speaker 3: together for dinner, so might as well have a conversation
Speaker 3: in front of you all. Yes, So with that said,
Speaker 3: then let's talk about Jen. What we wanted to get
Speaker 3: out of this no spend challenge? How did you approach it?
Speaker 1: So my reasoning for doing the No Spend Challenge is
Speaker 1: I wanted to reset some of the habits I had
Speaker 1: created around buying, specifically clothes, coffee, and takeout. And I
Speaker 1: also just roped in Amazon in there because I was
Speaker 1: buying a lot of clothes from Amazon and I didn't
Speaker 1: like that about not just the impulsiveness of it and
Speaker 1: how easy it was to get them, but I personally
Speaker 1: want to learn to buy better quality, more sustainable, more
Speaker 1: durable pieces of clothing that are considered more expensive. So
Speaker 1: not luxury, We're not going quiet luxury, but actual, very
Speaker 1: like classic, durable pieces of that are of good quality.
Speaker 1: And so that's the person I want to be. I've
Speaker 1: previously never been that. It's that lingering scarcity mindset that
Speaker 1: tells me like I have to get a good deal
Speaker 1: on clothes, like that's the thing I have to get
Speaker 1: a good deal on regardless, like, regardless of quality.
Speaker 3: I think it's got to be a tough thing. And
Speaker 3: this is what I hear from people. I don't know
Speaker 3: if it's true for you too, But when you're done
Speaker 3: having kids and you're wanting to come into now what
Speaker 3: is my style? But also I'm beginning to feel like
Speaker 3: my body is getting back to normal, but yet all
Speaker 3: of my previous wardrobe isn't quite right for me anymore,
Speaker 3: and wanting and needing in some ways to have a
Speaker 3: bit of a refresh. But then I think that that
Speaker 3: refresh can, as you're describing, create than certain habits around.
Speaker 3: We can keep thinking, well, yeah, I do need more,
Speaker 3: but never pausing to say, but it is my closet
Speaker 3: done now, at least for a time, right.
Speaker 1: It is that weird place where I'm ten months postpartum
Speaker 1: my second and last baby, and I am I dress differently,
Speaker 1: I am different. I have a different lifestyle than I
Speaker 1: did when I bought a lot of my clothes. So
Speaker 1: I don't want to limit myself and not buy clothes.
Speaker 1: I want to love the way that I look in
Speaker 1: the body that I have. I want to love my body,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the clothes that I have are
Speaker 1: too tight and they make me dislike my body. So
Speaker 1: it's not that I want to take a fast from
Speaker 1: buying clothing. I want to buy new clothing. I need
Speaker 1: to buy new clothing. It's what kind of clothing that is.
Speaker 1: And so I've just been like but I started out
Speaker 1: doing like old maybe Amazon, and I was like, no, wait, stop,
Speaker 1: this isn't the type of wardrobe that I want to build.
Speaker 1: So it was those specific those four things that were
Speaker 1: my no spend challenge, not everything, but those four specific things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you are better at identifying specifics more than I am.
Speaker 3: And I think that's the theme about these challenges throughout
Speaker 3: for me is I don't do that well with hard constraints.
Speaker 3: So I definitely entered into this. I did my own
Speaker 3: version of a no spend challenge with the recognition of
Speaker 3: kind of who I am, how I operate, what's going
Speaker 3: to be the most beneficial way to engage in this
Speaker 3: and not just frustrate me. So I would say for me, Michael,
Speaker 3: was to utilize and harness this time for settling into contentment.
Speaker 3: I know you and I have talked a little bit
Speaker 3: about some of the shifts that we are making in
Speaker 3: our business and our own personal finances, and twenty twenty
Speaker 3: four represents really me stepping even more fully into frugal
Speaker 3: friends with you, and what that also means is taking
Speaker 3: a little bit of a pay cut because I'm stepping
Speaker 3: away from other things. So this came out a good
Speaker 3: time because I've been ramping up for this of recognizing
Speaker 3: we can't buy on any renovation project that we want to.
Speaker 3: We can't go out maybe as often as we previously
Speaker 3: have out to eat. So there's some natural things that
Speaker 3: are coming, but for me need to be sustainable through
Speaker 3: the rest of the year, not just January. So it
Speaker 3: was for me a little bit taking the time to
Speaker 3: step into what is the rest of the year even
Speaker 3: going to look like and in what ways can we
Speaker 3: slow the pace on our spending. So that did mean
Speaker 3: a hard stop on renovations for us. We had already
Speaker 3: bought some of the supplies and materials for the backsplash
Speaker 3: in the kitchen, and we still had some money set
Speaker 3: aside to do some lighting, finish up some lighting in
Speaker 3: the house, so we did have permission to purchase those things.
Speaker 3: But it's not as if, oh, anything that we see
Speaker 3: that we want to replace, which our minds did get
Speaker 3: into similar to what you're describing that habit of we've
Speaker 3: now created spending habits over the last three years of
Speaker 3: we're renovating our home and so we're buying whatever needs
Speaker 3: to be bought now recognizing we are at the end
Speaker 3: of our renovation and if any other thing comes up
Speaker 3: recognize contentment that, yeah, that might be a nuisance, but
Speaker 3: it's not a problem that has to be solved with money. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'd love to replace this door that isn't completely sealed up,
Speaker 3: and you.
Speaker 4: Know bugs might be coming in.
Speaker 3: But we've also lived with this door for three and
Speaker 3: a half years, and let's keep living with this door,
Speaker 3: to use an example, So it was it was that
Speaker 3: with the renovations and eating at home even more. January
Speaker 3: is a hard month for us because it's Eric's birthday,
Speaker 3: and so I'm never going to say no, let's not
Speaker 3: celebrate your birthday or let's not have friends come visit
Speaker 3: for your birthday. So, with eyes wide open, knowing these
Speaker 3: things were coming, we just put parameters around how much
Speaker 3: will we go out to eat, how much will we spend?
Speaker 3: So we did earmark funds for that. We did still spend,
Speaker 3: but in a very kind of boundaried and intentional way.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's I hope that's encouraging to people
Speaker 1: listening to this, knowing like you can design your own
Speaker 1: no spend challenge, And ultimately it's about reprogramming your habits
Speaker 1: and the way you seek to celebrate, the ways you
Speaker 1: seek to you know process, you know, the pain of
Speaker 1: the day, stress, stuff like that. It's just to reprogram
Speaker 1: stuff like that. And so this was how we both
Speaker 1: did it. And Jill, what was your biggest takeaway from
Speaker 1: No Spend January?
Speaker 3: I think I was encouraged by my methods are working.
Speaker 3: I had a lot of friends who saw followed you
Speaker 3: Jen on social media, and they're asking me too, are
Speaker 3: you also to no Spend? Partially like cautiously, like does
Speaker 3: this mean that we can't go out to eat together?
Speaker 3: Are you also doing this? And I did in my
Speaker 3: own way obviously, but to recognize that impulse spending is
Speaker 3: not a huge issue for me, And I say that cautiously,
Speaker 3: not in a oh so this podcast isn't accessible if
Speaker 3: you do have issues with impulse spending. It is a
Speaker 3: big issue for a lot of people, and I can
Speaker 3: recognize that. But I also want to be honest about
Speaker 3: the fact that we've been doing this podcast for almost
Speaker 3: six years, and so our minds are more on our
Speaker 3: personal finances, and we also have our own personhoods that
Speaker 3: are more equipped in some ways than in other ways.
Speaker 3: That I think it felt good to say, oh, I
Speaker 3: have actually done some work around this where I'm able
Speaker 3: to eat at home or often.
Speaker 4: It is not as big of a.
Speaker 3: Challenge as it would have been four years ago. So
Speaker 3: my methods of meal planning, meal prepping, cooking at home,
Speaker 3: repurposing food, reducing food waste, I just kind of increased
Speaker 3: that by maybe ten to fifteen percent in this last month,
Speaker 3: and it's working, I think too. I was encouraged by
Speaker 3: I don't actually have to shift that much. It was
Speaker 3: good to see that I can. I can buckle down
Speaker 3: a little bit more when needed. But there's not these
Speaker 3: massive AHAs at this point because I've now set rhythms
Speaker 3: in place that are working, and I think that feels
Speaker 3: good to me that I don't have to throw and
Speaker 3: overturn this whole thing. I've made small changes over the
Speaker 3: last six years that are sustainable and they're continuing to work.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I felt similarly, I have definitely gotten out of the
Speaker 1: routine in twenty twenty three. Having a baby will throw
Speaker 1: your life into a loop. It's a new You're you're
Speaker 1: essentially creating a new life literally and figuratively, and so
Speaker 1: there's a grace period that comes where you are in
Speaker 1: survival mode, and then, uh, there comes a period where
Speaker 1: you say we're gonna shift in these places, and then
Speaker 1: you get a little more sleep and you shift in
Speaker 1: these places, and you really do have to to plan
Speaker 1: it out. Like my first shift was in my body
Speaker 1: and moving my body. I signed up for the half marathon,
Speaker 1: and my priority was moving my body and getting you know,
Speaker 1: those endorphins to you know, heal all the postpart and
Speaker 1: hormonal stuff that just goes awry. You know, whether it's you,
Speaker 1: everybody has it. So knowing that I would that was
Speaker 1: my first priority. And then once that was done, shifting
Speaker 1: to you know, figuring out re entering the business. Really,
Speaker 1: I had taken really six months off of you know,
Speaker 1: in some capacity doing frugal friends, and so I had
Speaker 1: to reacquaint myself with our business. And now January kind
Speaker 1: of marked the now I have to reorient my spending
Speaker 1: habits that I have not been focusing on for the
Speaker 1: past nine months. And so I think my my biggest
Speaker 1: takeaway for me now with two young children, a business,
Speaker 1: a renovation that is in the height and we'll talk
Speaker 1: about that in a bit. We are at the height
Speaker 1: of our renovations. I think the biggest takeaway for me
Speaker 1: was that right now easier is better. Simpler is better.
Speaker 1: The simpler that I can make dinner, the better. The
Speaker 1: simpler I can make my routine means just making things
Speaker 1: very very easy for my future self. That was really helpful,
Speaker 1: Like when I was making a breakfast or a dinner,
Speaker 1: just prepping one thing that I knew that I would
Speaker 1: need in the future. That was helpful because sometimes I
Speaker 1: could do that and sometimes I couldn't, And so the
Speaker 1: times that I couldn't, already having at least something prepped
Speaker 1: made the practice of just getting dinner done or getting
Speaker 1: breakfast done doable, whereas otherwise it would have seemed like
Speaker 1: this insurmountable task that I could not handle, along with
Speaker 1: getting two kids ready in the morning by myself, getting
Speaker 1: them out the door, and getting this business, like my
Speaker 1: parts of it running.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems even from my watching you on social
Speaker 3: media and chatting too about it, that the reset really
Speaker 3: did help you to plan and think ahead and be
Speaker 3: prepared for this is coming up, especially with food. You
Speaker 3: did a lot of food posts which were really helpful
Speaker 3: and to see how the things that you were implementing,
Speaker 3: maybe from a financial motivation, helped you with food, with
Speaker 3: making your schedule more simple, and experiencing benefits kind of
Speaker 3: across the board as a result. Yeah, okay, So we
Speaker 3: talked about what went well, what our biggest takeaways were.
Speaker 4: What about the hardest part.
Speaker 1: The hardest part was literally January third. We started the
Speaker 1: most crucial and invasive part of our renovation. January third.
Speaker 1: It started. We wanted to start it in August, but
Speaker 1: it was just very hard to find somebody that could
Speaker 1: start and they could not start until January. And we
Speaker 1: also had a tenant in our rental on the back
Speaker 1: side of the house move in January second. So it
Speaker 1: has been so stressful. Every couple days, something gets taken out,
Speaker 1: something goes up. I have half of a kitchen right now.
Speaker 1: It's just been so hard. We had to refund our
Speaker 1: tenant half of their rent for February because of he
Speaker 1: works you know, remote, and it was very hard for
Speaker 1: him to work and take calls with all the construction noises.
Speaker 1: So all of these things combined made it a horrible
Speaker 1: time to do a no spend challenge. But I tell
Speaker 1: you that's honestly one of the reasons I wanted to
Speaker 1: do it because I've done these before under perfect circumstances,
Speaker 1: and to do one in this very inconvenient, very challenging,
Speaker 1: worst seemingly possible time to do one. I wanted to
Speaker 1: do it because of that, because I wanted to show
Speaker 1: people this is what can be done right, and you're
Speaker 1: surely not doing it. You're house surely does not look
Speaker 1: like mine while you're doing it. So if I can
Speaker 1: do it in some capacity, I think.
Speaker 3: Anybody can write the motivation of that, but I think
Speaker 3: that there's more insight that can then happen as a result.
Speaker 3: If you're able to do something like this challenge under
Speaker 3: extreme circumstances, how much more does that set you up
Speaker 3: for life beyond when things do look a little bit
Speaker 3: more normalized and you are able to get into a
Speaker 3: bit of a rhythm with your spending and your habits
Speaker 3: and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how about you.
Speaker 3: Again, The seemingly unnecessary restriction is a tough one for me.
Speaker 3: I just to there were times where the challenge to
Speaker 3: me felt like, don't spend for the sake of not spending.
Speaker 3: It wasn't that you don't have the five dollars to
Speaker 3: buy this thing, it's just don't spend it. And so
Speaker 3: I think, even working through my mindset on that of
Speaker 3: what is the purpose behind this, what freedoms and permissions do.
Speaker 1: I have what?
Speaker 3: And probably part of that had to do with me.
Speaker 3: I probably would have done better if I had set
Speaker 3: more clear parameters around what I.
Speaker 4: Am and am not doing.
Speaker 3: But then I kind of wanted to push back on
Speaker 3: my own parameters, if that makes sense.
Speaker 4: I kind of approached it like.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna do the best I can in these categories,
Speaker 3: but also I know what I can spend in these categories.
Speaker 3: If I happened to spend, then no big time. Is
Speaker 3: kind of how that went. And so, uh, I did
Speaker 3: impulse buy some herb seeds. I say impulse by meaning
Speaker 3: I didn't totally plan to buy those seeds that day.
Speaker 3: I did plan to buy them eventually. I want to
Speaker 3: be growing my own herbs to further supplement my cooking
Speaker 3: at home, my making of my own salad dressings, all that.
Speaker 3: So it didn't feel like a failure in any way
Speaker 3: to me really, But at the same time, it was
Speaker 3: funny to me because I don't think that without the
Speaker 3: challenge that I would have bought them, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3: Like I think I'm a little bit twisted in my mind,
Speaker 3: like because I can't spend. It's now is when I
Speaker 3: want to versus without those restraints. I think I'm a
Speaker 3: little bit more of a restraint to myself. This might
Speaker 3: all sound twisted. Maybe there's somebody who's listening.
Speaker 1: I understands when it's natural for us when we can't
Speaker 1: do something is instantly when we want to do something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think what I've tried to emphasize on social
Speaker 1: media is that it's that's why we say it's thirty days.
Speaker 1: We are not doing a year long spending no spend.
Speaker 1: Frugality is not a race to the bottom spending. But
Speaker 1: when you give yourself thirty days and say I'm not
Speaker 1: going to spend on these things, it's not I can't
Speaker 1: have these things for thirty days. It's a challenge to
Speaker 1: be like, how can I get the things that I
Speaker 1: want without spending? That's the challenge.
Speaker 3: And you know what, I found five dollars in the
Speaker 3: parking lot of home Depot and then I turned around
Speaker 3: and spent those five dollars on the herb seeds.
Speaker 4: At home Depot.
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 4: So that's how I got around that one.
Speaker 1: I mean, so I did something similar or I needed
Speaker 1: to get a booster seat for Kai because I needed
Speaker 1: the car seat for Atlas because he's a large baby
Speaker 1: and he grew out of his infant seat. And so
Speaker 1: what I did was I listed a rug for sale
Speaker 1: on Facebook Marketplace, and this was back in December. Once
Speaker 1: it's sold in January, I then took that money and
Speaker 1: bought the booster seat that I needed. So it wasn't
Speaker 1: a I can't buy a booster seat until February. It
Speaker 1: just forced me to get creative with how I acquire
Speaker 1: the booster seat. So I mean, maybe there was a
Speaker 1: plant exchange or a seat exchange you could have sought
Speaker 1: out before you just went into Low's. That's the creative
Speaker 1: part of the no spend challenge. You see restriction, we
Speaker 1: see opportunity for creativity.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's the thing I think without the challenge,
Speaker 3: for so weird reason, I probably would have found another
Speaker 3: way to get it. Because also similarly, I was out
Speaker 3: with a friend walking around the streets of Tampa. We
Speaker 3: went into this shop and I've been wanting loose leaf
Speaker 3: tea that is on my wants list and has been
Speaker 3: there for over a month, and we came upon a
Speaker 3: loose leaf tea shop and I was about to buy
Speaker 3: it and then for whatever reason, gave myself a pause.
Speaker 3: I was like, nah, I'll buy it another time, or
Speaker 3: I'm going to look up and see what other options
Speaker 3: there are for purchasing, or I'm going to maybe look
Speaker 3: into growing my own tea leaves and making my own tea.
Speaker 3: We're still in that research phase right now. I still
Speaker 3: haven't yet bought it, So you're right. I think there
Speaker 3: are times where we can want something and then give
Speaker 3: ourselves that pause to say, how can I get it
Speaker 3: in a different way or a more creative way.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's a great example because maybe you
Speaker 1: research it and you realize, oh, that was a good
Speaker 1: place to get loose leaf tea. Making my own tea
Speaker 1: is hard and I don't want to do it, don't
Speaker 1: need to do Then you can always go back and
Speaker 1: get it or buy it online. Like, but it does
Speaker 1: make you confident in that you made the right decision
Speaker 1: and just impulse by and not sometimes like if you
Speaker 1: don't know if you got the best thing, then you
Speaker 1: may not even use it because you don't know how
Speaker 1: valuable it is right, You don't know how good it is. Right.
Speaker 1: But if you see something you do the research, and
Speaker 1: then you go back and get it. You use it
Speaker 1: more quickly because you realize the value in it.
Speaker 4: Exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, were there any unexpected things that you learned through
Speaker 3: this process?
Speaker 1: So I read Dopamine Nation while I was on the
Speaker 1: Noespun Challenge. I'm actually still reading it and the so
Speaker 1: I'm reading it for the book like that we are writing.
Speaker 1: And so I actually learned from this from this psychologist
Speaker 1: who sees almost exclusively addiction patients and studies the effect
Speaker 1: of dopamine and addiction and overconsumption. Obviously, over consumption and
Speaker 1: addiction are not the same thing, and I have I
Speaker 1: have a hard time. We don't talk about shopping addiction here,
Speaker 1: mixed feelings on it, but we all over consume in
Speaker 1: some place, not all the time, but we all over consume.
Speaker 1: And so something that she does for her patients with
Speaker 1: an addiction where she can so obviously not drugs and alcohol,
Speaker 1: but she recommends they do. They abstain from their addiction
Speaker 1: for four weeks because studies have shown that after two
Speaker 1: weeks your brain is still desiring the same pleasure pathways
Speaker 1: that the quote unquote drug of choice gives it. But
Speaker 1: after four weeks, studies have shown that your brain has
Speaker 1: actually started to reprogram the way it seeks pleasure, the
Speaker 1: pathways through which it seeks pleasure. And I was like, gosh,
Speaker 1: darn if that doesn't sound like a no spend challenge,
Speaker 1: And I was just so affirmed. Yeah, and hoping that
Speaker 1: other people will see that. It just it's a continual
Speaker 1: reminder that we don't do this for the sake of
Speaker 1: just the deprivation. We're not trying to self discipline ourselves
Speaker 1: just for the sake of spending as little as possible.
Speaker 1: We are trying to We are allowing our brains. We
Speaker 1: are giving our brains the opportunity to reprogram themselves so
Speaker 1: that we can receive ve dopamine from healthier places or
Speaker 1: at least less expensive places, and that we require less
Speaker 1: dopamine because the more we can, the more we consume,
Speaker 1: the more we need to consume of whatever drug that
Speaker 1: is quote unquote drug, and that includes shopping. The more
Speaker 1: we shop and the more we spend, the more we
Speaker 1: need to shop and spend to create the same dopamine
Speaker 1: response we did it first.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we can retrain our brains, we can find new
Speaker 3: patterns of relating, we can form new different better habits.
Speaker 3: I think this is one of the things that helps
Speaker 3: to lay the foundation that we can springboard off of,
Speaker 3: because without some of that hard stop and realignment time,
Speaker 3: the rest is not going to come from there. And
Speaker 3: then it's fun to see it backed by science.
Speaker 1: How about you?
Speaker 3: So I learned or experienced more confirmation than I love spreadsheets,
Speaker 3: and I think something unexpected is that this no spend
Speaker 3: challenge just even heightened my awareness of my financial landscape
Speaker 3: as a whole. My attention to it then helped me
Speaker 3: to get other life admin stuff done. I finally got
Speaker 3: term life insurance. I finally switched our internet provider to
Speaker 3: get a better deal. I finally switched our internet to
Speaker 3: be paid for by the business instead of us personally.
Speaker 3: We reevaluated our subscriptions. We went down to one streaming service.
Speaker 3: I think previously we utilized three, maybe four streaming services,
Speaker 3: and now we're down to just one. And both Eric
Speaker 3: and I have commented how much more we like the
Speaker 3: boundaries of that. It helps us to simplify where we're going,
Speaker 3: how long it takes to pick something that we're going
Speaker 3: to entertain ourselves with. There's just so many benefits to
Speaker 3: that something else that was also super refreshing to me
Speaker 3: that I guess as a bit of a learning I
Speaker 3: would consider myself pretty decent at relational boundaries, but I
Speaker 3: think especially boundaries around finances with friends and recognizing that
Speaker 3: people people will want that like if we can speak
Speaker 3: our needs to one another that is kind. And so
Speaker 3: we had a good amount of visitors in January over
Speaker 3: Eric's birthday, and I put something new into practice, partially
Speaker 3: prompted by this no spend January, we had friends who
Speaker 3: were going to be staying with us for a full week,
Speaker 3: and I knew we can't go out every day to eat,
Speaker 3: but I also can't supply all of our meals for
Speaker 3: a full week straight. Previously, when I've had friends, we
Speaker 3: will go out some meals and I will just provide
Speaker 3: some meals at home, and it's we call it a
Speaker 3: wash whatever. We love to provide for our guests. But
Speaker 3: because of where we're at in our personal finances, I
Speaker 3: got a little bit more bold and was like, hey,
Speaker 3: we can't provide all meals. But of course they weren't
Speaker 3: expecting that either. I just don't typically have those types
Speaker 3: of conversations with people, and I think the the acceptance
Speaker 3: and embracing and even like celebrating it that we receive
Speaker 3: from friends was super encouraging, and so I had to
Speaker 3: put some planning and forthought into it. I made a
Speaker 3: spreadsheet of potential meals that we could have links to
Speaker 3: the recipes, a cost breakdown of what each meal was
Speaker 3: going to cost, the ingredients I was going to need
Speaker 3: to buy in order to make these meal, how much
Speaker 3: that was going to be, and then how much it
Speaker 3: would be per couple.
Speaker 4: That was in some ways fun for me.
Speaker 3: I did have to do that work, but they open arms,
Speaker 3: embraced it, said the meals that they were going to
Speaker 3: want to have. I did the grocery shopping, but then
Speaker 3: we cooked together and we split the cost of the groceries.
Speaker 3: And I feel like it really opened the door for
Speaker 3: this now going forward, where somebody else has asked to
Speaker 3: stay with us, and I got bold again with them
Speaker 3: and said, that's great.
Speaker 4: If you don't.
Speaker 3: Mind splitting the cost of food and doing a little
Speaker 3: vemo transaction at the end of the week, then you know,
Speaker 3: not for your stay, and obviously you're not obligated to
Speaker 3: eat our food if you don't want to, and then
Speaker 3: don't worry about it. But if we do, then I'm
Speaker 3: going to split the cost of groceries with you. And
Speaker 3: everyone has been like, yes, please, and actually do please
Speaker 3: charge me to stay the night in your guest room
Speaker 3: and all of this. So people, of course are very
Speaker 3: generous and open to this. It's just a issue of
Speaker 3: stating my needs and that has gone really well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome. That is an improvement for you.
Speaker 4: Yes, it is.
Speaker 1: I've never met anyone that has more guests than you,
Speaker 1: and I've never met I've never met people that visit
Speaker 1: people like your friends visit you. So you are in
Speaker 1: a unique situation.
Speaker 3: And uh, I think we make it so comfortable. Maybe
Speaker 3: if I start charging them, they won't come so often.
Speaker 1: We don't know, you might have to make them like
Speaker 1: it's like, we'll provide the place to say, you buy
Speaker 1: the groceries, and that's how it's going to be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well you'll have to get them to get all the groceries.
Speaker 3: I'm discovering a new pathway forward. We shall say, yeah,
Speaker 3: do you know what is an old pathway but a
Speaker 3: good one.
Speaker 1: And we enjoyed it the full month of January and
Speaker 1: every month before and after.
Speaker 4: It never cost us money.
Speaker 3: The bill of the week.
Speaker 5: That's right, it's time for the best minute of your
Speaker 5: entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name
Speaker 5: is Williams. Maybe you paid off your mortgage. Maybe your
Speaker 5: car died and you're happy to not have to pay
Speaker 5: that bill anymore. Duck bills, bfalo bills, Bill Clion, this
Speaker 5: is the bill of the week.
Speaker 6: Hi, Jen and Jill. My name is Joan, and I'm
Speaker 6: super excited to be recording this Bill of the Week.
Speaker 6: I have finally, after eleven months, paid off my private
Speaker 6: student loan, which in January of twenty twenty three was
Speaker 6: at seventeen four hundred and eighty three dollars. I started
Speaker 6: listening to your podcast at the beginning of this year
Speaker 6: hoping to be motivated, and it's really worked. I track
Speaker 6: my spending for six months. I'm still meal planning. I
Speaker 6: budgeted for a while. I got deep into books that
Speaker 6: the library about personal finance. I cut back on extra
Speaker 6: things like breakfast, love, takeout, kombucha, and I was going
Speaker 6: to have a month where I would just like let
Speaker 6: loose after I paid off my loan, and I'm not
Speaker 6: even doing that because I'm just diving right in with
Speaker 6: the same budgeting for my federal loan, which is thirty
Speaker 6: thousand dollars, so that should take two years at this rate,
Speaker 6: and I think I can do it. I'm going to
Speaker 6: keep on listening to the two of you, and I
Speaker 6: super appreciate all that you do. Thank you so much
Speaker 6: for your podcast, and hooray for the skill of the week.
Speaker 6: Thank you, bye, hooray, congratulations, Joan.
Speaker 1: We're so happy for you, uh and we're so thankful
Speaker 1: to have played just a tiny part on your journey
Speaker 1: to paying off debt. And please do celebrate it. Put
Speaker 1: a marker in the sand and celebrate your accomplishments, because
Speaker 1: so many accomplishments go by uncelebrated or not celebrated enough
Speaker 1: as we pursue the next challenge. And I just want
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four to be a year that we celebrate
Speaker 1: what we've accomplished, no matter how small.
Speaker 4: But look at you, Joan.
Speaker 3: You found a free way to celebrate like that is
Speaker 3: part of it. She called in. She left a bill.
Speaker 3: We're cheering you on, you are acknowledging it. I think
Speaker 3: there is permission if you want to celebrate and spend
Speaker 3: a set amount of money, but I think you're also
Speaker 3: highlighting our point here that there are alternative ways to
Speaker 3: meet our needs that don't always have to cost money,
Speaker 3: especially where it's going to help to keep us on track.
Speaker 4: And you did that.
Speaker 1: I truly think the best celebration is a public declaration.
Speaker 1: So on this podcast is great and we love it,
Speaker 1: but tell I mean on social media where people you
Speaker 1: know will see yeah, Because when we give each other
Speaker 1: in our communities permission to celebrate our financial wins, we
Speaker 1: inspire and motivate other people who we may not even
Speaker 1: know are pursuing the same financial goals. We give them
Speaker 1: permission to achieve their goals and also celebrate them publicly.
Speaker 3: Keep going, Joan, you've got one down or I don't
Speaker 3: know how many downs you've got, this one to help,
Speaker 3: next one, next one to go, but you've done it
Speaker 3: and you can build upon that accomplishment and we're here
Speaker 3: for you when you pay that one off, call us.
Speaker 3: You've got another bill along the way, call us. And
Speaker 3: if any of you are listening and you want a
Speaker 3: public de declaration to celebrate in a way that doesn't
Speaker 3: cost you money or just your name is Bill Frugal
Speaker 3: Friends Podcast dot com slash Bill, leave us your bill.
Speaker 3: We are ready for it, and now it's time for
Speaker 3: the lightning around.
Speaker 1: All right, any new discovery about yourself? After no spend January.
Speaker 4: I'm turning more granola.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not surprised, but I'm glad you finally
Speaker 1: seen it.
Speaker 3: I am inspired towards so much more DIY ways of
Speaker 3: doing things. I'm following more Instagram accounts that are low
Speaker 3: waste to zero waste DIY eco friendly products because a
Speaker 3: lot of that does coincide with simplicity and less you
Speaker 3: can use. You don't need twenty different types of cleaning
Speaker 3: products in your home, usually having three different types and
Speaker 3: a lot of them. Low talks, no talks is possible,
Speaker 3: and it's definitely what I'm being drawn towards. But also
Speaker 3: all the stuff with food, making my own dressings, making
Speaker 3: my own bread, growing my own herbs.
Speaker 1: That's so good for you. I am not there.
Speaker 4: Where are you at?
Speaker 1: I don't like to do it myself.
Speaker 4: You're new discovery, my new discovery.
Speaker 1: I am actually shocked that I posted on social media
Speaker 1: every day for thirty days. Yeah I am. I shocked myself.
Speaker 1: When I told you I would do it, I wasn't sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure I would do it, and I did it.
Speaker 3: What do you think it was the public declaration knowing
Speaker 3: people are hanging on every word.
Speaker 1: So this might be why I am currently really jiving
Speaker 1: with these public decoration declarations. It was so many times
Speaker 1: I was motivating. I was remotivated to stick with this
Speaker 1: challenge because people in my life saw that I was
Speaker 1: posting about it and would ask me about it. And
Speaker 1: it was that external accountability that I didn't even ask for.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't accountability. It was they were you know,
Speaker 1: how's it going?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 1: I saw it and you inspired me to try it
Speaker 1: for a week. And that's what I'm beginning a lot
Speaker 1: of is that the public declaration and sticking with it
Speaker 1: was inspiring others to do it. It was giving permission.
Speaker 1: And that's why I started writing Personal Finance.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, that's kind of you getting back
Speaker 3: to your or that even got you into this.
Speaker 1: That was the start for me, Yeah, is that I
Speaker 1: just started writing things that I had learned. It was
Speaker 1: the same thing every I was just it wasn't like
Speaker 1: a day in the life thing. It was just things
Speaker 1: that I had been learning and I just started sharing
Speaker 1: those things and hope that it would help other people
Speaker 1: who were where I was kind of get on the
Speaker 1: journey to where what I was learning. And my gosh,
Speaker 1: that was what motivated me to stick with the posting
Speaker 1: and to stick with the challenge. Was that public declaration.
Speaker 1: And when we share our struggles. I wasn't even really
Speaker 1: sharing my struggles completely, Like a lot of it was
Speaker 1: stuff that I was just processing. But when we share openly,
Speaker 1: like the positive, negative, and neutral, we give other people
Speaker 1: permission to feel the positive, negative and new about these situations.
Speaker 1: And that was an unexpected thing, a new discovery, maybe
Speaker 1: a rediscovery right about me?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we talk about you know, when thinking even about
Speaker 3: hobbies or what do we enjoy or our core values,
Speaker 3: we often encourage people to go back to what inspired
Speaker 3: you in childhood?
Speaker 4: What did you enjoy then? And this feels.
Speaker 3: Adjacent to that of what's going to help me stay
Speaker 3: on track? Well, what were for you in the past?
Speaker 3: What was a motivator five years ago when you had
Speaker 3: a goal that you were trying to accomplish. I think
Speaker 3: that you got into blogging about your debt payoff journey
Speaker 3: as a way to keep you on track is indicative
Speaker 3: of how you operate, and it's probably going to be.
Speaker 4: A piece of that is what motivates.
Speaker 3: You for other types of goals going forward, and that
Speaker 3: can be to your detriment or could be leveraged to
Speaker 3: your best fit. And so when we can understand ourselves
Speaker 3: by moving through just this journey of frugality and embracing it,
Speaker 3: we can leverage our learning of ourselves in beneficial ways.
Speaker 3: I know that I don't love a ton of restriction
Speaker 3: when I'm already got good boundaries around me, So I'm
Speaker 3: not gonna lean into heavy restriction. I'm just gonna put
Speaker 3: up the good boundaries.
Speaker 1: That's just me, and don't I still don't love a budget.
Speaker 1: I still don't love a spreadsheet, even though I do
Speaker 1: prefer it. But I am still loving monarch when I
Speaker 1: do check it. But yeah, I mean to each.
Speaker 4: Our own, to each our own.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for listening. Whether you did
Speaker 1: know spend January or not, I hope that you will
Speaker 1: take this as an encouragement to experiment with ways to
Speaker 1: just live a healthier life financially, create spending habits and
Speaker 1: boundaries that you feel good about. And if this helped
Speaker 1: you do it, we'd love to hear a review from you.
Speaker 1: On Apple, Apple and Spotify, kind of like this one,
Speaker 1: what is going on with these names? BGA nine four
Speaker 1: eight nine. I'm not evenna try and like pronounce it
Speaker 1: like it's like it's a word, it says new listener.
Speaker 1: I just recently found the Frugal Friends podcast and I
Speaker 1: love it. I went back and bingched old episodes. I
Speaker 1: am truly impressed with their evolution over the years. Their
Speaker 1: old episodes definitely have good tips, but their new episodes
Speaker 1: are not only informative but also very entertaining.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Wow, thanks for listening.
Speaker 3: That's interesting to hear that that take on it because
Speaker 3: we don't go back and listen to.
Speaker 4: Our week episode.
Speaker 1: We don't listen to any of our episodes. It's weird
Speaker 1: to hear ourselves talk.
Speaker 3: But it is always interesting when I hear people say
Speaker 3: I binged your backlog, and I'm like, what must that
Speaker 3: be like? Because that literally means that, potentially, in the
Speaker 3: span of a couple weeks to a month, you followed
Speaker 3: us our journey over five years.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and what was that?
Speaker 1: Why was that? We love if that's you, We love
Speaker 1: to hear about your journey, yeah, or a five star review.
Speaker 4: The renovations, Yeah, what not.
Speaker 1: Anyways, I'm glad it's not only informative but also entertaining,
Speaker 1: because that's how we like our content.
Speaker 3: However, you came to us wherever you're at, and however
Speaker 3: many episodes you've listened to. Although I will say I
Speaker 3: think this is my hot take. I think in order
Speaker 3: to review something you need to have listened to at
Speaker 3: least five episodes. There should be some parameters.
Speaker 1: Unless you're just going unless you're just going to give
Speaker 1: a five star right off the bat, in which case
Speaker 1: I mean, listen to as little.
Speaker 3: As you want, get a flavoring for it, and if
Speaker 3: you like it, leave us a review and rating.
Speaker 4: It really does help our show.
Speaker 3: It helps other people find us know if it's going
Speaker 3: to be right for them. And also get our friend
Speaker 3: letter Google friendspodcast dot com.
Speaker 4: And try and no spend challenge. See what your learnings
Speaker 4: are gonna be. Please see you next time.
Speaker 1: Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni.
Speaker 4: Will you do another no spend challenge one day? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I really do think it's beneficial to just reset. It's
Speaker 1: not like a like a juice cleanse or something like.
Speaker 1: Juice cleanses are objectively not the healthiest. But it's just
Speaker 1: a way when you pick a couple things that you
Speaker 1: just don't feel your best about, like how you're spending gun,
Speaker 1: and you just sort of like, Okay, I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: really intentional about those for the next month.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a way to clear the clutter. I mean truly,
Speaker 3: I say, Oh, I don't really know how well or
Speaker 3: that I approach this now spend challenge in my own way,
Speaker 3: But if you were to look at my transactions for
Speaker 3: this month, my paper is just.
Speaker 4: Not very full at all.
Speaker 3: It really did just simplify my transactions, which is also fun.
Speaker 3: Then I'm spending less time tracking my transactions because I
Speaker 3: don't have as much to write down, so I'm not
Speaker 3: looking at my finances as much because there's not as
Speaker 3: much to look at.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So I think it's just it's a healthy reset.
Speaker 1: And while we love visiting extremes for what they teach us,
Speaker 1: we don't love living there.
Speaker 3: So so you know what we're doing instead, We're gonna
Speaker 3: go to a dollar sale.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Yes, Okay, I'm so glad that you
Speaker 1: talked about this. There's a place. Well, it will already
Speaker 1: be over by the time this release is. But they
Speaker 1: just announced this weekend they're doing we got like four
Speaker 1: thousand items. Everything's a dollar. It's a resale shop.
Speaker 3: But yeah, resale and a lot of name brand or
Speaker 3: quality items. But they're celebrating their four year anniversary by
Speaker 3: giving everything for a.
Speaker 1: Dollar up to fifty up.
Speaker 3: To fifty items, each item one dollar. So we have
Speaker 3: to do our research on which brands offer quality and
Speaker 3: what our quality materials. That's something else I've been following
Speaker 3: on Instagram more and more is saying what what to
Speaker 3: even be reading on the labels?
Speaker 4: I feel like what back?
Speaker 3: And even now still we are our culture had this
Speaker 3: shift and we're reading the nutrition labels on the boxes
Speaker 3: and that's all well and good and it's good to
Speaker 3: be informed on that. But now we're getting even more
Speaker 3: informed and reading our labels on our tags and what
Speaker 3: is it made of? You are the synthetic materials? How
Speaker 3: will they hold up over time? How do they need
Speaker 3: to be washed? Do I have the time and energy
Speaker 3: to wash these things in the way that they need
Speaker 3: to be washed? If they say dry clean only even
Speaker 3: that that could be a good material, But am I
Speaker 3: going to wash it in the way that it needs
Speaker 3: to be washed and care for it, and if not,
Speaker 3: then that might not be the choice for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent agree. So I'm excited to see
Speaker 1: what we pick up.
Speaker 4: Yeah we will.
Speaker 3: We'll be taking some video and that'll show up on
Speaker 3: social media too.
Speaker 1: We'll do a haul video. Oh whoa, yes, thrift haul.
Speaker 1: Can't wait, see you on social