Speaker 1: Three day digital declutter guide with professional organizer Tear Bremmer.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to
Speaker 2: save money, embrace simplicity and life. Here your hosts Jen
Speaker 2: 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: digital decluttering. We have a ton of episodes on decluttering
Speaker 1: physical items, even just kitchen items or food items. But
Speaker 1: something I have personally been struggling with so much is
Speaker 1: my digital clutter. You should see the home screen, Oh
Speaker 1: I have well, yeah, you have you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Hopefully by the time this releases it won't be, but
Speaker 1: it is a hot us right now. There's maybe like
Speaker 1: two open spots for more screenshots of things.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So if that's like you, this episode will be
Speaker 4: super helpful.
Speaker 3: You will learn why digital declutter can be almost as
Speaker 3: detrimental to our finances as physical clutter. We are going
Speaker 3: to talk about the top categories to declutter on your
Speaker 3: phone and how, and the streamlined processes that you can
Speaker 3: implement that you only have to do this type of
Speaker 3: declutter once.
Speaker 1: But first, this episode is brought to you by our
Speaker 1: spending Planner, So it is our budget spreadsheet that is
Speaker 1: mobile optimized that if you're beyond a paper budget but
Speaker 1: you are not yet at the place of using an app,
Speaker 1: if you still are in a place where you need
Speaker 1: to manually input your transactions, We've created a mobile optimized
Speaker 1: budget spreadsheet called the Budget Plans, called the Spending Planner,
Speaker 1: and we will put a link to that in the
Speaker 1: description below, as well as maybe a little discount so
Speaker 1: you can check it out and see if it's right
Speaker 1: for you in this time of your life. So it's
Speaker 1: beautiful and we really like it. So let's talk about
Speaker 1: digital decluttering. We're going to learn from one of the best.
Speaker 1: I met Sarah at a conference for moms a couple
Speaker 1: months ago, and she was so wonderful. I noticed sitting
Speaker 1: next to her that on her phone she had a
Speaker 1: screen guard on it, so like I couldn't see what was.
Speaker 4: On her phone what I would about. Everybody were trying
Speaker 4: and it could didn't work right, and so.
Speaker 1: I realized that she was the person to talk about
Speaker 1: digital things with. But she does all things decluttering. She's
Speaker 1: the CEO of House Peace and they have been bringing
Speaker 1: peace into homes around the country since twenty thirteen. She
Speaker 1: holds a BA in psychology from Purdue, and she also
Speaker 1: has a master's in counseling from Moravian Theological Seminary, So
Speaker 1: she pulls all of that into how she declutters and
Speaker 1: creates house peace. And I hope that this three day
Speaker 1: guide really does help you as much as I think
Speaker 1: it's gonna help me.
Speaker 4: Let's get into.
Speaker 1: It, Tara, Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. We are
Speaker 1: delighted to have you.
Speaker 5: Hi, I'm so excited to be here too.
Speaker 3: This is a fun conversation. We typically talk about decluttering
Speaker 3: our physical spaces, and we know that there's a lot
Speaker 3: of psychological impact of physical clutter around us and the
Speaker 3: ways that that can impact our stress, our mental health,
Speaker 3: our emotional and relational health. But I'm curious to hear
Speaker 3: from you how you see digital clutter impacting our minds
Speaker 3: our emotions.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I do think a lot about digital decluttering. I actually
Speaker 5: even teach a class sometimes called iPhone Piece where we
Speaker 5: go and scroll through pictures and delete things and like
Speaker 5: optimize our phones to work a little bit harder for us.
Speaker 5: But I do see people having very cluttered phones, and
Speaker 5: their phones actually stress me out, you know, like when
Speaker 5: there's a thousand notifications on you know, the screen, all
Speaker 5: the red badges. I'm like super triggered by the red badges.
Speaker 5: So when I see someone's phone and they've got a
Speaker 5: bunch of those, I'm like, can you can I we
Speaker 5: let me just deal with this.
Speaker 1: I turned off the badges because I will tell you
Speaker 1: I have twenty thousand unread emails in my person inbox,
Speaker 1: so I just don't want to see the bags.
Speaker 3: So I never email Jen. If you want to get
Speaker 3: a hold of Gen, do not email my business email
Speaker 3: I inbox. I'm on top of I have no unread
Speaker 3: emails in there. But that comes at the expense of
Speaker 3: all of my personal things.
Speaker 5: I mean, right, And we have to the things that
Speaker 5: we're going to pay attention to, So yeah, why pay
Speaker 5: attention to those red badges if we don't have to?
Speaker 5: So yeah, mineor all turned off except for certain apps,
Speaker 5: messages obviously, phone, several others. But like, that's clutter to me.
Speaker 5: If we if we need to, if we're getting informed
Speaker 5: about things that we don't need to care about, that's
Speaker 5: just mental clutter for sure. And I'm particularly passionate about
Speaker 5: photos and videos and that kind of clutter. Because we can't.
Speaker 5: We can't see it right. We can't see a pile
Speaker 5: of photos in the way that we see a pile
Speaker 5: of laundry or whatever. So it's easy to forget about it.
Speaker 5: But then all of a sudden, we're taking like ten
Speaker 5: of the same pictures and then we never go back
Speaker 5: and delete, and that's fine. Like the search functions have
Speaker 5: gotten really good on on phones and even in Amazon Photos.
Speaker 5: You know, you could search for orange hat, and that
Speaker 5: is helpful. But I look it at from a little
Speaker 5: bit of a different perspective, which is like, after I'm
Speaker 5: gone and this is my kid's life, I would like
Speaker 5: it to be a curation of what really mattered to
Speaker 5: us as a family, what things that we did. It
Speaker 5: doesn't need to be the picture of my meal that
Speaker 5: I had last month that was pretty It just I mean,
Speaker 5: I guess you can. Everybody's got their own preferences, but
Speaker 5: I like, when you've got twenty thousand pictures on your phone,
Speaker 5: I think that that is unmanageable. Yeah, I don't know
Speaker 5: how many pictures do you all have on your phones.
Speaker 3: I couldn't even tell you because I paid for a
Speaker 3: ton of storage. But I can resonate with what you're saying.
Speaker 3: First of all, in how I take pictures, I don't
Speaker 3: know if this is a generational thing, if it's one
Speaker 3: of those things that they're going to make fun of
Speaker 3: millennials for. But when I take a picture, I will
Speaker 3: take like three, and so then I've got and maybe
Speaker 3: more than that, Yeah, a bunch of essentially duplicates that
Speaker 3: I think I'm going to go back and pick my
Speaker 3: favorite one I rarely do. And then interspersed with that
Speaker 3: is like a picture of where I parked, a screenshot
Speaker 3: of a recipe, a screenshot of a flight that I
Speaker 3: booked that I haven't gotten the confirmation email for yet,
Speaker 3: so I want to make sure that I still have
Speaker 3: the number saved somewhere, And like you, so you're scrolling
Speaker 3: through and it's like, oh, yeah, that's a cute memory,
Speaker 3: and then there's my parking spot, apparently from a month ago.
Speaker 5: And maybe some I would say few people might find
Speaker 5: value in that, like looking back, like oh right, I
Speaker 5: am going through perimonte pause and I was having a
Speaker 5: screenshot all these things or whatever to help me remember.
Speaker 5: But to me, that's just it's unnecessary and it just
Speaker 5: gets in the way, like I'll equate it to like,
Speaker 5: I have memory boxes for each of my kids, and
Speaker 5: it's primarily schoolwork. So I don't know how much school
Speaker 5: work y'all save for your kids, But you know you've
Speaker 5: got the handprint stuff, You've got the fill in the blank.
Speaker 5: My mom is forty eight years old and she's two
Speaker 5: foot tall or whatever. Those are all so cute.
Speaker 4: I love that.
Speaker 5: But like my typical client in my job, like my
Speaker 5: in home organizing business, they keep so much of this.
Speaker 5: It's so much too much, and so not that there's
Speaker 5: anything wrong with any of it. It's just how how's
Speaker 5: a kid, How's a person going to make sense of
Speaker 5: their childhood? Do they even care? So I like to
Speaker 5: do these little memory boxes. They're twelve by twelve, are
Speaker 5: from hobby Lobby, and my goal is to graduate the
Speaker 5: kids with three of those boxes. And it's got handwriting samples,
Speaker 5: it's got self portraits, it's got you know, a few
Speaker 5: boy scout things or whatever, and it just becomes so
Speaker 5: deeply meaningful each of the each of the thing. It's
Speaker 5: such a curation that it's a little more precious. So
Speaker 5: what I like to do, say with screenshots, do y'all
Speaker 5: are y'all both iPhone users. I like to and I'm
Speaker 5: sure Android is similar, but I like to open my
Speaker 5: camera roll and go to media types and click on
Speaker 5: screenshots and that. So much of this are its reminders,
Speaker 5: is basically what it is. And if those reminders are done,
Speaker 5: then I'm going to select, select them and delete, just
Speaker 5: delete fully. Obviously, if it's a recipe or something, maybe
Speaker 5: I'll go ahead and print it out, because I'm not
Speaker 5: going to follow a recipe on my phone. It's just
Speaker 5: I'm not gonna remember it whatever. So I do like
Speaker 5: doing some wholesale kind of deleting, even for example, like
Speaker 5: I take a lot of time laps videos and some
Speaker 5: of them are for work, most of them are her work,
Speaker 5: and I don't need to keep all those, so at
Speaker 5: some point I'll delete all those or you know, most
Speaker 5: of them, but it's easier to do it by category sometimes.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a great tip.
Speaker 1: What are some of the actual costs of some of
Speaker 1: this digital clutter?
Speaker 5: Well, when it comes to pictures and stuff, well, just
Speaker 5: your iPhone. If you're paying ten dollars a month, I'm
Speaker 5: paying ninety nine cents a month I think for extra storage.
Speaker 5: And part of that is because of my work taking
Speaker 5: before and after pictures of people's stuff. And also it
Speaker 5: counts for my whole family, I think, or maybe just
Speaker 5: me and my kids. So I don't mind paying for
Speaker 5: that a little bit. But yes, once we start getting subscriptions,
Speaker 5: then that that is a cost. I mean a dollar
Speaker 5: a month is nothing, but I think also the cost
Speaker 5: is time not being able to find what you need,
Speaker 5: and the I don't know, we carry apps that we
Speaker 5: don't use anymore. Maybe you have subscriptions you don't use
Speaker 5: anymore and we've forgotten. I'm sure. I'm sure you guys
Speaker 5: have talked about this, like going to your subscription and
Speaker 5: like looking in your settings. I'll ever talk about that
Speaker 5: on the show.
Speaker 1: Yes, And it's not something that I think about often
Speaker 1: with apps, is that you actually have to go into
Speaker 1: the app store for those subscriptions. It's not always something
Speaker 1: you can do online, and so I often forget about that.
Speaker 1: And that's why I feel like this episode is mostly
Speaker 1: for me, because I've got my twenty thousand emails, I've
Speaker 1: got my twenty thousand probably pictures. Also, every time I
Speaker 1: open up my laptop, I get a notification that my
Speaker 1: iCloud storage has maxed out and that I need to
Speaker 1: pay for more and I just don't and so ultimately
Speaker 1: I need you to help me.
Speaker 4: Let's go in this episode talk about you.
Speaker 5: Okay, let's this is you and me, baby. You tell
Speaker 5: me exactly what you want and we're going to figure
Speaker 5: it out together.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: If I was going to take three days and like
Speaker 1: totally digitally declutter my life, what how would you suggest
Speaker 1: that I go about this?
Speaker 5: Well, first I would take the thing that makes you
Speaker 5: the maddest or the most stressed. So is it the
Speaker 5: twenty thousand emails? Is it the twenty thousand photos?
Speaker 4: Is it?
Speaker 5: What it like for you? What do you want to
Speaker 5: declutter first? What makes you the most irritated?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 1: Probably the emails because I do have to check those periodically.
Speaker 1: My photos, I'm.
Speaker 3: Not in as much, Okay, And she misses out on
Speaker 3: stuff like there's in to things and she's like, I
Speaker 3: would have gone to that. I didn't check my email,
Speaker 3: So that's that's the cost. Or I did and I
Speaker 3: just didn't see it.
Speaker 5: So yeah, yeah, okay, So I think that you firstly
Speaker 5: need to go unsubscribe from some stuff. Probably, right? Do
Speaker 5: you get newsletters you don't read.
Speaker 1: I definitely do. I also have unrolled me, but yes,
Speaker 1: I don't feel like it gets everything for some reason,
Speaker 1: So yes, unsubscribing. Is there a bulk way to do
Speaker 1: any of this?
Speaker 5: Well, what I to unsubscribe m other than unroll me,
Speaker 5: I'm not aware of it. But what I'll do is
Speaker 5: when I check my email every day, when I get it,
Speaker 5: I just do it as as I go.
Speaker 4: Like that.
Speaker 6: I don't.
Speaker 5: To me that's a maintenance thing because we do end
Speaker 5: up on people's you know, mailing lists or whatever. So
Speaker 5: I think that just doing that as you go is good.
Speaker 5: What I would rather do, like if you were sitting
Speaker 5: down and doing stuff for a while, is come like
Speaker 5: do a search term. So like I'm going to do
Speaker 5: this in two days my kids last day of schools tomorrow,
Speaker 5: I'm going to put in Helena High School in the search,
Speaker 5: and every email that comes up that has Helena High
Speaker 5: School in it, I'm going to check all delete. I
Speaker 5: don't need them anymore. So I like doing mass deletions
Speaker 5: like that, and that will be probably and I will
Speaker 5: do that with Amazon. Actually, I have all of my
Speaker 5: Amazon emails filtered out. Do you guys filter out any
Speaker 5: of your emails.
Speaker 1: I do that sometimes, but not on like a consistent
Speaker 1: like bulk basis for like a particular retailer.
Speaker 5: I would if you shop a lot on Amazon, or
Speaker 5: really wherever you shop a lot, and you get your
Speaker 5: receipts or whatever, you don't really need to look at
Speaker 5: those unless you have a problem. So there's if you
Speaker 5: use Gmail, there's a function, and of course it's going
Speaker 5: to be true for any email service. You can have
Speaker 5: things skip the inbox and go to its own mysterious
Speaker 5: folder somewhere. So like, I never see an email from Amazon,
Speaker 5: and that's fine by me. If there's ever a problem,
Speaker 5: they're there and I can just search Amazon and find it,
Speaker 5: or I can get in the app and whatever I
Speaker 5: need to know is just right there, as far as
Speaker 5: purchase history or whatever. Yeah, but that way you're just automatically.
Speaker 5: Our mental load is so big, and if we cannot
Speaker 5: pay attention to certain things that will only serve us, well,
Speaker 5: you know, I don't need to pay attention to Amazon emails.
Speaker 5: So you can also do the bulk delete that way too.
Speaker 5: I'm typically trying to get to inbox zero every Friday,
Speaker 5: but what that means for me is not truly inbox zero,
Speaker 5: it's zero unread. So if there's something important that has
Speaker 5: come through my email and I know I want to
Speaker 5: come back to it, I have to market unread and
Speaker 5: that way it will stay at the forefront of my attention.
Speaker 5: But at the end of the school year, I will
Speaker 5: probably get my inbox down to like one hundred or something.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I keep my work inbox at fifty. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I'm good about that. But yeah, it's just something
Speaker 1: about my personal I don't value my personal life as
Speaker 1: much as my work life, seemingly.
Speaker 5: What's your enneagram type eight?
Speaker 7: Mm?
Speaker 1: Okay, so I don't know what that means. Okay, So
Speaker 1: email and so to filter out emails, correct me if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong it is you'll take the email and then
Speaker 1: you'll like select filter messages like this and thathing.
Speaker 5: Yes, I haven't done it in a little while, but yes,
Speaker 5: something like that, and or it'll say filter anything from Amazon.
Speaker 5: There's all kinds of different things you can select.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then I create like a folder or something
Speaker 1: that just shows on the side and then they go
Speaker 1: in there. I joined the SNL lottery to get tickets
Speaker 1: to sur Night Live, and I didn't want to miss
Speaker 1: that and so I created a filter for anything that
Speaker 1: says like s A Now or Saturday Night Live to
Speaker 1: go into this special folder, so I would know, like
Speaker 1: if I see an unread.
Speaker 5: There, then I got an email. Smart and I.
Speaker 1: Didn't get an email because it's very hard to get
Speaker 1: this and all lottery. But that was one thing that
Speaker 1: was important enough for me obviously.
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so helpful. I think, just to know about
Speaker 3: the different tools and resources that exist. I think that's
Speaker 3: always part of the barrier of just I didn't know
Speaker 3: I could use that functionality, click that button, use filters
Speaker 3: in this way, and how much more approachable it then
Speaker 3: becomes to maintain. But of course we're kind of talking
Speaker 3: about this initial declutter, which is usually the biggest effort
Speaker 3: up front. Right then you can talk, then we can
Speaker 3: make strategies. But you've described kind of starting with the
Speaker 3: thing we hate the most, then refining, filtering, unsubscribing. Are
Speaker 3: there any other big steps in this kind of over
Speaker 3: all of a digital clutter.
Speaker 5: Well, this is related to email again. I'll tell you
Speaker 5: a story. I had a client in home organizing not
Speaker 5: digital decluttering. She deleted every email in her inbox. She
Speaker 5: didn't care. She was like, select everything, goodbye. And the
Speaker 5: reason I know the way I found out about it.
Speaker 5: She actually wasn't my client. She was one of my
Speaker 5: other organizer's clients. And I texted my organizer. I was like, hey,
Speaker 5: so and so hasn't paid their invoice. Do you know
Speaker 5: if she mailed the check or write you know what's
Speaker 5: going on? And she was like, did you email or
Speaker 5: the invoice? Yeah? And she said, well, she decided to
Speaker 5: delete her whole inbox. And she figured that if anybody
Speaker 5: really needed something, they would reach out. And I was like,
Speaker 5: and here it is.
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 5: I needed to get paid. We needed to get paid.
Speaker 5: So you know, if that's appealing to you, if you
Speaker 5: feel like you can handle that, do it. I don't
Speaker 5: know who cares. I mean I care a little bit
Speaker 5: for like litigious reasons because I'm a business owner and
Speaker 5: like I want to have documentation for things. But maybe
Speaker 5: in the personal email, maybe it doesn't matter as much.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, I mean it sounds like I'm thinking about
Speaker 3: my own circumstances, and I agree. There I've been times
Speaker 3: where I've needed to look back of Oh I need
Speaker 3: that document. I know it's in my email somewhere, and
Speaker 3: I'm so glad that I found it, But part of
Speaker 3: that is because I then I never had a system
Speaker 3: set up in the first place where I put that
Speaker 3: important document. I kind of just said, well, it's in
Speaker 3: my email. If I ever need to find it, it's there.
Speaker 3: But then that's what keeps me from being able to
Speaker 3: really do a full clear out. So I'm curious, do
Speaker 3: you have any tips on as you're decluttering, how to
Speaker 3: set up those good organization pieces that would then allow
Speaker 3: us for some of this maintenance.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think definitely putting labels on things
Speaker 5: on emails. I have some emails labeled adoption. My daughter
Speaker 5: came home from China in twenty thirteen, and so we've
Speaker 5: got some pretty precious emails related to her adoption, and
Speaker 5: so those are labeled adoption in their unfolder. Those are
Speaker 5: never going to get deleted, even if the word Amazon
Speaker 5: was in there, which is not. But so I think
Speaker 5: start with the mass unsubscribing with keywords like high school, Amazon, whatever,
Speaker 5: and then you're going to keep your inbox is going
Speaker 5: to go down, down, down, down down, and you're going
Speaker 5: to get into some of the finer ones where you
Speaker 5: can start unsubscribing more and then making those those rules,
Speaker 5: those filter rules to get stuff out of the regular
Speaker 5: in books and saved set aside.
Speaker 1: Okay, so if emails are day one, pictures are probably
Speaker 1: day two. What I know you mentioned some tips all
Speaker 1: ready with someone with twenty thousand pictures? What are the
Speaker 1: steps we do to get down to just the curated essentials.
Speaker 5: I prefer to use an app that slightly gamifies deleting pictures.
Speaker 5: The one that I prefer is very simple. It's called
Speaker 5: tidy Gallery. It's free for seven days or something, and
Speaker 5: then after that it's like two dollars a month. I
Speaker 5: pay for it because it's so helpful. So it's swipe
Speaker 5: left to delete, swipe right to keep, like a like
Speaker 5: a dating app. It's tender for your pictures, goodbye.
Speaker 3: So for all of our married folks, this is how
Speaker 3: you can live vicariously.
Speaker 1: And it's the last way I want to live vicuriously.
Speaker 3: For single you at least can understand swiping right and left.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are so many other things I would rather
Speaker 1: live vicuriously.
Speaker 4: You know it sounds yeah.
Speaker 5: We should think of that list Jen, So yeah, I
Speaker 5: like that. And it'll also tell you how much you've decluttered.
Speaker 5: I'm going to just pull it up and show y'all
Speaker 5: how much you've decluttered since day one. So since day one,
Speaker 5: I have decluttered three hundred and sixty eight gigabytes.
Speaker 3: Ooh, and like today, you're going to tell us a
Speaker 3: good job.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 4: So when I say to people who come on our podcast.
Speaker 5: So I took some screenshots of something from Facebook to
Speaker 5: some of my husband, I can delete that. That's what
Speaker 5: I took some mushrooms to. You know, I didn't take mushrooms.
Speaker 5: I took a picture of mushrooms to.
Speaker 4: Uh there, I heard what I heard.
Speaker 5: There's clip I said what I said, yeah, to identify
Speaker 5: them from a friends flowerpot, So goodbye. I also texted
Speaker 5: my children some things. I want to keep that because
Speaker 5: that's funny. I'm gonna then, who knows what this is
Speaker 5: swipe left, So then I'm going to ex al that
Speaker 5: out and it'll say do you want to let me delete?
Speaker 5: And I'm like, yes, I do, and it tells me,
Speaker 5: good job, you clean five point two megabytes. There's other
Speaker 5: similar apps. This is just the one that I like.
Speaker 5: It's just very clean and simple. So that's great, and
Speaker 5: you can get through a couple thousand photos in an
Speaker 5: hour if.
Speaker 4: You wanted to.
Speaker 5: I think, moving forward, it's easy to like pull it
Speaker 5: up once a month, or when you're in a doctor's
Speaker 5: office or have a habit or like on a plane.
Speaker 5: If you don't have internet, that's like something you don't
Speaker 5: need the internet for. You can just keep maintaining. So
Speaker 5: I think to get through twenty thousand pictures, it sounds impossible,
Speaker 5: but it's really not. Like I also sometimes host a
Speaker 5: free zoom. Maybe I need to do one with you guys.
Speaker 5: This would be fun called Eat and Delete. Sometimes it
Speaker 5: used to be we would meet at a restaurant that
Speaker 5: was I guess pre COVID, and so it would be
Speaker 5: a local people and we'd all bring our phones. And
Speaker 5: the rules of the game are we're eating, we're having fun,
Speaker 5: we're talking, but we're deleting pictures the whole time. So
Speaker 5: everybody's got their phones out. We've all got permission to
Speaker 5: have phones out at the dinner table, and and we
Speaker 5: and there's a prize for whoever deletes the most photos
Speaker 5: and video and you can only share a cute or
Speaker 5: funny or interesting picture twice.
Speaker 3: Oh that's a good that that came up. For me,
Speaker 3: I was like, how often are we getting distracted?
Speaker 5: Yeah? So like if you saw something really worthwhile sharing
Speaker 5: and you're like hey, and then like that's your that's
Speaker 5: your one when you when you show your neighbor.
Speaker 3: I love this. We love gamifying things. We love making
Speaker 3: it fun.
Speaker 1: Great, like gathering for friends like absolutely should be done
Speaker 1: in person more just for friend groups.
Speaker 4: What a great idea.
Speaker 3: Okay, Okay, so if that's day two, what's day three?
Speaker 3: I've got a couple of I but you tell me
Speaker 3: based off of your experience? Are we talking like are
Speaker 3: we clearing up apps? Are we figuring out all of
Speaker 3: our digital folders?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 4: What do you think day three is?
Speaker 5: Day three? I would say is streamlining and minimalizing. There's
Speaker 5: a book by Cal Newport called Digital Minimalism, and not
Speaker 5: all of us are digital minimalists, but I strive to be.
Speaker 5: That's why my screen is black.
Speaker 4: You have Okay.
Speaker 1: When we met, I noticed that you had this screen.
Speaker 1: Well I didn't notice. Somebody pointed it out and asked, like,
Speaker 1: how you like your screen? Like privacy screen on your
Speaker 1: phone and I didn't know those existed. But it's so
Speaker 1: that people next to you can't like look over and
Speaker 1: see what's on your screen.
Speaker 5: Right, this is like my greatest life hack for like
Speaker 5: kids or public transportation. So here you could see this,
Speaker 5: and if I turn it a little bit, you can't
Speaker 5: see it anymore. So no one can look over my shoulder.
Speaker 5: I'm always shocked. Like if I'm in New York City
Speaker 5: on the on the subway, I'm like, how do you guys,
Speaker 5: I'm reading your text, I'm doing it.
Speaker 4: I'm looking over Nosy Nancy too.
Speaker 5: But like my phone is mine, and I know a
Speaker 5: lot of people, including myself, when our kids are little,
Speaker 5: we passed them the phone and let them play stuff.
Speaker 5: And so it's kind of a bad habit. I talk
Speaker 5: about really personal things on my phone, like with clients,
Speaker 5: Like people are texting pictures of their most embarrassing spaces
Speaker 5: in their homes or you know, I've got people talking
Speaker 5: about marital problems and you know, just it's it's not
Speaker 5: for anybody, it's for me. So yeah, I have a
Speaker 5: privacy screen, and they just I just found out about
Speaker 5: the Matt screens, Like this one's Matt, So it's you
Speaker 5: don't see all the as much of the like fingerprints
Speaker 5: and stuff on it. So like even my my background,
Speaker 5: like I don't have a pretty picture. It's just clean
Speaker 5: and simple. I believe it is call Newport who says,
Speaker 5: you know, when we make things so pretty and lovely,
Speaker 5: we're adding to the addiction problem.
Speaker 4: Like oh, when.
Speaker 5: I look at my phone, I see this picture I love.
Speaker 5: And now now I'm having some kind of feelings about
Speaker 5: my phone.
Speaker 4: You know, I do that.
Speaker 1: I have our family's Easter picture on my phone.
Speaker 5: I mean, do what you want to do, Like, if
Speaker 5: it's not a problem for you, then just keep it.
Speaker 1: I think it was a problem though.
Speaker 5: I like to keep just the apps I use all
Speaker 5: the time on the front page. So you'll see I've
Speaker 5: got like a budgeting app thanks to Jen who suggested
Speaker 5: that to me, Instagram, New York Times, Games, my Aura ring,
Speaker 5: Mark Apolo. After that, everything is in uh folders. So
Speaker 5: I've got folders for travel, for food stores, photography, thing
Speaker 5: like that house piece, stuff like quick books and that
Speaker 5: way I can quickly find what I need and it's
Speaker 5: just on two pages, I think. Yeah, and then there's
Speaker 5: the what do you call that thing? The app library,
Speaker 5: which you can't really get rid of. But yes, I
Speaker 5: say delete apps that you don't use. Who was I
Speaker 5: talking to the other day, probably my brother. One of
Speaker 5: my brothers is a cybersecurity guy fornsick stuff, and he
Speaker 5: pointed out that there's experts out there who are like, get,
Speaker 5: you're offering so much to these app developers for free,
Speaker 5: and if you were not using the app that much,
Speaker 5: then what is the point? Like I literally had Dominoes
Speaker 5: on here. I'm like, how often do I get Dominoes?
Speaker 5: Twice a year? Like, I don't need that app on there.
Speaker 5: I can get on Safari, I can call God forbid,
Speaker 5: I call an order of pizza. But like, especially with Google,
Speaker 5: he's you know, all the tech people have a chip
Speaker 5: on my shoulder about Google, which I also do osmosis,
Speaker 5: but but yet I use it. But like, why do
Speaker 5: we have Google slides on my phone? I don't need that.
Speaker 5: That's that's just more access to things that it doesn't need.
Speaker 1: To have it.
Speaker 5: So from a privacy standpoint, delete all that and make
Speaker 5: your phone. It makes your phone cleaner. So yeah, definitely
Speaker 5: categorizing things.
Speaker 1: Nice anything other than apps, Like what about my laptop?
Speaker 1: What should I be doing on my laptop?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I have been very much focusing on the phone here.
Speaker 4: But that's good.
Speaker 1: I think that's where we spend most of our time
Speaker 1: on technology.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think with with your computer, Like what what
Speaker 5: do you find is cluttery about your computer?
Speaker 1: My entire uh desktop is filled with things like if
Speaker 1: I like like icons, like I can show Jill right now,
Speaker 1: I just like show her like yeah, there is not
Speaker 1: an open space left for something on.
Speaker 5: My Okay, I'm going to take a screenshot of my
Speaker 5: screen and I'm gonna text it to you right now, Jen.
Speaker 1: Okay, well I won't be able to see it because
Speaker 1: we're using my phone as a second camera.
Speaker 5: Shoot, Okay, I got it. Well I'm still sending it
Speaker 5: to you anyway. So I like to do folders. There
Speaker 5: are a few standalone items on my desktop, a couple
Speaker 5: screenshots that like, now I'm looking at it, I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 5: I can delete that, So I'm dragging it to the
Speaker 5: trash right this very second. I oh, this is how
Speaker 5: I do my phone. Like I've got a screenshot of
Speaker 5: an email and I really need to take care of
Speaker 5: this issue. So I'm going to leave that on there
Speaker 5: because my goal is to just have the three folders.
Speaker 4: And that's a.
Speaker 1: Three folders on your desktop, like on your correct Oh,
Speaker 1: but like.
Speaker 8: I think I have that there are folders, but my
Speaker 8: three folders are house Peace, my business, family, and House Therapy,
Speaker 8: which is my TV show pitch that I'm working on.
Speaker 5: So I like to keep all those documents right there.
Speaker 5: So like obviously within family, I've got, you know, a
Speaker 5: folder for our airbnb that I run, and family paper documents,
Speaker 5: family photos, et cetera. So there's folders within folders. I
Speaker 5: just don't need all that on the forefront. These are
Speaker 5: things I can dig for because it takes half a second,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, setting up a good system that makes sense to
Speaker 6: you is so important, and I think that this is
Speaker 6: leading into some of those maintenance pieces, Like once somebody
Speaker 6: has gone through this kind of three day digital d clutter,
Speaker 6: what would you say are the most important habits, routines,
Speaker 6: processes in order to make the sustainable long term.
Speaker 5: I think if you establish some rules for yourself that
Speaker 5: can be really helpful. So, for example, my rule on
Speaker 5: the desktop is three folder icons. That's the goal, and
Speaker 5: it's okay if it's not perfect all the time, but
Speaker 5: I'm not going to have you know, a screenfold That's
Speaker 5: just my rule. And my rule is once I start
Speaker 5: getting to about two or three thousand photos on my phone.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna quickly call and then I'm going to upload
Speaker 5: the keeps, the curated to Amazon Photos and then delete
Speaker 5: them off my phone. And just whatever your rules are,
Speaker 5: write them down. We're all forgetful people. We are humans,
Speaker 5: and we can't keep everything the forefront of our brain.
Speaker 5: So write down what your little rules are, stick it
Speaker 5: on the computer, and then you're reminded of what you've
Speaker 5: decided for yourself as far as maintaining.
Speaker 1: Are there any other apps that gamify organization or help
Speaker 1: with organization, kind of like tidy Gallery.
Speaker 5: There are some other ones and I don't know what
Speaker 5: they're called. There was one that was recommended by a
Speaker 5: digital photo organizer. She loved it, but I didn't. It
Speaker 5: had too many categories. It wasn't keep and go. It
Speaker 5: was like keep keep for a while something else. And
Speaker 5: I was like, no, no, no, no, I didn't want
Speaker 5: to I'm too efficient for that. Like that just felt
Speaker 5: like a waste of time. But it's easy to find.
Speaker 5: You could just do a little search photo decluttering.
Speaker 3: Do you know what I make as a rule for
Speaker 3: myself that I keep in every episode of this podcast.
Speaker 1: And that we are usually six months behind on but
Speaker 1: we do always get to every single one.
Speaker 7: Oh, the bill of the week, right, it's time for
Speaker 7: the best minute of your entire week.
Speaker 2: Maybe a baby was born and his name is William.
Speaker 2: Maybe you've paid off your mortgage, maybe your car died,
Speaker 2: and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore.
Speaker 2: Duck bills, Buffalo bills, bill clion.
Speaker 4: This is the bill of the week, Tarah.
Speaker 1: Every week we yell at our guests and our listeners
Speaker 1: to share with us their bill for the week, and
Speaker 1: we would love to hear yours.
Speaker 5: Well, I'm going to go with the first thing that
Speaker 5: comes to my mind, which is I had to pay
Speaker 5: about four thousand dollars in dollars actual money, good dollar
Speaker 5: to have some land worked on. And it hurt me.
Speaker 5: It hurt me very much to send that money. But
Speaker 5: it requires grading the land, bringing in topswell, bringing in seed,
Speaker 5: bringing in hay. It was like a whole thing, that's
Speaker 5: just what it costs, and it made me sad. So
Speaker 5: that's that's my bill of the week.
Speaker 3: Sometimes bills over the week make us sad. Sometimes it's
Speaker 3: money we didn't want to pay, but did you have
Speaker 3: the money? Were you were you able to spend that money.
Speaker 5: Don't tell I stole it. You know, I didn't steal it,
Speaker 5: and I didn't have to take from retirement. We had
Speaker 5: the money. But it just hurt my stomach.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: We just needed to do windows and that was obnoxious.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, oh yeah, because we just had to do
Speaker 3: a roof and that was not fun either.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's not like it's sexy or fun, like, you know,
Speaker 5: a makeover. I don't know.
Speaker 3: But they tell us that owning things is so cool,
Speaker 3: but they don't tell us that owning things means you
Speaker 3: got to spend four thousand dollars to grade your land.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's cool, but it's a it's also not the
Speaker 1: American dream.
Speaker 4: So well, how does it look? Does it look good?
Speaker 4: Does it look graded?
Speaker 5: It's sprouting up, the grass is sprouting up, but we've
Speaker 5: had a lot of rain here in Alabama, so there's
Speaker 5: some spots that have to be redone. He's like, I
Speaker 5: won't charge you for the labor, but I have to
Speaker 5: charge you materials and the rental of the thing. And
Speaker 5: I'm like, okay, that's fine.
Speaker 4: But it'll look good.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's an Airbnb, it's you know, it's a
Speaker 5: lovely place to host and whatever, so ultimately it will
Speaker 5: be worth it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it just it just hurts weak and you don't
Speaker 1: even really get to enjoy it on a day to
Speaker 1: day basis. Those our windows. We're in our rental, so
Speaker 1: I don't get to see those.
Speaker 5: Yeah that's annoying.
Speaker 6: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh well, if you're listening, if you have a bill
Speaker 3: that you did not enjoy paying and you just want
Speaker 3: to call and commiserate with us, we are here for that.
Speaker 3: If you've got a bill that you actually loved paying
Speaker 3: and you didn't have to steal the money, you know
Speaker 3: what to do. Frugal Friends podcast dot com, slash bill
Speaker 3: leave it for us. We can't wait, And now it's
Speaker 3: time for.
Speaker 1: Few all right into our next segment of the show,
Speaker 1: where we will all answer this super vulnerable question very.
Speaker 4: Fast, not that fast, It doesn't have to be that fast.
Speaker 1: What is the most used app on your phone?
Speaker 5: Instagram?
Speaker 3: That same she did answer it very fast. Wow, you guys,
Speaker 3: I was so surprised by this. I get a notification.
Speaker 3: It's one that I do allow myself to keep because
Speaker 3: it helps keep me in check every Sunday of my
Speaker 3: screen time. Like how much time I spent on the
Speaker 3: phone that week on average, and and just recently I
Speaker 3: finally decided, Okay, I'm going to take the plunge. I'm
Speaker 3: going to rip the band aid off and find out
Speaker 3: where am I spending this time.
Speaker 5: On my phone?
Speaker 3: And I was assuming it was going to be social
Speaker 3: media because I am on it a lot, especially for
Speaker 3: frugal friends. It was the Messenger app, which was really
Speaker 3: shocking to me, Like I spent most time no texting.
Speaker 3: Is that that's an app? Right?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Texting people.
Speaker 1: Jill doesn't have children, so she still has friends.
Speaker 5: Well, I'll profit fair. I mean, I'm prob. My second
Speaker 5: is probably messages. It is a lot. It's crazy but
Speaker 5: actually so fun. Fact I turned off my screen time
Speaker 5: because I don't want to care about that. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Any tips for decluttering your usage of your phone, like
Speaker 1: getting that into control or you just like let yourself live.
Speaker 5: I think it's a problem for a lot of people,
Speaker 5: and I feel like I've got a pretty good grip
Speaker 5: on it for the most part. But that Digital Minimalism
Speaker 5: book has so many tips for making your phone seem
Speaker 5: less appealing, And of course you can do screen time
Speaker 5: limits on the iPhone though you can just ignore them. Yeah,
Speaker 5: to get and ignore, but at least there is a
Speaker 5: reminder says, hey, you're choosing to ignore this like pay attention.
Speaker 5: But I think making the phone less appealing is has
Speaker 5: been a very helpful stub for me.
Speaker 3: Oh, We've gotten so many helpful tips from your Tara.
Speaker 3: If people want more from you, where can they get that?
Speaker 5: So my favorite place, well, probably the best place to
Speaker 5: get the most housepiece is my newsletter house Piece dot
Speaker 5: net slash newsletter and we do lots of fun stuff
Speaker 5: on Instagram. But if you want to know all the
Speaker 5: things that our house fece are, newsletter is where it's.
Speaker 1: At and what do you include in your newsletter?
Speaker 5: So definitely, like some stories I try to give tips
Speaker 5: we've got just what's happening in different areas. Like if
Speaker 5: I'm traveling to wherever for this event, I'll say, hey,
Speaker 5: I'm going to be at mom two point zero. You
Speaker 5: want to link up there, like it's I like it
Speaker 5: to be fairly personal but also helpful.
Speaker 1: Nice and house Peace does in home organizing in several
Speaker 1: areas around the country, so that is another you are
Speaker 1: a wealth of information on that too, So definitely, any
Speaker 1: listeners who are interested in decluttering across the board, physical
Speaker 1: and digital.
Speaker 6: Here's your girl, I'm your girl. Thanks so much for
Speaker 6: being here.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Okay. Number one takeaway is eat and delete.
Speaker 3: Love that idea, Oh right, yes, yes, so so genius.
Speaker 3: Like I often think I need to get rid of
Speaker 3: all of this stuff on my phone.
Speaker 4: But when do I ever want to do that?
Speaker 3: Sometimes I'll do it when I'm sitting on a plane,
Speaker 3: But if I'm being honest, when I want a plane,
Speaker 3: I just want to.
Speaker 4: Watch a movie.
Speaker 3: I just want to sit eat my pretzel snack and
Speaker 3: watch a movie. I don't want to be sitting there
Speaker 3: deleting photos, so it just never happens. But getting together
Speaker 3: with friends and doing that, and then the rule that
Speaker 3: you can only tell two stories from your pictures, it's
Speaker 3: so perfect. It's boundaries, it's fun, oh productive, and I
Speaker 3: need to eat and delete.
Speaker 1: I do love that idea. And I also it just
Speaker 1: made me think, like in my downtime, I just my
Speaker 1: lesslie consume and I could just be mindlessly the leading
Speaker 1: too so sam habit of picking up my phone, but
Speaker 1: could be healthier. But yeah, I do love I love
Speaker 1: the community aspect of it. That that's one of the
Speaker 1: things I love about here. She's not just like decluttering
Speaker 1: for decluttering's sake, but like also what's most important. These
Speaker 1: things are on our computers, on our devices because they
Speaker 1: hold some importance, and their importance as usually people really
Speaker 1: did so like yeah, yeah, I love it.
Speaker 4: Well so fun.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you all for being here, for listening, for watching.
Speaker 3: If you are watching us on YouTube, please let that
Speaker 3: subscribe button. If you are just listening to us on
Speaker 3: a podcast, go to YouTube and subscribe to us.
Speaker 1: Thank you won't be able to see what I just
Speaker 1: did because you're on the podcast on the YouTube.
Speaker 3: She did do something super secret and mysterious. You're only
Speaker 3: you can only watch it on YouTube. And thank you
Speaker 3: for those of you who are reading our book by
Speaker 3: what you love without going broke and leaving us kind
Speaker 3: reviews like this one from Maddie Hansen five stars. I
Speaker 3: loved this book. I got to know the authors through
Speaker 3: listening to their podcast. This book is a great compacted
Speaker 3: version of some of their best tips and more. It
Speaker 3: has a great vibe and share stories of the authors
Speaker 3: and fellow readers, which makes me feel like I'm not
Speaker 3: alone in my money struggles. No, you're not Maddie, You're
Speaker 3: not alone. You've got friends, and you've got community, and
Speaker 3: you've got.
Speaker 4: A book that you just read and reviewed. So thank you.
Speaker 4: If you have read the book, please review it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you haven't, head to buy what youlovebook dot
Speaker 1: com get yourself a copy. You can also find out
Speaker 1: how to request it at your library if it's not
Speaker 1: already there. And if you've read it, please leave a review.
Speaker 1: And if you liked this video, like this podcast, please
Speaker 1: leave a rating, review on Spotify or comment on YouTube.
Speaker 4: It really does help us. Thank you, See you next time.
Speaker 1: Gorugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni.
Speaker 4: Okay, did you have a story that you're able to share?
Speaker 1: Not legally?
Speaker 4: Should I censor this? I's careful. I mean I did
Speaker 4: ask for it, but now I'm scared.
Speaker 1: I know right, I hate being a landlord. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be honest.
Speaker 4: It's not for me. What are the worst parts?
Speaker 1: I bigger pockets, too close to the sun, and I
Speaker 1: got two rentals and I we self manage, and.
Speaker 5: I'm yeah, it's not for me.
Speaker 4: It's not for us. Is it just people reaching out
Speaker 4: and having needs?
Speaker 1: People having the worst part reasonable needs that I don't
Speaker 1: want to deal with.
Speaker 5: I don't want to deal with my own needs, Jill,
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 1: And when I have them, I actually don't deal with
Speaker 1: them in reality, I don't. So why do I have
Speaker 1: to deal with somebody else'spose if I'm perfectly happy not.
Speaker 5: Dealing with my own.
Speaker 3: I can't answer your phone call. I haven't showered yet
Speaker 3: this week. Yeah, come on, how do you expect me
Speaker 3: to text back when I don't even have a meal
Speaker 3: plan together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just something additional on top of parenting, on
Speaker 1: top of rearing this new dog puppy, on top of
Speaker 1: doing work stuff. And it's summer. I think that's another thing.
Speaker 1: Summer just started. And now I'm a Now I'm.
Speaker 5: A stay at home mom.
Speaker 3: So I have a business, but forced to be a
Speaker 3: stay at home Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, well we'll see, okay, see.
Speaker 5: How it goes.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, if you're considering real estate investing,
Speaker 1: I think again, I just want to give a balanced
Speaker 1: if you've been listening to too much.
Speaker 4: I don't know what other.
Speaker 1: Real estate shows there are, but if you've been listening
Speaker 1: to them.
Speaker 4: Just know that there's others out there.
Speaker 1: It's not for them either.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not for everybody, and maybe what
Speaker 3: was right for you in one season isn't right for
Speaker 3: you in another.
Speaker 1: This is so true, it's so true, But I don't
Speaker 1: think it was ever right for us.
Speaker 4: Only one way to find that out, though.
Speaker 1: There's only one way to find it out, And if
Speaker 1: I can save someone who's on the fence, that would
Speaker 1: be it.
Speaker 5: So be it okay,