Speaker 1: Episode four seventy one, Budgeting Tips for twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to
Speaker 2: save money, embrace simplicity, and live your life. Here your hosts,
Speaker 2: Jen and Jill.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my
Speaker 1: name is Jill, and today we are doing our much
Speaker 1: anticipated budgeting Tips for the New Year episode. It was
Speaker 1: our most downloaded episode of last year, and we're here
Speaker 1: to do it again.
Speaker 3: You all just want to hear really the same things
Speaker 3: in a new way. And you know what, me too,
Speaker 3: I'm here for it too. It's not much, it's gonna change,
Speaker 3: but we're gonna we're gonna put a new spin on it.
Speaker 1: We're gonna expack. Yeah, it'll be fresh, fresh language for
Speaker 1: old ideas, because that's the beauty of language. When a
Speaker 1: word becomes stale or overused or overgeneralized, we can give
Speaker 1: it new meeting by using synonyms. And we're going to
Speaker 1: try and do that today. I promise it won't be
Speaker 1: a regurgitation of stuff you've already heard, but it might be,
Speaker 1: but it will not be anything revolutionary and hopefully motivational
Speaker 1: for you to start the new year.
Speaker 3: That's really what we need. We need the motivation for
Speaker 3: the new year.
Speaker 1: Yes, so, but first, this episode is brought to you
Speaker 1: by five hundred, twenty five thousand, six hundred minutes. For many,
Speaker 1: that's how we measure measure a year, and for so
Speaker 1: many of us, at least twenty thousand of those are
Speaker 1: spent thinking about what we're going to eat for breakfast, lunch,
Speaker 1: and dinner. That's a lot of minutes. That's not even
Speaker 1: an hour a day, but if you think about all
Speaker 1: of your foods, including snack, it's pretty pretty average.
Speaker 3: So just thinking about it, not even eating these things.
Speaker 1: Correct, not even eating, but thinking about it. And so
Speaker 1: we would love to help you cut down on those
Speaker 1: minutes by giving you a free live meal Planning class
Speaker 1: four twenty twenty five. Now, this class is free only
Speaker 1: and exclusively for people who pre order by what you
Speaker 1: Love Without Going Broke, which is coming out January seventh,
Speaker 1: so soon, and it's twenty five dollars. Actually, it might
Speaker 1: be on sale right now. I don't know, because I
Speaker 1: am recording this probably two weeks prior to when this
Speaker 1: comes out, so it might be even be less than that.
Speaker 1: But when you pre order by What You Love without
Speaker 1: Going without going broke from your favorite book retailer, whether
Speaker 1: that's bookshop dot org or Barnes and Noble or Amazon.
Speaker 1: We will send you a link so you can join
Speaker 1: in on this meal planning class. We're going to help
Speaker 1: you make a three hundred and sixty five day meal plan,
Speaker 1: but not word for word, step for step. It's going
Speaker 1: to be a framework class, but it's not going to
Speaker 1: just be dinner. It's going to be breakfast, lunch, snacks,
Speaker 1: the whole shebang. So head to buy What youlovebook dot com.
Speaker 1: We've got links to several retailers for you to buy
Speaker 1: the book, and on that same page, buy what you
Speaker 1: lovebook dot com is where you enter your order confirmation
Speaker 1: so that you immediately get that link for the live class.
Speaker 1: That's on December twenty ninth, so just two days if
Speaker 1: you're listening to this live, and you'll.
Speaker 3: Get the recording too if you can't join line right.
Speaker 1: If you are listening to this after the twenty ninth,
Speaker 1: you will get the recording. But we would love to
Speaker 1: see you there live.
Speaker 3: Can't wait for me?
Speaker 1: Yes, all right, so let's dive into these budgeting tips
Speaker 1: as a framework. We're going to use this article from
Speaker 1: trust dot com, which is eleven Financial Resolutions for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, but we are going to use it as
Speaker 1: a very light framework.
Speaker 3: Super loose.
Speaker 1: We're flying fast, and we are fine flying fast and
Speaker 1: loose on this because we feel like our approach to
Speaker 1: budgeting is quite different from what else is on the internet,
Speaker 1: and you will see that in this article. So we're
Speaker 1: not even going to go through eleven. We're just going
Speaker 1: to go through like six or seven, and some of
Speaker 1: them aren't even on.
Speaker 3: The lights, and we're gonna and we're making up our
Speaker 3: own order to correct because.
Speaker 1: I don't think budgeting has to be that complicated. We
Speaker 1: love to over complicated, complicate things because of our complexity bias.
Speaker 1: We have. Our brains have a bias to think that
Speaker 1: something when it is more complex, is more advanced and
Speaker 1: and therefore is more accurate. But that is so not
Speaker 1: true when it comes to budgeting. The simpler, the better,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of what we are going to lead
Speaker 1: into in this episode. So first I'm going to start
Speaker 1: with one that isn't on the list, because I don't
Speaker 1: think you should start with budgeting. I think the biggest
Speaker 1: budgeting tip that we can give you for twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five is to not start with your budget. Ooh hot,
Speaker 1: take it's to start with your spending. Start looking at
Speaker 1: what you are already spending on first, and then you
Speaker 1: can plan for future spending. And so what we like
Speaker 1: to recommend if you're a listener of the show, you
Speaker 1: know you could recite it word for word. If you're new, welcome,
Speaker 1: it's the ninety day transaction inventory. That is where you
Speaker 1: should start looking at your spending for the past ninety days. Yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: I know, we just went through the holidays. All of
Speaker 1: your spending was abnormal. But here's the thing. This gives you,
Speaker 1: your most recent ninety days gives you a clear picture
Speaker 1: of what your spending habits are now, not what they
Speaker 1: were in the fall, not what they were over the summer,
Speaker 1: but what they are now. Because that's what we're working
Speaker 1: to get out of, is the spending habits that we've
Speaker 1: kind of let ourselves get get into over the holidays.
Speaker 1: That's what we're trying to move forward to from. So
Speaker 1: that's what we look to when we are before we
Speaker 1: even start a budget. And so what that means is
Speaker 1: you're going through if you have a budgeting app. You
Speaker 1: can very easily hook all of your cards up to
Speaker 1: that and look at all of your expenses. We love monarch.
Speaker 1: If that's something that you want to pay for, it's
Speaker 1: something I pay for. Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash
Speaker 1: monarch will link up a discount code in the show notes.
Speaker 1: But if it's still going on, we do get discount
Speaker 1: codes for them, but Frugal friendspodcast dot com slash monarch,
Speaker 1: and that's really makes it very simple. You do not
Speaker 1: have to do that, though. You can also go back
Speaker 1: into your statements on each of your cards and just
Speaker 1: copy and paste into a Google sheet and then you
Speaker 1: can sort from there either by date, by a category,
Speaker 1: by the store, whatever, So you can do it either way.
Speaker 1: You can use your budgeting app or you can use
Speaker 1: a Google sheet. And what you're looking for from there
Speaker 1: is not how depressed should I be about my spending?
Speaker 1: That's not it. What you're looking for are patterns. So
Speaker 1: if you're familiar with atomic habits or if that's on
Speaker 1: your twenty twenty five reading list, we use habit cues
Speaker 1: or triggers to kind of give us an idea of
Speaker 1: what triggers are spending. So we're looking for who was
Speaker 1: I with when I made these transactions, where was I
Speaker 1: coming from, where was I going to? What mood was
Speaker 1: I in? So we're looking for patterns, and then when
Speaker 1: we identify a pattern, we're looking for what the cues
Speaker 1: are and then we can pick a couple to start
Speaker 1: working on and changing. And that is how you are
Speaker 1: going to change your spending to be able to stick
Speaker 1: to a budget. You can make this perfect budget, this
Speaker 1: perfect plan, but if you don't have the skills and
Speaker 1: direction to execute it, you will never get there and
Speaker 1: you will just feel guilt after guilt of spending and
Speaker 1: shame after shame every month for overspending a budget. And
Speaker 1: we do not want that for you. And that's why
Speaker 1: we say start with the transaction inventory and I identify
Speaker 1: what needs work first.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because you need to understand yourself in order to
Speaker 3: make a plan that works for you. You need to understand
Speaker 3: what is it that leads to some of the spending
Speaker 3: that maybe you don't care for, didn't meet your needs entirely.
Speaker 3: You've got to look into that first before you're going
Speaker 3: to change any patterns. And if you need a little
Speaker 3: bit more of handholding with that ninety day transaction inventory.
Speaker 3: We do have that as part of a resource with
Speaker 3: the book. So when you pre order by what you
Speaker 3: love without going broke, or.
Speaker 1: Even if you just order it, this is not a
Speaker 1: pre order incentive anybody who buy Yeah, when you buy
Speaker 1: the book, right yeah, yeah, not just but I mean
Speaker 1: right now you're pre ordering as you're buying it. But
Speaker 1: with the book comes this resources page, and we include
Speaker 1: a ninety day transaction walkthrough with that along with many
Speaker 1: other resources.
Speaker 3: So just a quick little helper for you there the
Speaker 3: next thing that you're going to do. Once you've done
Speaker 3: that ninety day transaction inventory, you've been able to journal
Speaker 3: a little bit about this in the columns next to
Speaker 3: each transaction, and you've got a little bit of an
Speaker 3: understanding of some of your impulse spending decisions, what leads
Speaker 3: to that, What are some of the cues happening for you,
Speaker 3: What do you not want to keep spending on? What
Speaker 3: do you want to keep spending on? This is where
Speaker 3: we're going to create a plan, and this one is
Speaker 3: in this article. So it talks about creating a budget
Speaker 3: based on your priorities, and this is literally what our
Speaker 3: whole book is about as well. We call them values,
Speaker 3: although We also talk about goals and priorities within our
Speaker 3: book as well, But this is where we are going
Speaker 3: to start to define the parameters for our spending, for
Speaker 3: our money, the resources that we bring in each month,
Speaker 3: what do we want to do with that, How do
Speaker 3: we want to allocate that money? And this is going
Speaker 3: to be based on they say priorities, we'll say values,
Speaker 3: and a combination of the two. So you are going
Speaker 3: to have to take a look at what are some
Speaker 3: of your more overarching financial goals, whether it's step payoff
Speaker 3: or maybe increasing investing or just kind of maintaining you
Speaker 3: identify what that is and kind of the amounts of
Speaker 3: money that you want to be able to put towards
Speaker 3: these things based on also how much money you're bringing
Speaker 3: in every month, and then be able to identify where
Speaker 3: can some of that discretionary spending go from there. But
Speaker 3: we recommend beginning with your values, and that you've heard
Speaker 3: us talk about before usually is going to be within
Speaker 3: the four fs, family, faith, friends, and fulfilling work. So
Speaker 3: being able to identify how can I get more out
Speaker 3: of these categories, more of the things that I want
Speaker 3: than I need, my higher level needs, and in what
Speaker 3: ways has my previous spending from my ninety day trensit
Speaker 3: inventory pointed me towards the fact that I might be
Speaker 3: spending unnecessarily to get after these needs. What could I
Speaker 3: be doing instead? And so literally putting down your goals,
Speaker 3: your values for faith, family, friends, fulfilling work, how you
Speaker 3: can engage in those things for just a more meaningful lifestyle,
Speaker 3: and then fill in the blanks with all, right, where
Speaker 3: will the money go? Then as a result of that,
Speaker 3: it could mean that as a result, you find free
Speaker 3: ways of getting at your higher values. So you've got
Speaker 3: more money to put towards your investment goals, your debt
Speaker 3: payoff goals, your current educational goals, you name it. But
Speaker 3: it also allows for some of that freedom and flexibility
Speaker 3: and spontaneity to be able to spend on the dinner
Speaker 3: out with friends and the special activity with family because
Speaker 3: you really know that these are going to help enhance
Speaker 3: your time and energy with your highest values, rather than
Speaker 3: just throwing money at something unintentionally, not really thinking through
Speaker 3: where our money is going when we're scrolling the internet
Speaker 3: or we're walking the aisles of the store.
Speaker 1: I love thinking about a budget as not just for
Speaker 1: your money, but kind of for your whole life. So
Speaker 1: you're also budgeting your time, which is your literal, only
Speaker 1: non renewable resource. You're also budgeting your physical spaces, your
Speaker 1: mental energy, your schedule which is I guess your time.
Speaker 1: But I love thinking about the budget not just being
Speaker 1: about money, but also being about these other things because
Speaker 1: then it can inspire you to get creative. And we think,
Speaker 1: how can I meet these needs first with my time
Speaker 1: and not money. How can I fill my space with
Speaker 1: more more of the things that bring connection, or bring
Speaker 1: self esteem, bring spontaneity, all these higher needs that we
Speaker 1: have that are connected to our values, and then we
Speaker 1: trickle down into the money part. So if I am
Speaker 1: not in a season in my life where I can
Speaker 1: have friends over in my house because it is under construction,
Speaker 1: which was an actual thing both of us experienced for
Speaker 1: several years, then we allocate more money to that value.
Speaker 1: But then we get creative with other values like how
Speaker 1: can I make extra money to compensate sort of things.
Speaker 1: So when you're thinking about your budget, don't just be
Speaker 1: thinking about it as budgeting of financial resources. Think of
Speaker 1: it as meeting these values with all of your resources.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and again this is going to take time. This
Speaker 3: does require certain focused decisions and learning about ourselves and
Speaker 3: continuing to build upon them, Like where I've found myself
Speaker 3: now took the past decade to get here, and the
Speaker 3: decisions that I've made to get here, and sharpening my
Speaker 3: understanding of values based spending. But you know, to give
Speaker 3: some examples where I've found myself now because of my
Speaker 3: kind of curated environment and what I do for work.
Speaker 3: It allows us to only have one vehicle, which I
Speaker 3: don't even think about that very often how much that
Speaker 3: saves us. But what that does allow for us then
Speaker 3: is we're able to on a whim decide yet we
Speaker 3: want to go out to eat. That would be a
Speaker 3: really fun way of getting out of the house, doing
Speaker 3: breaking up our typical routine, paying for just convenience. And
Speaker 3: I'm open to that. And I can do that because
Speaker 3: not out of deprivation, but just out of a lifestyle
Speaker 3: that I've built. I don't really care about all these
Speaker 3: other peripheral things. Like what I'm doing on the weekend
Speaker 3: is finding free activities and getting together with friends and
Speaker 3: trying out new recipes. And so the money that I'm
Speaker 3: spending is, yeah, on a couple of ingredients here and
Speaker 3: for some gas to go to that free activity and
Speaker 3: maybe yeah, electricity and water to have friends over to
Speaker 3: my house, Like this is where the money's going, So
Speaker 3: that I then am able to make some of these
Speaker 3: more spontaneous decisions or go on like a really beautiful
Speaker 3: trip once a year, that kind of a thing, just
Speaker 3: to kind of make it a little bit more granular
Speaker 3: for us. That's some examples.
Speaker 1: Yes, all right, So now for some financial aspects of
Speaker 1: the budget. So next is to prioritize debt. And the
Speaker 1: actual article says what does it say? It says, pay
Speaker 1: down debt and raise your credit score. I am going
Speaker 1: to rephrase that to be prioritize debt, specifically high interest
Speaker 1: debt on credit cards or personal loans, but also to
Speaker 1: the extent where you feel like you need to prioritize it.
Speaker 1: If it is a burden weighing on you, then you're
Speaker 1: going to prioritize it more highly. If you are fine
Speaker 1: having debt, yet you are sitting with revolving credit card debt,
Speaker 1: you need to prioritize that more highly. I would encourage
Speaker 1: you to prioritize it most highly. And the way that
Speaker 1: I think about paying off debt is I will use
Speaker 1: this phrase from the One Thing by Gary Keller and
Speaker 1: j Pompazon, and the whole book can be summarized into
Speaker 1: one phrase. What is one thing that which, by doing
Speaker 1: I can make everything else easier or unnecessary in the future.
Speaker 1: And how we think about that for our money is
Speaker 1: what's one financial goal that I can focus on and
Speaker 1: prioritize that makes the most things as many things as
Speaker 1: possible easier or unnecessary in the future. And we truly
Speaker 1: believe debt is one of those things. There's there's three
Speaker 1: that we'll talk about for the rest of the episode.
Speaker 1: Debt is one of those highest priority things. It is
Speaker 1: the first thing special, specifically high interest debt. So that's
Speaker 1: where we would say, and we still plug it into
Speaker 1: our values, right because when we get rid of debt
Speaker 1: that has a ten fifteen, twenty, twenty five thirty percent
Speaker 1: interest rate, when we're no longer paying interest on that debt,
Speaker 1: that is ten to thirty percent more money that we
Speaker 1: have every month based on that value. So that could
Speaker 1: be tens of dollars, that could be hundreds of dollars.
Speaker 1: But the more interest we pay to the bank, the
Speaker 1: less money we have for all of our values. And
Speaker 1: so that is definitely the first thing to prioritize when
Speaker 1: we are thinking about financial goals.
Speaker 3: And when it comes to optimizing your credit score, I
Speaker 3: think that that is an important part of engaging with
Speaker 3: debt well and being able to increase your credit score
Speaker 3: by the way that you are choosing to take on loans,
Speaker 3: pay off loans, and engage with some of that credit
Speaker 3: which can help you in the future if you do
Speaker 3: plan to ever purchase another vehicle or a home purchase,
Speaker 3: or even you just really want to get a good
Speaker 3: travel credit card with the best rewards. These are important
Speaker 3: things for that and if that's something that's on your
Speaker 3: radar for this year, we do recommend smart Credit. You
Speaker 3: can go to smart credit dot com slash Frugal Friends,
Speaker 3: and they specifically are a program that you can engage
Speaker 3: in for a time for a portion of time and
Speaker 3: they will kind of give you the pointers and things
Speaker 3: that you can be doing to be able to optimize
Speaker 3: your score. So the next thing that we're going to
Speaker 3: recommend prioritizing is retirement. But this is one of those
Speaker 3: things that can be on autopilot. While we like to
Speaker 3: focus on one thing at a time and not be
Speaker 3: dividing our attentions everywhere and feel really chaotic with our
Speaker 3: finances and thereby not really accomplished much with it. This
Speaker 3: is one of those things that you can be investing
Speaker 3: for retirement and it not have to totally always be
Speaker 3: on your radar. So this is when you're looking at
Speaker 3: what's the amount of money that you're bringing in, what
Speaker 3: are your monetary obligations. How much money can you be
Speaker 3: putting towards your wrath IRA. Can you be signing up
Speaker 3: for your employers for oh one k and getting the match?
Speaker 3: This is just sound financial. These are things that we
Speaker 3: can and should be doing, even if it only means
Speaker 3: a small amount of money, Even if it means you
Speaker 3: can't totally max out your roth IRA, that doesn't mean
Speaker 3: don't do it. Progress is better than perfection. So whatever
Speaker 3: you can be doing, even alongside debt payoff and there
Speaker 3: might be different opinions on that, so definitely do what
Speaker 3: you feel is best for you. You know, if you think
Speaker 3: that you can pay off debt in a very short
Speaker 3: amount of time, you'd rather do that before focusing on retirement. Okay,
Speaker 3: but if you're someone like me who took seven years
Speaker 3: to pay off debt. Time in the market for folks
Speaker 3: like us is going to be better than as Genlos
Speaker 3: to say, timing the market and so being able to
Speaker 3: even put a little bit amount of money towards that
Speaker 3: while you're also maybe more so focused on these other
Speaker 3: goals is going to be really helpful.
Speaker 1: And then the third priority as far as financial goals
Speaker 1: go is to the article said look for ways to
Speaker 1: increase your income, and I'm going to rephrase it as
Speaker 1: to look for ways to change your income. So there's
Speaker 1: going to be a lot of people on a lot
Speaker 1: of ends of the spectrum. Some are going to be
Speaker 1: just barely making it. Some people have a good income
Speaker 1: but for some reason are still living paycheck to paycheck,
Speaker 1: and some people are working way too hard and are
Speaker 1: miserable at their job and it's affecting all the other
Speaker 1: areas of their life. So that's why we say look
Speaker 1: for ways to change your income. No matter where you are,
Speaker 1: you should every year be taking an inventory of what
Speaker 1: have I done at work or in my business in
Speaker 1: the last year, what have I really liked, what have
Speaker 1: I not liked, What do I want to do differently
Speaker 1: this year, and how do I want to change my income?
Speaker 1: Do I want to increase my income by going for
Speaker 1: a promotion for a different job changing industry. Do I
Speaker 1: want to essentially lower my income by increasing because I
Speaker 1: want to increase my education. Or do I want to
Speaker 1: lower my income and take on less of a workload.
Speaker 1: Do I want to increase my hourly rate by and
Speaker 1: decrease the number of hours work? These are there are
Speaker 1: endless possibilities, right, but we need to be taking into
Speaker 1: consideration our work every single year, usually at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the year, but it can be done anytime. You're
Speaker 1: listening to this because if we float along and just
Speaker 1: do life and only focus on our expenses, then we're
Speaker 1: going to end up in a place doing stuff we
Speaker 1: don't want to do for forty hours a week or
Speaker 1: maybe more, and feeling like we've lost it. We've lost
Speaker 1: it somewhere, and so being intentional about your work and
Speaker 1: your income is a high priority just for your life,
Speaker 1: but also because it dictates what you can do with
Speaker 1: your budget. It is the core foundation of your budget,
Speaker 1: so you need to be thinking about it every year. Ideally,
Speaker 1: you're increasing your income every year, but sometimes for some
Speaker 1: seasons you must take a dip in order to create
Speaker 1: a greater growth in the future, and we need to
Speaker 1: be thinking about that not constantly but annually.
Speaker 3: And it is one of those four fs. Is fulfilling work. Now,
Speaker 3: work doesn't have to mean what we make money doing.
Speaker 3: You know, if we are in a job that we
Speaker 3: do need to be there for a time, but it's
Speaker 3: not necessarily feeling super fulfilling to us. We can set
Speaker 3: our hands to other things in our spare time and
Speaker 3: involunteer efforts to be to fulfill that higher need. But
Speaker 3: where it's possible, where we can make some of these
Speaker 3: moves to experience fulfilling work from the place that pays
Speaker 3: our salaries or even be able to take on, you know,
Speaker 3: build our own business. How beautiful that could be. So Yeah,
Speaker 3: having room to be able to evaluate that and have
Speaker 3: some flexibility there can be incredibly fulfilling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I wanted to notte too. Fulfilling work does
Speaker 1: not mean like you work at a nonprofit or for
Speaker 1: some kind of philanthropic thing. That is not what we
Speaker 1: mean by fulfilling. It could be that you could be that,
Speaker 1: but what we truly mean is that you feel like
Speaker 1: you are valuable, that you are so we look at
Speaker 1: Maswell's hierarchy of needs to find these four f's core values.
Speaker 1: But at the top of the hierarchy is self actualization
Speaker 1: and that's where we feel a lot of our fulfilling
Speaker 1: work comes in. And what that is it's not like
Speaker 1: transcended you know stuff, it's it's the ability to be creative,
Speaker 1: to innovate, to be spontaneous, to feel like you are
Speaker 1: contributing to something that you're living in, the actualization of
Speaker 1: your skills and gifts. So that's it can be in
Speaker 1: any industry doing anything. But that's why we want you
Speaker 1: to take an inventory of this, like am I doing
Speaker 1: the things that I'm good at and that I still
Speaker 1: want to be doing, or is there a shift that
Speaker 1: I need to make this year to prepare for future change.
Speaker 3: Another tangible area that's really important to evaluate, and somewhat
Speaker 3: in conjunction with this evaluation of income and the work
Speaker 3: that we're setting our hands to and ways to increase that,
Speaker 3: we can also be looking at ways to optimize our
Speaker 3: biggest expenses, which is I'm going to be housing and transportation.
Speaker 3: Food is also included, but that's there's tons of other
Speaker 3: episodes on that one.
Speaker 1: Well, you don't have to listen to another episode the.
Speaker 3: Beginning of the year. This kind of marker of reevaluation
Speaker 3: is a good time to just ask ourselves questions about
Speaker 3: our housing and transportation situations. It doesn't necessarily mean that
Speaker 3: we're going to make changes, but it would be really
Speaker 3: good to feel confident and secure in what we currently
Speaker 3: have going on. Do we want this to continue for
Speaker 3: the next year. Do we have goals or shifts that
Speaker 3: we want to make around this? So the general rule
Speaker 3: of thumb still exists that we want to be spending
Speaker 3: about thirty percent of our take home pay on our housing.
Speaker 3: When I was preparing for this episode, I looked at that.
Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, take home pay. I heard people talk
Speaker 3: about gross pay in the past, so maybe that's shifted.
Speaker 3: This article says thirty percent of your take home pay
Speaker 3: on housing, and they're including all housing expenses, so utilities
Speaker 3: and bill how bills related to your house are included.
Speaker 3: I'm actually spending thirty four percent of our take home
Speaker 3: pay on housing. I don't think that I'm going to
Speaker 3: make any changes in my housing situation, but it is
Speaker 3: informative to me that. Okay, then maybe the key for
Speaker 3: me here to get that into a more comfortable percentage
Speaker 3: is earning more money. So my reevaluation of this is
Speaker 3: helping to inform what is my budgeting going to look like?
Speaker 3: What are my next steps in that? And of course,
Speaker 3: looking at our transportation, are there shifts that we're going
Speaker 3: to be wanting to make with our vehicles with the
Speaker 3: way that we get around are is our job? Is
Speaker 3: a job change potentially going to change our need for
Speaker 3: what transportation looks like? You know, Eric and I used
Speaker 3: to go to jobs. We had two vehicles. When we
Speaker 3: switched to more remote work, our vehicle situation didn't change immediately.
Speaker 3: We had two cars. It took us a while to
Speaker 3: actually say, wait a second, do we need all of this?
Speaker 3: And it was no, there might be some times of inconvenience,
Speaker 3: but we can work around that to save ourselves thousands
Speaker 3: of dollars annually. And that takes an inventory opportunity, a
Speaker 3: reevaluation of with these biggest expenses that I have, the
Speaker 3: things that you know take up the majority of my
Speaker 3: spending month to month, what shifts could be made here,
Speaker 3: maybe not even immediately, but what could I be moving
Speaker 3: towards that could really help my finances? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I that for that reason I don't love the fifty
Speaker 1: twenty thirty like budget, but it can be helpful if
Speaker 1: you're figuring out, Okay, maybe I'm spending thirty five forty
Speaker 1: percent on housing, but I love where I live, and
Speaker 1: because I live here, then I spend so much less
Speaker 1: on transportation. So whatever is recommended for transportation, I just
Speaker 1: feed it over to housing and that's fine for me.
Speaker 1: So if you're gonna use it, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: a guideline for doing something like that. But don't feel like, ugh,
Speaker 1: I'm spending forty percent on housing. It should only spend thirty.
Speaker 1: I need to lower my housing. But looking at evaluating
Speaker 1: housing and transportation expenses every year is really good. I
Speaker 1: think for a lot of us, it's gonna be figuring
Speaker 1: out how we can get a smaller car payment or
Speaker 1: maybe paying that off depending on your lures. Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be like most people are gonna do something
Speaker 1: with that every year.
Speaker 3: But you know what, I do something with every episode.
Speaker 1: This we need to do twice a week. It's not
Speaker 1: an end.
Speaker 3: We don't even need to reevaluate the bill of the week.
Speaker 2: That's right, it's time for the best minute of your
Speaker 2: entire week.
Speaker 1: Maybe a baby was born.
Speaker 2: His name is Williams. Maybe you've paid off your mortgage.
Speaker 2: Maybe your car died, and you're happy to not have
Speaker 2: to pay that bill anymore. Duck bills, buffalo bills, Bill Clinton.
Speaker 3: This is the bill of the week.
Speaker 4: This is the bill of the week. This is the
Speaker 4: bill of the week. This is the bill of the week.
Speaker 4: But that's right, it's time for the best minute of
Speaker 4: your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his
Speaker 4: name is William. Maybe you paid off your mortgage, Maybe
Speaker 4: your car died, and you're happy to not have to
Speaker 4: pay that bill anymore. Duck bills, buffalo bills, Bill Clinton,
Speaker 4: my grandpa Bill, my uncle Bill, my cousin Bill doesn't exist,
Speaker 4: speak bills, playbills, the billy bill that I named William.
Speaker 4: When I was sixteen, found bills, paid bills, unpaid bills
Speaker 4: because we didn't have to pay them, not because we
Speaker 4: missed them. Were better than that. Surprise bills, reduced bills,
Speaker 4: Surprise reduced bills. Those are fun, reviewed and fixed bills.
Speaker 4: Medical bills. My friend who just had a baby named Lily,
Speaker 4: but she misstyped it in a text, so now her
Speaker 4: baby is Billy. Insurance bills, utility bills, negotiated bills using
Speaker 4: printed monopoly money instead of real cash in your envelope systems.
Speaker 4: You don't have to have cash on you, but you
Speaker 4: can still like see the money going away. Refunded bills,
Speaker 4: baby bills, grocery bills, dollar bills, bill murray, father bills,
Speaker 4: son bills, husband bills, coworker bills, dog bills, cat bills,
Speaker 4: vet bills, pet bills. That's the bill ice cream bills.
Speaker 3: I don't know what that is either.
Speaker 4: How is this this the bill of a weak baborite.
Speaker 4: Jenny might want to make sure that Jill isn't having
Speaker 4: a heart attack.
Speaker 1: Jill is not the one having the heart attack.
Speaker 3: We are both dead though, dddd you're hired dead, you're hired.
Speaker 1: I am. I have no word.
Speaker 3: Eric, you're out, You're how to hear done? We've got
Speaker 3: a new bill of the week.
Speaker 1: I am. I have never been without words. You have.
Speaker 3: I willed this segment in an absurd way that never
Speaker 3: would have been thought about you. Okay, you have self actualized.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you feel that you have self actualized.
Speaker 3: But the spontaneity, the creativity, the ingenuity, the fun, Oh my, goodness,
Speaker 3: this is my highest value.
Speaker 1: I am, well, that's it. Drop the mic man.
Speaker 3: I want to listen to it again, like I want
Speaker 3: this to be what plays because so many examples were
Speaker 3: given that I was too busy laughing at the previous.
Speaker 1: We're going to be paid to reach into the next.
Speaker 1: We're going to make that. We're gonna take this audio.
Speaker 1: We're going to make it real on Instagram. It's going
Speaker 1: to come out whatever day this episode comes out, We're
Speaker 1: doing it today.
Speaker 3: Crugal Friends podcast is who to Follow Friends podcast? Uh huh.
Speaker 1: And this will for this for.
Speaker 3: We will. This has become a core memory because anytime
Speaker 3: someone reaches the tippy tap triangle of Maslow's hierarchy, if
Speaker 3: needs you don't forget it.
Speaker 1: You don't, you don't. She has transcendent. There there's an
Speaker 1: additional layer that we actually don't talk about, but is
Speaker 1: was added by Maslow la during his life, and it
Speaker 1: is transcendency. The little woo woo for me. But but Mary,
Speaker 1: you've done it, You've transcended. I didn't think it was
Speaker 1: possible actually until this.
Speaker 3: Moment where it's taking us some time to kind of
Speaker 3: like come down from this excitement. Whoo wow you.
Speaker 1: You, you get us.
Speaker 3: We've got some real deals. Come here and you are
Speaker 3: the one and I'm smiling. How do I even say
Speaker 3: this if you all are listening. Okay, we're all amazed together.
Speaker 3: We don't even know what just happened to us, but
Speaker 3: we know it was great and you want to continue
Speaker 3: the greatness now hear me out. It doesn't have to
Speaker 3: be transcendence. It doesn't have to be nirvana. We have
Speaker 3: at the lower levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs as
Speaker 3: they relate to your Bill of the week. We just
Speaker 3: want to have fun. You don't have to take us
Speaker 3: on a journey like the one we were just on.
Speaker 3: Anything I'll do, even if your name is Bill, especially
Speaker 3: if your name is Bill Frugal friendspodcast dot com slash Bill.
Speaker 3: We truly can't wait to hear of the goodness and
Speaker 3: gold you all come up with. And now it's time
Speaker 3: for the lightning.
Speaker 1: Okay, what are your twenty twenty five money goals? And
Speaker 1: have they changed since hearing that Bill of the week.
Speaker 3: I need no other thing in life, that's it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So my money goals, which we recently talked about
Speaker 1: this as a business and then actually just yesterday, Travis
Speaker 1: and I talked about this as a family, and we
Speaker 1: want to make more money, and I'm just saying that
Speaker 1: is a minor goal, I think. So something that we
Speaker 1: are interested in is doing more investing in the community
Speaker 1: versus the stock market. So if you were listening to
Speaker 1: a recent episode, I don't remember what it was, but
Speaker 1: I told the story of how a beloved coffee shop
Speaker 1: of mine was forced out of their location and given
Speaker 1: no reason, and then four months later a Starbucks showed
Speaker 1: up in that same location. It was it was in
Speaker 1: a hospital in Orlando, and I felt, I just felt
Speaker 1: some type of way about that, And so that has
Speaker 1: made me create a goal for twenty twenty five of
Speaker 1: wanting to invest in the local community and local business,
Speaker 1: but not just purchasing and consuming, but actually investing and
Speaker 1: seeing what that looks like at a smaller scale. Because
Speaker 1: I'm not like an angel investor or venture capitalist or
Speaker 1: anything like that, but that currently is starting that process
Speaker 1: is my twenty twenty five goal.
Speaker 3: I love that it's beautiful, and we were talking about
Speaker 3: that a little before we started recording, and recognizing that
Speaker 3: is value based spending and we're doing it on a
Speaker 3: micro level. We're doing it individually, but also how could
Speaker 3: we do this as a business. How is Frugal Friends
Speaker 3: as a company also spending on our business values and
Speaker 3: in what ways can we kind of take it to
Speaker 3: the next step and elevate even as individuals as well
Speaker 3: into that more meso level. Yeah, buying local, buying and
Speaker 3: putting our money kind of where our values are. But
Speaker 3: also how can we further support these efforts. I don't
Speaker 3: know that we would have been able to stop Starbucks
Speaker 3: from taking over that local coffee shop, but it is
Speaker 3: important to think about how can I really dig in
Speaker 3: on the people and the community that's important to me,
Speaker 3: that's right around me. So there's so much alignment there,
Speaker 3: and I love to kind of keep having these conversations
Speaker 3: with you. For me, it is make more money. You
Speaker 3: already heard me talk about that, and our people who
Speaker 3: have been listening for a while, you all know, like
Speaker 3: in full transparency, for Jen and I to write this
Speaker 3: book and to really see what we could do with
Speaker 3: Frugal Friends as a business, that I stepped out of
Speaker 3: my full time job and went into Frugal Friends more
Speaker 3: full time. I still dabble in the world of social work.
Speaker 3: I do still have my side h I dovel because
Speaker 3: you know, I can't let go of my side hustles.
Speaker 3: But it did mean a decrease in pay to kind
Speaker 3: of pursue some of what I've been feeling has been
Speaker 3: I mean, a lot of what I do has felt
Speaker 3: like fulfilling work, but also wanting a little bit more
Speaker 3: of a singular focus to be less chaotic in kind
Speaker 3: of what the demands on my time and energy, and
Speaker 3: that meant choosing a lesser salary, knowing that that wasn't
Speaker 3: going to be for forever. And I think, you know,
Speaker 3: feeling the reality of having lived off of less for
Speaker 3: a whole year, it's been okay, we are fine. Things
Speaker 3: that have actually gone like maybe even a little bit
Speaker 3: better than I expected, but also recognizing, okay, something does
Speaker 3: need to shift. We kind of need to move ourselves
Speaker 3: back up to what we were accustomed to so that
Speaker 3: we can feel a little bit more solid and stable about,
Speaker 3: you know, the percentages of our income that are going
Speaker 3: to the various things that are just necessary. Like I'm
Speaker 3: not I don't want to have a knee jerk reaction
Speaker 3: here and say I'm spending more than the recommended amount
Speaker 3: of my housing let me go move back into a
Speaker 3: vehicle again, even though I did love living in an RV,
Speaker 3: It's just not going to be the wisest decision for
Speaker 3: us at the stage of life. Like, that's okay, But
Speaker 3: we can also look for ways to increase income where
Speaker 3: there's not any more opportunities to kind of decrease some
Speaker 3: of our expenses.
Speaker 1: Yeah, those are our money goals, and I hope we
Speaker 1: have inspired you with your money goals and your budgeting
Speaker 1: for twenty twenty five. If we did, we would love
Speaker 1: to hear about it in a rating and review on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or a rating and comment on Spotify, kind
Speaker 1: of like this one from de Brahava ninety Besties for
Speaker 1: the rest ees happens to be five stars. I love
Speaker 1: listening to Jen and Jill. Been listening to them since
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen ish timeframe is going through the financial shifts
Speaker 1: in my life with my family. Jen and Jil have
Speaker 1: really helped in giving me ideas that I can change
Speaker 1: and what I can change and improve with my financial
Speaker 1: life goals that are now lifelong habits.
Speaker 3: Thank you, ladies. Whoo you have really grown with.
Speaker 1: Us since the beginning.
Speaker 3: Twenty eighteen is when we see outed. So you've been
Speaker 3: on the journey. I'm sure you've seen the shifts we've made.
Speaker 3: It sounds like you've made some shifts as well, So
Speaker 3: so cool. I'm really glad that you're still around and
Speaker 3: thanks for taking the time to leave us a review.
Speaker 3: If you've been around since the beginning, or even a
Speaker 3: couple of years or a couple of months, doesn't really matter.
Speaker 3: We'd love to hear from you through a rating and review.
Speaker 3: If you could take a moment if you've not done
Speaker 3: this yet, it really helps us. It also gives us
Speaker 3: content for our episodes, so we can read them, hear
Speaker 3: what you have to say, make tweaks if needed, and
Speaker 3: help others find the show. So thanks for doing that.
Speaker 1: We'll see next time.
Speaker 3: Bye.
Speaker 5: Gorugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni so Jill.
Speaker 1: We have a book signing event coming up very soon.
Speaker 1: If you are in Florida in the Tampa Bay area,
Speaker 1: we are doing a book signing in Q and A
Speaker 1: at Tombolo Books in downtown Saint Petersburg on January fourteenth
Speaker 1: at seven pm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a really cute spot. We went there for
Speaker 3: a book signing for a friend of ours as well.
Speaker 3: And it was such a nice, fun, kind of intimate event,
Speaker 3: and we're hoping that it can be the same for us.
Speaker 3: Fun and intimate.
Speaker 1: Yes, we hope that people show up, yes on a.
Speaker 3: Tuesday, pre order that book, bring it with you.
Speaker 1: We still there's two things we still don't know. A
Speaker 1: what we are going to sign in books, what we're
Speaker 1: going to say, Yeah, what we're going to say besides
Speaker 1: our name? And b who is going to ask us
Speaker 1: the questions in the Q and A part of the
Speaker 1: book signing.
Speaker 3: We're probably going to choose a friend to do that.
Speaker 3: I think that'd be fun.
Speaker 1: Okay, we haven't talked about it yet.
Speaker 3: Oh well, this is me talking about it. We haven't
Speaker 3: talked about it, but I've thought about it.
Speaker 1: But you have thought about it, Okay, at least one
Speaker 1: of us has, because I led the Q and A at
Speaker 1: a book signing once. Did you I did do that once?
Speaker 3: Would they give you the questions or did you come
Speaker 3: up with your own questions?
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure he gave me the questions. I can't remember.
Speaker 1: It was at a bar.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: It was a Joe from Stacking, Oh yeah, when his
Speaker 1: book Stacked came out. But I had a great time,
Speaker 1: and so I looked forward to choosing the person to
Speaker 1: lead our Q and A, and I just haven't haven't
Speaker 1: nailed one down. There's so many good people in the
Speaker 1: area that could do it. There's just so many choices.
Speaker 3: I love the idea of doing a yep talk about
Speaker 3: the concepts of the book, but also do a little
Speaker 3: bit of the behind the scenes about the process of
Speaker 3: writing the book.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think that's what should be most of it,
Speaker 1: because that would be most fun. I would love to
Speaker 1: talk about the fist fights and the brawls.
Speaker 3: The brawls, not down drag out.
Speaker 1: Blood on the laptop that we had writing this book.
Speaker 3: Oh, speaking of the process of writing the book, here's
Speaker 3: I guess a little bit of the behind the scenes
Speaker 3: already well sneak peek. So we recently got our Spotify, right,
Speaker 3: that's like, yes, something relevant for people a little bit
Speaker 3: and so personally for me kind of as it went
Speaker 3: month to month, like really all over the map, but
Speaker 3: it was so interesting. It was like kind of rock
Speaker 3: pop beginning of the year, and then March was heavy
Speaker 3: instrumental jazz coffee shop, and then April May started ramping
Speaker 3: back up again with like even some hardcore music, some
Speaker 3: again rock pop, and I'm like, oh my gosh, you
Speaker 3: can tell what was happening. March was the heaviest writing month,
Speaker 3: and I was just sitting here writing, listening, tuneing out
Speaker 3: the world, tuning out Jen never all the edits she
Speaker 3: wanted me to make. Yeah, got my AirPods on noise
Speaker 3: cancelation mode, listen in to my instrumental jazz music, typing
Speaker 3: out this Yeah, and then when I was done, we
Speaker 3: just we we partied.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Mine was similar, but instead of like pop rock,
Speaker 1: it was sad Man with guitar like it went sad
Speaker 1: Man with guitar and then chill hop is pretty much
Speaker 1: exclusively when I listened to for three months with a
Speaker 1: little on YouTube. It's got a little animated raccoon that
Speaker 1: like walks across the screen, which I love, but I
Speaker 1: was listening to it on Spotify mostly, and then went
Speaker 1: back into sad Man with guitar mode. That's it. I
Speaker 1: actually listened to so much no Con that he made
Speaker 1: a real and he made a reel. He was like,
Speaker 1: if you're one of my top listeners, I'm putting prozac
Speaker 1: in your stocking. And I'm like, what does that mean?
Speaker 1: About I'm I'm generally a happy person, but I just
Speaker 1: listened to real sad music.
Speaker 3: Interesting. Yeah, you've got the feels that you need to
Speaker 3: let out.
Speaker 1: I think so, I think so well.
Speaker 3: Yeah so if you're in the area.
Speaker 1: January fourteenth, check out our instagram for more detailed Frugal
Speaker 1: Friends podcast. See you there, Bye,