Speaker 1: Episode three sixty three, our favorite budgeting apps and the
Speaker 1: ones to avoid.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Brugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to
Speaker 2: save money, embrace simplicity, and liver life. Here your hosts
Speaker 2: Jen and Jill.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen,
Speaker 1: my name is Jill, and rip Mint is going away
Speaker 1: January first. So this is our episode on budgeting apps.
Speaker 1: We've done episodes on personal finance apps and like just
Speaker 1: fintech in general, but this one even meal planning apps.
Speaker 1: This one's specific for budgeting. We're not looking at any
Speaker 1: of the peripheral offerings. We will talk about them, but
Speaker 1: we are judging each app by its specific ability to budget.
Speaker 1: So even if we like an app for something else,
Speaker 1: if we don't like it for budgeting, it's either not
Speaker 1: on the list or we don't have great things to
Speaker 1: say about it.
Speaker 3: We're just gonna judge. We're gonna sit here and we're
Speaker 3: going to judge, and Happy New Year.
Speaker 1: We're judging, but it's not technically us judging. So who
Speaker 1: doesn't love Reddit?
Speaker 4: Not us? We love Reddit. We are going to Reddit.
Speaker 1: Because Mint users have their own Reddit and they are
Speaker 1: furiously trying apps to replace Mint. So we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about if you're not a Mint lover, but you
Speaker 1: want to try a new budgeting app, which that was me.
Speaker 1: I wasn't super into Mint, but I still love looking
Speaker 1: at budgeting apps even though I don't currently use one.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk about what we use coming up, but
Speaker 1: we wanted to specifically talk to people who have used
Speaker 1: Mint and are familiar because we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: how each app is different. So even if you don't
Speaker 1: like Mint, if you're familiar with it, that's the gauge
Speaker 1: we're using, and we are we have gone to Reddit
Speaker 1: to get feedback on these apps in addition to what
Speaker 1: the articles say, because I've been I've been like an
Speaker 1: article writer reviewing budgeting apps, and you only get so
Speaker 1: much time to review each app before you have to
Speaker 1: write your article, right, and these people have the collective
Speaker 1: Mint Reddit it's mint to it. The Mint to it
Speaker 1: reddit has a wealth of time to be uploading everything
Speaker 1: and testing out these apps, and so we are calling
Speaker 1: on the collective time of redditors to bring you their wisdom.
Speaker 3: Google Reddit read it. It's eclipsing Google or becoming Google.
Speaker 3: Who knows swear We're turning.
Speaker 1: First We want to say that this episode is brought
Speaker 1: to you by friends, No, not the TV show, but
Speaker 1: actual friends of ours, Cody and Justin, who are fellow podcasters.
Speaker 1: They host the five Show, the Financial Independence Show, So
Speaker 1: if you are into financial independence, our friends Cody and Justin.
Speaker 1: They share stories and insights into financial freedom and early retirement.
Speaker 1: They feature regular people like you and me who have
Speaker 1: achieved incredible financial wins, like a mailman who retired at
Speaker 1: twenty seven, or a couple who quit their jobs from
Speaker 1: real estate.
Speaker 4: All kinds of.
Speaker 1: Stuff like that woman who saved ninety percent of her income.
Speaker 1: Tons of stories that may not one hundred percent be relatable,
Speaker 1: but you can pick and choose the ones that fit
Speaker 1: for you. Everyone's going to find something they like. So
Speaker 1: if you are interested in financial independence, early retirement, or
Speaker 1: just like cool stories of normal people doing really cool
Speaker 1: things financially and then check out the five Show. They
Speaker 1: just replayed an episode recently that I was a guest on.
Speaker 1: I was the guest. Uh, and yeah, we really liked
Speaker 1: them and we just wanted to give them a shout
Speaker 1: out today. They did not pay us to say this.
Speaker 1: We just want to do a say hey, thanks, Cody
Speaker 1: and justin for being our friends.
Speaker 3: Hey friends, Yeah.
Speaker 1: So let's get into it. If you are into apps
Speaker 1: and you don't feel like you have enough apps on
Speaker 1: your phone and you're looking to put more apps onto
Speaker 1: your phone, then check out our other episodes that we've done.
Speaker 1: We did episode two thirty four where we compare meal
Speaker 1: planning apps those you only need one of, So listen
Speaker 1: to that episode, find your favorite meal planning app and
Speaker 1: you're done. And there's episode one eighty seven where we
Speaker 1: compare various personal finance apps, so not just budgeting apps,
Speaker 1: but net worth trackers, investment trackers, all kinds of different trackers,
Speaker 1: and fun investing apps. So check that one out. But
Speaker 1: I think more people are going to be attracted to
Speaker 1: this one, which is just budgeting apps, and we have
Speaker 1: shied away from doing it because we don't use budgeting apps. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Jill loves Jill loves a spreadsheet and I love ignoring
Speaker 1: it and using a spreadsheet sometimes. So this but I
Speaker 1: actually have. But we have a podcast, yes, and.
Speaker 4: We don't claim to.
Speaker 1: This isn't the Budgeting Besties podcast, that's the Frugal Friends.
Speaker 1: And I have written articles about budgeting apps, so I
Speaker 1: have always I felt like I'm on a mission to
Speaker 1: find the perfect budgeting app, specifically for free, and what
Speaker 1: I have learned from Reddit is that the perfect free
Speaker 1: budgeting app does not exist. There are definitely alternatives like free,
Speaker 1: and we will talk about that, but they will not
Speaker 1: get you everything you want. They will not give you
Speaker 1: a lot of things you want, and even if they
Speaker 1: give you some of the things that you want, some
Speaker 1: of them are actually selling your data to the point
Speaker 1: that is scary. So we're going to talk about some
Speaker 1: of those in the next article. But so let's start
Speaker 1: off on a high note and talk about the four
Speaker 1: budgeting apps that we have found to be consistently the
Speaker 1: ones people are turning to from mint for various reasons.
Speaker 1: And they're actually all on this nine best budget apps
Speaker 1: article from US News, but we are only going to
Speaker 1: go through four of them because we have found that
Speaker 1: these four are the ones that do do the most.
Speaker 4: For the least or capitalize on your dollars the most.
Speaker 3: So the first one on here that we're going to
Speaker 3: talk about happens to be just the first one on
Speaker 3: this list of nine, and it is simplify spelt with
Speaker 3: an I at the end instead of a Y. Because
Speaker 3: that's fun. That's put out by Quicken. And this article
Speaker 3: by US News describes Simplify app as the best for
Speaker 3: budgeting beginners, and they go on to say that Quicken
Speaker 3: has been one of the most recognizable names in the
Speaker 3: budgeting software space, and the company has a mobile app,
Speaker 3: so that is great for those who are looking for
Speaker 3: a more streamlined budgeting tool. And the Simplify app is
Speaker 3: going to allow you to link and sync a number
Speaker 3: of things, from your bank to credit cards, to loans
Speaker 3: and investment accounts from more than fourteen thousand financial institutions.
Speaker 3: The app can also automatically detect regular bills, they can
Speaker 3: recommend a personalized spending plan, and the users can set
Speaker 3: up a watch list for monitoring certain categories of spending
Speaker 3: such as dining out. They could even receive alerts when
Speaker 3: spending reaches a certain level. So Simplify is AD free.
Speaker 3: You do pay a price. This is not it is
Speaker 3: not free. It is ad free, so you can pay
Speaker 3: five ninety nine a month or thirty five ninety nine
Speaker 3: if you choose to be billed annually instead. And then
Speaker 3: when we turn to Reddit and look at some of
Speaker 3: the pros and cons, so the things that people have
Speaker 3: said who are testing it out is that this is
Speaker 3: the most affordable app. They are citing it as a
Speaker 3: third the price of Monarch, which we will talk about next.
Speaker 3: Somebody else said that another thing going for the Simplify
Speaker 3: app is that I don't think Quicken is eggxsit the
Speaker 3: I don't know what PFM stands for, but mark it
Speaker 3: anytime soon. So it's going to be around for decades.
Speaker 3: I don't want to go through this dance again anytime soon.
Speaker 1: So for someone who personal finance management, oh, I think, yeah.
Speaker 3: That sounds right, Yeah, that they're not going to be
Speaker 3: leaving this landscape anytime soon, maybe something like what we've
Speaker 3: just seen with Mint. Who knows. That's probably opinion, because
Speaker 3: I think people looked at Mint as kind of the
Speaker 3: stalwart of a budgeting app.
Speaker 1: Yeah, also not leaving the space anytime soon, but they
Speaker 1: deemed Mint was probably too much of a risk and
Speaker 1: the lost leader was too much of a loss and
Speaker 1: not enough of a leader. So it's I mean, the
Speaker 1: fact was is that into It never charged for Mint,
Speaker 1: they never tried to charge for it to the best
Speaker 1: of our knowledge, and that Quicken is charging for Simplify,
Speaker 1: so it should be a lost leader. It's ad free,
Speaker 1: it's its own product, and so that's got something going
Speaker 1: for it for longevity, and it is the one that
Speaker 1: I have maybe seen the most people in the personal
Speaker 1: finance community switched to promoting because it is so affordable.
Speaker 1: So like you can get it for what like four
Speaker 1: or five bucks a month as opposed to some of
Speaker 1: the other ones on this list that are double that.
Speaker 1: But it's definitely you get what you pay for to
Speaker 1: some extent. But that doesn't mean less quality. That just
Speaker 1: means fewer features, but you may not need all the features.
Speaker 1: So that's what we're going to go through each one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So some of the cons that people are listing
Speaker 3: who have tried out the Simplify app by Quicken is
Speaker 3: that it does not bring custom categories in. So they
Speaker 3: were finding that as the user, they had to recategorize
Speaker 3: a lot of transactions. They said, I gave up after
Speaker 3: I took an hour rec categorizing over one thousand transactions,
Speaker 3: which that's a lot of transactions, but also that's a
Speaker 3: lot That sounds efficient that they did that much in
Speaker 3: an hour. Nonetheless, not something that I would necessarily want
Speaker 3: to do. Somebody else mentioned that there's no rollover for
Speaker 3: discretionary expense categories, and that they can't see the statement
Speaker 3: amount on credit cards, So maybe some quirks to the
Speaker 3: app where you would still have to go into your
Speaker 3: credit card statement to really get some of the details
Speaker 3: behind it. So maybe a little bit clunky in a
Speaker 3: few ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the big thing that is going to
Speaker 1: be something that's a deal breaker for if you like
Speaker 1: this feature mount Mint is that rollover. So if you
Speaker 1: don't spend one hundred percent, like say you budget one
Speaker 1: hundred dollars for clothing for the month and you only
Speaker 1: spend seventy five, Quicken simplify like won't recognize that when
Speaker 1: it rolls over to the next month, where I believe
Speaker 1: Mint did recognize that. That has never been something that
Speaker 1: has been important to me. If you're a zero based budgeter,
Speaker 1: then you can just do that manually.
Speaker 4: That's not a big deal.
Speaker 1: But to some people it is helpful to have that
Speaker 1: that extra money figured out if you don't want to
Speaker 1: move it around. Usually I would when I budgeted, I
Speaker 1: just moved it around to coffee or something. I would
Speaker 1: purposely put more to a category that I This is
Speaker 1: so silly to a category I knew I wouldn't spend it,
Speaker 1: so I could artificially deflate certain budget categories that I
Speaker 1: was embarrassed to spend so much on, so that when
Speaker 1: I didn't spend in the other category, I could just
Speaker 1: move it, oh to that when I was quote unquote
Speaker 1: embarrassed about.
Speaker 3: Right, Oh wow, those are storing right moves? And who
Speaker 3: are you doing that for? Who else is looking at it?
Speaker 3: It's just your SA It's just it's just me.
Speaker 1: Uh So that was like some unhealthy attitude I had
Speaker 1: towards budgeting that we hope that we are saving you from.
Speaker 1: So simplify, they say, is best for budgeting beginners. Uh So,
Speaker 1: this is definitely like a more simplified, simplified way to budget.
Speaker 1: But the user interface is beautiful again AD free, so
Speaker 1: it's much It looks much better than Mint while doing
Speaker 1: pretty much the same thing. It does have an investment tracker,
Speaker 1: but it's not as robust. It's not meant for that.
Speaker 1: Uh And it does have a way for you to
Speaker 1: share an account with somebody you trust, so you can
Speaker 1: give your partner or accountant their own login and they
Speaker 1: don't even need their own subscriptions. So if you're looking
Speaker 1: to manage money with a partner. This is something that
Speaker 1: will allow you to do that. You can make custom
Speaker 1: savings goals, track your progress whether it's vacations or emergency funds.
Speaker 1: It will give you the personalized spending plan. I know
Speaker 1: you mentioned that, but like, I think that's very cool.
Speaker 1: Like based on your income and expenses, it looks at
Speaker 1: what you have done and it will give you a
Speaker 1: recommendation to know for what to do next month. And
Speaker 1: it's a take it or leave it sort of thing.
Speaker 1: It sees where your money's going and can help you.
Speaker 1: Probably depending on how many goals you have, it probably
Speaker 1: will tailor it to that, but I don't know that
Speaker 1: for sure, but it looks like a very cool app.
Speaker 1: A lot of Mint users have good things to say
Speaker 1: about it. Our next app on the list is the
Speaker 1: app that is definitely the other most popular option for
Speaker 1: Mint users, and it's on this list. It is best
Speaker 1: for customizable display and it is Monarch Money. So they say,
Speaker 1: if you want more control over your app's dashboard and display,
Speaker 1: Monarch is the way to go. It gives you the
Speaker 1: freedom to change up your desktop and phone dashboards and
Speaker 1: both Simplify and Monarch do have desktop and app capability,
Speaker 1: so if that's something you want. The article says it's
Speaker 1: been great for tracking and bank connectivity. It features unlimited
Speaker 1: customization for spending category, so I think that's going to
Speaker 1: be Actually, I think that's more of the deal breaker
Speaker 1: than the rollover money is if you are adamant about
Speaker 1: creating your own spending categories, if you want either a
Speaker 1: very robust custom category lineup or a very simplified streamline
Speaker 1: custom category lineup, Simplify is not for you, Monarch is
Speaker 1: for you. I think that is going to be the
Speaker 1: difference on which one you go to. But with more
Speaker 1: customization comes a higher price tag. So where Simplify is
Speaker 1: like five dollars a month, I think Monarch is about
Speaker 1: eight to ten. I will I will double check that, but.
Speaker 3: Yeah, between fourteen ninety nine a month or one hundred
Speaker 3: for the year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're definitely paying for that customization. But people
Speaker 1: love the user interface. They say it's the This is
Speaker 1: what Reddit says the best and most seamless mint transition.
Speaker 1: Importing transactions was easy, the filters on the transactions are
Speaker 1: super snappy, and bulk editing is really easy. The cons
Speaker 1: Monarch does not have credit scoring and some of the
Speaker 1: budgeting reporting functionality for Mint is missing, but you can
Speaker 1: easily see that being filled in at a later date.
Speaker 1: Connects to Canadian banks, so if you are Canadian, then
Speaker 1: some of these apps will connect to Canadian banks but
Speaker 1: not have the Canadian dollar to US dollar conversion. This
Speaker 1: one doesn't have that. It just has the Canadian bank connection.
Speaker 1: So these aren't going to I don't think anything on
Speaker 1: this list is going to be the best for a
Speaker 1: Canadian listener. But Monarch does connect to Canadian banks, but
Speaker 1: it lacks that conversion of US Canadian US dollar.
Speaker 3: The third one on this list that we're going to
Speaker 3: talk about is Wine app, So that's you need a
Speaker 3: budget I'm sure you've heard us talk about them before.
Speaker 3: They have a budgeting app. This is listed as the
Speaker 3: best for zero based budgeting. So that's that concept of
Speaker 3: assigning every dollar a task, beginning with the money that
Speaker 3: you already have, not the money that you will have,
Speaker 3: is the approach that Wynab takes with their budgeting, and
Speaker 3: so their app follows suit. What the article says about
Speaker 3: it is that the app and software program can be
Speaker 3: used across multiple platforms. Users can link similar to some
Speaker 3: of these other apps bank accounts create a budget and
Speaker 3: continuously sync data, so that's offering just an ideal solution
Speaker 3: for those who want to watch financial transactions in real time.
Speaker 3: The app can also track goals, create reports detailing financial progress,
Speaker 3: So for those who really kind of like that gamified
Speaker 3: experience and being able to watch it and keep an
Speaker 3: eye on it, this might be the one for you.
Speaker 3: List in here a quote. You need a budget is
Speaker 3: a fantastic service as it allows folks to set a
Speaker 3: budget based on their income and make adjustments when unexpected
Speaker 3: financial circumstances occur. This one similar to Monarch pretty much
Speaker 3: same exact price fourteen ninety nine a month or ninety
Speaker 3: nine a year if you pay for the full year.
Speaker 3: So things to keep in mind with that one. The
Speaker 3: pros and cons of it listed out by people who
Speaker 3: have tried it out again on Reddit is that one
Speaker 3: of the pros is that winnab is proactive. Mint was reactive,
Speaker 3: and again that's just talking about the difference in budgeting
Speaker 3: techniques that you're looking at what's already in the account
Speaker 3: and where am I putting those dollars rather than basing
Speaker 3: your budget off of what am I thinking I'm going
Speaker 3: to make this month. Another user said that Mint always
Speaker 3: left me living paycheck to paycheck but still binge spending
Speaker 3: with little consequence, whereas with wynab, I have to make
Speaker 3: what I have work, and each paycheck is a chance
Speaker 3: to reprioritize. I'm having way more fun doing it too,
Speaker 3: probably because it requires more interaction and thought. So for
Speaker 3: those who do like to be more involved in the
Speaker 3: minutia and be able to change things around and be
Speaker 3: able to set goals and see yourself achieve those goals,
Speaker 3: I think this is a good app for you. Then
Speaker 3: the cons from users are also saying that winnab is
Speaker 3: not a tracking tool like Mint was. It's a real
Speaker 3: zero based budget, So when you start with winnab, you
Speaker 3: basically start with your current cash balance, budget it all
Speaker 3: to zero, then go from there. It has a learning curve,
Speaker 3: but if you actually want to budget and not track,
Speaker 3: it's the way to go. It is infinitely more powerful
Speaker 3: budgeting tool. So that's funny kind of a con but
Speaker 3: by the end that kind of came around. But I
Speaker 3: think just saying that if you're not accustomed to budgeting
Speaker 3: this way, it might take a little bit of time
Speaker 3: to kind of understand how you're approaching your money. It's
Speaker 3: a different mindset with that way of budgeting for most,
Speaker 3: So that's something to keep in mind. But if it's
Speaker 3: something you want to give a try to, it's yeah,
Speaker 3: probably worth your while.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So Monarch and winnab are the same price points,
Speaker 1: so I think it might be useful kind of to
Speaker 1: look at the difference, like why you would choose one
Speaker 1: over the other. So if you want in addition to budgeting,
Speaker 1: you want kind of all of your money management in
Speaker 1: one place, including like your net worth, your investments, all
Speaker 1: of that, Monarch will do that, whinnab will not. Winnapp
Speaker 1: has no investment tracking. It is only budgeting. Again, like
Speaker 1: what Jill said, it doesn't have that recurring expense detection.
Speaker 1: So whinnap doesn't automatically identify subscriptions where Monarch automatically does that,
Speaker 1: and you can get notified before you're build on something,
Speaker 1: so if you can cancel like a free trial, stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and then pretty much the goals of whynab
Speaker 1: is to teach you a new way to budget. So
Speaker 1: you have to subscribe to their ideas of how to budget,
Speaker 1: which is great. Why not has a really robust collection
Speaker 1: of videos and stuff to teach you how to budget.
Speaker 1: So if you're ready to do something brand new or
Speaker 1: really dive into budgeting, then whynab is great. But if
Speaker 1: you do not want to go through a learning curve,
Speaker 1: if you already feel like I kind of I kind
Speaker 1: of just need some tracking and some maybe some like
Speaker 1: long term higher level planning you know, overview, that's Monarch.
Speaker 1: So other than that, they are very similar. Both great
Speaker 1: budgeting tools, But if you care about kind of the
Speaker 1: learning curve, you hate it. You want some you know,
Speaker 1: investment stuff attached to your budgeting tools, you want Monarch.
Speaker 1: If you're really just concerned about budgeting and you're really
Speaker 1: just budgeting to maybe like payoff debt. You're putting one
Speaker 1: hundred bucks a month towards your investments, but you don't
Speaker 1: care about them right now, then maybe whine Ab is
Speaker 1: better for you. Our last on the list is one
Speaker 1: that people were talking about on the Reddit forum, but
Speaker 1: it's not people's favorite for budgeting, and it's in Power
Speaker 1: and people are trying it out because it's free. That's
Speaker 1: the biggest pro is that empower is free and you
Speaker 1: can see all of your things in one so net worth,
Speaker 1: cash flow transactions all in there. I will use it
Speaker 1: to collect all of my transactions to export into a
Speaker 1: Google doc. So that's that's what I use it for.
Speaker 1: I use it for budgeting, but not like explicitly. Uh
Speaker 1: so some of the redditors are saying I don't do
Speaker 1: super detailed budgeting, but they offer an interesting view with
Speaker 1: category breakdowns. I was able to link everything, but Apple
Speaker 1: card and sync seems pretty fast. Desktop view is solid.
Speaker 1: iOS widget with the U index is pretty cool too.
Speaker 1: So the U index you is your It shows you
Speaker 1: what your investments, how you're growing, and it compares it
Speaker 1: to like another popular index like the S and P
Speaker 1: five hundred. So how does the U index compare to
Speaker 1: the you know, SMP five hundred index?
Speaker 4: So that's kind of cool.
Speaker 1: But the cons. A lot of the cons have to
Speaker 1: do with with the budgeting, so it can't bulk edit
Speaker 1: transactions to change categories. It's much more focused on investment tracking.
Speaker 4: Empower used to.
Speaker 1: Work pretty well for me back in the day, but
Speaker 1: then something changed and they lost support for my primary bank.
Speaker 1: I can't get it to pull anything for my checking
Speaker 1: account other than available balance, no transaction history at all,
Speaker 1: and because it's a free app. You're not going to
Speaker 1: get much help from their you know, the department on
Speaker 1: that they do. I have reached out to their support
Speaker 1: before to like connect a mortgage, and I do get responses.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the answer is like, hey, we don't support connection
Speaker 1: for that bank yet you know we're working on it,
Speaker 1: and that's like the response. So but yeah, so empower
Speaker 1: is definitely best for tracking investments. So if that is
Speaker 1: what you mainly want and you I love looking at
Speaker 1: their cash flow, Like I can see my income and
Speaker 1: expenses each month and it will track the positive or
Speaker 1: negative cash flow. So that's a very light way to budget.
Speaker 4: But Empower works for me because I'm not a big budgeter.
Speaker 1: I usually will just use it to export transactions into
Speaker 1: a Google sheet so I can do a ninety day
Speaker 1: transaction inventory every once in a while and get there.
Speaker 1: But definitely the other three and they are the ones.
Speaker 1: They all cost money, Like I'm so sorry, they all
Speaker 1: cost money. They're they're the best ones of the ones
Speaker 1: that we've seen, Like there's always the tried and true.
Speaker 1: They've got ones you know on the list. You've got
Speaker 1: you know, your good budget, you've got busy kid, pocket
Speaker 1: Guard some of these have free versions, some of them don't.
Speaker 1: It's not saying on here. Oh yeah, most see, most
Speaker 1: of them still cost money. Even they have they have
Speaker 1: like a free version, but it's always very limited.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then I was talking with Andy for Marriage, Kids
Speaker 1: Money about Honeydow, which he used to talk about them,
Speaker 1: but they've just kind of gone off It seems they've
Speaker 1: gone offline, like they're not investing in.
Speaker 4: The app anymore.
Speaker 1: But all of these Quickened, Monarch, and winab all have
Speaker 1: options for budgeting with a partner, so if you're if
Speaker 1: it's two people budgeting, you don't have to worry about
Speaker 1: any All three of those apps have capabilities for couples
Speaker 1: without buying an extra like paying for an extra account.
Speaker 3: And if you want the links to any of those
Speaker 3: four that we've talked about, you got to you gotta
Speaker 3: have our newsletter. We're gonna have the links in the
Speaker 3: newsletter email that goes out today the day that this
Speaker 3: podcast comes out.
Speaker 1: Right, they are not accessible anywhere else except for the
Speaker 1: frind letter, So we actually do need you to be
Speaker 1: on the front letter so that you can access the
Speaker 1: links to these.
Speaker 3: Forgo friendspodcast dot com.
Speaker 1: Yes, and you'll get a free a free trial of winnab. Honestly,
Speaker 1: I would definitely try the free trial of wineab just
Speaker 1: because you get it and see how that is for you.
Speaker 1: And if it's not for you, then try Monarch or
Speaker 1: simplify so and wineab will not take your credit card info,
Speaker 1: so it will not charge you at the end of
Speaker 1: thirty four days.
Speaker 3: So that's that's how long their trial is. That their
Speaker 3: trial is.
Speaker 1: Thirty four days, and that's a specific there's a specific
Speaker 1: reason it's thirty four days, and you learn about that
Speaker 1: when you are learning about their way of budgeting.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 1: I definitely, in your downtime over the holidays, might pick
Speaker 1: up a little wine ab education just see if it's
Speaker 1: for you. But we like all three of these for budgeting.
Speaker 1: But what do we not like for budgeting? Not a
Speaker 1: lot of places are saying like it's very easy to
Speaker 1: find best budgeting app articles.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh, we don't like it. We don't like it
Speaker 3: when they do in shady stuff behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: For us, the worst budgeting apps are not definitely are
Speaker 1: not like the ones for We're not going to judge
Speaker 1: an app's user interface.
Speaker 4: We're not going to.
Speaker 1: Judge how we would interpret using them, because it's not
Speaker 1: you know, not every budgeting app is for everyone, and
Speaker 1: so we're not judging based on the actual app. But
Speaker 1: our next article is judging based on data sharing. So
Speaker 1: Incognate did a survey of a bunch of budgeting apps
Speaker 1: about how much data they're collecting and how much they're
Speaker 1: sharing with third parties. And so if you do not
Speaker 1: want your data shared to third parties, these are the
Speaker 1: ones you're going to want to stay away from.
Speaker 3: I love that the title of this post it includes
Speaker 3: a statistic that's they're just out the gate with it.
Speaker 3: It's titled good for your Wallet, but Not for Your Privacy.
Speaker 3: Sixty percent of twenty popular apps share your data. And
Speaker 3: then they give an amazing table that's color coded to
Speaker 3: indicate who are the best and worst for privacy and
Speaker 3: levels and types of data sharing. So certainly feel free
Speaker 3: to check it out so you can measure up the
Speaker 3: budgeting app you're using against this. But some of the
Speaker 3: worst ones that we're gonna highlight because we don't care,
Speaker 3: we have podcasts, we don't care. We're gonna we're gonna
Speaker 3: call them out. The first one we'll talk about is
Speaker 3: nerd wallets. So this one is the most generous app
Speaker 3: when it comes to sharing data, so generous and not
Speaker 3: all the great ways. So nerd wallet is sharing on
Speaker 3: fourteen data points from six different categories. So this is
Speaker 3: going to include things like user names, phone numbers, purchase history,
Speaker 3: and they're sharing that with third parties, third party payers.
Speaker 3: I'm going to assume five out of these fourteen data
Speaker 3: points that are shared are categorized as personal info. And interestingly,
Speaker 3: the app admits to sharing more data than it declares
Speaker 3: to collect in the Google Play Data safety section. How's
Speaker 3: that for some rich rich tea.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love.
Speaker 1: At the very bottom of the nerd wallet app website,
Speaker 1: it says your security our priority. We always have your
Speaker 1: security in mind. Rest easy knowing your data is encrypted
Speaker 1: for enhanced protection. But it doesn't say this, but we
Speaker 1: will share it with our third party partners to serve
Speaker 1: you emails and ads so that we get kickbacks and
Speaker 1: that's how we make money on a free app. So
Speaker 1: that is and hopefully you'd hope that nerd wallet is
Speaker 1: vetting these third parties that they're sharing your data to.
Speaker 4: But you don't know. Honestly, you can't just.
Speaker 1: Blindly trust that these people are sharing your info with
Speaker 1: it just so.
Speaker 4: It just makes me think of the.
Speaker 1: Latest controversy in crypto with Binance of the guy who's
Speaker 1: charged with fraud. And then you've got Sam Bakman whatever
Speaker 1: his name is, with FDx. And then I saw this
Speaker 1: image on social media. Forbes had on the cover the
Speaker 1: Binance Guide, the FTX guy, Elizabeth Holmes and oh SVB
Speaker 1: so Silicon Valley Banks said that gave him some award
Speaker 1: for like being the best new bank or most innovative
Speaker 1: bank or something. They had put all of these on
Speaker 1: the cover of Forbes, and I was like, you would
Speaker 1: think that you could trust these people because of the
Speaker 1: you know, of the publicity that they're getting.
Speaker 4: You think you can.
Speaker 1: Trust these apps because of the publicity that they get, right,
Speaker 1: And they're from these companies that are supposedly uh stalwarts
Speaker 1: in the industry and quote unquote reliable. But you don't
Speaker 1: know what's going on behind closed stores, and so we're
Speaker 1: not conspiracy theorists, but also we're asking we also, you know,
Speaker 1: we want to like acknowledge, we don't know what goes
Speaker 1: behind goes on behind closed stores, so we prefer to
Speaker 1: be safe rather than sorry, And that's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why now it's better to pay for an ad
Speaker 1: free pay pay for a product versus being a product,
Speaker 1: and nerd wallet is just a great example of that
Speaker 1: because that's how they make their money, is just referring
Speaker 1: people to you for all kinds of loans and financial
Speaker 1: services and all that stuff, and they figure out what
Speaker 1: they can serve, what best served to you based on
Speaker 1: the information you give on this app.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're paying one way or another. I mean, these
Speaker 3: apps need to make money somehow, and if it's not
Speaker 3: going to be off of you, it's going to be
Speaker 3: off of ads. And many of them are doing both
Speaker 3: charging you and selling your info. It's probably worth mentioning
Speaker 3: some of these top categories of So some apps are
Speaker 3: just collecting data and it seems probably for internal use.
Speaker 3: And then there's these apps who will do both collect
Speaker 3: it and sell sell the data out, give them, give
Speaker 3: it out to these third parties and so.
Speaker 4: Some of them it's share Yeah.
Speaker 3: Wow, okay, So personal information includes your name. I'm assumed
Speaker 3: that's your first life middle however many names you got,
Speaker 3: email addresses, and then financial information is going to include
Speaker 3: things like your credit score, your payment history. App info
Speaker 3: and performance. This is a little bit less nefarious, keeping
Speaker 3: track of crash logs and at performance information that sort
Speaker 3: of thing. And then app activity. I am not even
Speaker 3: sure what this would include, but they're listing out user
Speaker 3: generated content other installed apps. I don't know if you
Speaker 3: know anything about that, Jen, Is that Are they indicating
Speaker 3: that they can then see what other apps you have
Speaker 3: installed by installing their app and sell that information?
Speaker 1: I don't one hundred percent no, So I don't want
Speaker 1: to speculate.
Speaker 3: Who knows what goes on behind closed doors.
Speaker 4: Right, don't? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I would rather like, yeah, I'd
Speaker 1: rather be smart about it. And the second one, so
Speaker 1: there's there's three that will say the three highest that
Speaker 1: share the most data point, but it's the first two that,
Speaker 1: like by far and above, sell them or share the
Speaker 1: most data points. That second one is every dollar. So
Speaker 1: every dollar shares data from six categories and makes the
Speaker 1: number of unique data points made available to other companies
Speaker 1: is slightly lower at eleven. So where nerd wallet shares
Speaker 1: fourteen data points, every dollar shares eleven data points across
Speaker 1: six categories. It shares three data points from app info
Speaker 1: and performance three from personal info, including users' names and
Speaker 1: email addresses, and I have to imagine it's probably sharing
Speaker 1: with like the ELP, that whole you know area, But
Speaker 1: we like we know from experience that ELPs are not
Speaker 1: vetted and very thoroughly. So we've heard story after story
Speaker 1: after story about people going to ELPs and thinking they're
Speaker 1: getting somebody who is as committed to an ideology as
Speaker 1: they are, but the person literally just had to sign
Speaker 1: a statement saying that they agreed with it, and they
Speaker 1: don't practice the ideology and they're not very you know,
Speaker 1: extremely familiar with it. So there are obviously some that
Speaker 1: are as zealous about the ideology as you know as
Speaker 1: the people that use them. But for the most part,
Speaker 1: it is a marketing service, and I have to imagine
Speaker 1: that those are probably the people that they're sharing this
Speaker 1: data with.
Speaker 3: Every dollar is the only one on this chart who
Speaker 3: is both collecting and sharing in and all of the
Speaker 3: categories that are listed in it, So they use different
Speaker 3: shapes for if it's just collected versus collected and shared,
Speaker 3: And in every category that that there is to share
Speaker 3: on they're collecting and sharing it. There's nothing that they
Speaker 3: are solely just collecting which is funny to me. So
Speaker 3: there's that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it says sixty six percent of data points
Speaker 1: that you share to your app, they're collected, they are
Speaker 1: not shared, So most of your data is definitely safe
Speaker 1: and two percent is shared but not collected.
Speaker 4: I don't know how that.
Speaker 1: Works, but so it's thirty one percent of data is
Speaker 1: shared and collected. So take with that information what you will.
Speaker 3: The last one that we'll mention on here is the
Speaker 3: app called money Lover. They collect fourteen data points, they
Speaker 3: share six of them with third parties, and you should
Speaker 3: just know with a name like that, they're not just
Speaker 3: selling you a money lover app.
Speaker 1: They also love money. I love money. I mean, so
Speaker 1: I get it. I am actually money lover. That's me
Speaker 1: I am. That is my Zenga handle. That is my
Speaker 1: live journal. Uh you know what else I love? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I share one hundred percent of the time.
Speaker 3: It would be also my Zenga profile. Name. The bill
Speaker 3: of the week.
Speaker 5: That's right, it's time for the best minute of your
Speaker 5: entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name
Speaker 5: is William. Maybe you paid off your mortgage. Maybe your
Speaker 5: car died and you're happy to not have to pay
Speaker 5: that Bill anymore. That's Bills Buffalo Bills, Bill Clinton. This
Speaker 5: is the bill of the week.
Speaker 6: All right, what's your name, William? Where are you from?
Speaker 4: Okay? And where's your vacation?
Speaker 6: Ben?
Speaker 4: This week?
Speaker 3: Colorado?
Speaker 6: Colorado? What was your favorite thing that you did in Colorado?
Speaker 6: Going on the trampoline? Did you get to visit somewhere
Speaker 6: cool yesterday, like on a hike? Where did you go?
Speaker 4: Like there was a big.
Speaker 3: We were a little around.
Speaker 6: So a time of kit munks, chipmunks and on the
Speaker 6: way back, Oh, that's awesome. So we this week we
Speaker 6: had William visiting us, and everything that we did was
Speaker 6: virtually free. We went on hikes, we swam in the reservoir,
Speaker 6: we went to the river, and we realized that most
Speaker 6: of the best things in life and the way to
Speaker 6: do a vacation is to get out in nature because
Speaker 6: it's free and it's the most fun. And chipmunks crawl
Speaker 6: on you. Okay, love your podcast?
Speaker 3: Thanks?
Speaker 1: Can I we have Bill will Yeah, he didn't call directly,
Speaker 1: but he was here.
Speaker 3: He was here. If you had a baby and his
Speaker 3: name is William, I mean, listen, here we go. There's
Speaker 3: a baby. His name's William. He's probably not a baby.
Speaker 3: You probably a big boy by now, and you are
Speaker 3: doing some fun stuff on your vacation, from trampolines to
Speaker 3: seeing chipmunks.
Speaker 4: Wrestle to just do it not just wrestling there.
Speaker 3: How amazing and what an amazing adult in your life
Speaker 3: to call this in for us. Thank you, William wow
Speaker 3: for sharing about your vacation and doing all the free
Speaker 3: things well done. This is making my day.
Speaker 1: If you want to submit your bill of the week,
Speaker 1: then visit Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash bill let
Speaker 1: us know how many bills you saw wrestling on vacation.
Speaker 3: And now it's time for light me around.
Speaker 4: Peo Peo peo.
Speaker 1: All right, So in today's Vulnerability Around, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about what's the most important thing to you when
Speaker 1: making a budget. And Jill, this is mostly a question
Speaker 1: for you control. I'm gonna go with answer a control.
Speaker 1: Tell us about that the fine control?
Speaker 3: Oh wow. I just I want to be able to
Speaker 3: do it my way. I want to I wanna math
Speaker 3: the math myself. I want to categorize the categories. I
Speaker 3: wanna gamify it. I want to sowitch it up if
Speaker 3: I want to. I want to change things halfway. Through
Speaker 3: and then switch them back. They have a podcast. Okay,
Speaker 3: so I'm going to do what I want.
Speaker 4: I don't know how that relates. I do not know
Speaker 4: how that relates.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that well. First of all, folks, I
Speaker 3: am not tech savvy. That's not something I'm ever gonna
Speaker 3: put on a resume of mine. Heck, I'm probably never
Speaker 3: going to get a job that's going to require that
Speaker 3: of me. And so I prefer to keep my calendar,
Speaker 3: pen and paper, and I prefer to do a combo
Speaker 3: of budgeting that includes pen and paper still to this day,
Speaker 3: and spreadsheets. I'm probably making it a little more complicated
Speaker 3: than it needs to be, but you know what, I'm
Speaker 3: in control, and I so for that reason. But also,
Speaker 3: you know, not feeling like I want to learn an app,
Speaker 3: but also knowing that I'm going to want such specific
Speaker 3: things that I feel an app is not gonna allow
Speaker 3: for me that I would rather do it myself. Budgeting
Speaker 3: is kind of a fun process for me, Like the
Speaker 3: act of looking at my transactions, setting goals for the month.
Speaker 3: That's fun for me when I get to sit down
Speaker 3: and do it. So I like doing it my way,
Speaker 3: how about you, Jen.
Speaker 1: So for me, I love more to think about like
Speaker 1: my habits and real time spending than allocating specific amounts.
Speaker 4: For each category.
Speaker 1: So that's why I prefer to do the ninety day
Speaker 1: transaction inventory like a few times a year so I
Speaker 1: can look back and see, Okay, what have I been
Speaker 1: doing this? And this comes from years and years of budgeting,
Speaker 1: right uh? And I did a zero based budgets for years.
Speaker 2: I have.
Speaker 1: I've used every dollar I have used WINNAP, I have
Speaker 1: used gosh, probably fourteen other budgeting apps that we didn't
Speaker 1: talk about or don't exist anymore.
Speaker 4: Like I've done it.
Speaker 1: And I spent years figuring out what I love to
Speaker 1: spend money on and what I don't need to spend
Speaker 1: money on. And now I'm in a maintenance phase to
Speaker 1: where I still have to be diligent in paying attention
Speaker 1: to what I am spending because you never stop being influenced.
Speaker 1: You never stop having the voice in your head saying like,
Speaker 1: if you had this, you would be closer to where
Speaker 1: you want to be, or closer to the person people
Speaker 1: will like. So like, that voice never goes away, so
Speaker 1: you need to pay attention to it. But you do
Speaker 1: get better at saying like, shut up, voice, Uh, it's
Speaker 1: you do get better at realizing that everything on social
Speaker 1: media is carefully curated and knowing that and just accepting
Speaker 1: Like I think it comes with age too. I'm at
Speaker 1: a point in my life where I've young children and
Speaker 1: the house and we're under a renovation, and literally we
Speaker 1: are under it, and I don't care to an extent anymore. So,
Speaker 1: like some of it, it's just a combination of I
Speaker 1: have been working on building boundaries to say no to
Speaker 1: things that aren't aligned with my values, and building confidence
Speaker 1: to say yes without guilt to the things that do,
Speaker 1: and not caring. I've been working on those three areas
Speaker 1: of my life for many years, and we've built enough
Speaker 1: of a financial cushion that if I spend more than
Speaker 1: I make in a month, I spent significantly less than
Speaker 1: I made the month prior, and it just kind of
Speaker 1: all balances out.
Speaker 4: At the end of the year.
Speaker 1: We will do like quarterly check ins to see like
Speaker 1: and a lot of it is skewed too, because we're buying,
Speaker 1: we're cash flowing the renovations, right, So I'll spend like
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars in a month on one month this year,
Speaker 1: which is not normal and yeah, so it's a it's
Speaker 1: a chaotic year for us, but I mean it would
Speaker 1: be the same if it wasn't a chaotic year. I
Speaker 1: just have done a little bit more checking in this
Speaker 1: year with it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well there we have it. Try our trick. If
Speaker 3: none of these budgeting apps seem like something you want,
Speaker 3: then try control, see how control feels, or try not
Speaker 3: budgeting like that.
Speaker 1: Howither one it's a like it's a fair Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a fair point. But I do when we were investing,
Speaker 1: we're taking a pause from investing. I know, sacrilege. This
Speaker 1: is not a financial independent podcast, but we would always
Speaker 1: make sure that all of our savings and our investing
Speaker 1: was done before we spend. So that is another another
Speaker 1: method that a lot of people do. It's to pay
Speaker 1: yourself first, spend what's left method, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people enjoy it.
Speaker 3: If you get really good at it, then yeah, then
Speaker 3: you don't have to.
Speaker 1: It's not two to oh one. It's a two to
Speaker 1: oh one budget. It's definitely not a one oh one.
Speaker 1: I definitely like these apps for the one oh one style,
Speaker 1: and I like manual transaction input when you're first starting out,
Speaker 1: so giving it like three weeks of not automating but
Speaker 1: literally just handwriting every single thing you spend money on
Speaker 1: for three weeks.
Speaker 4: That's powerful. That is very powerful.
Speaker 3: Oh that's what I do all the time, always, that
Speaker 3: is my method. Yeah, and here we go, And that's
Speaker 3: how I feel powerful.
Speaker 1: Yes, And I don't need that kind of control. I
Speaker 1: love just fly by the seat of my athletic wries.
Speaker 3: Well, okay, here we go as we are trying and
Speaker 3: failing to pull ourselves up out of this hole we'd done.
Speaker 3: Thanks for being here, Thanks for listening this far. In
Speaker 3: the things many of you know that we're not just
Speaker 3: doing a podcast, we're also doing a newsletter. Like you
Speaker 3: want more.
Speaker 1: The same financial educating, education, edutainment in a newsletter.
Speaker 3: For more of our tips and tricks. Get our friend
Speaker 3: letter that we put out three times a week. Podcast
Speaker 3: is two times a week. Friend letters three times a week.
Speaker 3: That's essentially every single weekday you can get more of
Speaker 3: this goodness us telling you how much we fail and
Speaker 3: try and fail.
Speaker 1: And sometimes we're not failing. We're just doing things differently.
Speaker 1: And it's not what most expert Hey, here's the real
Speaker 1: here's the insider scoop, it's what real experts are doing,
Speaker 1: but they're.
Speaker 4: Not talking about we know this for a fact, true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, who also going to talk to you about apps
Speaker 3: and then actually say we don't use any of them.
Speaker 3: They're still worthwhile. But yeah, here's how we actually do it.
Speaker 3: So all right, Yeah, authenticity is what you can get
Speaker 3: from us, and also freebies and savings tips and life
Speaker 3: acts that are actually going to help you save money.
Speaker 3: That's what that friend letter is jam packed with. Forgal
Speaker 3: Friends podcast dot com. We do want to give a
Speaker 3: shout out to one of our friends who replied to
Speaker 3: our newsletter, which you can do. You can just straight
Speaker 3: up say reply and type us an email back and
Speaker 3: we get it because we're not that far removed from
Speaker 3: our emails. Yeah, exactly. So this person, short and sweet
Speaker 3: comes from. Lisa said this issue had the tips I
Speaker 3: didn't know that I needed in my life. I feel
Speaker 3: like a smarty pant now. I love that, I perfectly.
Speaker 1: I remember it was the pants how you can get
Speaker 1: the highest quality, longest lasting pans without paying like all
Speaker 1: clad prices.
Speaker 3: You save your heart Into that email, Jen Jen wrote
Speaker 3: that I'm.
Speaker 4: Passionate about stainless steel cookware.
Speaker 6: Jill.
Speaker 1: It lasts forever, you know, this.
Speaker 3: You it, I do know it, yeah, and I'm.
Speaker 1: Passionate about it. But you don't have to own the
Speaker 1: top the line to own the top quality. And that's
Speaker 1: stuff we talk about in the friend letter.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So again, if you want these freebies, these tips you
Speaker 3: didn't know that you needed. You want to feel like
Speaker 3: a smarty pants. You want to know more about values
Speaker 3: based spending hacks sent to your inbox every week, head
Speaker 3: to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash friend Letter. You
Speaker 3: can also just go to our website Frugal friendspodcast dot com.
Speaker 3: You're gonna find it. Either way, you'll get the goodies.
Speaker 3: And if you already get the friend letter, then please
Speaker 3: do start sharing it with your friends, because then you
Speaker 3: get like real and more free goodies actually sent to you,
Speaker 3: literally mailed to you. For just one friend that you
Speaker 3: refer who signs up, you get a sticker, And the
Speaker 3: more and more friends the stickers sign up, you get
Speaker 3: a tote, a mug, a t shirt, the goodies.
Speaker 4: Just keep using money on this thing, just give it away.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, it's cool though. Those stickers are rad.
Speaker 1: I like them.
Speaker 4: See you next time. Google Friends is produced by Eric Siriani.
Speaker 3: Okay, jen it has been pointed out to me an
Speaker 3: area of cheapness. Well, I don't know. I'm even gonna
Speaker 3: push in your life for mine, our life mine. So
Speaker 3: I am on that journey of less less, less paper products.
Speaker 3: Still toilet paper that's not going to go away. I
Speaker 3: promise you.
Speaker 1: Always toilet paper, the good toilet paper, right, Like we
Speaker 1: don't do cheapest toilet paper, right, we do second cheapest,
Speaker 1: so we.
Speaker 4: Do the real good one.
Speaker 3: I'm doing a lot of rags and just figuring it out,
Speaker 3: maybe getting my hands a little dirty to just not
Speaker 3: use paper towels. But when i've when I have guests,
Speaker 3: which is a lot, everyone's asking me, we are your
Speaker 3: pair of towels, wear your pair towels towels and listen.
Speaker 3: I get it because that used to be me. But
Speaker 3: I'm just like, you don't need a paper towel for
Speaker 3: that you don't have. But I'm not that's I'm not
Speaker 3: that stingy. But people have started to notice that, Like
Speaker 3: I keep my paper towels like pretty hidden and then
Speaker 3: I will. I'm mostly using cloth napkins, but if I
Speaker 3: run out, I don't. I'm not doing the laundry that much. Then, yes,
Speaker 3: it's gonna be paper towel. The ones that I buy
Speaker 3: are already the half sheets, you know, not the full
Speaker 3: whatever one by one or foot by foot square. It's
Speaker 3: half of that, and then I tear them in half again.
Speaker 3: So from whatever you originally knew of a regular size
Speaker 3: paper towel, you're getting a quarter of it from me,
Speaker 3: And that's going to be your napkin. And it's just
Speaker 3: what I do. It's what I'm accustomed to. You're ripping
Speaker 3: the half and half. And I have been getting a
Speaker 3: little bit of pushback from people on this making fun
Speaker 3: of me. They're accepting it, and then it's you know,
Speaker 3: all turning into a joke with pretty much everything else.
Speaker 3: Like mile Loud, just.
Speaker 4: Put it out there.
Speaker 1: I know your friends and they're bougie and and I
Speaker 1: don't even know the specifically the ones you're talking about,
Speaker 1: but just in general, it's a bougie neighborhood, not a
Speaker 1: neighborhood like area area that I'm from.
Speaker 4: They might all live on the same street. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Wait that I'm from where I live now.
Speaker 4: No, from where you're from.
Speaker 3: Uh uh huh.
Speaker 1: That's the people that stay with you usually.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, but it's also like it's also our parents
Speaker 3: coming in town, like, oh boy, you're really and I
Speaker 3: learned the I mean, I don't do it now, but
Speaker 3: my mom was a wash out the plastic bag kind
Speaker 3: of kind of gal. I don't do that, and yet
Speaker 3: I'll still get a hard time for ripping the halfs
Speaker 3: and half not gonna change because.
Speaker 1: We've we've been doing this show for you know, five
Speaker 1: and a half years, but I've I feel like that's
Speaker 1: like a normal behavior. People are cutting down on their
Speaker 1: napkin so we're using, you know, reusable stuff. And if
Speaker 1: you want to use reusable stuff, you don't need your
Speaker 1: paper towels out. And if you were like I'm trying
Speaker 1: to be more sustainable from the environment, people would be
Speaker 1: wouldn't look at you like you're cheap. People would look
Speaker 1: at you like you're cool. But because they know what
Speaker 1: you do for a living.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're all like, oh, there's a frugal thread for you.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, this is one thing. It's only one thing,
Speaker 3: but it's it's now like all I'm going to be
Speaker 3: known for, Like this, what the frugal friend does?
Speaker 1: She I don't accept that for you. I don't I
Speaker 1: rebuke that identity.
Speaker 3: But the other the other thing that Eric is not
Speaker 3: even putting up with is the rags that I have
Speaker 3: are old tea towels that were getting really ratty, had
Speaker 3: a lot of holes in them, so then I cut
Speaker 3: them up and they're now my rags. But they they're
Speaker 3: getting the phrase of thread off of them and you know,
Speaker 3: just becoming dirty from being my kitchen rags. So no
Speaker 3: one but me ends up using the rags. They're all
Speaker 3: just like, yeah, I didn't. I didn't really want to
Speaker 3: touch it because it was pretty gross. And Eric's just like, listen,
Speaker 3: I'm down for the rags, but these rags are so gross,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, I refuse to buy rags, like rags
Speaker 3: should happen out of rags, the things that are already
Speaker 3: in your home. But Eric doesn't want to touch them,
Speaker 3: and neither do the guests. Then they're like, I'm raping
Speaker 3: youse a paper towel. I'm like, no, I've got a
Speaker 3: rag for that, and if you don't want to do it,
Speaker 3: I'll do it. But my paper towels are wipe your
Speaker 3: mouth my rag.
Speaker 4: I'll wipe your mouth with my rag.
Speaker 1: I only know this, like I know this about you
Speaker 1: that you constantly are wiping down your counter and so
Speaker 1: your rags see.
Speaker 3: They feel, they see a lot, they see of life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so so like for Christmas, it may be time
Speaker 1: to invest in some guest rags.
Speaker 3: From the thrift store.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are tons of tons of guest rags at
Speaker 1: the thrift store. And because I get I can see
Speaker 1: their point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you've been to my house, you know what they
Speaker 3: look like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they see life, they've seen a lot.
Speaker 3: Okay that I will that I can give in too,
Speaker 3: just updated rags.
Speaker 4: Yeah you got this.
Speaker 1: You've got this, you sustainable, frugal girl. Woman.
Speaker 3: Friend. We'll just be a friend.