Episode three oh three, fifth Anniversary Special Secrets behind a personal finance podcast.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and live a life. Here your hosts Jen and Jill.
Poo poo pooh, peo peo peo, pooh, pooh pooh.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jill, and we are saying that for the three hundred and third time over.
I'm sure we're five more than that, right, think about all the episodes we had to re record.
Oh yeah, five years.
Five years. That's longer than most marriages.
Yikes.
And I think I said that at like our two years.
Yes, this is the longest relationship I have been in other than other than my my husband. Yeah, so, and I'm pleased with it.
Please you five years? Yes, Oh, I'm gonna you. You keep going. Okay, look up what people do for their five year anniversary.
Right, So, today we are going to share some secrets behind our personal finance podcast.
You.
We asked you on Instagram to share some personal questions you had about us, some questions about the podcast, and so we're going to answer those. But We're not just going to you know, be self absorbed and talked all about ourselves. We also are going to relate it back to you, your finances and how you can benefit from five years have a frugal friends.
Our Wooden Anniversary, Wooden Anniversary, and woulden because it's so strong stuff houses are built out of to withstand, not termites, but the rest of that element.
You can only break it if you are trained in kind of martial.
Art or you're a termite.
But first, this episode is brought to you by the shows who helped us get here. Success does not happen in a vacuum, and to record over three hundred episodes, it takes a village of mentorship, support and love. One of those early shows was Optimal Finance Daily. If you like audio books, then you'll love Optimal Finance Daily. They narrate personal finance articles every day of the week so that you don't you don't have to find all the
blogs and read them yourself. So there's stuff on investing, saving, earning. Definitely subscribed, but the original podcast, Optimal Living Daily. There's a lot of different ones, like Health Finance more than that, but Optimal Living Daily was one of the first to recognize my writing. They read one of my articles on their podcast, and so they have more like minimalism and literally everything like optimal living on that one, and you should definitely check them out. Old podcast dot com, get
it Optimal Living Daily, Old podcast dot com. And so the first thank you of this episode goes out to Optimal Living Daily, Optimal Finance Daily. So thank you Justin Lee for believing me before Frugal Friends was a twinkle in.
Our eyes, wasn't even a thought in our bellies.
No, we're in our brains right, My thoughts are around.
They got believe deep from belief that.
So if you want to check out our other anniversary specials, we don't do one every year, but we did do one last year, episode two oh seven, what we've learned in four years of Frugal Friends. And then you guys ask us all the time for like a husband's episode. We actually did that episode one oh four. It was our two year anniversary special where we brought Eric and Travis on and we did a lot like a show all four of us together. Yes, and that was that
was interesting. Maybe we'll have to bring that back for our six.
That would be fun. Yeah, and it it is on YouTube too. It's on YouTube part of it as well, if you want to see what our hot man pieces look like.
And then and then all right, so first I want to start before we get into your questions and the and the formula's secret formula for personal finance podcast success. I would like to prove to you that we have made it, Like if you were on if you were questioning, like, oh, who are you guys to me like talking about this stuff. I just want to say, when you google personal finance podcast, we're not in the nine podcasts that show up on the first page, but when you click forty two more, we are there.
Wow, try it.
Try it. So we are in the top fifty one. We are in the top fifty one. Amazing, yes, at least, and we're somewhere in the middle of the pack. So it's like probably top thirty or something.
Now are you just guessing?
I am guessing. I didn't count, but I'm adding nine to forty two. We are there, and we are actually on one of the journalist curated lists on the first page, because it's all everyone has, like best personal finance podcasts, everyone's got one of those, and we're on one of those lists. It is because I know the journalist who wrote it. It is because she is a friend of mine.
I mean networking, Yeah, how you do it? There's your there's your first tip, first or third tip. I mean we're deep in the weeds.
Now, I ca've lost now counter tip is just networking making along in life.
I like making friends.
I like to call it making friends, but I love being made friend with community. Yes, we needed yes. So that is all of the clout and justification of status that we bring to this very important discussion on how to start a personal finance podcast.
Direct Knowing how to.
It's a little tongue in cheek, but but that is that is the theme. It's a loose theme, all right. So I did not assign these questions to anyone because we'll probably both want to answer each of them in our own way. So the first one that you guys wanted to know is how did you start the podcast? How did it come to be? And if you've listened to other people's podcasts that we've been on, you've probably heard this story. But we don't get the chance to share it a lot on this one.
There's always I think we try and answer this question, like an elevator speech, we will often give a very short answer, although I've seen multiple layers to it. I think what I will choose to say to this question is we were friends, and that story of how we met is in multiple other podcasts and maybe you'll touch on it, Jen, but it really from my perspective, was Eric,
my husband, wanting to get into the podcasting space. He had been a producer music producer, mostly as a hobby, but made some money at it and was trying to get out of the work that he was doing. So he was like the original, how do I bootstrap my way to finding other work that I'm going to enjoy more and what do I think that's going to be and let me just give it a try. And so he saw a podcasting as potentially the bread and butter of audio work. It's not music, but it's better than
electrical work. So he was kind of looking around for how could I start a podcast from the ground up that would be his kind of baby and part of his portfolio, so that he could see if he likes it and then have something to show people if he is going to start other people help other people start a podcast. And so I think he saw it in you and I. First he had asked you, do you
ever think about starting a podcast? And do you? Of course were like, no, never, And I've come to learn that no never means absolutely very soon.
Yeah, no never for me is death is unfortunately, you know, probably in the next couple of weeks.
Yeah, let me give it a try. And I was mostly on board just because I liked you, Jen, and I wanted to help my husband and this also that was the idea, was let's do personal finance. Eric was like, oh, yeah, Jill enjoys not spending a lot of money, and she knows how to get things inexpensively. We've come to learn that frugality is about so much more than that, as I'm sure we'll talk about, and you've probably seen my evolution if you've been with us for a long time.
And so that was my reason for getting into it. And also I think I realized, oh, this is an opportunity for me to learn more about a subject that I wouldn't necessarily choose to be talking about all the time. This podcast has forced me to read what now six hundred articles on personal finance and be involved in a community where others are talking and asking questions, and you, Jen are informing me with the kind of research background that you have, And it is true like all of
those things have happened, and I've been quite amazed. But for me, the how did we it was these conversations and considering what could this be and how could it be a win win win win win for all of us. We each entered it and we still do. I think see you, Jen, myself and Eric as kind of the
trio who started this podcast. Eric thankfully has had less and less to do with it as we've been able to like flap our ways for him less and less, but still very much a part of it and the inception of it, and so but yet the three of us came at it with very different reasons. For Eric, it was trying his hand at the background and the audio and the back end of it. For you, it was to grow your personal blog brand. And for me it was to be a support and to learn more.
But and it worked for all of us, Holy smokes, It worked for all of us in ways we.
Did not anticipate like it was. It was really an outlet for me because I have seen myself as a writer not a podcaster. I did not need to add something else to my plate. I didn't have a child at that time, much less two children, So it was something I went in and I was like, we can do this for a little while and if it doesn't work out, we don't have to do it forever. So like we didn't go in with this all or nothing mentality. We really all went in with it like let's try
our hand at this. Yeah, let's explore it and not be afraid of the new thing, which is at first kind of what I you know, my hesitation. And I think that's probably the first lesson in all of this is that we so often in our finances, in our career, in life want to be all or nothing. You know, if I can't do it the best, then I shouldn't do it at all. But like I think the just the feeling of just being curious really is how frugal
friends came to be. Eric was curious about if podcasting could be, you know, the next phase for audio engineering, and you were curious about personal finance. I was curious about podcasting. So I really encourage people to go in and not say like this is my new way of life, this is what I'm banking everything on, because this is not what I banked everything on. This was never the plan to be a full time podcaster, yeah, but it just it happened that way as a result of being curious.
Well, and for me, if I can tack on a lesson to that, I think being willing to go outside of what your norms might be, what you would think you'd want to do. If someone would have asked me, prefrugal friends, what would you want to have a podcast on? One hundred percent would not have been personal finance because I didn't view myself as as having much to say in this space and I don't really other than representing the voice of the common person and having some of
my own lived experience. But I certainly would have gone the route of counseling or digging into people's stories. That's what appeals to me. But this wasn't And I'm never going to advocate that people do something that they really don't like to do, but I think sometimes we don't know what those things are until we give it a try.
And I'm so grateful and it's one of the reasons why when we talk about side hustles, I encourage people to pick up a side hustle that is something they really enjoy and or outside of what they do in
their nine to five pretty much. I say that because that's a part of my lived experience that now looking back, I'm so glad I didn't choose something social work adjacent, because that just would have been then all of my time is talking about the issues and the injustices and the deep hurts and sufferings of people, and that's too much for one person. Twenty four to seven. This provides me such a separate space to still be myself. It's
still things I'm interested in, but it's totally different. They're connected. There's many overlaps, which I'm grateful for. But I think when we're considering a new career or a side hustle, or just something else to set our hands to to feed us, to give us some additional life or benefit, because we didn't approach this necessarily as a side hustle. We just approach this as let's give this a try.
But it was able to turn into that, but even as a hobby, like, what's something that you can do that might even be exercising a different part of you?
And that You don't have to be a complete expert. All you need to be is ten steps ahead of whoever your target audience is and make that clear.
So that's and also it's not just us. I want to highlight that too. I know we're only on the first question, but I think we can look at people on Instagram or podcasts or literally pick any other field, but especially business owners and think they're doing it all themselves and like, no, we're not, and it has gone better I think for you and I to have one another and we have a virtual assistant shout out Goldie.
And we have an editor, and we have Eric who really we couldn't have nor would we have started a podcast if it hadn't have been for his knowledge from the start.
Yeah, shout out to our editor Christian. Shout out to our social media manager Paula. Like we have people, our video editor, Maddie, we have people.
We didn't start there. We started with you, me and Eric, which is great, but even that we weren't alone, right, And I think that made all the difference exactly.
Okay, So moving on to the second one. The second ones are a little probably less meaty than you answer it first, Okay, are you have to ask it.
Okay, how have you changed as a person as the podcast has progressed, and how has that shown up in the show.
We both have changed a lot as people, and our views on personal finance and frugality have evolved. I won't say they've changed, I'd say they've evolved, as they should. I think it is unwise to set your opinions in stone, even when it pertains to yourself. Like you could have all the knowledge about yourself and say this is the best way for me, But in reality, what's best for you is best for you right now now, and that
can always evolve, and it probably should be. When we started this podcast, I did not have kids, and now I have. We're recording this in February when it airs, I'll hopefully have two. We have we have one right now. So like a lot has changed, but it's also my views on frugality have refined. They've been refined, and so I think when we started, I was much more focused on, like, I want to help people save money so they can
pay off debt faster. Now I do this podcast because I want to help people feel good about their money and be able to not feel guilt and shame about what they're spending money on and so, and that obviously will involve you know, it has the peripheral stuff of like you feel better about your money when you have less debt, and you feel less guilt and shame about your spending when you are are spending probably less than what you're making, and so so that has become the core.
So what the peripherals were my priority when we started, and now I've put the peripherals in their place and created more solid core belief. Wow, that's me.
Okay, that's amazing. I don't even know if I could say all the ways that I have changed or evolved over the last five years, but for what I can see, I certainly think. I mean, first of all, life circumstances have changed. Through the course of recording this podcast. Eric and I have become debt free, and we bought a house. We stopped living in vehicles, and we're in a home now in Florida. We moved states.
So there's so many not living in a vehicle.
Yes, right, there's so many things that I can point to that that just life has happened, and we've continued to record the podcast. I think one of the biggest changes or evolutions for me has been mindset around money and this community of frugal friends podcast listeners and you, Jen are I can pretty much say you're ninety percent
responsible for that, which I'm so grateful for. I don't think I realized the benefit that I would receive to the extent that I have in this time, and I think people who have listened to the show long term
have probably experienced that evolution. Where I might have had some more traditional views about frugality in the past and a scarcity mindset, and that has shifted and I have fully embraced this more values based spending while not letting go of the things and habits and behaviors that have benefited me, but letting go of the of the behaviors mindsets that have not been good for me. And I think hear that in the show and the way that
I talk. One other thing I think I've realized and you helped me with this, Jen, is I partitioned myself a lot. I thought that I needed to be social worker Jill during the day and fun podcasting Jill in the night.
Or whatever the day, Jill at night.
It even comes down to I go buy Jillian in the professional social work world that I'm in, and Jill.
On the podcast The Real Secret.
Now this is the sallet. We're not even to the lightning round. I really felt as though these two things needed to be separate, and I still fight that sometimes because it's probably a vulnerability thing. I want. I want to be able to say, oh, yeah, that's just one part of me that podcast, so if you listen to that, that's not really the full picture of me. And now that we're five years in, I'm like, yeah, people probably
know me pretty well. This is pilently just. But I think I felt more and more permission to also be blending my mental health background, some of the perspective that I have from my day job into the podcast, and you really challenge You're like, why do you feel like
you need to not say that? And I think I felt as though I needed to be play the role of the person who doesn't know that much about personal finance, so that like the listener who also might feel dumb, sometimes asking questions can feel seen and take away the shame. But then realizing, okay, there are some things that I do know and I can talk about that and that could benefit people and it can help me feel like
a more congruent person showing up on the podcast. That might be a little bit more meta of an answer, but that's been a shift, and I think I've felt more freedom and permission to incorporate my whole self on the podcast.
Sometimes it can be uncomfortable shifting identity when you grow into something and you've been something else for so long, or and not even that it's been publicly labeled, but you personally labeled yourself as something, and to give yourself the freedom to be who you are now in this season is definitely uncomfortable. It's part of that like hard work of self discovery when we talk about like finding your core values, that's hard work, and that's ongoing work.
Because of stuff like this, sometimes in a season you do adopt a label, for better or for worse. There was definitely a lot of benefits in those early episodes to you asking the questions that I wouldn't have thought to ask or didn't remember that I had those questions. And now there's so much more benefit to you being like knowing more of the question to ask that other people you know would not. So yeah, I guess that's there's a second tip to embrace. We have no idea
what number we're yep, the fifth, I don't know. Just take them as they come, take them as they come. Yes, all right, So this one kind of plays on the last one. Is there any advice you've given on the show in the past that you would now change and say differently?
It is?
I'm sure there is.
I don't go back and listen. That's right.
So here's the thing. Audio is so different from blog because you can go in and update a blog every day and change the words. But when you're posting podcasts or YouTube videos, and video is actually the worst because YouTube does not allow you to re upload. Even in like podcasting, if you say something you regret, you can go back in and and either cut that part out
or re upload audio. YouTube now gives you the opportunity to cut little pieces out, but it's very hard, Yeah, to update when your views have updated.
Yeah.
So, if we've ever said anything on the show that has offended you.
Oh sorry, sometimes sometimes it happens. Yeah, I would just say anything that might have played into scarcity mindset. I don't. I think from the beginning we were saying we were pushing against that, but I gotta imagine that there might have been maybe even episodes that were just more focused on skimping and scraping over, more of looking for alternatives, or just a skimp for the sake of skimping, but that more more of that. I think we've.
Evolved for I would say, yeah, we always were against that, but I think we have evolved. Sometimes you know what you're against, but you don't know what you're for.
Yeah, and now.
We know what we are four. So we are against the procrass to spending, so like doing things to feel like you're making progress but aren't really making progress, like the couponning and the rebate apps and the nickel and diming type of saving, versus gaining control self control over your discretionary spending and gaining control over impulse spending and subscriptions and the mindless spending that we all do. That is what we are for, is gaining control over that.
And we're against making little actions that make you feel like you might be doing something but aren't really doing much.
I guess I would say, don't buy a car on Craigslist. That has changed in the last five here. There might have been a time five years ago when we might have said you could check Craigslist for a used car. Now I would say, no, don't do that.
Yeah. I think I was much more for buy nothing groups at the beginning of the podcast. It was obsessed. Now I'm not on Facebook punch anymore, and I can see like the temptation to just take everything, even things you don't need. So I'm much more. Also, I just don't have time. I do not have time to babysit buy nothing groups.
We still love them, Yeah, just what our focus has changed, and that has to do with debt payoff and other things. Yeah, a lot of shifted. Yes, yes, all right, Jen, biggest surprise of podcasting.
I'm going to go deep on this one.
Okay, I'm gady for it.
So when I I've always been like a super independent person. I am an only child. I moved out when I was sixteen, like moved two hours away for college. I've always kind of like kind of raised myself. And when I started my business, I did it on my own with the intention of having a solopreneur kind of business. When we started the podcast and we started it as like a co hosting thing, at first, I was like, I like, don't trust this person to not like ghost me.
This person being me chill ye Jillian day, chill by night.
I don't trust Jillian to She's not even like really interested in personal finance, like what are we doing? So it was a leap of faith. And the biggest surprise of this last five years is how much better everything I do is with you, Jill. It is. I am capable on my own, I can get by, I can do good work, people praise me on it. But when I whatever I do in the podcast with you, it
like takes off. It's so good, like undeniably good. And that was the most surprising thing for me was that, like it's kind of like that phrase you can go fast alone, but further together.
I was trying to think about that this morning. I was like, yeah, is that saying.
That has proven to be like like I can't. It's so true, it's not just a saying and so now and it's also huge burden lifted too, because emotionally to do everything by yourself is pretty heavy. But knowing that I can place some of the burden on you, which I wouldn't have given myself permission to do before because I felt like I had to carry the weight of a full business, knowing that that's not only like acceptable, but it's better. It makes things better. That has been the biggest surprise.
You've said it before, but it still just gets me in my heart, and I love you so much. I'm just such a good friend and business partner. I think similarly, there's a lot of shockers for me. I think one of the biggest is that we're still doing it right.
That's a second surprise, so surprising.
Yeah, from what I would have thought, I'm not surprised now, like from a week ago. Yes, this makes sense, but looking back five years ago, if you would have said you're still going to be doing it, oh wow, that's gnarly to me. So but I think that then is the testament to what you're describing. Only now, I'll say it from my perspective, is how enjoyable this is. People will ask me, mostly friends, how long do you think you guys can keep going? Are you still how's the
podcast going? You still enjoy it? How do you come up with content? That's a big one. Everyone wants to know how we come up with content? And I just say, gen does that? Don't look at me. I just get on the mic, but I my continual answer is true to this day, it has never felt like an obligation.
I jet, I say, it's just a reason to talk with a friend, And I said, you have become one of my greatest friends simply because we've got something uniting us that we get to talk about that often leads to even more vulnerable conversation off the mic and learning together and encouraging one another and seeing how we truly benefit each other. That Likewise, for Ugen, there are things that I now know, decisions I've made for my life.
I mean, we moved down here, we moved to Florida from Philadelphia, and I can't say that was just because of Eugen. I don't want to put that pressure on you. But this business, this podcast you is a big reason for that. It was definitely on the if you were to have googled Jill's top Reasons or maybe to Florida, you definitely would have been in the like C forty
two more. Yes, Yeah, I think that's surprising, how how much I have enjoyed it and cantinue to enjoy it, how much it's not an obligation, how much I've gained from it, and this friendship that we've People have listened to us build our friendship.
Yes you have. If you've been with us from the beginning, you have. You've literally heard us become better friends. Like we were we started the show. We were friends, but we were like a couple friends. Like we would never hang out just the two of us.
Because I lived in a different stage. Yeah, we started the podcast. We until two years ago. We this podcast was always remote. Jen and I just zoom in each other from other states.
Yeah, and but we wouldn't even like text each other. It was always like a group text the four of us, and the four of us would always hang out. And you have the you know, as you've listened to the show, have listened to Jill and I like become really really close friends.
And now I am the person who's throwing your baby shower. If you want to know how close of friends Jen and I are, Like she asked him throw it, Yeah I did. I I wasn't gonna have one, and she said that's unacceptable. Oh oh that was that was refreshing.
I love that. Okay, next one.
We don't have too many more.
Yeah, it's just two more. Tell us about a time, y'all laughed so hard you couldn't stop.
Do you have one?
No, Well, I think it's so we would never the type of laughing I'm thinking we would never do on the show because that's annoying to hear, right, Like we laugh, but it's like a you know, like a second and then Christian's like, okay, bye, you know, like there would you would never hear us the way we belly laughed together. You could you We wouldn't subject you to that on the show.
No, But there's been so many times. I can't think of a specific thing that I could tell you here's what made me laugh so hard, But I will describe to you that Jen does this thing where she drops gold out of her mouth using words. The gold are the words that she says. She's so quick witted, and then pairs that with stoneface. You've got this face where you drop gold and it's just blank and it gets me so hard. If ever, I am laughing very And there have been times on the podcast where I have
to pull away from the mic. You keep talking, or it's like when we're interviewing someone and I pull away and I'm gone and Jen just has to keep going with the show. That's an example of what gets me. Again. Who knows what she might have said, but it's mostly the delivery, the quick wit that just like shocks me, and then the stone face. It's a great combo. This is why I think we have to do video, because people need to experience it.
Yeah, I think it's my spiritual gift. But I can't tell you where it comes from. I just think of them, yeah, and I say them and sometimes sometimes like you appreciate them, but not every crowd appreciates them, right, But I say them anyway.
And that's mostly what also gets me is oftentimes it's something that is relatively inaudible. So then that's what makes it really funny too, because no one else heard it, no one else is watching, and you're just there.
I don't do it for other people.
I do it for me, and I just get to catch it. Yeah.
I think we laugh, like we'll wrap up an episode and sometimes we'll just start belly laughing from something that we did you know, said on the after show or something like we it in for too long, like earlier in the episode, like and sometimes it does take us a while to get started to record an episode because we are talking and laughing.
One of the recent episodes was funny what was the Monkey in the Bed? We kept laughing really hard after that one after show that when we wrapped.
Yeah, then we continued to laugh about Jill mixing up five monkeys on the bed and the monkey's rolling off the bed.
I'll give you one more example of something Jen did, because otherwise this might just be sounding like a mate
of honor speech where no one else gets it. But we had a four It was our four year, two million downloads deal with iHeart party at my house last April, and Jen was not pregnant at the time, and we had that just a few mixt rinks that were based off of the names of different parts of the podcast episode odes and we had a photo wall with fake money, and Jen at one point thought everyone else was on the same page with her and just got down on the ground and did snow Angels in the money, thinking
others were going to join her, and no one else did, And that made me laugh really hard. See where you're walking on that.
One is that I didn't think other people were going. I didn't care that I knew everyone else was not on my level, and I did it anyway. Yeah, and so that is the only caveat I have too. I did vibe in several drinks and then made snow angels in the fake money. So who wouldn't ye, who wouldn't you know?
Okay, next question, Jen, what podcasts do you listen to?
I love a good cult podcast. You know, me very into cults, I think, so we always I always say what audiobooks I'm listening to when we do our book club episode. But for podcasts right now, Smokescreen so they have like five different seasons out and every season is
a different crime. I am always into Wait, wait, don't tell me, Bill Curtis, hit me up, give me a bill of a week and I So I'm not listening to a lot of personal finance podcasts right now, but I feel like this would be the time to name some of my favorite people who have personal finance podcasts. So we've got Alison Baggerley Inspired Inspired Budget podcast. I think she is one of the best interviewees you can get on your show, and she is an equally good interviewer.
She's a fantastic person. I love her and she's been so supportive of us over the years. And she is also one of my close friends, Andy Hill, marriage, kids in Money. He is also a fantastic person. I'm really basing these on the character of the hosts because I feel like that's the most important. I don't care if they have a good podcast. If the host isn't good, isn't a good person, I won't talk about the podcast.
Already talked about Optimal Finance Daily. Dana narrates that one let's see who else who am I forgetting out Rich Jones the Mental Wealth Show, Rich fantastic phenomenal person, Stacking Benjamin's Joe Selsea High one of our mentors, fantastic human being.
You could just like binge our guest list and listen to any of their podcasts. We only have dimes on this show.
Absolutely don't. We do not bring people onto the show or share our platform with people who we don't think, like exemplify like Rising Tide lifts all boats mentality in their personal life, like we don't. The professional life is the last thing. Then what they're saying in their business is the last thing we look at. The first thing we look at is who they are as people.
Yeah, so I'll.
Just say that at least and then but it may come out later that they were not good people, but we didn't know that. We didn't know. We didn't know that at the time. So you decide, yeah, you decide, don't go too far back in the our gives.
Okay, So for me, okay, And here's another salacious bit is that I am not really a podcast listener. And I realize that is maybe an offensive thing to say in and of itself, because we've got podcast listeners who listen to our podcast and I don't really listen to that many podcasts. I listen to music.
But sometimes you shouldn't do what you do because then you like imitate it too much.
Okay, maybe that the podcasts that I listen to are very separate, So I take that tip across the board to do things separate from.
What you do.
I really don't hardly ever listen to personal finance podcasts unless I'm being interviewed or we're interviewing someone on the show. I do like to listen to a couple so I can kind of get the flavor and be helpful. I want to be helpful. But during the renovation process, we listen to a lot of SmartLess, which is that will our net Jason Bateman I've heard that's really good. Oh gosh, there's not enough like Sean Hayes.
There's not enough like Group Murder or yeah, you know, that's just a fun one because sometimes when I'm just in the throw of painting, talking wood filling standing, there's only so much.
Music that can get you through. And it's just a fun one. It's funny, I will say. Once I got about ten episodes in, I realized it's just a lot of rich celebrities talking about rich celebrity life. But it's fun. Yeah. And then the other one that I will listen to is The Place We Find Ourselves, which is put out by Adam Young. He not a massive podcast but really really great, much more the mental health field and helping people to dissect really the place we find ourselves, the
place you find ourselves? Where have you come from, where you're going? So more mental health world.
I'll also say the Imperative Entertainment Network, their true crime podcasts have been getting me through. See, like I listened to cult and true crime, that's what I listen to. I also don't listen to personal finance podcasts, So I think that is an aid to us, because then we are we don't know what we're doing is wrong or right. We just do it. We just do It's always been in our strength. And that's our eighteenth tip to you is to don't be so obsessed with recreating other people's success.
Just find your own.
Ooh, do you know what I'm obsessed with recreating every week? And I love listening.
Yeah.
I will listen to this all day.
And you can steal you can steal this from us.
The bill of the week.
That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is Williams. Maybe you've paid off your mortgage. Maybe your car dies and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. Tuft bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Clinton, This is the bill of the week.
Hey, Jen and Jill.
It's Lisa from Georgia. I just finished your HUGA episode and wanted to say thank you so much. My bill of the week is my birthday Disney cruise. I've saved up for what feels like years, and it was finally done, saving five months ahead of schedule. But I'm experiencing guilt about all the practical things I should really be using my saved up money for instead. At the end of the Hugah episode, you address my concern and now I'm even more excited to go relax on my birthday cruise.
So thank you so much. I'm so glad to be done with this magical Bill of the week.
It's oh, it's magic, you know.
Okay, that's all I can say, Lisa. It is my dream to take a Disney cruise. I am so happy for you. I'm so excited for you, and I'm so pleased that we've gotten a lot of emails and messages about the Hooga episode. It has been a very highly downloaded episode, and so I'm so glad so many people are getting Like essentially, the gist is to like embrace the season that you're in, don't fight against it. And
that can come with saving. Like how we can feel you can save for something and then feel guilt about spending what you've saved for because of the quote unquote practical things you should be doing with your money. But no, embrace the season.
Yeah, you're not impulsively spending that you have identified this is something that I can do and afford and not go into debt for. And what a beautiful way to celebrate your birthday and how magical. Like you've said, Oh, you're.
Gonna have so much. I mean you've probably already been on it when you hear this. Oh my gosh, I love watching my Disney flow and instagrammers. That's something I've not looked into too much.
That would be really fun. I'd love to hear how that went.
Yes, people go like as adults without kids or with kids. It's like the best. And I just I can't wait to go on a Disney cruise one day. I can't wait.
And you've inspired us, Lisa.
Please, I'm so happy and that's why we do this.
Yeah, it's high like you and inspire us. Well done, Lisa. If you all listening, have a bill that you want to submit, If it's about an inspirational thing you gleaned from an episode that really gave you the permission to do with your money what you've intended to do with it, or again, you're just you are a bill. You don't have to be more than a bill to call us for Fast podcast dot com slash bill. Leave us your bill and now it's time for loved.
All right, last question.
If you can does this all come from Goldie.
Yes, this one is from Goldie.
Hey Goldie, if you could.
Go back when you were first starting out as frugal friends, what would you do differently?
Move to Florida sooner? It is straight away.
I will never forget when I first met you and you were living in that yes not ve hicicle, and we were hanging out at the KOA, and you were like, I'm going to start my master's but Florida is the only state I can't move too. Yeah, I did say. I would say, well, that's dumb. You should forget your life plans and move here instead.
And look at me now. I figured out a way where there's a will, there's a way, where there's a bill, there's a way. And I got my masters in Pennsylvania, but didn't get my license till I moved down here. That's where there's not reciprocity.
There you go.
So I was able to get my licensure in Florida, and it does actually set me up better to be able to move to any other state. But never never will I jen I'm here and I'm here for good. I believe that's a that's something that I would say just for me personally. I wish they would have moved to Florida. So now I don't know what was holding me back, but I think also for frugal friends. And I do think that whether consciously or subconsciously, it's one
of the things that shifted us moving here. I think shifted both of our mindsets to Okay, this is the real deal. Let's see what we can make of this, versus we did it. We did it for three years in different states. But I don't think until we were next to each other, literally ten fifteen minutes down the road from one another, that it's like this could really work for both of us to give this even more of our time, energy and effort. And I'm so glad that we did it well.
When you wintered in my backyard, yeah, and your trailer, I think is when we got a taste of like what it could be like. Yeah, if you were here.
We started the pandemic together.
We did, We did, and it was fantastic. We went to Disney together the week before it shut down.
I mean we didn't know, we didn't.
So I would agree with you that should be your answer.
What about for you, Jen?
So for me, I think I would have embraced it like see it for what it was, what it is. Sooner I knew like I was doing okay with modern frugality, which was like my business that was just me. It's still my Instagram handle because Jen Smith is taken.
You should still follow her. She does post some really funny stuff.
Yeah sometimes, Uh So I was holding onto that I was making do I was slowly building, but it all felt like I was pushing through to be successful and everything with the podcast, we weren't trying at all, and it was just like taking off. And but it took me a while to get to the place where I would go all in on the podcast because I had
this scarcity mindset. I was like, I can barely live on you know what I'm making now, which is silly because like we've always lived on one income, which is Travis's. But I felt guilty. I do feel guilty when I don't contribute to the family finances, and that's an internal
thing for me because that's not required of me. So I was like, I don't think I can afford to just like take fifty percent pay cut on a podcast that's making three dollars an hour, and so that at the time, like we were just growing so fast, but we were having trouble monetizing because we weren't putting in effort or we didn't have effort time to put in. When I was I was like, you know what, I
need to simplify. I had a slight mental breakdown, very slight, and realized I needed to pick one or I needed to pick one of something like I was doing Instagram, TikTok, YouTube podcast, blog, like I literally did everything. Yeah, and I needed to pick one thing, and now's where and I was saying it. I was saying it then and
I wasn't following it. And when I picked one thing, not only did I have the energy to monetize the show, the show grew faster and we were able to see the opportunity with iHeart that I would not have been looking for thinking about had I not been all in.
Yeah, if if nothing else, I think what we are aiming at and encouraging others towards is exactly what we're saying throughout this whole episode of focusing on one thing, finding freedom and permission, being curious, getting community around you to support in whatever it is that you're aimed at.
I think all of this is woven through what we've just said, what we've learned, what we've implemented, what we've grown in, and what we would say to others is a really decent aim even if your exact journey or story doesn't look like ours. These are the tenants that are so helpful on this personal and finance journey.
Yes, and those are our forty two tips for starting a podcast. So if you need a breakdown of those, transcribe the episode. I don't know what to tell you. They're in there. All forty two.
Are embedded in there. Yes, Yes, thank you everyone for listening. We know you're a true fan. If you cueued this one up. You're not just coming at this only for the tips. You were coming at this just to learn more behind the scenes, and we're so glad you're here if you want to know more about more behind the scenes stuff and other community things. We've got that membership
we've been talking about. Other fellow Frugal Friend listeners are already in there, paying off debt, getting at other financial goals. We've got monthly money challenges, accountability groups. Again, that community piece that is so important, and we want to congratulate one of our members for a big win. This comes from Andrea, who shares. Within the first twenty four hours of joining, literally, I found two websites suggested in here that I'd never heard of to sell clothes Poshmark and Swap.
I live in Australia, so I had to find more local versions, so both of those versions do exist in Australia. I had a box of clothes I knew I wanted to try and set, and another couple of boxes in the trunk to take to my local op shop. Looking up what brands these websites sold. I dragged the boxes back into the house and took out specific brands and have an even bigger pile to sell my plan. With the money I make, put it towards my emergency fund,
Smiley Face. The website slash apps are also so much better than Facebook Marketplace. I hate Facebook, which was one of the deciding factors in me joining this club. Amazing, Andrea, We're so glad that just after popping into the membership in the first twenty four hours you found tips from
other community members. And that's the beauty of it. It's not just Jen and I in there, it's the other community members who are sharing, who are like real about their goals and debt payoff and sharing wins and there's so much motivation and more.
If you thought there's too much of us in this episode, check out the Frugal Friends Club because that's where all the listeners who are getting the helpful tips and giving the helpful tips are hanging out and they're like, whatever, Jen and Jill, thanks for bringing us together, but we don't need you anymore. That's just kidding, but we are in there.
Yes, but truly thanks for also listening. If you want to check out this membership where we've got the courses and the interviews and the challenges, and then, just like other Frugal Friends listeners, head to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash club get it, chick it, see you next time.
Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni.
I remembered something that actually made us both belly laugh the very first time we engaged with it, and since then ken still elicit quite a laugh and it's a meme that we should probably get into our show notes. Yeah, guy, yes, I know who's looking vehicle?
Okay, explain it with words.
Okay, So there's two people. One of them's checking out a car, and one of them is a car salesman, and the guy who's checking out the car says, cargo space, and the salesman question mark, like is their cargo space like cargo space, and the salesman says car, no go space, no go there, cargo road, gorgo road. And maybe it still sounds like we are delivering a Maid of Honor speech with a joke that no one really finds that funny. But I kid you not, we laid eyes on that beauty and we could not stop.
I still can't stop, like t get till I still say it all the time whenever I see a car. And when we were shopping for cars, it was uncontrollable and it was so annoying to whoever was not Travis and me, Oh my.
Gosh, cargoes, cargo road, cargo space, cargo road. We'll get you the meme. I mean, we've described it flawlessly. Yeah, it's a great meme.
You should have it. Yeah, you should.
Okay,