Collectibles are PEAK Consumerism | Labubu, Sonny Angels, Stanley & More

Collectibles are peak consumerism, talking le Boo Boo, Sonny Angel, Stanley, and more.

Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity and life. Here your hosts Jen and Jill.

M Welcome to Frugal Friends.

I'm Jen, I'm Jill, and today we are talking about collectibles because I don't know what side of social media you are on, but if you're on the side that I am, it is now completely taken over by le Booboo. And I didn't know about it until I watched some commentary channels on YouTube, and then after I did, then that's when I got all of all of those videos.

Don't know about La Booboo. You told me not to look it up. You needed my actual genuine reaction. So that's what's happening in this episode.

Yeah, so it got us thinking about why, or me at least, why we have this propensity to collectibles to accumulate, because it does feel like peak consumerism. Is it all unhealthy? Can there be a healthy level of it? And if you're looking at the little Booboo people and you're gawking and saying that could never happen to me, thinking about how it could and already does happen to you. But first,

They help us so much with our spending and deinfluencing ourselves from things like what we're talking about today. Currently it's le Boo Boo and Sony Angels. Last year it was Stanley and Squish Mollege.

Funny Angels. You haven't even pronounced it correctly.

I don't even know what they are and that's why it's written Sony angels.

So it is written Yeah, Sony only has one n where he asked, that's how.

Uninvolved with these collectibles I am. But I did hear about Stanley's and Squish Mellows and I absolutely was a part of the beanie baby craze.

Yes, so let's find out a little bit about these things booboo.

Boxing, and look what we found. We got some special ones. I think they're just harder to buying, Babe.

I'm convinced everyone who's calling the booos ugly is just mad they can't get one.

Okay, So for those of you who are not on La Boo boo TikTok La boo boos are key chains with stuffed animals on them that look kind of like monsters, like the Where the Wild Things Are booked?

Do you remember that book?

That is what people are referred like, kind of comparing them to and they are kind of cute.

They're kind of what were the what were the ones that we did back in elementary school?

I want to say, like fur.

Baby Ferbie Ferbie furbies. Yes.

Yeah, I'm so impressed by how outside of consumerism you have been your whole life and continue to be.

They look like ferbies to me, and I did not like ferbies when they were a thing, like neither. They're ugly and I had so cute. I never did because I'm like, they're ugly.

No, So my dad would put a Ferbie when I was sleeping in the morning he wanted to wake me up. He would put it by my ear and when I was letting sleeping through my alarm and just wake up the Ferbie. So it would have its little creepy like woo.

Like and that would get me.

Yeah, that would get you up.

That would That'd be it.

But so the the scarcity in these is pretty much we'll talk about what's making them popular, but it's a lot of uh scarcity, and there's secret ones. And this is how the same thing with sunny Angels. I don't think they're as spirit.

You mean sony angels.

Yeah, so they are these plastic little dolls that are naked and have different hats on them. I think that is as far as I got on there. But it's not just those. So those are the most popular ones right now, but there's all kinds of little collectibles and so we're wondering are collectibles inherently bad as people who want to be frugal.

And we don't think that it's bad. But there's some caveats.

I think, yeah, because that's what we've come to.

Yeah, it is something that can connect people. It is something that can be aligned with our values. Depending on kind of what that collectible item is, it might have a lot of meaning behind it. And so we are not saying all stuff is bad, just like we don't think spending inherently is bad or debt is entirely bad.

So this kind of falls into that.

However, when we are just so caught up in the consumption of it and it's not actually something we even want, we're just being told it and eventually we succumb. That's where we really want to keep a pulse on it and be able to identify how are there other ways for maybe me to find belonging rather than needing to spend in order to get it. But but I mean, we want to say we both collect truly, I don't, and I'm so sorry, but but I do collect seashells

You collect plants.

And then I throw them. But I haven't bought a new plant. I don't buy plants. I haven't not a whired a new plant in over a year. Like I don't know if I could say I collect.

Okay, So this is one of the things we'll talk about in like our healthy like collecting. So we're not going to bash on collecting in this video. If you love someone who collects and your planning to show them this video to say how bad it is, that's I'm so sorry. But hopefully if you are collector and you feel guilty about it, or you have somebody in your life who you're trying to understand why they collect, then this will be a really good video for you the

I guess especially frugal people can collect things. So do you get it inexpensive or free? Then it's like, well, who cares and we're not actually thinking about the space that's taking up.

Yeah, so we're going to talk about why collectible trends like this can get all of our money.

But first this.

These particular collectible trends are a little unique, and I want to like preface that because it might make a difference for what we're talking about in the rest of the episode. Is that these particular ones have an added level of scarcity because of the blind bag slash blind box component.

I bought some sunny Angels from Japan, so let's open them.

I got three of these preschool animal boxes.

These look so cute.

Hey, guys, um box some sunny Angels with me.

I'll also be happy with hope, stridity or the secret all is a secret one.

I don't care about anys.

It's okay.

I'm having fun when I get what I want, I have fun.

Bay wake up. New signing Angel series just draft in.

They're wearing little raincoats and boots.

So when you buy a La Boo Boo, a sunny Angel, A know me all these they have so many different right.

Now you've never heard before just a sony angel.

Then you don't know what you're buying so you know what category you're buying it in, like there are seven different usually options in each like run and so you know what the possibilities are except for one secret.

You don't know what you're.

Gonna get, and you don't from social media you'll know what the secret is. But everyone wants the secret one, and it can become this thing where people are buying extras. They're getting the same like of same green one three times, but they're trying to get the whole set and they're trying they're trying to get the secret. And so I think that's an added component to some of the craze in this collection, which.

Is very fun. I mean, you want to talk about a dopamine ratsh. Not only have you spent money something comes to your door, but then there's an extra surprise during your unboxing that's looking for a hit of dopamine.

If I ever have.

Seen one, I remember those little toys where they came they were like little dogs or bunnies, and they came with babies inside, but you didn't know how many babies it was going to have, like how many were in the litter, and that was very fun. Or what the genders were going to be like, you could have between three to six babies popping out of this dog's belly and they were going to be you know, different never genders.

Yeah, so that was fun.

But this is what's standing out to me is that these are toys. I have heard of these types of trends and marketing tactics for kids and understandably, so I think we're gonna have a lot of people watching this saying, yeah, I'm not totally on that trend, but I see my kids on that. And you know, we're going to talk in another episode about de influencing kids with toys.

But the thing with this is that kids are not buying. These adults are buying. And I've even seen that argument in other videos that this is a toy, this is for kids. They're actually key chains. And the way that lab boo boos in particular got popular were from celebrities. So like Lisa from Black Pink, which is a really popular K pop group, she went into a Vanity Fair interview all about her obsession with these La boo boo and their key chains. So people are buying designer handbags

Five do this?

Do this, keep doing this even though we've seen it with squish males, We've seen it with beanie babies, We've seen it with Stanley's.

Right, yeah, and clothing handbags. You know, we're talking about La Boo boos. But there's all different ways that this can show up. And so there are three main reasons that we will end up purchasing the La Booboo, the Stanley, the Sonny Angels. And it has to do with first frequency. Yeah, hot take. No one actually wants a Stanley or a Lubuo Boo. You did not ever actually want it.

This is so true because I found so many videos saying I I don't know why, I don't know what the point is, and then progressing to if I was gonna get it, where would I get it? And then to like find getting it.

I have been fully influenced by Sam tong.

Never before have I heard of a wa cuckoo, and now I have two wakuckoo.

Why did I do this?

The only reason I even bought these One I kind of felt left out, and two I don't get it.

I don't understand bestiees.

I finally caved and I bought a sunny Angel. I don't know.

I kind of just got sucked in the toy store.

Really just like gets you.

So how do so many people go from not wanting it to wanting it? And I really think that it is this kind of like bandwagon effect or or really it's specifically called the mirror exposure effects.

So it's the.

Psychological term that our brains like familiar stuff. It's something shows up enough then it becomes familiar, and our brains say, this is safe, this is acceptable, and this is what's culturally appropriate to like to enjoy. And so the more we see something, the more we want it. And so

Yeah, it's what can take you from first time exposure being like absolutely not, which is me right now you're seeing it real time, fifth time being like why do people keep buying these? But then by the tenth time, fifteenth, twentieth time, when you're seeing it on TikTok and YouTube and these celebrities carrying them around to their interviews, you're like, Okay, wait, they're.

Kind of cute, though maybe I do want one.

And for some reason, and I've seen people say this the Labooboo thing. People are saying they've never seen more videos about any other product than Little Booboo, Like even just like scrolling through and maybe casually interacting with one video,

Off the collection.

So there is I tinfoil hat for a minute. Maybe I think there could also be a correlation between mean, how profitable labuboo is for TikTok, because a lot of the ways that you get them, because they're so scarce, it's through TikTok shop. So La Boo Boo's I believe are super profitable for TikTok, and that's why they're pushing pushing them out. Yeah, I don't know that for certain. Yeah, but I mean social media pushes out what is most beneficial for its platform. Its algorithms are not neutral.

We know this.

So here's what to do when it comes to the familiarity that the mere exposure effect is to ask yourself, do I actually like this door, I actually want it? Or am I just familiar with it? You can also limit your exposure, which literally means unfollowing, muting, not being on social media, taking a little break, block a take a walk, and waiting seventy two hours before buying anything trendy.

And that is super important for collectibles because some of these more rare collectibles, like La Boo Boo is so hard to get. So it is truly it's taking people who are just casual to if they have the opportunity to get it, they feel special and like it's they have a responsibility to get it and then just buy it. That's I saw a lot of videos on that too, Like if you have an authentic Laboo Boo, because then there's also knockoffs they call them lafoufous.

Oh wow.

So if you are in the vicinity of an actual Labooboo, even if you don't want it, going to get.

It just because it's available.

And that this this collectible craze thrives off of impulsivity. So so sometimes wait seventy two hours, you won't even be able to get it. So that is not a risk, that's actually a reward. View it as a reward.

The next reason that we might be drawn to some of these trends and collectibles is there affordability. We're not talking about the five hundred dollars air pods or the two hundred dollars ninja creamis, although I have heard you talk about wanting one.

I am.

I am close to getting one on Facebook market okay.

And there you go, and it is I talked about it for a while too, so expulsive. I don't know if it's the mere exposure. Well, I'm also following ninja creamy accounts, so I'm being allowing yourself.

Right, I mean, but that's like a part of it too.

Like last year I was like, you don't need to buy a two hundred dollar ice cream maker to make ice cream, and then now I'm seeing so many like good ice creams.

I don't even eat ice cream a lot.

It's and it makes you feel crazy, right, like there's no shit, there's no shame in getting caught up in these things because our brains really do have like they just are drawn to stuff like this and you don't know why or what's happening, but that that's been easier to say no to because that's two hundred dollars.

Yes, but yeah, So especially for things like the Stanley Cup being forty five dollars, that's expensive but not unattainable. And then some of these other things that we're talking about are usually twenty dollars are under Yeah, and so that just feels like I can be a part of this thing. I can say yes to this because it feels so affordable. I don't have to second guess it. And decreasing that barrier is huge.

Yeah, I can get one, I could eat, can afford two to see if I can get the one I want, get the special one. Now I already have to might as well get the whole set, spend another forty dollars on another one or two. It's just easier to slip down the slope. It has a lower buy in, a lower barrier to entry.

I ordered a really rare Stanley off of EVA, and I'm not sure if it's like real, because it was like really she if. I think it was fifty dollars. It's just normally like one hundred to two hundred.

How much.

I let it go for about forty dollars dollars. Some people say that this is a recession indicator. That's interesting, which is so a recession indicator indicates like sinking consumer confidence. So people would normally purchase, like make big purchases like cars, houses, even expensive skincare, luxury items, and when that starts to decline and the purchase of lower priced items like you know, la boo boos goes up. That some people will call that.

Yeah, it can be so much easier to buy a twenty dollars thing that's going to give me the dopamine of purchase the dopamine of the mystery that's inside, and not really think about what could twenty dollars have done invested? What could I do if I were to be saving that money instead, And that's that long term reward that isn't going to give us that dopamine in the future, but it can help us to look back and realize, what what did life look like, you know, five ten

And I want to also, if you're not a collector and you're watching this and you're like, oh, I can't I can't relate because I'll just invest. There are other things that you may not be physically collecting, but if you look back through your ninety day transaction inventory, you see you are collecting transactions. That's why we think doing a ninety day transaction inventory is so important if you're

Let us know what it is.

And if you're a collector and you've figured out how to you know even out you're collecting. We'd like to know that in the comments too, maybe somebody can find some extra wisdom down there.

But there are two ways that.

We can start to get over this kind of affordability trap, whether it's things you're collecting or transactions. And the first one is to look back. We're going to take into account this kind of like recession indicator, you know, quote unquote that says that we don't trust the future, and we're going to take that into account, and that's how we're going to combat it. So first we're going to look back, see where you were five years ago, ten

Yeah, and so if you would prefer to think shorter term, so that's one strategy. Looks back and realize both that's affordable, right, like putting one hundred dollars five ten years ago, it would have had been ten years ago, could have returned this amount of money. But also realized that if one of the hesitancies is that uncertainty about what does it mean to release my money into the stock market to

In five to ten years if you need it. So we want to make sure that we're not because the dopamine says like we hate losing more than we love winning, right, which is why we choose the immediate gratification over the long term success, because we overestimate what we can do in a year and we underestimate what we can do

So true.

And the last reason we might collect is for community and friendship. Friends are hard to find. Yeah, doing fun things is hard to find, and so oftentimes collecting can feel like that fast track to friendship, to a connection, to an experience of belonging to a community. And that's why we don't think that collecting is inherently bad. You know, anything that can kind of connect us with others and

So if you're meeting new people because of your shared collections and then forging like real relationships with them, relationships where you know you're sending gifts back and forth and you're hanging out at each other's houses and you're really investing each other like that is beautiful. I think that is a beautiful aspect of the collector community, but it gets dangerous when relationships are only about spending money together.

But there is a.

Friend that I made recently who also runs, and we decided to run the Wine and Dine half marathon this October together, and so like it's getting us closer because we're sharing, aring our training runs, and so that has been a good part of like how collecting has brought me closer to somebody who is kind of like in.

That community how you meet your people.

Right, but it's not.

Right, but it's not based on the race aspect and the registering for the race aspect. We would still be friends and will be better friends after it. So yeah, I would say that if you're collecting is bringing you closer to people and it's building community, which we think is kind of like the purpose of everything in.

Life is to get closer to people.

Right. When are things when when we alienate ourselves, even if it's to do better financially, that's not healthy, And when we spend money to get closer to people also not healthy. So like, how can we form the best relationships possible and spend the right amount of money for us? Like that is the key. So like, that's what we want to hear about in the comments if you have anything to say about that.

The final tip that we have here is to do a thirty day no spend challenge to really be able to find out who you are apart from consumption. This can really give you an opportunity to be creative, learn some of the things that you love doing that maybe consumption is getting in the way of you even realizing some with a more fun free activity. So we talk about how to do a thirty day no spend challenge in our book Buy What You Love Without Going broke.

Yes, So, in conclusion, collecting is peak consumerism. Yeah, but it doesn't have to be, and it teaches us a lot about our overall consumerism. So that's why we wanted to talk about it. I think collecting transactions is a really important key piece to take away from this, and collecting can go really well, but it can also be very destructive. And yeah, so I hope you got something out of it.

Do you know what's not destructive.

It's always uplifting and does get at our core value of building community.

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 paid off your mortgage.

Maybe your car died, and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. Duck bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Clinton, this is the bill of the week.

Hi Jen, Hi Jill. This is Candice from New York and I just found a really good bill of the week Today's New York Times game the Connections. One of the groups was what Bill might refer to a banknote, a beak, an invoice, or william I cracked up and thought of you have a great day.

Oh my gosh, yes, all of those.

That's so fun.

I have heard people talk about these New York Times games, and it's very fun speaking of ways to connect with people and have fun. That's a great one.

Yeah, that is. I mean, it sounds like we have more things to add to the song. That's what it sounds like.

A banknote and an invoice. I don't think we talk about that in the.

Song, so we'll see.

Well that is perfect, Thank you so much.

Yes, thanks Ca, So that's very fun. If anybody watching or listening have a bill that you want to share, if it has to do with connections, games you're playing online, or uh literally your name is Bill, we'd love to hear from you. Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash Bill hearing it now, it's time for the Lightning raw.

All right, today's Lightning Round question would be it should be what do you collect?

I know we could we did kind of already talk about.

That, yeah, but but anything you've ever collected your favorite to okay, thing you've collected.

In childhood, I collected turtles, like anything turtle related.

I loved turtles.

I did not know this.

The problem began arose when everyone took it as an excuse to not think about what to get me, but just like, get me random turtle stuff that I didn't really wants. My mom would anytime she would see something with a turtle on it, she would get me it, like even if I didn't. It was just the dumbest stuff. Has it stopped?

Yes?

Well, I had to tell her, like in college, just like I have too much turtle stuff I just want to get rid of all of this. I still like turtles, but I'm not obsessed with them, and I was never obsessed.

I just had like a collection of little turtles.

If I had the option to like get something and there was a turtle option, I'd always go with the turtle.

Yeah.

That was how it started, and it ended with too much turtle stuff.

So that was my thing.

Yeah, it is always funny when collections are pushed on you, which I do believe was probably most of my collections as a child, but I did have a few.

Now I'm realizing the role of that is going. Okay.

I talked about my snow baby collection in the books. I'm gonna choose something different because it wasn't my only collection, which was a weird one. I would dip my fingers in hot wax and then wait for it to dry and then peel it off, and they would for it in like these little molds, and I would put them into this like chest, this wooden chest, and just whenever I had the opportunity to dip my fingers in wax.

And how often do you have the opportunity, how often do you come across wax?

Well, I well, because another one of my collections was candle snuffers, So I had candles like.

To come off as this.

I don't have any collections, and I don't know.

I don't now, but I'm realized I'm just.

Too good can yeah, yeah, I'm wow the things I've blocked off, I did it enough. I had my own candles. I would dip my fingers into the wax. Then I'd use my candle snuffer and then when they were all dried. I loved the sound of them. I was quite like tactile person, so just to like put these little wax finger molds back and forth between my hands, they'd create such a nice, calming noise.

It was my own like ASMR creation.

And then I'd put them into this wooden box and that lived under my bed. Wo yep, but you know what mere exposure effect. You're judging me now, But if I come in with any of these wax bolts on my fingers, you're going to get into it. Uh huh, yup, just you wait. Oh wow, Okay, that was weird. Well, thanks everybody so much for listening for watching. As you know, we have a YouTube channel. Uh so, if you have not seen this on YouTube. Please go to our YouTube channel,

Which one shot you know what?

I had to do it on the fly, Jen, And we love libr editing. So there's library.

That's what I'm choosing.

Okay.

So if you if you want there to be better comments on our.

YouTube videos, then go ahead subscribe.

Comment on our YouTube videos. Let us know what you're.

Collecting or what you used to collect if you can cop me, ask us.

To read your comment on the air and we will.

Yeah, okay bye.

Gorugal Friends is produced by Eric Siriani.

Jen, what are your kids starting to collect? Probably Kai right, he'd probably be into collections, nothing.

Like he likes iron Man right now. Okay, So, given the options to consume something tangible, he prefers it to be Iron Man themed.

Oh cool, Yeah, I remember it used to be monster trucks, but he's off of that now.

Yeah.

Monster trucks were big for a long time. They were our potty training incentive of choice, and we still love them. Atlas is getting into them, so that's really nice. I think we'll take all the monster trucks away and then six months later to start to potty train him and then give them out again.

Yeah, is my plan.

So I still got about six months of playing and cleaning up monster trucks before that, but yeah, yeah, that's about it. The two year old doesn't collect anything.

The two year old collects climbing. He climbs on things.

Eventually, yeah, climbing experiences collect climbing stuff.

Yeah, probably