Frugal Living Tips From The Great Depression

This episode is brought to you by Google searching. Did you know when you type in frugal into Google, hashtag rhymes Frugal Living Tips from the Great Depression is one of the top searches that comes up. Try it see for yourself. Right and personally, I have always hated that we don't think you have to live like you're in the Great Depression to be frugal. Feel like that's a very extreme frugality and we're not super into extremes unless

it's extreme fun. Oh here for that. If you believedship, I think of what we have extreme friendship, start a business together and be contractually obligated to one another. I love our contractually obligated friendship. But back to the subject, we don't think you have to live like you're in the Great Depression to be frugal, and if you don't believe us, we have three hundred episodes that try to convince you, but you don't have to listen to any

of them if you don't want to. If you head to our YouTube channel and watch just season one of Debt Free Stories, we have ten interviews with listeners just like you who've taken the principles we talk about on the show and use them to pay off a combined total over eight hundred thousand dollars of debt. So you can listen to all three hundred episodes, that's fine, We're

cool with that. Or you could just go to YouTube dot com slash Frugal Friends and watched ten debt Free Stories to be inspired to make the most of frugality without all the depression. Wow. Great frugality, no depression. Good tie in. Also, I think the thing I'm most impressed with about this sponsor is how you added up the total combined debt paid off of all of the people we interviewed first season one of our Debt Free Stories

on YouTube. I love that thousand dollars. I took all ten numbers and I added them in my calculator, and then did you round up or round down? I had to have round down because I've said over eight hundred. Oh, there it is. Yeah, I would have said almost eight hundred, so which I round it up. Yeah. It's list of details you learn when you're personal finance writers. You have to learn how to round up and down the words

to say yeah around them. Well, here's the thing. I also feel like this episode is timely because while we don't believe that frugality needs to look the same as it did for our grandparents who maybe lived through or were born into the time of the Great Depression, but we're also experiencing a time of high inflation. There's constant talks of a recession, and it could be advantageous to us to look at some of the principles that are

worth keeping. The take the meat, spit out the bones kind of thing that the economy does EBB and flow. Sometimes there's a frugality that works for us when we're in a bull market, and sometimes there's a frugality that works for us in a bear market. And sometimes it is just what we need for our current life circumstances. But I think, especially now more than maybe what we've seen in the past decade. There is a turn to Okay, what can I gather from those who have gone before

or me who have experienced financial strain? Maybe that was a bit unexpected, and what can I be learning and gleaning from that to be implementing, not to be super deprivation or overly unnecessarily stringent, But there are principles and wisdom to be gained from the generations before us on what can be helpful and useful for us now, whether we're in a recession or depression or not, but certainly

when we are. Yeah, and if you're interested in learning a little bit more about recessions and kind of what our economy has been going through for the past year plus, especially past year plus, check out episode two twenty four Recession Proving your Finances with Megan Rebuse. She is family Finance Mom on Instagram and I highly recommend you go follow her. She teaches me so much about the econom to me in her posts. She greatly helps us understand

what's going on with the FED with the recession. When we recorded that literally last summer, we were heading into a recession. All the indicators pointed to it and then they changed the indicators to keep us out, and so we've just kind of been on this line for like a year, and so if you want to kind of understand more about that, listen to episode two twenty four. Follow her on Instagram at Family Finance Mom, but first

listen to this episode. Yes, yes, So we are first going to go through this article that comes from Everything Abode seven money lessons learned from the Great Depression. Jenn and I are each going to pick three that we like, so there's going to be one outlier. So if you read the article, yeah, you got to have to read it if you if you want to know the last one, yes,

it was so good. And I will also say at this point I'm feeling especially warm to this topic because I think it does remind me of my grandmother, who I call her Gimba. That's no language other than my older sister who couldn't say grandma as a young child, and it came out gimba and we made it up.

It's our own language. But my Gimba was born during the Great Depression and carries with her many of the things that we're a reality of that time frame, like embedded and instilled in her into her sixties, seventies, eighties. Now she's in her nineties. God bless her, God she's so great. She has Alzheimers, so she forgets most things, but she still remembers out of knit. So then that leads me to number she has some booties. Number three on here is the first one I've picked. Is one

of the money lessons from the Great Depression? Is that d I why d y Ing things is a sound financial strategy for many of us who we have grandparents or maybe parents who grew up during the Great Depression. It was a generation that believed in working with their hands, creating things, making repairs. These are things that are available to us now we've just maybe let go of them forgotten, don't want to. But if we want to take any of the wisdom or implement some of these strategies, this

could be a really great place to start. Is there anything that you use often that you could make yourself. Is there any hobby that you want to pick up that could actually be useful for the things that you need, like sewing or gardening or making your own repairs. Is there something that's broken in your house and you're tempted to just throw it away and buy new, learn from those who went before us and endured the Great Depression,

and repairing it yourself. We do have something on our side called the Internet that our grandparents did not have a man and we can look it all up. Don't know how to toil it? YouTube it. Don't know how to stop your leaky faucet YouTube it. Don't know how to clean out your dishwasher or your your your lind Lynn filter, I thought of that commercially, lind Liquor m You do bit and you can why it yourself, and then you're going to benefit as a result of knowing more,

feeling accomplished, not needing to buy new things. D I wy it. We talk about this in the Frugal Friends Club our membership, and I personally hate like di ying a lot of things, like I'm not a di wire, but when it comes to repairs and maintenance, yes we will DIY before we call professional justice see if, because we already have the thing and so we would rather keep it out of a dump and try to repair it than just automatically go by new. So that is

where we dy. I will not just like buy things and DIY something unless it's floating shelves because oh my gosh, I've spent one hundred and fifty dollars on floating shelves or can buy an eighteen dollar like piece of wood. That's another story though typically I hate dying, but we talk about this in our membership, and so many people have taken the like have run with that and saved so much money, like but just by simply like maintenance

and repair dy using YouTube. It's insane. So highly recommend that even if you're not a dyre just starting kind of something like that. I am personally going to jump back to number one and say, it's more than just being frugal. That's the first money lesson, and I think that's kind of what we have tried to emphasize on our show, is that being frugal for the sake of being frugal or for the sake of hoarding money is

a horrible financial strategy. It's I mean, maybe it's not a horrible financial strate, say horrible life strategy, but rejecting frugal just for the sake of not wanting to be the person that's seen as stingy or a moocher or who's cheap also not a sound life strategy, because that's not what frugal is. So during the Great Depression, a person who is frugal was viewed as smart and responsible.

Now we know they're seen as cheap, stingy moochers or I love like when I say I host the Frugal Friends podcast, I'll have people come up to me like or wherever I'm speaking, be like, oh, I got this like shirt from a thrift store, or like trying to like show me how frugal they are or how little they spend, and I'm like, cu cu cu cu, that's not the point, but I am glad that you you bought their store clothes because I love their store clothes.

But usually gets people like bragging about their coupons or how they didn't spend anything for this value add and it's like, yes, you can't spend money, or how they lost all their friends to pay off their debt. Like it's there, it's so interesting. But it's about more than the financial practices. It's about what the financial practices get you. It's about being able to afford more of what money can't buy. That is the purpose of being frugal. And

there are some like everything you want. You might like, We'll give you an assignment list off everything you want on a piece of paper and see how much of it costs money. Like in one mindset, everything everything you put on that list will cost money. When you become when you adopt a frugal lifestyle frugal mindset, the things on your list no longer cost money, but it takes money to be able to get them. If that's what

it's like. It's not things or experiences or things that inherently cost money, but it's like these self fulfillment things, these family fulfillment things, career fulfillment. It's these self actualization pieces that don't necessarily cost money in and of themselves, but do take money to pursue. So that is the point of frugality, not just being frugal for frugal's sake, Yes, having a deeper reason. The other tip or lesson learn

from the Great Depression that I love. Number five the value of budgeting set a different way, The value of a spending plan, the value of knowing how much money is coming in, how much money is going out, where is it going to. The more that we feel as though we have an understanding and are in control of that, the better off we're going to feel about our finances,

the more intentional decisions we can make. And ultimately, the goal of really having a plan in place like that and knowledge and understanding is to spend less than we earns. So that doesn't mean that we can't ever spend, or that are spending needs to look the same as somebody else,

just that are spending. Really we want to get it to less than what we earn, and that includes, you know, making room for saving and investing and paying down debt, whatever it is that your goals are, and lowering some of those bills and cost of living, but still being able to say yes to the things that are valuable

and important to you. I still remember that my great grandfather, so my grandmother's father, had a ledger that he kept and they of course kept it, like I mean, they don't have Excel spreadsheets or all the apps or the different programs, And he had this ledger that he would

keep daily record of transactions. And that seems absurd and over the top, but yet that kind of practice, at least for a short time, can really help us to get acquainted with our spending, our habits, our behaviors, and help us hone in on how do we actually want to be engaging with our money and what are the

decisions we want to be making around it? And really probably because there wasn't a debit card a credit card that he was swiping where he could just pull up the transaction list like he had to manually do that. And what more value than there is to understanding how you're interacting with your money. But we've got it a little bit easier and a little bit harder in some ways.

But getting in touch to deeper levels with your habits and behaviors around money, I think is a really important lesson and something we can be implementing that will benefit us in the long run. Yes. Absolutely. My next one is save for a rainy day. And who hasn't heard this phrase save for a rainy day? But we do take it for granted. I think even if we don't intend to, we still take it for granted because we're still shocked when emergencies come and we still don't save

enough in our emergency funds. And that's really what this is. Take advantage of the good times and save for the lean ones. There will always be sometime like it may not be for years or decades, but eventually you will need your emergency fund, and hopefully it's not for like a bad reason. Hopefully it's you know, a neutral emergency, as neutral as emergencies can get. But you're gonna need it, and we just we don't value it enough. So and that includes, and I would say, not just rainy days,

saving for retirement. I don't think that we often value that one enough for what it really is, because investing for retirement isn't just It is not saving for a hammock on the beach. It is saving to cover your

bills and expenses. So even if you get Social Security in your later years, that is gonna probably cover your housing, maybe your food, But if you would like to I don't know, drive or like go out to eat, like in addition to groceries, it's probably not going to be enough to cover that stuff, or like if you would like to have utilities like lights or water, stuff like that. Social Security is likely not going to cover all of your expenses. So we're not saving for a hammock on

the beach. We're not even saving for a rainy day. We're saving just for a day. We're saving for our future days. So I would say your emergency fund is important, but also saving just for days in the future is of equal importance. So yeah, we have to do it now because you may not be able to work later, just you know, going for the easy ones, hunt John, I am reality. Hopefully we have days, hopefully breaking day.

I want to assume that you'll have days, and I want you to have money to spend all your days. Thank you, John, I believe you. The last one on this list for me is number six. The value of diversification and multiple income streams. So this is referring to both investing and types of savings and investment accounts, making sure that we're putting money into a few different places.

That's that's saying not having all of your eggs in one basket, but making sure that your investments are in a variety of places so that if one is risky or doesn't do as well, then you've got this other account that is also seeking to earn interest for you. But then I like how they paired this with the

seeking multiple income streams. Now, I want to find the radical middle here because I also think that we've had such a focus on hustle culture and side hustles and you have to do more and just having one full time job isn't enough. There was a recent commercial. I don't really see commercials. I think Eric and I were at a hotel or something and had the TV on and this commercial just like caught me so off guard. It was talking about a credit card. That was the

way that they were advertising. It was talking about how we all have side hustles and the credit card was going to be able to make it easier for you to have a side hustler. Because you have a side hustle, you can have this credit card. I don't totally don't know how they were tying it in. I just know that they were talking about side hustles. I'm like, what day and age are we in where it is apparently so commonplace that they're commercial to the masses for a

big credit card. One of the biggest credit card companies is talking about side hustles. To me, that was highlighting an issue in society. Our full time jobs aren't paying us enough that we need a side hustle. Whether it's highlighting the greed that we have and we all just want more, or it's highlighting the fact that none of us are getting paid enough to cover our most basic expenses. I don't know either way. It's a problem. So I kind of want to like rain this in and not

say you should you have to have. If you don't have an extra stream of revenue, you need to get one just for the sake of getting one. Right, it's not frugality for the sake of frugality. It's not earning more for the sake of earning more. But it isn't a reasonable thing to consider if your regular work is not enough to cover or isn't really kind of tipping the scales for some of those financial goals that you have,

at least for a season. It doesn't have to be a long term lifestyle, but at least for a time, considering an additional stream of revenue and hopefully within the

realm of things that you enjoy. So, are you already a biker like a bicyclist, and you can fix your own bikes and maybe you can pick up some extra cash fixing other people's bikes for them too, and that's something that you enjoy and you get to chat with the neighbors while you do it, Or do you already watch your own children and hey, what's two more and you can make a little bit of extra cash watching other people's kids for a time, a few hours a day,

a weekend. I don't know your life or whatever else it is that you might enjoy that might be able to bring in additional income. Again, one of the things I'm going to highlight is make sure you enjoy it, but also don't put the pressure on yourself to do that if you don't actually need it. Absolutely And the last one from this article is to eat at home. That is a great lesson that we got from the Great Depression that we have for sure lost over the years.

And they say when the stock market crashed and shuttered businesses, many families had to scrape by on what they could to survive, and that meant eating out was no longer an option. Families got creative, which is a tenant of frugality, and they cooked their own meals, scrabbling together what they could find at home. So they new dishes came into vogue out of sheer necessity. And it doesn't list any

of them. I wish it did, but eating at home and we all want to do it, we all find it is the hardest thing to do and we have spent Like gosh, we probably have like fifty episodes on how to make eating at home easier? Like not just we all know that it's important, but how do we make it easier? How do we follow through? Well, I mean the Frugal Friends have made it easier in the membership by giving everyone in our membership meal plan each month.

So there's another reason to check that out. We do do that, yes, But so eating at home, even if it is not the perfect budget friendly meal, even if it is not the perfect meal, definitely calculate and this is where tracking your transactions and your expenses comes in. Figure out your cost per meal of eating at home of everything versus eating out, and really consider how much you save by eating at home and talk with other people get ideas. That's the best way I think to

give new invigoration to it. And yeah, again the internet is a great resource for us trying to implement on some of these things. So moving on to the next article, which comes from Money Crashers and it is eight money saving foru gality tips from the Depression era. Again, Jenn and I are just going to go through three of

our faves. I'm just going to kick it off with number one because I love it so much and I'm putting it in all caps, even though the article doesn't use what you have, and I am kind of yelling at because that's what all caps demands, that we need to be using up what we already have on hand. This has to do with food, toiletries, cleaning products, just

anything that we already have using it. This also means exploring substitutions in our cooking and recipes and meals and cleaning products that it doesn't always even mean that we have to replace what we've used up. Maybe we can use up our vinegar in cleaning as the best cleaning product honestly out there is vinegar and lemon and hot water and rag and some good old elbow grease. Can't buy that at the store, that's just find elbow grease. Yeah, at home, at work, put your body to work. And

I love too. We talked about this a bit recently with Ingrid from declutter hub. This is this is just good across the board. It's good for our finances, it's good for reducing waste, it's good for creating contentment that we can just explore what's already in our pantries and our cabinets and under our sinks and use that we don't have to get whatever's new and hot on the market or throw it away just because it's half empty.

What if it were half full? Am I right? So number two is to avoid food waste, and you know we love that. We love that tip. We hate food waste. And it is not only a way. It not only hits the frugality button, It hits the minimalist button because you are only buying what you need so you have minimal food on hand, And hits the sustainability button because less food is sitting in the dumps that we do pay for with our taxes. And so it just hits

every button for me. Avoiding food waste literally again using what you have and just eating what you have and when you see that it's about to go bad and you can't eat it, freezing it if you have it and you don't really like it anymore, repurposing it, but just avoiding as much food waste as possible. Yes, I love that too, you know how important that is to me.

And number three we're just going in order because this is a good article, This one I found so interesting to research Depression era recipes, which yes, is a Google search that you can do. The article does give a few examples of recipes to use. Now again, I'm going to challenge us to hold the radical middle here, because there are some things that we do out of necessity that aren't required long term, and some things that are

just good long term. Like if we don't have to find recipes that don't use milk, eggs, whatever, then don't explore that. But if you are feeling the pinch of the price of eggs and animal products and meat, there is a plethora of resources for you. And so a lot of these Depression era recipes are meatless, animal product less, and usually are these kind of staples that are easy to find, less expensive still the case nearly a hundred

years later, of they're just affordable food options. I think they gave like a carrotcake recipe that doesn't use any dairy in it, So that could be an option if even if you want a challenge to yourself or you want to find new recipes, this could kind of be a little gamifying way or out of necessity way of determining how to cut some of your food costs. Let's dig back into the past, what did our grandparents and great grandparents make when money was tight? And maybe you'd

find yourself a good recipe in there. All right, For my next one, I'm going to jump to number seven and say use less electricity. So I'm not about going off the grid, like that's not me, but I do think that we could all stand to use a little less electricity, but also use a little more electricity. So hear me out, the move away from like towards like electric vehicles. I love that. So using a little more electricity in lieu of gasoline, you know, guzzling products cool.

But then in the things that we are used to using electricity for. So maybe that means staying off your phone a little so that you don't have to charge it as many times throughout the day, or turning the lights off during the day. You can keep your lights on at night. I know, Travis. Every time I leave room, Travis turns off a light and I'm like, I was just gonna go right back into that room, and I would like it to be lit. So within like you know, necessity,

like away, the lights can be on. But if if it's daytime, the boogeyman is not there, and you don't need the light, right, um so maybe on the shoulder season. So this is like my favorite one in the shoulder seasons, spring and fall, using the natural air conditioning that is all around you. Going outside more. Oh my gosh, spending

more time outside is so underrated. Yeah. So, so just kind of not trying to like unplug things at the end of the night to save you know, a couple cents in electricity, but doing like big things that will um lower your energy consumption so that you can maybe compensate with something else that's using electricity, that is, you know, not using another more expensive utility to this is more expensive than electricity, right, yes, typically Yeah, so I would say,

you know, save where you can so you can spend it elsewhere. To me, turning out the lights, especially if you have LED light bulbs, is like the Latte factor, Like you focused on the wrong thing, the wrong thing, thanks, Kanye, Like we want to we want to look at when

it comes to electricity, what are the heavy hitters. And it's going to be your washing machine and dryer and your oven and your bigger appliances and so I and the HVAC system Like you're referencing gen and so is there an opportunity to air dryer things and not use the dryer. Can you make a cold dinner, you know, especially in the summers, your pasta, salads, your salads, you're just something that's a little bit more light and fresh, and you're not turning on the oven, which is dual purpose.

You're not overheating yourself, and you're not spending a ton of electricity. Does your house need to be max heated and cooled all of the time or are there alternative ways that you can be looking at? Can you just open the windows? So those are the things I would encourage us to look at more than just like din you turn off the light in the bathroom, that's just not going to save you much. Penny all all my dad's out here listening to this are like, don't touch

the therma stuff. They're like here for it. So yeah, yeah, let's think about our heavy hitters and focus on those. I think doing more activities outside and those shoulder seasons or I guess for us it's the shoulder seasons, but for maybe northerners it's summer, and just try and try and do that instead of like kind of nickel and diming your savings with electricity. The last one I'm calling out on here is the number six make your own kind of connected to DIY, but thinking next level of

what can I do myself? Make my own that works maybe just as good, if not better, saves me money. The thing about making your own is that typically it's not going to save you any time. It's mostly going to save you money and end is often has the added benefit of maybe being the healthier, more sustainable, better for you alternatives. It does have a few things going for it, but it definitely typically does not have the

time saving element. But we're talking about making your own cleaning products, which is usually just vinegar and water that doesn't take a ton of time. I will encourage you to do that. Making your own beauty products, depending on what we're talking about, that could take some extra time. Kombucha they list. I've not tried this. I know a lot of people who have gotten into this. Hats off to you. That feels like even next level. That's that's the elevated tear up. I don't know if I trust myself,

but that's fun canned foods. That feels like something I might get into eventually. Of canning foods that I would canned foods before I'd make che don't like ka. I think it's making your own pie, crossed, your own pasta, doing your own beans. But whatever is going to be most important to you, feels like it's going to be the most cost saving. But an additional thing I'll add to this section is making your own could be an activity that you do with your kids or with a friend.

If there's something here that sounds interesting, you could pair it with an opportunity to get together with other people try something new together. That it's reminding me actually as I'm talking about that interview we had recently as well, talking about going more plant based and getting together and trying new recipes with people, trying these things out, trying

canning food together. So that appeals to me because I think it combines a couple of different values, certainly the value of spending time with other people, community and saving money. So just being creative, making your own figuring out how you can incorporate other people into that process. I love that one. Hey Man. Again, not a big di I wire, but I do appreciate it on occasion for the big things.

For the big things. So if you're not a big di wire, then reserve it for just some of your heavy hitters, like we mentioned before, And my last one is my favorite one. It's always my favorite on any list I find, and I happen to find it on a lot of lists because I'm looking for it. It's to focus on one main task. And I didn't know that this was a tip from the Great Depression. Who

knew money Crashers knew. And they say, if you've ever read Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods, which I don't, I assume is a follow up to Little House on the Prairie, because prairies are probably smaller than big woods. You know that when Laura was growing up, her ma had a specific task for each day and they were set in stone wash on Monday, iron on Tuesday, mend on Wednesday, churn on Thursday, clean on Friday, bake on Saturday, rest on Sunday. Oh, I love that. Let's

get back to the big Woods. The sounds like a simple, yeah, laborious life that yes, it might be nice, but I'm going to switch up churn on Thursdays to be something else. The advantage of using a schedule like this is that it provides a framework for getting bigger tasks done on top of all the other chores you've got to accomplish. So this is something that we talk about all the time, is when you prioritize one thing, you keep it really simple, you get it done. That is kind of like our

life motto. We are pretty lazy, but we like so when we had Kendra Dacion, she's a lazy genius and she always says, be lazy or be a genius in the things that matter and lazy in the things that don't. And that's kind of like the approach that we take to frugality is to really focus on the things that matter. But first you have to name the things that matter.

You've got to find out what those things are so that you can be intentional with those and then either say no to the things that don't matter or just be as efficient and like minimal effort necessary for the other things that don't you don't value, but you still have to do. That's been a helpful approach to with just meal planning, Like we can input that to really any aspect of life, especially the ones that feel overwhelming.

We can't seem to get a handle on. I love the way you approach meal plans gen of like meatless Monday, something Tuesday. It changes up too, so it's not like that every month, but like like a meatless Monday, handheld Tuesday, so like a sandwich or kel zone and then like soup Wednesday, or like fridge clean out Friday. Just anything like a template. It doesn't mean that that looks the same all the time, but you have a template. So yeah,

I love. Yeah, we just have a template. You know, we do this for feb Wary and then try something new in March sort of thing. You know what else has a template easily implemented. There's no question marks. It's the one thing. It's the main tasks. It's super simple, so it gets done 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 William. Maybe you paid off your mortgage, Maybe your car died and you're

happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. Build Buffalo Bill, Bill Clinton, this is the bill of the week. Hi, Jen and Jill. This is Kim from Rochester, Minnesota. Just wanted to say I appreciate everything you guys do on the podcast. It's been great for helping me create a budget. My bill the week is the six percent raise that I got at work. I will be using these extra

bills towards putting my dog in obedience classes. I rescued him off the streets of Alabama, and I'm super excited for him to go into obedience school and nose work, which is a canine sports competition. These are things that we can do together, and I'm really excited about it because he's been great for my mental health. Sometimes I wonder who rescued who, and I look forward to doing these classes with the extra money that I get. Thanks guys,

Oh Kim, this is amazing. This is so celebratory. First of all, congratulations on your six percent raise. That's exciting, well done, sounds well earned, well deserved. And then you're very intentional, values based approach to how you're choosing to allocate some of that increased revenue sending your doggie to obedience school so that you can find fun things to

do together. This is one of those like one thing expenses, right, So, like we were just talking about like focusing on one main tasks, like getting your one main thing like putting using your race. To put your dog in obedience school will save you money in so many ways in the long run, even though you're just doing it to like make life easier and to have more things to do. Like a dog that's trained choose up like your stuff less and does not you know, attack people on the street.

And these are all like actual stories that I hear all the time from dog owners. So that you don't have to pay for that person's medical bills. There are like so many reasons why this expense is going to

compound your savings over time. And I think, as as somebody who does not own a dog, I have a lot of respect and appreciation for people who train their dogs really well, especially for like I don't know what was that nose test like that like competition thing like just go to go above and beyond to do fun things with them. I very much appreciate that. Yeah, yeah, somebody that doesn't like to get attacked by dogs, it's kind to you, it's kind to your dog. Well, don Kim,

thanks for sharing. If you all listening have a bill where you're sending someone to obedience school, we want to hear from you. That's just good clean fun us A Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash Bill send us your bill because we're not stopping. We're focused on this one thing. And your dog's name's Bill, and now it's time for yo. How's that for mouth sounds? So sorry Christian. Christian like hates our mouth sounds. He doesn't hate our mouth sounds.

He's just so polite in saying you have a lot of mouth sounds. Water. I just want you to be healthy. Yeah, okay. So this one's from Goldie, our podcast manager, and she says it's because she fell down the rabbit hole that is Reddit, and I fell down the same rabbit hole because she left the link to it. She says, what depression era trick did your parents or grandparents teach you that you're still doing today? And this will link to

this Reddit thread. I guess it is in the show notes because you might fall you might enjoy it as well. Reddit such a great placed kick us all. My grandmother, my gimba. She feels so intgirl to so many things that I do now, Like the list could go on and on and on, but to name a few, keeping and reusing tissue paper for gifts. It might be like borderline cheap but hey, why not why throw out very reasonably still good tissue paper just because it has a few wrinkles in it. I mean, I don't think I've

ever had to buy new tissue paper. I got the tissue paper from a grandmother that went to my mom that's now mine. Even when I give gifts, if it looks like the person's going to throw it away, I'll take it back, not the gift, just like the stressue of paper, maybe even the bag, and I just reuse that. I never actually write on the tag on the bags and like that. You can't reuse. Oh, it's so rude when people do that. It's so rude. I think we talk a lot about my packet drawer, but we don't

talk about my gift bag cabinet. I have a gift bag cabinet that has a ton of gift bags, a ton of tissue paper, blank cards, Yes, because you gotta. You only buy blank car because you can use them for every reason. Yes. Yeah, I have a little cabinet in my China hutch that doesn't doesn't have any China China. I was gonna say, what, it's a hutch. Jin's trying to be someone she's not in our china cabinet, but does not have any china. You've seen the cabinet and

we don't own china. Um. But yeah, it's like a little gift cabinet. And I never buy gift bags. I never buy tissue paper, except for one time I had a bag with no tissue paper and I had to buy tissue paper. I keep some of that stuff in my car. Do you do so that if I'm like last minute gift giving, I don't have to spend money on that extra fluff that. Well, I don't know what

it's like to give last minute gifts. Mine are always I also have gifts for kids, like if Kai receives something, and I could do this more when before he like really understood Christmas and birthdays. But I would take gifts that I knew he wouldn't play with, or were duplicates, or were much too old for him and keep them in the gift closet so that I could either gift them to another child or give them to Kai again at a later holiday. Yeah, so we have the gift

like a little gift basket in the closet. The basket is full of ungiven gifts. Well, they were given to kai, but they were taken away. And then the cabinet with bags yep, sewing and mending for me to buying second hand. I mean I really only grasped the value of that first through my grandmother. So so many things. See, I had packet drawer down here. Nobody ever taught me. We did not do Depression era things when I was growing up. There was none of that, like none of the stereotypical

I I was looking. I was in that rabbit hole in the Reddit thread looking for something that I did or that my grandmother or my mother did growing up. And my grandmother, she was bougie, she had tastes that were outside of her lifestyle. She actually had a china cabinet. Oh yeah, one hundred percent yes, and there was china

in it. I couldn't think of anything. Now there is something to be said for that too where And I saw this in my grandmother as well, who I would define as very frugal, But that frugality also lent itself to buying quality things but then ensuring that it would last.

So she would go to the higher end shoe store and buy very expensive shoes and meet with the consultant or get a very nice coat and actually pay the habit tailored, which seems like the bougie way to go, but in reality, then has these pair of shoes that last for years, and this coat that lasts for years, that when it got a rip in it or a stain on it, there was investment in let me mend this myself, let me figure out how to get this stain out of it. And I would say, to some degree,

I carry that with me as well. I don't know if that'd be the same for you with your bougie grandmother. But this reality to buying really quality things in certain areas can also be the Depression area era, or at least the nineteen fifties takeaway of really quality things that can last and then taking care of them to ensure that they last. Yeah, I don't. I don't think I got that. She did. I know you did. My grandmother hoarded toilet paper. That was the one thing she hoarded,

and she drank really cheap beer. Those were like her two things that grounded her. I don't drink beer and I don't hoard toilet paper. But I did get an inheritance of toilet paper from her after her death. That was like my inheritance from her was a lot of toilet paper. So you were fine. Uh. I mean she like twenty twelve, so a long time before you were wishing Grandma, we're stilly here? Had you covered? She was an interesting lady. Yeah, I don't, gosh, I wish I

had an answer. All of the great depression things that I do, I do because I do them because so it's like piece my gift bag cabinet or my packet drawer, or I do them because of Travis. Yeah, Travis turns off every light in the house every second. Jill actually noticed this, and I didn't even say anything, but I was just like, oh my god, you see it too. It's not just me. I respect it. It's his home. Yes, sorry, Travis didn't mean to leave the line on, but I did.

I did mean to leave the line on. And that's the thing. Wow. Everyone, thanks for going on this rabbit hole with us and for listening. We hope that this has at least sparked some memories of your growing up, your loved ones, and if not, if you're like Jen, your's I N D E p n D E n T over here and like you established your old patterns that's cool too. Wow. Any of you know We have a membership for our listeners who are paying off debt or trying to reach other kind of money goals. We

do monthly money challenges, which is so fun. Who doesn't like some games and account of ability groups for that community that you all need. We want to congratulate one of our members for a big win. This comes from Alicia, who shared I was in bed and picked up my phone to mindlessly scroll. I love the honesty. I saw an ad for a face product that caught my attention. I got as far as the checkout process before I

caught myself and deleted my cart. I decided then and there that I will no longer make any online purchases without being fully awake, out of bed and checking in with my spending plan first. This is a big step in cutting back on impulse purchases. You've done it, You're doing it. You set parameters and you're following them to beat the best version of yourself that you can. Who are at the end of the episode for fishtag rhyming and I'm like shrugging my shoulders like a dance depression

era dance. Thanks for listening for tuning in to our song and Dance show. If you will want to check out our membership where there's more song and dance. I don't know. I can't promise. Maybe there is, and and we definitely do have courses, interviews, challenges, and so much more. Head to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash club check it out Did you see you next time? Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Syrian Chill Tell Me Tell Me about TJ Max. I negotiated a thirty percent discount on

my sheet on my sheet sheet set. That's hard to say. It is difficult to discount on my sheet set. We don't have a home to core podcast sheet set. Bedding, let's call it bedding sheets for my bed, sheets for your bed. They were finally going to change those good are you? They were not on clearance, but they had clearly been previously purchased by someone and returned but still had like the same sticker price on them. They just looked in rough shape. However, they were very luxury brand.

They were like buried in the back of where all the sheets were. And I'm a dig or, you know me, I dig with my dig not even with gloves on. I just dig and I found these sheets and I looked up the brand and they are expensive, and I'm like, I'm boogie, but with a budget, how am I going to get these for myself? Because even at TJ Max, at TJ Max prices, this is still expensive. So I'm like, I'll see what I can get. So I take them up and I'm like, is this the best price you

can do on this? And they're like oh. She looks at the packaging. I'm like, it looks like they've been previously purchased and returned, Like this is not the original packaging. The sheets are obviously very wrinkled. I don't even know if someone has like washed them or potentially used them before. She's like, you know, the best I can give you is ten percent And I just kind of turned up my nose at it. I didn't even need to say anything, and she just immediately was like, let me go talk

to my manager. The manager comes over. I say the same thing to her. She's like, ah, maybe twenty percent, And I was still just kind of like hemming and hauling over what that price would be. And she's like, okay, just a second. She goes to another manager. They were all there they were all there dirty percent off jen Yep. Yes, now I got them luxury sheets, like like I have a China cabinet, but really, I'm drinking cheap beer Horden toilet paper. I know I'm not actually, but it's like

it's that vibe. I love that. And you weren't rude about it. You were actually trying to get a discount on something that looked JANKI not just something that was there. I knew that it had value. Like the sheets are good sheets, but like, clearly someone has returned them. I don't know why they returned them. I could get into the sheets and there's some other additional problem to them.

The packaging is just not good. They were like they were wrinkled, and then when I got home they were very clearly washed before because they have a they had a very clear, like detergent smell to them. I hate detergent smells. I'm a very nonscented kind of persons. So I am glad that I kept pushing because like I was not pleased with the way that they smelled. That's great. I am proud of you. Thank you. Yep. You can you can pretty much negotiate anything for additional tips too.

You can negotiate. I've said this already, but at Lowe's and Home Depot, you don't negotiate with them at their register. Now TJ Max Marshall's were Asso, you negotiate the register, lows Home Depot, you negotiate per department with the department manager. Now there has to be like a reason you can't just be like, get me a better price on this, like if the thing's already on clearance, or maybe it should be on clearance because it's dent dinged, missing something.

You know, the drill find the manager. Usually there they can authorize at least a thirty percent or up to

a thirty percent discount. Absolutely, And you know where you shouldn't negotiate is the app because I worked at the GAP and I had a horrible experience with someone who was a disciple of a financial group who shall not be named, who told people that you can negotiate anything anywhere, And so he was so rude to me, a nineteen year old working at the Gap, about how he could get more money off for it wasn't even his purchase, it was his daughter's purchase for her kids, and just

was adamant that he was going to get. There was a discount we offered if you got a credit card. They're always going to push for the credit that, yeah, And he was adamant he was going to get that discount without a credit card. And I was like, there's literally like the discount code won't go through unless you pay with a GAP credit card. Like, I'm all for you not getting the credit card, but I can't give you this discount and there's no other discount like it

available right now. And so he was so rude. Talk to my manager she said the same thing. Just would not let up. And his daughter was so embarrassed, and I was embarrassed for her. It was an awful experience. So don't be that guy. Yeah, don't I mean, don't

make the person on the other end feel awful. I would say, the best you could do at a store like that is just ask are there any promotions running or coupons I should be aware of or discounts being offered, and if you do find something janky, like if if there was something janky at the Gap, we could give you a discount on it. That is totally But this was like two hundred dollars worth of perfectly good items that didn't you know here is it's not going to happen,

So you're being rude. No, I'm not going to do you right right? Would do you a favorite right? So I do believe you can negotiate anywhere if you do it in the right way on the right products. Wow, that was like a bonus episode. There you go.