Episode four thirty two, how to Afford More of What you Love.
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.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jill, and today we are talking about our new book, Buy What You Love Without Going Broke. And it's not like a sales ad we really wanted to have. We wanted to have a conversation about our favorite sections of the book and invite you into kind
of behind the scenes of what's on our heart. But also if you're new here and you haven't listened to an episode of Frugal Friends, to really understand what values based spending is, what it isn't, and then how you can incorporate it into your life because it's gonna look different for everyone.
Yeah, this is really just to get excited about the love letter that we wrote to ourselves and all of you and really describe more of what you're gonna get in the book. But it also is a standalone episode in and of itself. I know we typically go through articles, but this is one of those we want to lay the foundation for what we just wrote and help you get a sneak peek. But first, this episode is brought
to you by my birthday. It's a big deal. There's no other noteworthy holidays in August, so this is what you get me turning another year older. Let's celebrate with a book pre order launch launch party.
I'll get there.
She's already been partying.
It's a launch party for our book on August twentieth at seven pm Eastern time. It's the day before my actual birthday, and I want to spend it with you all. So we'll be gathering to celebrate the fact that our book is available for pre order right now, and if you join, we'll be giving you gifts. I'm not the one getting gifts. You're the one getting kiss I'm.
Giving the gifts to you instead of Jill. I made that decision. That's what I decided.
I consented. I consent right now. She's telling me right now, and I consent. Everyone who joins in on the launch party will get a free ninety day Fall meal plan, so all the foods that are Fall inspired available in the fall.
Think about it. This is back to school. You all need to know what you're going to be cooking.
You mostly need this book, but I'm trying to sell you on the freebies that you come.
You don't have to think about dinner this fall budget Friendly for every week through the fall, We've got you covered for free.
And if you do pre order the book before the party or during the party, you get extra special freebies. You know we love giving away gifts, so if you do pre order that book, we're going to give you even more goodies for yourself. So first, get the friend letter. If you want to join in on this launch party, we will be announcing it in the friend letter, so Frugal friendspodcast dot com. Sign up for the friend letter,
you'll learn about the launch party. You'll be able to join us at that party and get all of your goodies.
Yes, we'll be sending the link to the zoom room in the friend letter. That's why you have to sign up for it. And if you want to pre order, if you are already on the friend letter, you can go to buy What You loovebook dot com and pre order there love it. So this episode, we really want to dive into the first part of our book, really the intro and Part one three, Part book, it's split into it's it's teaching you about values based spending, which is such a fun concept, but what if you've ever
started to try to incorporate it into your life. It's a little more complicated than that, right, because we have all of these things, like, first of all, what do I value? Right? Like, what is it that I truly value versus what the world is telling me to value, or what my upbringing or my family or all of these these people, the societal norms are telling me to value. So what is it that I value versus outside forces
are telling me to? And then there are actually things I have to spend money on that I don't necessarily value but I can't get out of right, So how do I navigate those things? And then once I figure that out, how do I conform my new life in lifestyle into the existing life I obviously cannot and do not want to escape from.
There's so much nuance with it, which I think is why we can't give a five to seven step process to be able to implement this without any errors. This is not necessarily a financial plan. Do X, Y Z
and you'll be exactly where you need to be. This is a lot more of a holistic approach of understanding ourselves, understanding the world around us, and really what we're trying to give here, what we are giving here in this book and I think through the podcast over these last six years, are principles that we can hold on to and form the foundation for how we make spending decisions, how we move through our daily lives and seasons in a way that is congruent with who we are, who
we want to become. And that's why it is so difficult to say do X, y Z. But I think that there are some of these anchor points we can be describing that once we can really find our footing with each of those, we can get better and better at spending.
Yeah. So this first section of the book is where we talk about how to afford more of what you love? And so that is a it's a very sexy title, but like it's a very it's very intense and tough topic because we're navigating finding more of what we love. We're navigating like, so what do I love? What are
the big overarching things? And then also what are the small things, like the things, because little little treats make a difference, but the more little treats we have, they become normal and they're no longer treats.
They're just habits.
So like, how do we keep those treats special and then also afford to potentially save or you know, whatever we need to do to get more of the big stuff. And we pulled you guys in the friend Letter. That's another big reason to be part of the Friend Letter is that we do polls and we incorporate those polls into episodes. And it was kind of asking you, like, what do you wish your money allowed you to do?
And so said, spend more time with family, have more job flexibility, enjoy unique experiences with friends, and then other and most of you said, I mean, it was very even all across right between family, friends, job flexibility, But most of you said, you just want more job flexibility. And a lot of the times, the reason we want more job flexibility is because we want more time with our family and our friends. So these all actually cycle together, I think. And then there were some fun like other
a lot of them. A lot of the other was travel related, and I think more job flexibility allows more travel, and I think most of the time we want to travel with family and friends, right, so like this was it was so even across the board what you guys answered, because I think all the answers are very like intertwined.
And I can relate when I think about just our title of the podcast episode today, how to afford more of what you love? This is what my mind goes to, like, Yeah, I want more of the things that bring me joy, that are exciting. How can I How can I have that? How can I buy what I love without going broke? And we think that one of the first things that's necessary here is certainly a good mental foundation. I know that we often love to jump to action steps, but we you know us.
And there are actions there are strong us wrong yes.
And some of the action steps, though, are looking at our perspective and what is our mindset around this. But I think one of the first things to understand is that spending is a skill. It's dispelling this myth that there's either spenders or savers and it's some personality trait that we possess, but rather a skill, like any other skill that can be learned. We can get better at the skill of spending even though we've not been taught it.
Most of us have not been taught how to spend necessarily maybe even how to save, how to invest right, just like kind of anything else with money. Most of us have not been taught it, but it is a skill that we can improve upon. And so I think just beginning from there and knowing that aspect can be helpful as we keep going that this is something I can get good at, and there are some things I can do to get better at this so that I can afford the things that I love.
Yeah, And I think so much of the narrative is around earning more money. And while that is super important, that's foundational, right, If you're not earning enough to pay your bills, like that's where your first focus should be. But for so many of us, we stop at the earning or if it's not a possibility to earn more at this time. Maybe you're having you're one of the
many people right now that's having trouble finding work. Maybe you're in a place that you don't like and you're having trouble getting out of there or getting a promotion or a raise like those seasons happen, right, and we want to encourage you to earn more, But we understand when we think it should be valued that that's not always going to be your season, and when it's not your season, learning how to spend money well is a very valuable effort that you can make in your life
because once you are earning more, which will happen, you need to know how to spend it or you're going to end up right back in the position that maybe you find yourself now or you found yourself before. So that's really why we spent an entire book talking about
how to spend money. And when you can shift your mindset from I'm a spender, I just need to earn more to afford the lifestyle that I love that and you start thinking, okay, spending is a skill, right, I am not a spender and I'm not not a saverer. Those are myths. Everyone is a spender, everyone is a saverer, right. So when you start looking at spending as a skill, then you can start learning the sub skills around skills. So like being a like a good communicator, that's a skill,
But talking isn't the only skill. If you only learn how to talk, then you're not really a good communicator, right. You need to learn active listening, a certain level of empathy, all of these sub skills that go that encompass being a good communicator. And so that's what values based spending is. It's not just spending money, because when we say how to spend money, you're like, oh, I'm great at spending money. Well, you can be great at talking, but that doesn't mean
you great communicator. So we need to learn these sub skills around it so that we can be better at the skill. And when you think of it like that, then it becomes less of a Oh I'm I'm not going to focus on my spending or saving money. I'm just going to earn more because you know, there's only so much you can save, There's only so so much you can cut from your expenses. I hear that all the time. Just because there's so much. Just because there's a limit doesn't mean you shouldn't be working or not
working to find what your limit is. Limits are not the enemy because because the limit can be anywhere for you. And so looking at it as a skill is a mindset shift that is basically like ground one step one to figuring out what you.
Love m h Yeah, and spoiler alert, being able to afford more of what we love does absolutely intersect with identifying what we don't love and how to not spend on those things.
That's another episode.
But it's not just you can afford more of what you love just because money starts to appear.
We all know that we don't have the magic wand.
For that, some of it has to do with really leaning into finding what I value, prioritizing those things, and figuring out unique creative problem solving ways to maybe spend less in other areas, or not spend at all, or be able to experience and engage with the things that we value without spending money. There's a variety of ways that we can get at affording more of what we love.
And sometimes, yes, that's going to mean spending well. Sometimes it's going to mean refraining from spending, and that's a part of spending well. But I think some of it has to do with understanding and knowing the role of values within our spending. And one of the things that we've really zeroed in on with the book is the importance of the four which we've already identified in the poll.
Right, Yes, we didn't explicitly say them, but like you guys said them for us.
Yeah, And they are faith, family, friends, and fulfilling work we recognize through research and our own experiences and what you all are saying that ultimately these are our values. Certainly we have other values outside of that, for travel, for good food, for you name it, anything that kind.
Of spiritual practice.
Honestly, Yeah, most likely though, the things that we really desire and we want to be engaging in that are our core values are these four fs in varying degrees, and so we seek to fulfill these values, sometimes through spending a lot of money, sometimes through the types of jobs that we have so that we can be with these people more often. But ultimately we are trying to
fulfill these values. Sometimes we're doing that well, sometimes are not doing that well, and of course that intersects with the spending decisions that we make that are worthwhile to take a look at.
Yeah. One of one of the fun crazy things about being a creator and somebody who makes content is like naming things you have to like name. It's just weird you don't do this in your real life, Like you don't name things in your life. I don't know, maybe you do. But like when we started talking shifting the narrative of what we talk about on frugal friends from how do I save as much money as possible? How
do I spend as little as possible? And that's it's really what we never wanted it to truly be that, but we did start out on that because that was easiest to understand, right, And so when we kind of started to evolve and say, okay, how can I spend on what I truly love, what I truly value, and how do I say no to what I don't that was something that wasn't being widely talked about, and we kind of came up with the name values based spending. I don't know if I don't know if we came
up with it on our own. I don't think we.
I don't remember anybody saying that before us. So we went through this season of kind of trying to find, okay, what is values based spending, Like we didn't have that sentence, you know, four years ago, and we looked at actual like corporate company values, you know, like courage, generosity, starting right right, yeah, yeah, leadership if you have been with us for a really long time, you know, Like that's how the conversation started, and it was it was trying
like you know, when you're trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. It was just that was that was what people when we were looking at values based spending, that's how people were describing it, and so that's what we went with. And then it took us years and really in to writing this book when we really did have to decide to name these things like
values based spending the four FS. And what it came down to was that we were looking at these corporate values for so long, and everyone was saying, like, my highest value is family and friendship or faith, and eventually I was like, Okay, we can't all have the same values. We gotta get those out of here, and we got to pick other values. And I just wasn't listening to what was right in front of me. I wasn't reading
everybody's values that were coming into us. And when I finally stopped listening to what the Internet was saying and started looking at what was right in front of me, that's how we naturally came to the concept of the four FS being these like higher values, these higher needs. And then I looked at that at Mazell's hierarchy of needs.
I don't know if you were like in the internet social sphere, when everyone is actually posting the hierarchy of needs and then like like painting over it and putting like iced coffee, cold brew lats, that's my hierarchy of needs. But that's like, that's what we were looking at, and it kind of it It just once we saw those values together along with the hierarchy of needs, it made total sense why everyone was putting those down as what
they value most. Like we've got our base, you know, basic of the hierarchy is the physical needs, right, food, shelter, water, and then you've got your psychological needs, which are they're the kind of safety needs. You want to feel employed, you want to feel healthy, that's kind of physical. But you want to feel love, you want to feel friendship, family, sense of connection. You want to feel confident in yourself.
You want to have self esteem, you want to feel like you're respected by the people who you want to respect you. And then you've got your self actualization or is your self fulfillment needs the very top, which is meaning purpose, creativity. And it just made total sense when we looked at Okay, if that's our human hierarchy of needs, that's why these are the four things that we're hearing so much because through these four things you meet all
those psychological and self actualization needs. And so when we talk about values based spending and we talk about our our values, yet we're talking about two things in tandem. We're talking about these higher these you know, higher needs like our four afs, we're also talking about our little treats. And sometimes those little treats actually get us closer to these four afts. Like a latte with a friend or a latte alone away from your children and your family.
Give me that's a great psychological need for me. But they're they're intertwined. They're both whether it's tangible or intangible. You can't when we try to separate these needs is when we start overspending on stuff that we are marketed to to try and fulfill these higher needs that we're being told don't cost money. Money doesn't buy love. Like you don't you know, need to spend money on this. We will spend money anyway to try and fill a need because we're we don't realize that it is a need.
Yeah, I think this concept is really crucial to grasphold of because it's where we can see a lot of our impulse spending is tied to meeting some of these internal and external needs. So it is absolutely a need for self actualization, for esteem, for love and belonging, and a lot of those things come from the fore f's faith, family, friends, and fulfilling work. But what happens is we will often spend to meet these needs and usually we miss the mark on it, right, And I think marketers know this.
This is another podcast episode as well, like just the Manufactured Desire and Consumerisms.
Is my favorite.
Yeah, we're not there yet, no, but understanding that a lot of these ads that we're seeing on social media that are just trying to sell you some shoes or a backpack or a clothing item, that's not all they're selling you, right, They're selling you love and belonging, esteem, self confidence. Marketers are no dummies. They're trying to tap into your higher level needs to get you to buy.
And they don't want you to know that to spend money on actually achieving those needs. They want you to think you can achieve those needs subversively by by buying this less expensive product, and you can't afford the more expensive like vacation with your family, so just buy you know this little like these pants that make your butt look bigger, and then maybe people will look at you better.
I don't know whatever it is they are trying to sell us this, and we are believing that some of these things can get us what we want. Some of that has to do with the fact that many of us have solved our problems by spending money.
It might not have been the.
Best, most efficient, or yeah, there could have been other ways that we solve our problems, but we are accustomed to that. So usually if we see an ad for something promising us something that we think even subconsciously is missing, that's easier than picking up the phone and calling a friend and being vulnerable. Right, And we're don't even consciously
know that. Some of this takes us processing through these items, being aware of what our needs are, being able to hit the nail on the head with our needs, because otherwise we're grasping at straws impulsively spending it's not actually meeting our need. We're left feeling maybe guilty, shameful, disappointed in ourselves, not really loving the purchase that we just made,
wondering where all of our money went. And the thing goes round and round, and it's why we're describing this ideology as really helpful for being able to understand what's going on internally so that we can make really confident external spending decisions when we can recognize our needs are there,
they're not going away, and our needs are good. But the way that we get after these needs and how we spend around our needs oftentimes can be tweaked, and it is possible to get better at it because spending is a skill.
So now that we've defined what values are, let's think about finding out what we value. Because these four f's are going to be you're going to show up differently in each one. If your super religious person, faith is going to be very high on your values list. If you don't see yourself as a religious person, then maybe your faith practice is through you know, hiking, meditation, traveling, it's going to be kind of less often, it's lower
on the list. All of them are on the list, though, just you have to figure out how they are on the list for you, and that comes we think through asking yourself better questions. I tend to ask myself a lot of questions about especially postpartum, and that I am like still you know, I've got that body dysmorphia of the early two thousands, right, and it hasn't gone away with every child I've had, So like, I will sometimes ask myself questions like why did I eat that? If
I know, like it's not in my meal plan? Why did I go out to eat? I had food at home? Why I'm asking these questions in a judgmental way and not in a curious Wayment breeds shame, It breeds guilt. Curiosity breeds knowledge and discovery. And that's what we want to go into a exploration of values with is you? Because you can value anything. There's nothing bad to value, unless maybe you value like doing bad things to people. Don't value that, don't value that. Change your value, change
change your values. That's the only time we'll say, change your values. But like, most of the time, you can
value anything. But sometimes what we value is not valued by the people around us, or the people on the internet, or the people we respect and want to be like, and so we feel we don't want to value that stuff Like I I don't value going to like sit down restaurants a lot, like I, but everybody around me is a foodie, and so I feel like, oh, that should be my reward for doing something good, or like I should value that more highly. On a I value Chipotle because I don't have to cook and I don't
have to do dishes, like that's my value. But I also then seem really lame to some people who may have higher food tastes than me. I was, but I was just reading about a guy, an NFL player, who has eaten Chipotle every day for the last ten years, and I was like, that's my guy. I don't know that guy, but that's my guy.
And he's cool. He's not lame. I don't think.
Yeah, I don't know a lot about sports. I don't know a lot of football players either, but he seems cool. So it's being like honest with yourself and asking yourself questions from a place of curiosity, no judgment, and just really trying to learn who, who am I? What do I love?
And one of the ways that we can do that is by avoiding the why question. Not that there's anything wrong with why. It can be incorporated into our language, but not right now, not at this point of practicing curiosity. It is better to ask ourselves what how when? When we're trying to get to some of the core of our habits, our decisions, the things that are a little bit on autopilot. So for that example that you just gave, you know, why why am I what was it coffee?
Why am I?
Why I never.
Coffee?
It's like, why am I? Why am I getting take out when I have food prepared at home?
Yeah?
Instead of why did I do this? Why am I doing this? I have a solution. What is it about takeout that this is serving me right now? Right Such a different lens on it. One puts us in a posture of defense and shame, and the other is, oh, I guess I could dig deeper here. Maybe it's that I'm tired, it's Wednesday, Jen is tired or well.
When I answered that question for me, it was I wanted to get takeout actually because it was it sounded better to me than the food I had prepared at home. I had this like not I had this very healthy meal like prepped at home, but that just didn't sound delicious to me, and I wanted something delicious. So that kind of changed the way I prepped food. It wasn't the healthiest it could be, but it was food that
made me want to eat it. Or at least want like it was good enough to want to eat without going through the hassle of takeout.
Yeah and that yeah, that's that's a helpful example. But with this practicing of curiosity is something that we can do throughout our entire lives, any aspect of our lives, not just our finances. But we want to take this lens with us into our action step. We finally got there. Yes, halfway through the episode.
We're ready to give you an.
I've given just some like really like heavy action steps so far, because sometimes this is not like figuring out what you value and where you want to show up for it, and sometimes realizing gosh, I haven't I haven't been showing up there at all, and it is super important for me, Like don't you're hearing it now, Like, don't dwell on what you haven't done. Now you can focus on what you will do. And so the next something, maybe a lighter action step, we'll say, is to do
a ninety day transaction inventory. And so this is going to get you clear on that second, like part of what you value is the actual things with a price tag. You know, money can't buy love, but I don't you know, I'd rather like be alone in a Rolls Royce or something. I don't know what the saying is, but there are some things that don't have price tags that still take money to afford, right, But then there are some things that have over at price tags. And we're looking at
our expenses from the last ninety days. That's going to really give you a clear picture on kind of everything that could pop up, no surprises, and see what you're
spending your money on. And I think you should do this before you do a budget, like we are trying to make these imaginary budgets for imaginary people that don't exist, when really we should be looking first what am I spending on for the last three months, so then I could make a Then you'll be able to make a better budget that's easier to stick to moving forward.
You can also call it a spending plan if that lands better with you. Budget or spending plan could be used interchangeably. So once you've gathered all of your transactions, credit card, bank statements, and this is going to include quote unquote fixed expenses, right what you're paying on your
lodging and food and transportation and your bills. Everything's included because everything can be questioned and shifted if need be, but this is going to really give a good overview of your spending decisions and where you're spending skill set currently lies. And we also like to then have another column next to this when we've got it, whether you have it on a spreadsheet or you've printed it all out, to go through each of these transactions and to the
best of your recollection, write down what was happening. Then what was the circumstances that transpired just before or during
that led to the spending decision. You're not going to remember all of them, but you'll start to potentially see some recurring patterns in your spending and that will be really indicative of some habits that you may have, the typical spending decisions that you make, maybe even what triggers some of these spending, whether it is, you know, an emotional experience, whether it's a celebration, whether it's you're feeling down, whether it's just I'm just on my way home from
work and this is what I do every day. I swing through this drive through, you'll start to see where you're spending and from there you'll be able to identify how did I feel about that transaction. Did I like that I spent on that? Do I not like that I spent on that? Did that give me what I thought that I wanted in that moment? And will really start to be able to incorporate where do our needs and values that Maslow's hierarchy of needs intersect here? What
was I seeking to fulfill with these transactions? Sometimes it's just food. Sometimes it's just I was just hungry and I got food. Okay, we don't need to really dive deep into all of this forever an eternity, but some of it will start to reveal. Oh, Okay, here's what I do when I'm feeling stressed. There's what I spend on. Here is where I am more likely to spend impulsively
is when I'm up in the night scrolling my phone. Right, we can start to identify what some of these triggers are, which will then help to inform the spending plan that we create. We're not there yet, but learning more about ourselves is going to be really helpful, and this is the best way to do that, to just look at it with that lens of curiosity, that non shaming. What was it about this purchase that I was interested in
did it fulfill that? And then we can decide if it didn't, Oh, what shifts would I want to make in the future when I'm feeling stressed, when I'm feeling celebratory, when I'm feeling tired.
Yeah, And so this is just the first section of the book, you guys. And we actually had to add an extra chapter, I think, kind of almost while we were writing the book. We added a chapter after this about honoring your season because you won't be able to value the same things at the same capacity your whole life.
As I have had my second child, my prioritization for friendships has really fallen off, right, and that's sad, but I recognize that so that I can be intentional in investing there when I do have the you know, the capacity within my season. And that is a fantastic chapter that I'm so glad we had it. It was hard to
get to. I think it was the hardest chapter to write in the whole book because it had so much nuance, right, like, how do you help somebody figure out what kind of season they're in and the capacity for focusing on their spending, you know? And then also you you'll never be able to afford well maybe unless you're uber wealthy, you probably won't be able to afford everything you value in the capacity you want at the same time, so like, how
do you prioritize? But it was al of love to get that chapter in, and we just we hope that you will you will get the book because after this, you know, first section we also cover how to say no to what you don't value, and then how to
incorporate that lifestyle. But I really hope that starting this conversation has maybe inspired you to start looking at because we still have a few months before the book comes out, even if you pre ordered it today, I hope that you can just start to shift your mindset in the next couple months to when you spend money, viewing it as a skill, not a success or a failure. Because so much of spending is around you know, if I spend money, I'm failing at money. If I don't spend money,
I'm succeeding. And that is false. Everyone spends, everyone saves. You can always become a better spender. You can always become a better saver, because it is a skill. Then and really diving into Okay, well, if this is a skill, how do I get better at it in a way that looks better for me, not for the people around me.
And if what we really value is those four f's, we can meet those needs without spending money. Right, being able to afford more of what we love is some of this we can just get for free. All of us can afford free if we're aimed at the core of what we really value and being a little bit more aware of what need am I trying to meet with this purchase? Are there other ways that I can do that? There's so much more that we'll give you in this podcast, and we'll give you in the book
on that. But again laying that precursor that these are things you can begin working on is just practicing curiosity, being aware of what's behind your spending, what need you might be trying to meet, and you will have an excellent foundation for then what's to come, and learning for yourself how to afford more of the things that you.
You know, what is a great foundation. Whether you have been with us since our Corporate Value days or this is your first time leaning in 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. Dust bills, buffalo bills, Bill Clinton, This is the bill of the week.
Hi, frugal friends. My name is Jesse. My bill the week is a bill I do not have to pay. I got a bill from my dentist for floride Treeman, which I did not receive. So I called and asked them, and so I am not having to pay forty seven dollars. Never heard to call and ask. Thanks for your podcast.
I love it.
Bye ooh Jesse. Fifty bucks for floor eyd? What are these dentists doing? I remember the good old days when slapping some fluoride on your teeth costs twenty bucks.
My dentists just did it for free for me. Recently. I went in. She's like, do you have insurance?
And like no. She's like, you would really benefit from flooride and I'm like, well how much is it?
I think it was gonna be like ninety nine dollars. I'm like no, thanks.
She's like, oh okay, well something's gonna happen right now. So she did ask would you want this. I'm like, yeah, I'm not gonna pay for it. And she was like, well, then something's gonna happen. But if they ask you at the front desk, if you got floride, just tell them no. Thankfully they didn't ask. She didn't make a liar out of me. But I'm so glad that Jesse, you didn't. You didn't get the floor, eyde, but they were. They
were trying to charge you, and you caught it. And that that only happens when you're looking at your bill, like looking at your ninety day transaction inventory, that's just a side piece that might be helpful. You could find transactions that you didn't make and get some money back.
You could find a bill that you're paying twice for. I can't tell how. I can't tell you how many people are paying for two Spotify accounts, two Disney plus accounts to this, to that and didn't even know it because the other person, like in your family signed up. And yeah, you could find that it is very common.
Well, thanks Jesse for calling in your bill. If you all are listening and you've got a bill that was erroneous and you got it taken off, or a bill you don't mind paying or you're billing people, whether it's erroneous or not.
I mean, we'll hear it.
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The lightning round. All right. What's a simple luxury? You love to splurgeon? And what do you do when you can't afford it? My simple luxury? Disney, Oh, simple luxury.
That's luxury.
It is simple luxury. I love run Disney, I love doing Disney half marathons. I love going to Disney World. I most recently went to Disney World last year with well, I've done several Disney races, but I've actually loved January of twenty twenty three. I think maybe was the was that the last time I went into Disney World. No, well, okay, I went into Epcot after the Wine and Dine half marathon in November, but the last time I went without a race was January of twenty twenty three, and I'm
actually going this weekend. Yeah. Shout out to Alison Baggerley over aspired budget. Caroline Bensel. We took a girls trip to the World in that was January I was pregnant. No, no, no, no twenty twenty.
Three, twenty twenty three or twenty twenty four.
I did.
This was twenty twenty four. I went a year and a half.
Yeah, so I've I've done several Disney where I've done two Disney races, So I've been like to Disney. Yeah, and I went to the Wine and Dine half marathon like after party where I got to like ride rides at Epcot. But when I went in April, I just went to like Disney Springs and like the hotel with my friends.
Okay, well, second half of the question, what do you do when you can't afford it?
I'll let you know. I'm just kidding. So that's why I haven't been like on a leisure trip since January twenty twenty three.
Like, I don't go.
I had a baby in March twenty twenty three, and he has been more expensive than my first and I just don't go. And so the only reason we're going this weekend is my mom. She got a little little lump sum and she's using part of it to treat us to a Disney weekend.
Yeah, what do you fulfill that with? Though?
Because if we're talking like how to afford what you love? Okay, it's not just deprivation. Sometimes it is sacrifice. But when you can't in that year and a half that you couldn't go, were there other things that you did that were like satisfying or adjacent to this?
So the Disney races are I guess, in total, less expensive than a full family Disney vacation. So it's a little bit of a compromise. But I think sometimes watching Disney videos on YouTube.
That's what I was going to say that on your behalf you enjoy watching me?
Do you enjoy shout out to Molly at Mammoth Club. I love watching her videos. So but I'm not like obsessive.
I would I don't know.
I would call myself a Disney adult, but I think Disney adults would look at me and be like, you're not a Disney adult. But like Grabble people look at me and they're like, you're a Disney adult. So I'm somewhere in the radical middle.
So you, Jill, I, there's a lot of things that I enjoy, but you are a.
Simple luxury most you might be.
I'm an almond. I'm simple. I'm not a marcona almond. I'm just an almond. Okay.
One of them for me is going out to eat. I think this is the easiest one to describe, and I think at various seasons of life that has been more available makes more sense for us than others. We are, certainly more recently in a season where we can't go out to eat as often. That doesn't mean we never do it, right, I am not about deprivation.
But we go out one so weak. But even then it might not be a sit down restaurant.
So here's kind of I'll more so describe the ways that I get at what I enjoy without necessarily hemorrhaging money. So we've not been doing as many sit down restaurants. So usually sit down restaurants, the price of food is just a little higher. You're also, you know, doing the twenty percent tip or more, whereas if we are able to go to like counter service, and it's more like a ten to fifteen percent tip and less expensive items like we've been enjoying some of our your like I
don't tip a chipotlet, your cava, your Chipotle. Yeah, yeah, we did do, I know, don't get us a one star for that. Technically for tipping, don't fit does say that for counter service you do not have to tip.
You absolutely can choose to. We're getting off on a.
Different subject here, but then I'm just cooking at home a lot more. But one of the things that can I try and find new ways to get excited about eating at home. Sometimes it includes going to like the local Italian market to get some fun ingredients and do some fun things like that. Or I'll just get pre prepared meals from Trader Joe's or that Italian market to just spice it up a little bit throughout the week, allow myself an option if I am feeling tired, I
don't feel like cooking. But I've also been really enjoying following like Instagram accounts of people who cook and finding inspirational recipes. I usually try a new recipe once a week. I know that not everyone's season can afford that, and that's totally fine, but it's what's getting me excited about that. So usually trying different grocery stores, trying different recipes, having frozen foods that just sound really tasty. Always bread and
butter in the fridge. You always got bread and butter, and that sounds ummy to me. Love bread, so I can still I can still afford the thing that I love, which I think ultimately is good food. Yeah, and it doesn't always have to mean that I'm spending like seventy dollars on a meal out out.
Something we didn't talk about in this episode that we cover extensively in the first part of the book is the radical midle is that you can find a lot of the times what you value is going to be in the radical medal. So maybe it's not going out to eat a lot, but it's also not like making just bad food all the time. It's going to the Italian market and picking up a lasagna. It's cheaper than a lasagna you'd get from a restaurant, but just as good,
and you're eating it at home. That's the radical middle.
Yep, they're having friends over to enjoy it with you, so you're still getting that interaction with other people.
So yeah, thank you for listening. We hope that you are inspired to take a deeper look into what you value. We hope that you will pre order Buy what you Love without going broke. You can do that at buy what you loovebook dot com. And thank you so much for listening and leaving your kind reviews like this one from Roland Ferrett says, I'm not bored In all caps, happen to be five stars. You know we don't prefer
you know, we love the five stars. We don't force you to write five stars, but we love them because this podcast reminds me that saving money can be just as fun as spending it. I love having these two frugalities yelling at me to be more thoughtful about how I spend my money and ways that I can continue to save. It also keeps me pumped and motivated while I spend evenings and weekends slaving away on home revasions. Oh, Roland, I signed into Apple Podcasts and learn how to write
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Sign a podcast just to leave us a review it. We see it, obviously, we're reading it, and we're so so grateful. Thank you, Roland, and thank you all for listening. If you two, like Roland Ferret, are not bored, you like us yelling at you and having fun, please do take a minute to leave a rating and review. It truly does help us. It helps new listeners find us. It'll probably help us sell this book by what youlovebook dot com. Yeah, thank you, Thanks everybody.
May Gorugle Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni.
Mm hmm.
Speaking of trying new recipes and cooking at home, I made a new recipe last night.
I made a new recipe I want to talk about too, but you go first.
Okay.
Mine was okay, beef barbacoa because two months ago Eric and I went on a meat meat meat meat meat meat hunting.
And gathering meat.
We just got me.
We got a ton of meat.
We went to Sam's Club because Frugal Friends has a Sam's Club subscription, so Jen and I share the Sam's Club membership, and so Eric and I went one night. We got our hot dog dinner, which is fantastic dollar lefty, and then got a bunch of meat because Sam's Club is good for that is good pricing.
They raised their prices on the organic chicken breast.
Sang at the time.
I got like everything that I could possibly think that I might want.
I think only I spent.
Like one hundred and fifty bucks meat Still not I have not bought me in two months and I still have more in the freezer, so like we did good. But during this time, I was like, I'm so accustomed to buying the same types of meat. I want to try something new. So I got a bottom round. I don't know why, but it is funny to make. I got a beef bottom round, and I'm like, I don't know what I'm gonna do with this, but yeah, yeah,
I got a big old bottom round. And so one of the recipes that I found was for beef barbacoa in the instant pot. So this is doing double duty for me.
Bill a pressure cooker.
No, I have had a pressure.
Cooker gifted to me by my mom, like Jen six years ago.
I can't believe that you still have it in your possession. It shocks me.
I know, because I have thinking this would be good to cook in in the summertime, not have the oven on, not have the stove on. Oh, but also like other people have used it, and so I'm like, all right, this works.
I have the space to store it.
So I have never, ever, never have I ever used my instant pot on my own until yesterday, Like it's always been a under the supervision of another person, and when I'm just like, I don't know.
How to use it, but if you want to go ahead.
Well, I'm over here making spaghetti in my pressure cooker because I love it so much, and Jill judges me.
And I never totally understood it.
It was still kind of a weird experience to have to tell you the stuff ahead of time. I'm like cooking on my island and steam is not below the hood of the oven.
I could have moved it.
Whatever, it was a weird experience. It was a new experience. I did not die. No one else died. We didn't even get injured. It did scare me. It did like, you know, you gotta you gotta poke it for the quick release, and I did scream a little.
I used to spoon because watch it. You do not. Oh yeah, that's so dangerous.
I mean not if you do it right.
Okay, Wow, I've never been I've not never have I ever gotten to that point.
I have no more fear anything.
And you know, maybe I would use it again. The beef barbacoa. It turned out like it. It turned out, yeah, so tried something left over. We'll see what we do with it.
Good thank you I made. I went on a like a beans not a beans chicken and rice kick for so long. Travis was like, and he can eat anything, and he's like, can we have something that's not chicken and rice and so, which means I made three chicken and rice dishes in a row. Like it was. It was bad. Yeah, So I went to al d and got a surloin and cut that up and some potatoes and I actually made a coppycat fiesta potatoes from Taco bell and instead of sour cream, I used a Greek
yogurt and I just mixed in some Chipotle peppers. I I'll get the can of Chipotle's in a dobo and like blend it and then freeze it. So I already had that that I just like mixed with some Greek yogurt and I bought some just like Queso dip and put those on top of the potato and then topped it with steak.
Why steak?
It was so good.
That sounds so yummy.
And there's a great example of like something that just sounded really tasty to you. Yeah, maybe not the healthiest meal, but we don't have to get health and money savings with every single meal all the time.
That the only I mean it was just potatoes coated in a little flour and cornstarch with ther cheese and then cheese, but I had Greek yogurt and then I actually for myself, I toasted some kale and put that with it too, because I love kale. So mine was actually pretty healthy, like it just had it. I didn't douse it with the queso.
But yeah, to get that recipe for me, that sounds so yummy.
Yeah, it was.
I love potatoes.
It was you do you do potato? You made a recipe I would make, and I made a recipe you would make that.
Oh my gosh, we're becoming one.
Yikes.
We wrote a book, and we did write a book together by what youlovebook dot com