Minimalist Investing

that really break it down in a digestible way. This is definitely a fringe topic for me. It's not something I am an expert on. But I think the growth that's present here and the ability to learn more, I think making it accessible to people who might not quite know how do I invest? How do I go about this? And to attach it to the word minimal sounds attainable and more simple. And yes, if that's what you're thinking, Yes,

that's what you're about to find here. Yes. And I think the most I think the most popular thing I'm seeing from creators right now our courses about investing, because it is the most difficult thing I think about personal finance. Everything else I mean besides taxes, but I mean those those get into the weeds when you have a business. But like I think, investing is one of our most complicated subjects, but it doesn't have to be. You don't need a five hundred dollar course to learn investing. I

have a hundred dollar course. It's actually seventy seven because I give like discounts out like candy. So if you want one, you want a course on investing, I have one. But the meat of what you really need we will cover in this episode. And we also have other episodes that kind of introduce the topic. So we have if you want to queue up some episodes to play. Next, we have episode ninety four, which is Retirement one oh one, where we cover retirement accounts. We have episode one forty six,

which is Understanding the Stock Market with bolosakunbi Um. She has a fantastic book, so if you're looking for a book, I definitely highly recommend hers. And then episode one we talked specifically about roth iras with Barbara Guinty, and I think what we're going to talk about today is primarily what goes into your retirement accounts, and so we like to use roth iras. So just keep that in the back of your mind. I will say neither of us

are registered or licensed financial advisors. If you need a personal specific help, like if you're a high income earner or you have some kind of inheritance or high net worth, then you'll definitely want to get a some kind of certified financial planner on your side. So that is the

disclaimer for this episode. But plenty of people get by with just the information that we're going to share in this episode, but um definitely reach out to me if you have any more questions on what we go over, and similar to every other episode, we talk about what you find on the internet when you do a first search about this, this is what you're going to find, and breaking it down even further, giving more perspective and tangible tips on how to implement this. With the recognition that, yeah,

we are not certified financial planners. We don't have all those certificates for investment. I have a license for social work. I ran the retirement and investing beat at the Penny Harder when I worked there, so I was that I've written about investments extensively again, wrote a full course on them. But there are plenty of options if you need like a visual like video slides and stuff cool, take a course.

I think if you just are good enough to read, highly recommend Bull of Sucumbis book, and if you just want to listen, if you just need an overview, then buckle up for what we're going to bring you after our sponsors. Today's episode is brought to you by our seven day No Spend Challenge. When you are listening to this, hopefully on release day you will see it as the first day of the month, so hopefully you have your

budgets made. But it's also the perfect time to do a no spend challenge, especially if you want to do one for a month. This is kind of like our last month that it's going to be feasible to do one of these, but we highly recommend just start with

a week. Start with a one week in October, and we've created a free mini workbook that will help you plan, execute, and reflect on a one week no spend challenge so that after seven days you know what you need to work on moving forward and you have an action plan to do so. So if that sounds like something you need, head to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash free to get yours. This is also brought to you by keeping it simple, not complicating things. That's it, just keeping it simple.

That was a very one line, one line of text. You are fulfilling that all right. Well, when I googled minimalist investing, I came out with some pretty good I think minimalist investing is becoming a buzzword now that minimalism is becoming mainstream. So I loved seeing that. So our first article is actually from a really well known investing website, Motley fool Um, which is full dot com, and it's minimalist Investing Tips for and beyond. What do you think

of this one, Jill? I love tips. I love it when they keep it simple. So I think we can just go through all five of what they list out. Absolutely so the first tip and so we will go through these kind of tips and then the second article will be um more of the like funds, not specific funds, but like portfolio recommendations just for educational purposes. Another disclaimer you have to make. You have to make a lot

of disclaimers when you're talking about investing. So if you ever see that on social media, I think nobody really cares what influencers say, but we still have to like say it just in case, like one person gets mad, so one person always gets mad, but one person always one person gets mad, so she have to say it to like cover our butts. So the first tip from Motley Fool on this one is hold few funds, so

make your investing as simple as possible. And we're going to talk a lot about funds, and so what funds are are just mutually funded collections of stocks. The fund is like referencing the money mutually funded, and it's just like collections of stocks. And typically it's, you know, a collection of all the stocks you know. That's the most common one you hear, but sometimes it can be like specifics, you know, types of stocks like technology or medical companies,

or just bonds or something. So holding fewer funds doesn't mean you are purchasing single stocks. It can mean the opposite, but holding as few as possible will make your portfolio more manageable, less intimidating, and easier to understand. The second tip on here is to trade only occasionally, so not only not having a ton of funds everywhere, also engaging with those funds minimally, not constantly tweaking and changing and moving.

First of all, it can cost money whenever we do trade those, and also it can make taxes a whole lot more complicated. And so they list here. I'm just going to read off. It's really helpful explanation here that trading trends can complicate your tax life, and depending on the broker that you're using, it can be quite costly. So one of the simplest ways to reduce taxes and fees is to not trade and let your investments do the long term work. And that really is what the

ultimate purpose of investment is is. It's a long game. It's not a short game. It's not all I'm gonna put in ten dollars this week and have hundreds of dollars next week. And so when we're constantly in it and moving things, it's just it's complicated, it's not simple. And even the people who really know what they're doing oftentimes aren't even making out on it. They're just intrigued by trading. Yeah, I would say once or twice a

year if you're a nerd about it. Twice a year if you don't really care about it, but you just know you need to invest. Once a year, pick a date on a January or like a fall day, whatever, maybe it's October two once a year, just to rebalance. That's all. That's the only reason you need to trade. You don't need to trade when the market is doing all these fluctuations, when the news is talking about the market,

because the news has always talked about the market. They have like entire sections of newspapers and websites just on the market, entire websites, publications just on the market. So you're always going to find news of it, you know, potentially crashing or going up. So don't use that as your guide for when you rebounce your portfolio. Just pick a day and do it once a year so or you know, twice or three times, depending on how you

feel about it. So the third I think is the most important one on this list, Like I think you can break all the other ones, but this is the most important one, and it is to auto invest. I've always said that for people working on average incomes or below average incomes, the best way to invest is to invest early and often, And so that means start today and set up auto invest and invest literally every single

month until you retire. I don't care how much it is but never miss a month, even if it's just ten dollars, because once you meet a minimum I mean Fidelity has a ten dollar minimum to buy into a fund E t f s, you can do with even less. But I strongly believe that the frequency with which we invest and building up slowly is how average people build wealth.

If you're a high income earner, you can afford to max out your wrath ira A or you know, probably not a roth ira, but you're right, traditional ira A you know in one Fell, Swoop whatever. But not everyone can do that. So if you are somebody who you know is finding it hard to max out your retirement accounts, set up an auto invest today and invest every month, no matter how little it is, for the rest of your working life. I appreciate that you highlighted this one

because I would agree. I think it's one of the again, most attainable, most helpful gifts to our future selves. Again, if everything else feels overwhelming, you're not certain what to do. You know you're not going to hire somebody investing has never been on your radar. At least do this at least contribute to your for O one k, at least open a roth IRA and invest regularly. Yes again, and I love the permission to that you're highlighting of even if it's ten bucks. Hopefully you can do more and

do more as you're able, But just get the consistency going. Yeah, maybe just get that four oh one K match if you have access to it. I don't I don't care if you're paying off debt, if you're trying to save an emergency fund, if you're saving to redo your kitchen, I don't care what you're doing. What are you talking to now? I feel I feel called out. I'm just saying there's no excuses, just a little bit every month for the rest of your working life. Beautiful. Number four

on here is use just one discount broker. You don't have to be all over the place. Just find one such as Vanguard or Fidelity Charles Swab all the did I even say that, right? Swab? It's a tough one. So cute. They all have the capabilities necessary to accommodate the type of investing that you know we would do most listeners would be doing. And so by making a commitment to just one of them, not only can you receive potentially some added benefits once you reach a certain

threshold or level. But you can also see your entire portfolio at once in one snapshot, and I think that's a huge component here. We just we want to talk about ease of accessing these things, knowing what's happening, knowing where money is, how it's growing. If we've got things all over the place, like it's like where did I put my car keys? Well, how about we just find one place that we generally keep our car keys, then we always know where our car keys are. A silly illustration,

but you get the point. So this is again, if we're talking minimalist investing, simple investing, something that is going to be attainable for us, that will have longevity to it. This is another one of those just having one broker keeping everything there. They've got most of these places have what you need. You don't. You don't need to have ten different spots. Yeah, And if you're trying to figure out where do I open my row I ARRA or

do I need to move it or something. If you want to have a purely like minimalist portfolio, you definitely, I mean I would say just open a wrath Era wherever your four oh one K is at and most Fidelity is a huge offer of four oh one k s. It's a great place to also open a rath bire A. Charles Schwab is great, Vanguard is great. If you don't have a great four oh one k then you can use one of those, and you can just use something like Personal Capital, which aggregates all of your accounts in

one place. You can see everything in the same place there. We also like m one if you want a robo advisor. So what a robo advisor is, it's just like creates a more complex portfolio for you. And auto rebalance is it. I don't know if you can choose how often, but typically I think it's quarterly that it rebalances for you, so that if you don't want to have anything to do with any of this. M one finance is there's

no fee. I think that's the main reason that I like it, because a lot of robo advisors charge a point to five fee to manage on top of the fees on the index funds, and that's not huge, but if you can avoid it, why not. And and one Finance doesn't charge it, so and if you open a raphaira there you can support the show spoiler Alert, Frugal

Friends podcast, dot Com, slash m one. But um so yeah, so those are kind of like our our favorites, but honestly having as few accounts as possible as our favorite. So that freedom and that yeah, and then the last one I thought was really interesting and this is going to be really cool for all of our fire people, like our financial independence enthusiasts, is only access your accounts from a computer. So if you are the type to obsessively check your accounts, it says I quote, is a

futile exercise. Don't do it, don't look at it. It's not important enough to have on your phone to check at any hour of the day, like you don't. Human behavioral economics and behavioral psychology really encourages us not to do that. So only have it on your computer and check it occasionally, and maybe don't even check it when there's like a big like crash going on. Just don't let like, don't let yourself be tempted by that. So it's such a good tip and I think really helps

us to understand how investing works. I think we can see these people who are constantly checking accounts and it's like, that's not the right way to go about it is not how investing actually works. Not how you're going to see return on your investments is by constantly checking it. Watch pot never boils. All right, Yes, absolutely, I loved all of these tips and I think they're all so true, Like like from one through five, Like you could have can have a one I totally balanced one fund portfolio.

So there's that you can get away with checking it once a year and rebalancing it. You can set up auto invest once and never look at it again. You could have one discount broker and do everything from the same place and then only access it from one place. Like that is how easy it is. And yeah, that's I wholeheartedly believe all of these I'm putting you on the spot here. But for our listeners who are very new to this concept, when you say check it once

a year and rebalance, how are you using that word rebalance? Well, so that gets into our next article, let's do it. That's you didn't even know you were seguing, did you know what? Okay? So so our next article is called three simple Portfolios. How investing like a minimalist can maximize your results. And this is from Chris Reading writing I'm sorry, Chris Um, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Charles Schwab rush Swab,

don't care, Juck, don't care. But yeah, So when I say rebalancing, I mean getting your investments back into balance in the ratios that we talk about in these three minimalist portfolios. So if you have, like I was saying, like a one fund portfolio like we're going to talk about, you actually don't need to rebalance it. It rebalances like whoever runs it rebalances it for you. So like a Vanguard or fidelity, they'll do it for you. And they're not even robo advisors, so like you don't even need

a robo advisor for that. But if you choose the two or three fund portfolios, or if you have other funds or stocks you want to dive into, then you only need to rebalance into the ratios that you decide you want. So if you pick one of these and you love it and you want to stick with it, then probably if we have a good year, stocks are

going to grow faster than bonds. So by the end of one year, where if you wanted sixty stocks and bonds, by the end of the year, you're probably maybe going to be somewhere around stocks and bonds just because of the disproportionate growth. And so in that case, if you want to stick with that sixty, you have to rebalance and sell some of your trade some of your stocks for bonds. So that's what that means. You can also not care and just let your stocks keep going and

going if you're far away from retirement. That's kind of the approach I take. I take a very easy approach to investing, not as minimalist but just lazy because we don't plan to retire early, well not that early, so we're still pretty far away from retirements. So it's like I can be we can be volatile, we can be aggressive, so we're just you know, seeing where the market takes us. We can take risks and be lazy. Yeah, I mean

you really can be lazy with this. It's fine. So yeah, we'll take a look at three different minimalist portfolios and these are what you put into your again primarily roth Ira. A lot of four oh one k s will give you these options too, so you can completely put these into your four oh one K, four oh three, B seven whatever if they're available. Sometimes they won't be, but at least the one fund should be. But Jill, what

do you think about this article? Well, this article just spoke to me off the bat because there's a picture of van like camper van, tiny, tiny home living, and I'm like, Okay, I could do this, and they're talking about investing. This is great for me. But also I really appreciated what they had to say in their introduction, even before they talk about the different types of portfolios,

just giving some supportive arguments for minimalist investing. And I love this quote that they utilize, which comes from the twelve step program, but take what you want, leave the rest. And I think too, this is such a mantra of frugality in all aspects. We love talking about minimalism, simplicity, eco friendly, eco sustainability, all of these things. And this is that idea of take what you want, take what you need, but leave the us. We don't have to

be greedy with it all. And similarly with investing, we can go get what you need, get what you want, but don't feel like you've got to do everything that everybody is saying you should be doing. You don't got to be checking it constantly, moving things, having money all over the place, so there's freedom in that. I also like what they have to say about financial advisors, and then you know, no shade to financial advisors. There's a time and a place and can be really really helpful.

I've enjoyed talking with my financial advisor friends on this. But this concept of we, a lot of times can correlate complexity with being better, and that's not always the case, Like sometimes simplicity is better, and a lot of times there is pressure on financial advisors to constantly be tinkering and tweaking with your investments so that you feel as the you're getting your money's worth. And I've actually heard

this from some of my financial advisor friends. I mean, obviously they believe in their profession and I think it's

a it's a great aim in life. But we were even talking with one of our friends recently who does this for people, like manages others portfolios, and he's like, I've got one client who wants me to call him the second that there's a dip or a rise in the market, or like just before when I see that the trend is going this direction, and he's just like, I don't, I don't who does he think I am like I don't have a magic wand I don't know, and even then like you don't want to be reactionary,

But that's that's just it. I think sometimes if we think we've got a financial advisor, we want to see them doing something, they feel the pressure of it, and so we're not actually getting that much return in our investments when we go with a financial advisor. Oftentimes. They've got some really interesting studies listed in this article that

have been done. That one was researchers performed a sting operation, which is kind of a funny term to be talking about with the world, but it's the term they used in this research. They did a sting operation of sending hundreds of fake clients to actual, real financial advisors and found that the advisors were encouraging these clients to chase returns. They recommended strategies that line to their own pockets and pushed expensive active funds. And there's another research project that

was done that had similar results to it. So it's just interesting. I think, again, we're all different personal finances. Personal for some it absolutely makes sense, but also know that if you are choosing to do this on your own, simply minimally you're not going wrong in that direction either. It is possible to make wise financial investing decisions without paying some need to help you with that. Absolutely. I think financial advisors are best for high net worth individuals.

They offer a lot of tax tax loss harvesting and tax benefits and a lot of things that when you have a lot of money you don't necessarily have time or desire to learn to do yourself. And like that's when they are really beneficial. And some won't even take you unless you have like one hundred thousand, you know, invested, or five hundred thousands, so like there's a reason for that. If I was a rich girl, then I would have

don't don't say anymore, we'll have to pay for it. Um. So I want to touch on another quote from this article. This is smidge different, but it's from Morgan Housel and he is he's like, he's like our I don't want to say Kim Kardashian, but he's maybe our Chloe Kardashian in the personal finance world. He's so great and so he this guy actually interviewed him. I don't know who who the writer of this is, but like cool for him. Morgan Housel told him, I'm actually now down to the

Vanguard Total Stock Market Index and Berkshire Hathaway. My entire net worth is now literally a checking account, a house, and those two stocks. I don't think it needs to be more complicated than that. Mike Drop and Morgan Housel is um. He is a smart guy in personal in finance, So if he's saying it, I mean I wouldn't recommend. I don't necessarily desire to have this portfolio. Morgan probably has more money than me, so I don't know, but

I thought it was really interesting. That's somebody that knows so much about personal finance literally just has like one stock, and Total Stock Market Index is a fund rather than a stock. But he could have an e t F which is traded on the stock market, so you know, he could technically have two stocks. But Berkshire Hathaway is um. Warren Buffett's like holding his his thing, um, and people love Warren Buffett. So yeah, I thought that was really

McDonald's every day. Yeah, I mean, who didn't love that? Who didn't love it? So we're those are need Those are not the portfolios we're gonna be talking about in this article, but it is an option again as something that you can like take and leave. And we're not even going to cover ratios in this, but we'll we'll just cover the actual like what's in it. So yeah. The first one is the one fund portfolio, and this is a typically referred to as a target retirement fund.

Fidelity calls them freedom funds, but what it is is a fund that starts out you choose it based on like when you think you're going to retire, So I started with a target date fund. And this is typically the default choice in a four oh one K plan that offers the fund. So if you opt in and turn it on and you're investing in it, getting the match and you haven't picked anything. Typically if it's run by Fidelity or Vanguard, this is what you're going to

be in is one of these target retirement funds. And that's totally fine if you don't want to think about rebalancing a portfolio ever, totally fine. It has slightly higher fees then if you were to do a d I Y fund like a two or three. So that's why people who study the stuff tend to promote the two and three fund portfolio more, but have one fund portfolio. It is totally fine. It's great, it's awesome, it's loving. Yeah, it's great something like it's not it's not just like something.

It's like a good option. Um. And and it will rebalance get more conservative the closer you get to that target date that's the fund is named after, which is theoretically your retirement date. If you want something a little more aggressive, you can go out. You can get something like that's you know, five or ten years after you kind of plan to retire. So it's even customizable and that you're not stuck with one choice. You can you can pick any of them. But yeah, so it will

auto rebalance for you. The reason I'm not in it a is because, like I study this stuff and so I'm I like picking and rebalancing, but also because it was a little too conservative for me. I'm a more aggressive investor, so I wanted more stocks and equities than the one fund one fund portfolio offered. Um. But if you're nervous about it, you're you know, a little weary. One fun portfolio great, great, solid choice for beginners and not for anybody, for anybody. So the second example and

option is the two fund portfolio. So the examples given here is through Fidelity, this could look like having a total market index and US bond index. If using Vanguard, this might look like total stock market index total bond market index. So again just examples depending on if you're using Fidelity or Vanguard. But that's what a two fund portfolio might look like. Yeah, and the ratios vary based on how like what you want. I think typical advice.

This is not advice. Typical like recommendations have been have your age in bonds, so like I'm thirty two, so somebody would just say have thirty in bonds and the rest in stocks. So and that's typically what the one fund portfolio will kind of try to do. But that's the one that Morgan Housel was saying, the total stock market Index. That's the fund, like he's almost entirely in most of our portfolio is in the Vanguard Total stock

Market Index. This is something that people I've seen t shirts with the v T S A X. It just all of says, is v T S A X people love And that's the symbol for the Vanguard Total stock Mark Stop it. Yeah, I'm serious, you can't. I don't know where they get them. I don't know where they where were you? I was that financial media coperas? I mean, but this exists, like people love this fun. You don't see the v b uh, I don't s t X or whatever. The bond should make that one. I we

should make that shirt the bond fund. But yeah, so I want to point out here. Two is that when you go and look at or when you hear returns, like a lot of people will use ten percent as a average return when they're doing math on the stock market, because that's what the SMP five hundred has returned over um its lifetime, which that was in the fifties. I think the SMP five hundred switched um and cut out like a number of funds, and I think that since

then it's had like an eight percent. But since it's never wreck commended to be a hundred percent in stocks or in equities, I think we can we can all agree, Like you don't hear anybody recommend that you're gonna have some bonds which like don't return like that at all. So it's I like to use a seven percent when I'm doing math, because that accounts for inflation, it accounts for you know, bare ample markets over time and having bonds, you know. So that's kind of how I do it

and why I do it. You can do it however you want. Hey, it's it's better to under promise and over deliver. That would be surprised that in time you see ten percent return but anticipate seven. Yeah. So when I was starting out, I did the two fund portfolio. Well, when I was starting out, I did the one fund, and then when I got hit the minimums for the two funds in Vanguard, this was when the minimums were higher.

But um, then I transferred to I did it too fund portfolio, and I dident equities and ten percent bonds. So like I'm really aggressive, but I still have some bonds. And so that's like a really common ratio. Sixty stocks two bonds also really common. So pick what feels good to you and and go with that and then once a you rebalance it to get back to whatever feels good to you. Beautiful, that's it, and then buy a shirt. This is you know, V T S A X or something,

I don't know. That's when you're real deep though, That's yeah, that's when you're real deep. So once you increase your net worth. Um, we were too fun for a long time, and then we actually had a meeting with a financial advisor who recommended we upgrade to a three fund portfolio. So that's where we mostly are now, plus some like play around funds, but the book bulk of our portfolio is still too fun. But we have added a total international fund, so international equities, because the US is not

the only place where businesses are. There are businesses in China and the UK and Japan. Like you mean to tell me people are working around the world, right, do you drive a Toyota or Hunt or a Subaru? Like those are not American And yeah, I love my Toyotas, even though I don't have Toyota right now, but that's

another story. So having some cash in international equities can help just like diversify the portfolio even more, and diversification theoretically protects it from the ups and downs of the American market. So yeah, that I mean, then you get into the weeds and how you can like divvy up

the US. I think we were told for US is good to have there, um And they didn't say to change the bond allocation at all, but um, so yeah, there is if you are interested in learning more about that, you can just search for Bogel heads, which is probably. Those are probably and I won't get a virus on my computer. But right, those are the probably the people

that made the v T s a X shirt. But it's the creator of Vangard is Jack Bogel, and he has like a fan club and they religiously promote the three fund portfolio, and so that is those are the

minimalist portfolios. Those, Yeah, that's it when everybody's asking you about all these new gadgets and new things, and you can just say I decided, all right, this is what I'm going And you know what, I love this last part at the where he's wrapping up and he's saying, nine nine point nine nine of investing is doing nothing. Do you feel validated, Jen? Yeah, I mean I've I didn't feel bad before, but you called yourself lazy and now you can just yeah, I meant that as a compliment.

Work I work more efficiently. Um so work smarter, not harder. And so this guy says his entire net worth is an SMP five index, a handful of stocks, a condo, and a checking account. So this guy also very minimalist, and honestly, like between the SMP five hundred and the Total Stock Market Index. You won't find a big difference. Don't like over analyze, like, oh, should I be in both? It's it's not. It doesn't make a big difference. They're both.

The Total Stock market is primarily the SMP five hundred companies because they're so big, you know, it just has those smaller companies in there as well. So that's why I like it a little bit more than SPID, because I like to have the smaller size companies too, because why not they're there? You know, you know what else is here? And why not you? Yeah, 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. Tough bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Clinton, this is the bill of the week. Hey ladies, this is Peyton from Jackson with Florida. I first of all, love the pod. Love that it feels uplifting and inclusive, and it just makes me smile whenever I listened to It makes something like budgeting and frugality be fun. My bill of the week is that I signed up for a meal kit subscription.

And I know that it's not normally a very frugal choice, but I work three jobs um one full time, one contract, and then one part time, and I am also involved a lot of stuff and running around and I have I Before I signed up, I subsisted on eating spaghetti and I would batch make pancakes and I felt so gross. But I signed up for the milk kit and they sent it over to my house and I can cook

the meals. And it is a bill that I am so happy to pay because it saves me a lot of time and just a lot of mind space that I can put toward other things. And I kind of try to make it frugal. I signed up for one of the cheaper options, even though it does a little bit less of the prep work for me. And I also signed up to get to servings and every meal, and I'll have one for dinner and then one for lunch. So I am paying to have dinners and lunches. So

love that. Love you guys, and hope you're doing good bye Peyton. We love a good meal plan for meal kit. In busy seasons of life. If you're working three jobs and you're on your own and you find that you're just not able to then like value and prioritize food, which is so important to keep you running because that's what you're doing when you've got three jobs. I get it.

I support it, And that's again that's what frugality is about, is where are the values and time is important and valuable to and what we choose to put that towards. So I love that this is creating some convenience and

just giving your body better nutrition. Yeah, definitely. And you also like have to play this game of like what is a better use of my time if I have the emotional, physical, mental capacity to work and make this you know, this much money every week, but I am and I can get a meal kit versus buying groceries, and so I spend a little bit more here, but I'm still the inflow of cash is higher doing it this way than it is not working that third job

and just trying to save on groceries. So like you, you do the math and you see like what is you know better and while still being sustainable and not going to burn out? So we all pay for convenience don't let people who hate on you for because I know everyone loves to talk about slashing grocery budget and

we talk about that constantly. But like you said, Jen, and busy seasons and recognizing what else you're able to do with your time, it's totally permissible because while yes, you're paying for convenience, I do imagine it's it's not astronomical like sometimes we do imagine, especially when you're repurposing those dinners. It's awesome, Baton. I'm so glad for you.

If you have a bill, whether it's a subscription that you really value, you're glad to be paying for it for what it affords, a mix available for your life, or you just know a person named Bill and maybe they're the ones who deliver your your meal gets subscription Thanky Bill, or you know anything related to Bill. Because we keep it Loosing Goosey, visit Frugal Friends podcast dot com, slash Bill. Leave us a bill. We're excited to hear it.

Lucy Goosey. This Bill of the Week is brought to you by following us on Instagram, so we are posting more regularly on Instagram. We're sharing tips from the episodes where to find our lovely guests and the people who write the articles we talk about, and the occasional fun video where we make fun of cuponning but not really because I sometimes we hang out late at night and we find things funny and we have video recorded that

may or may not make it on Instagrams. Are like, you guys think that you're more funny than you actually are. Right now, finally we're just like, stop it, let's let the world decide. And then the world decides and we cry. But if you are on Instagram and you want to see some visual reinforcement from these episodes, you just want to see our faces more in the form of short bids and info graphics. Follow us over at Focal Friends podcast. And now it's time for who Lightning Someday, Jen, you

gotta just scare me with your Lightning Round. I don't think I will. I want to shake in my boots, which are actually my slippers. I am actually wearing running shoes right now because I have an ankle injury and they're the most padded shoes that I own. Yeah, but anyways, today's Lightning Round is going to be us sharing our versions of minimalist portfolios. And we do it differently, and we even do it I mean, we love all of the tips from the articles we read, but we even

do it differently from that. So again, this is really something you need to make your own. And if somebody is telling you this is the way to do it, do it my way. There's no other way, or my way beats the market. More. Don't run from those run from everything that those poor site. So I will go first, um, because in all honesty, I don't have a minimalist portfolio. In terms of funds. I have probably fewer funds than most, not most, I don't know. I like to. I have

some funds I like to play around with. I have some like E s G funds, which is um environment social governance like focused funds. I have some medical funds like that are just health related because I spoiler invest in my values, you know, so I value health and so I like to, you know, play around with that. I was an acupuncturist for five years, so that we don't talk about that enough. A cool background, but yeah, so that's something I'm interested in, so I invest in it.

And environmental sustainability something I'm passionate about. Something I invest in. So I think the key that we try to get across in the short one hour time span we have with you each week is to tell you this is just one way to do it. This is the easiest way maybe, but then you get you graduate from easy. You should graduate from easy, like you know we do. We did the baby steps from Dave Ramsey when we

were starting out. Those were easy, and then we learned more and we graduated from them, you know, so this is like the path of lease resistance. Yeah, I'm still um working towards graduation, you know, still just like iron out that Cathin gown. Thanks to this podcast and you, Jen, I actually have a retirement investment account. So that is on greatest accomplishment of this entire three probably years, probably setting you up with a fire ray. Jen literally did

do it in living room. So that's on auto draft. So really that what was it tip number three from the first article. I'm doing that and I could not be more pleased for that. And you know, when we're talking about net worth for us, you're calling me out on a gen but our house is part of that and building up to a point where we can bring in money with our current real estate situation and then invest more. That's what my sites are on next. Yeah, I just don't want you to ever turn off your

auto draft no matter I'm increasing it. I've increased it since you set me up with it. I love that about you. Thanks Jenn that I think. I love your championing me in it. I will champion everyone. I want anybody that starts investing from this episode or does something takes action at all, you d m s at Frugal Friends podcast, I'm gonna celebrate you like I want to celebrate you. I love it. Yeah, that's probably the most minimalist thing about my portfolio is that I don't look

at it often. I trade once a year if I'm lucky, and then yeah, I'm on auto draft, so every month the money comes out and it just does it and I we do. We max out our raphae rays, Travis and I each and that's kind of like, honestly the only thing we do right now. We don't even invest in four oh n k s. And some people are going to be like, well A, because I don't have a four oh one k. I'm self employed and I haven't set up a solo one and Travis is for

one k options are really bad. So we decided we want to invest in real estate instead beautiful So instead of tying up the money, you know, we're still doing twelve grand a year. That's not that's not going to shake your hand your stick at I gotta stick that is. That's a saying, so I'm shaking it. So yeah, that's how we do it. I don't think any like financial expert has a perfect portfolio. I like want to I know them, I like know these people, and nobody has

the perfect portfolio. You shouldn't have a perfect portfolio because everyone situation is unique, right Like, even though the majority of advice is going to say you should have a roth ira A and a four oh kay, Well what happens when both you and your spouse don't have that option available to you and the four one B doesn't make sense? And is the four or three B? Yeah, four or three b um plans are notorious for being horrible,

like with very high fee annuities. We're getting into the weeds now, but I will say, if you have a four oh three B, that's very high fee four oh three B wise dot org really great resource um mainly for teachers. I know, we have a lot of teachers that listen, so um, it's a great resource on maybe how it might be possible for you to get in a better type of plan. So you still have that text advantaged option in addition to a Raphael ray. So

that's all for this episode. I know it was a lot, but definitely reach out to us on Instagram if you have any questions, comments, concerns. Again, this was for educational purposes only. This is not financial advice. If you want specific advice for your personal situation, then reach out to a certified financial planner of fiduciary CFP. And now with that disclaimer, please don't sue us. Thank you so much

for listening, and thank you for your kind reviews. Thank you for not leaving one star reviews if you don't agree with of what we say, like ogre Joel who left a five star review and said, I love the accessible, fun way these ladies teach about finance and frugality. I laugh out loud during each episode and have learned so much. A new episode every Friday keeps me motivated and on track with my financial goals. Yes, such a great and encouraging review. Thank you, Joel Than. We also thank our

friends who share these episodes on social media. So when you share the latest episode and tag us on Facebook or Instagram, and like we said, we're hanging out more on Instagram, so hit us up there t see it, we more likely go to see it. Now we are adding you to our monthly drawing. So the way that that works, for every five tags and reviews we get each month, we give away a copy of the Frugal

Friends Workbook. If you've been listening to us long enough, you know that that Frugal Friends work Book comes with two downloads, so essentially as a two for one reward. Yes, and this is the last month you'll be able to get the Frugal Friends work Book. I know I said that a few months ago, but um I realized we didn't have anything else to give you. But starting next month we will. So yeah, and you can't no longer buy the workbook anymore. So that is a thing. This

is no This workbook is no longer for sale. So keep leaving us those reviews on iTunes or stihert and sending the screenshot to Frugal Friends podcast at gmail dot com. Don't forget to tag us on social see you next week. Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirian. I sat next to this guy on a plane once, and he must have paid for the internet on the plane to then be able to call instantly look at his stocks and investments.

He was just like and and he was like fiendish about it too, Like I swear he was sweating and it's thumbs were going a mile a minute. At first, I thought like, oh, man, like, he's really being productive on this flight. I'm just queuing up a movie. And then I'm like, actually, he doing too much. Though you can definitely do too much. He wanted the people next to him to see what he was doing, like he wanted people to be looking over and realized saying, oh yeah,

look at him. He's got in destment accounts and he must know about them and keep the track of Um, you got that big stock energy. I think it was it was probably honestly bitcoin that he was driving. Oh God, I gotta buy this internet on the plane, because there's no time to waste. I gotta keep mining. I gotta keep mining to the moon. Oh my gosh. Our our friend Chris Browning, Um, he said, he said it so eloquently. Its like investing should be like watching paint dry. That's

that's I mean, yeah, it should not be an exciting endeavor. No, And I think it's good to like, it's good to have conversations with people that don't agree with you, because there are some people who believe that actively managed mutual funds are superior to passive index funds that you can manage yourself. And it's good to remember that that ideology is still out there, and it's uh, it's not as

mainstream anymore. And I haven't met one person in finance that agrees that actively managed like commission based money managers that hawk these actively managements. Because there are some actively managed funds that are pre legit, like if you're super into a certain type of sector, some of those can only be bought actively managed, But I'm talking about like the five percent front load um type of funds, Like there are still people that believe that those are superior.

And so the work we're doing is good for people. If your financial advisor doesn't take a fee and he makes money on your investments, they may not be promoting the best investments for you. Well, we'll see those people in thirty years of compare notes Uh, catch me on Instagram, we'll talk about it.