Hey, frugal Friends, this is Eric Sirianni, producer of this podcast, and I'm here to let you know that we have four bonus episodes that will be releasing over the next four Tuesday's starting today. But wait, there's more. These podcasts are actually videos that we recorded at Think two thousand nineteen in d C, and they're also available on YouTube by searching Frugal Friends thin Con two thousand nineteen or by clicking the link in the show notes Where's that beat?
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, rights, and liver with your life. Here your host Jen and Jill. Okay, cool, okay, okay. Welcome to in front of two Mike's with your frugal friends. I'm Jen, I'm Jill. And a big question that many people had in our Facebook group is what or our biggest frugal failed bump bump bump, And we're gonna answer
that for you. Yeah, Jen's gonna answer it because I never failed, so yeah, and I yeah, I had a lot of failures, So I think my biggest um was an RV that we purchased. We had a really novel idea that we were going to just like Jill and Eric who never failed, we were going to get an RV and renovate it and then sell it for profit. And we got this like super great deal on a really large fifth wheel UM. But for our first project,
it was Uh. The reason it was a deal is because it was so large nobody could house it and it was so old like r V parks wouldn't take it. So it was a great deal but not ideal for reselling UM. So we didn't lose money on it, but it was a case where frugality, our fruality, really did not serve us well in that purchase. The thing is, so this is what I want to say about that. I'm not discounting what you're saying in your story, but
you guys made it beautiful. You really did do a good job with it, and you did not lose money, right, So yeah, you're calling it a fail but yeah, it didn't meet the expectation I had UM, so that's why it was a failure. But still we didn't lose money, So we learned from our failures. We do what would you say you would do differently or that you've taken away from that experience, Um, we would have spent a little more money to get something newer that needed less work.
So that's where spending more money really would have served us. Well. Yeah, and maybe start small, starting smaller. Yeah, so maybe we didn't even have to spend more money. We just would have thought and you know, maybe we haven't done this,
so like maybe we should start small. We did an episode on Frugal Flipping, which I think you talk about this story and it's worth checking out because that is one of the tenants of just starting small, that if you think you want to do something, you think you're going to enjoy it, do that thing to the smallest degree possible to get your feet wet, to gain excitement. Because I think you guys very very well could flip r vs. But that experience seems to kind of take
in the wind out of your sales. You might jump on the bandwagon again at some point with the lessons that you've learned, but my motivation is waning at this point. I won't be I'm not good with my hands, like I'm good behind a computer things your hands, and this is my like extent of making things with my hands, typing on a laptop yea, So how about you. So I do have frugal fails. I joke when I say I never failed, that's fully a joke. I'm sarcastic. You'll
learn this about me. So back when I was planning to get married, it was quick. We knew we wanted to get married. I wasn't concerned about what color that napkins we're gonna be. I just wanted to be married, and I wanted to take I wanted to make it short to also take away some of that decision fatigue, like I don't need all these choices in front of me. Were just we're just gonna do it. However, the dress turns out was important to me. I realized that later.
So here's what happened. I was searching online. I was never one of those people who planned my wedding since I was a little girl. I didn't want to think about it until it was a reality. So I for the first time in looking up wedding dresses and learning what I like, and I find this amazing designer online. I'm not a designer person, but the dress that she made was fantastic. So then I so then of course prog on me or maybe cheat me back then, was like, all right, how do I find this dress or a
similar dress like it? You know, so that designer and knockoffs or dresses like this that I can find in expensive places. Well, I happen to stumble upon this dressmaker in China who promised that they would be able to make this very dress to look very similar to what I see online for only one hundred dollars shipping included. There were no red flags, right, I was just like, a hundred dollars, I'm gonna do it. How bad could it be? At worst? I'm sure I can work with it. Yeah.
Of course people were like, You're probably not gonna like it, but I I said no. At the end of the day, though, I will have only spent a hundred dollars, so if it doesn't work, then I'm not out that much and I'll wear my sister's wedding dress. Us curse. I had tried it on, it fit, I didn't love it, but that was my backup plan. I said, no, no, no, I know that I'll be fine wearing my sister's dress. So try this thing out for a hundred dollars. The thing comes in the mail. It comes in a package.
Oh this is the nice thing about video on podcast. You can't do this package literally like this big. And I was in college at the time. My mom calls me. I'm just like, I think your dress is here, I'm not sure, and I was like, I okay, open it. I guess open it. And I didn't have a smartphone. I couldn't get pictures sent to me. You know, we're not like there was no video call time that ancient,
but technology has advanced a lot. So she pulls it out and all I hear her say, it's just okay, okay, yeah, well maybe anyhow, long story short, it looked nothing like anything like the picture online, and that's when reality set in that I actually don't want to wear my sister's wedding dress. I thought that it would be fine, but I realized I had put all my hopes in this one hundred dollar dress from China that didn't work out.
So then what ended up happening was I went to a dress shop and found a dress off the rack that I ended up paying four hundred dollars for, and that equal amount to get it altered because it was so last minute that I couldn't order my size with how quickly our wedding was happening, So it ended up being about an eight hundred dollar dress. I thought I was being frugal still in the grand scheme of things,
I guess that's not a super expensive dress. But when I thought that I was going to be spending a hundred waiting for that last minute just cost me a whole lot more. That's a that's a fail. That is one fail. There's no way of slicing that one different. Just don't trust one hundred dollar dresses online from China to be your wedding grass when they promise they can make it exactly like the multi thousand dollar dress for a hundred dollars questions, it's a lie, it's a scam.
So that's anyhow. We love your frugal fails and you can connect with us on our Facebook community group. We've got a super active following and engage with us because we all here about it. Yeah, hang out with the Frugal Friends community on Facebook and we'll see you there. That's been another episode of in Front of two min Front of two mins. What we came up with that. Frugal Friends is produced, edited and mixed by Eric Sherrian