Sinking Funds Explained

like how many, like how much? Like for what? And uh so we're going to dive into some of that so that you when somebody says sinking fund, you're like, I've got this and this, it's got this much. This is how much I contribute. And I feel very confident about my sinking funds. M that's a total pivot to one eighties in one podcast episode. I will also be honest to you. I did not know what a sinking fund is for a very long time. I have known now for over a god at least. So glad you

didn't say I didn't know what sinking fund was until today. No, no, no no, no, that's that's not the case. But when we first kind of started out doing this podcast episode and I was introduced all these people in the personal finance world and people were talking about this I I didn't know what it was. It wasn't hard to understand what it was, but it was a term I had

never heard before. And it was to the point where I even felt like too embarrassed to ask you, Jen, because I knew it was one of those things like the Internet is probably going to be able to tell me what this is. And still, of course took me forever to finally like research it. Not that it takes much researching, but even for those of you who aren't certain what a sinking fund is, it'll be it'll be a three sixty for you on the episode to not

only learn what it is, but then begin implementing. But that's probably not you. That was probably just me. I was very every Yeah, it doesn't matter where you're at, you're gonna get something from today's episode, and it's gonna be fun and not boring. But first, this sinking Funds episode is brought to you by Debt Freedom. How convenient. So if you know us, you know we believe Debt's neutral. It's not it's not the it's what you do with debt that grows or limits your finances. It's not the

debt itself. So we also know from personal experience that getting rid of debt is freaking awesome. And after a survey of you guys, we've found that about sixty of you are trying to do just that. But actually this sponsor isn't for that sixty percent of you directly. This is actually for our listeners who have paid off debt because we want to feature and celebrate you in an upcoming series called Debt Payoff Stories. So hopefully you're listening to this because you've paid off debt and you want

to get your sinking funds in order. That was the point of starting with this one. I could be wrong. This could be people that are like, I'm not even at my debt yet, I just have no money. I'm so sorry if that's you, But we want to inspire you with the stories of people who have paid off debt, and that's who we're calling out to. So we want to share your your story for a special project that we are doing. So if you've reached your debt payoff, well, even if it's not a hundred percent of your debt

We're okay with that. We are much more flexible than other debt payoff celebration series. Much more flexible. Uh So head to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash stories for more info and to fill out a short pre screen survey. This is not a big commitment from you. We really just wanna a share your story so it inspires other people and be celebrate you in whatever your debt payoff goal is, even if it's not aligned with other people's

definition of how you should celebrate debt payoffs. So frugirl Friends podcast dot com slash stories to share your interest with us very celebrating you, very excited about this. Also, if you are into sinking funds and debt payoff and all of that mostly saving um, we have some other

episodes for you to queue up after this one. So we've got episode to save Smarter not Harder UM how to stick with your financial plan, and that is about how to really be efficient in lowering your expenses so that you have more of a margin to build a savings. So if you're really struggling with just say anything at all, then that's definitely one for you episode. And then also episode two forte UM about divesting, and that's sustainable banking.

That could be really interesting to you if you're wondering where should I keep my sinking fund. I'm so excited about this. I don't know what it is about. Ever since I understood what they were, I'm like, I am all in on that, and it gives me the permission to spend. Really, it's this spending plan. It feels gamified to me, especially when sometimes you get to add more to it, and then when the time comes to spend on that thing, it's like, yeah, I already got it.

I already got the coupon for that. It's called my sinking fund. Lovely and so so. Also, in addition to me semi convincing you, we've got this article from Forbes which gives some reasons to start a sinking fund in case you're still on the fence about this and my my excitement isn't motivating you. And of course it also explains what it is that a sinking fund is a bit different from savings, which are normally your longer term goals. A sinking fund is is it like a smaller savings

account for a specific reason. And I really like how they separate this out that there's a whole lot of freedom here. How large you're sinking fund is, how often you make a contribution to it, how much you contribute to it. All of this is up to you. There's freedom, there's flexibility, you decide. But there are two rules of thumb that Forbes outlines the Forbes article outlines. Is One, you intentionally save, so it's not this haphazard or it's

an intentional thing. You are saving for something. And number two, you don't use that fund for something else. So whatever it is that you've just idd that sinking fund is for, it is for that specific purpose, kind of like how an emergency fund is for emergencies, not the haircut you know you're going to need every six months. It's not an emergency. You saw that coming. So just because you forgot you scheduled it six months ago, it doesn't make

an emergency. Yeah, So similarly with the sinking fund. And what I also love about sinking funds is that you can have a lot of them. There can be many multiple sinking funds for many different reasons. We'll get into more giving examples to inspire you further, but I love these two foundational rules intentional and specific and I love that. One of the rules isn't you have to have a sinking fund for everything that you have to know everything

you're going to need a sinking fund for. That is really what separates a sinking fund from an emergency fund. So like for a car, you know that you can anticipate. We we love to think, oh, I'm going to keep my car forever. I'm just gonna keep it forever, or I'm going to keep it for ten years. But we have to look at the average length of time people keep their cars. Should you get into an accident or something, you need to be prepared with some kind of extra

down payment to put onto a car. If your car isn't going to have that much value at a later you know, the longer you hold it, it is a depreciating value. So look at it and you're like, Okay, I have this car, it's four years old. I can anticipate that I may have it six more years. And so within six years I need to have saved up enough to put a hefty amount down, even if it's not the total. And if if you've looked at the

price of cars lately, don't don't do it again. And if you haven't, don't or do because you're gonna need to know how much to put in your thinking fund. Yeah, so so you're gonna need You can't just rely on just trading in your car like everything is going to be perfect, like it's going to be an even split for down payment and all that. You need to prepare for stuff like that and and that. Stuff you can anticipate. It's not like an emergency you can't you shouldn't be.

The emergencies that you should not anticipate are are kind of are fear based almost, so we don't want to walk around in fear that we're going to lose our job. We want to live around in the confidence that this is a job we're going to keep, they're gonna be able to grow in, or that we're going to be able to um use it as stepping stone to get somewhere else. You don't want to live in fear of

losing your job. That's why we use an emergency fund to compensate you for lost income for the average amount of time people in your field are typically out of work. That's when an emergency fund is for. Uh, you don't want to anticipate you'll get into a car accident, that you'll get rear ended, and that you'll need a lot of money upfront for a car immediately. Um, that's what

emergency fund is for. But best case scenario, you don't get in an accident, or you get an accident in six years, you're you're prepared, you don't need to use that emergency fund. So this is really what differentiates the emergency fund from the sinking fund. We plan for as many expenses as we can. We don't need to plan for individual expenses. We can. We can create broad categories for them. But if you look at around your house, then you're going to see things that need a sinking

fund guaranteed. So yeah, we can go through these these six six reasons additional reasons just to get our wheels turning and motivate us to do this. Jen kick us off. Yes, So the first reason, besides the basis, I guess I did cover some reasons, but I really wanted to emphasize the difference between an emergency fund and a sinking fund.

UM is that you can't avoid interest. UM. And so a lot of people argue that I will just use my credit card or I will take I will have um, a home equity line of credit, and I will use those things as my emergency fund. That way I don't have to save or I can invest more, YadA YadA.

And unfortunately, like I mean, yeah, you can absolutely do that, but you need to be at a place where your savings rate is high enough to pay those things off quickly, or you'll get yourself into a cycle of debt that you won't be able to escape from for a long time. So you should not rely on anything interest based. Two put towards anything that does not gain equity, that does

not appreciate. UM. That's kind of like a rule of thumb most financial advisors will tell you is that you don't use, you don't pay interest for anything that can't gain you more appreciation or equity than the interest costs you. And emergencies are not are not equitable. They will not I mean, they will not do that for you. So you should not. It is not responsible to rely on interest based cards and loans to cover them for for for things that you can anticipate. And I don't know,

there's always like medical things. And this is really the only like caveat when you're when you're at a place where you have an emergency fund and it dwindles and you still have nothing, then that's where these things come in. They're not inherently evil, but there are so many things that you can see coming that should have yeah, that you should have sinking fund for so you don't put

them on finances. Yeah, it's these shorter term things in general, the things that are going to be upcoming in the next one to five years that we can foresee and we have a sinking fund for it, and we can pay cash for it, and we don't have to rely on high interest debt to cover that. The second reason for sinking funds is that it allows our emergency fund

to remain intact. I know we've already talked a lot about that, but when we are able to have these other smaller savings accounts for specific purposes, it means that we don't need to touch our emergency fund for those things. For instance, a lot of times we might dip into the emergency fund for certain car repairs, but reality is things like new tires. I can see that coming. I can know that probably bly in the next two to two to five years, I'm going to need new tires,

and that's quite an expense. I can have a separate sinking fund for something like that that keeps my grimy little pause off of the emergency fund, so that that emergency fund can remain intact for the true emergencies, the actual things that I really truly did not see coming, nor did I fully want to be planning for or anticipating,

because it's it's an actual emergency. It's I like her, you know, the Hurricane Ian that came through recently, Like there were some unanticipated costs of needing to evacuate our home and stay in a hotel and loss of food. That's an emergency fund worthy thing, like a natural disaster came through, and yeah, we were able to dip into that a bit and hopefully reimburse that fund. But that's what the emergency fund is for, not these maintenance items.

As we grow in our finances, of course, there's stepping stones. There could be times where Okay, great, I do have the money, I don't have to you put this on a credit card. But then the next stepping stone is what are the things that we know are coming. We can anticipate and we can keep a separate account beyond the emergency fund for that yeah, and it doesn't have to be multiple accounts either. I know some people want to have a separate high yield savings account for each

of their sinking funds. That's not me. I have one high yield savings account and that carries all of my sinking funds, and I have a separate one for my emergency fund. So I just have three accounts. And so I have an emergency fund, sinking funds, and the regular checking where everything comes out of. And that's it. That's very simple for me. If you want more, you can

definitely have more. UH. Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash c i T is currently the high yeld savings account that we are recommending right now has the highest ap Y of any of the accounts, with a few hoops to jump through to get it. But yeah, you don't have to have a lot. So uh. The next one is you can pay off debt at the same time. And so this is when you're working on a limited income.

This is super difficult UM and this may require some UM reprioritization in particular areas, depending on what you've identified. So when you're thinking about sinking funds, I say, look around your house. So if you're a homeowner, you should be looking at your home appliances, looking at the date of purchase, googling when how long that unit last typically last, or how units in long units in general like that last.

Say you have a water heater that's third two years old, like we did with ours, was thirty maybe know it was twenty seven years old years old when we moved into our house, and we know that those things last for thirty years. So we got um the price for when we wanted and how much it would cost to install, and so we spent two years saving for that in our sinking fund account. And it did last a little longer than that we were and we were okay, and then we ended up getting the thing that we wanted.

We wanted a tankless water heater, and we ended up getting a brand new one on Facebook Marketplace. It was even less then we had originally thought, because we weren't because we had the money, and we we knew a timeline for how long it would last. So when we were about there, while it was still going, we were able to check on Facebook Marketplace for several months months before this thing just popped up and Travis found us. So we weren't. It wasn't an emergency because we were

just looking. So by the time that it did go, we just installed the new, the brand new tankless water heater that we already had several months later actually because it started the leak. And uh and yeah, So when you're preparing for things like this in a sinking fund, it turns what could be an emergency into a inconvenience. If that just like something you know that another chore on your list. But so go around your house, look at the things that are going to need to be replaced.

Is it your computer, your phone, your car, your water heater, your stove, whatever. It doesn't even have to be like a necessary thing. And it's just like I want a new stove. My stoves got five you know, got ten years on it left. But this isn't the hype of stove. I want then start saving for it in a sinking fund, and you can do that at mounts small enough. If you're planning early. That doesn't make it seem like it

is a goal competing with a debt payoff goal. That's the that's the main point I wanted to make in this. If you start early, you're just transferring small amounts over and so it's not a goal, it's a habit, and it's not competing with the bigger goal of debt payoff. Now, if something is like this is gonna go, this is already on the brink of going, it's gonna go in like the next four months, then we pause the main goal. We refocus to a new goal of saving to replace

that item. Once we've saved, we go back to the original goal. So that's kind of how you can balance your sinking fund goals in your debt payoff goals, so they're not competing against each other. Yeah. Connected to this idea and your story, Jen about the water heater, number four is advocating that it can help us avoid impulse purchases. And I would even add over spending on an item when we have a sinking fund for it, because it provides a natural boundary line and parameter for how much

we spend. So they give the example of you know, if if we know we're going to be purchasing a car and we have a sinking fund for it, then that sinking fund kind of dictates which car we purchase because that's the amount that we have set aside for it.

Versus if we don't have that sinking fund, sometimes we could just go into a dealership and just willy nilly choose whatever after the first test drive and then experience buyers remorse because we never really had any boundary lines helping us to identify what's realistic, what's affordable, what what can I be purchasing? And so, you know, a car is a massive example, but I would say even down to new furniture. You know, it's the difference between having

money set aside. I've got six dollars for a new cow coach versus I just want a new couch, so I'm gonna go out and I dropped twelve thousand dollars oopsie. So these limitations can really help us too in avoiding some of that overspending or impulse buys when we've got the amount we can spend, and really that allows us to spend more freely and with permission, because here's the money I already have designated for this thing. And one thing I like about having one sinking fund account for

everything is that say I'm saving for a couch. I know the couch I want, I've planned for it, and I'm saving for it, and I see it at a price I've never seen it at before, or I see it on at the exact couch I want on Facebook market Place, I'll never see this amount again. But I

don't have that much saved yet. I can just take from another sinking fund essentially to take advantage of that deal, which is not an whole spoy, it's something I've had planned, and take advantage of that deal, and then just compensate with continuing to like you know, quote unquote save for

the couch into the sinking fund. Even though I've already bought the couch, I'm still saving for the couch up until that amount that I've purchased it for, So that can be a perk two versus like if I just had If I'm trying to find a thousand dollar couch and I have a sinking fund and I only have six d in it, but I see it for seven hundred, then you know what I'm gonna have to do with that? How do I finagle that? But if I already have other sinking funds in the account, I can just I

don't have to worry about it. I can take advantage of the deal on the thing that I've planned to get and and not really worry about it. It's breaking rule number two, Jen, but I'll allow it. That's not taking from your emergency fund well, but the sinking fund being the specific But yes, that's that is a nice approach though, the flexibility of just having a sinking fund and here's the very things I want to use that

sinking fund for. I do think it's a great alternative approach because it solves for the price the difficulty of prioritizing.

That's the thing that always stands out to me is when I start to think about all the things I could or should be saving for, it's quite overwhelming, and sometimes it can lead to a lack of gratitude for like what I do have and just feel like, oh my gosh, I'm never gonna have enough, because whether you look at your home or your car, or the wants or desires that you have for the future, like, there are endless possibilities of the things that we could be

saving for. So prioritizing can be like the next difficult barrier in this process of a sinking fund. But your approach, Jen, kind of solves for that to say, here's the sinking fund, here's the three to five things currently on that list, but that can shift so that we don't have to really lose sleep at night over. How do I decide

what these sinking funds are being allocated to? Yeah, and I at first it comes down to figuring out what you value and saying no to some things that you could save for that other people are saving for it that are perfectly fine to save for, but you're saying no too, so that you can save for other things. So you have to know that first before you start you're sinking funds. So the next reason it's really important to have a sinking funds is if you earn a

variable income. And so this is this is the only way that I would have if I I do have a variable income, so maybe I should have this fourth account.

But so sometimes if you have a variable income, especially if you are commission based and you make most of your commission in one season versus the other three, then you should start a just an income sinking fund where you're kind of totaling up everything you made over the last year and dividing that by twelve so you have a stable income to plan from, and then when you make your big income, you're not spending lavishly in those few months, you're putting it in the sinking fund anything

that's over and above the average, and then every month you're supplementing your income from this separate sinking fund. So this is a really important way to stabilize your budgeting. Uh, if that's something you're having a problem with from an extremely variable income, love that idea. And lastly, reason for sinking funds is because we can't predict the future, we can be plan full and that's what sinking funds and

emergency funds are advocating for. But even as this article points out, we might be saving for something, but we don't know. Okay, I could think two years from now, I'm going to need new tires, but maybe something happens where a tire gets destroyed like it did for me and the parking lot of jury duty, and suddenly we

need new tires before we thought that we did. And so having some money already set aside is going to be really helpful for Yes, we can't predict the future, but these help us to be planful and intentional and just better prepared for when these things arise. Oh it

feels so good. I would say that's probably a good portion I don't know what percentage, but a good portion of our bill of the weak segments that we get in our people who are just so excited about some of these unforeseen bills because they did indeed plan for them. It's such a good feeling because of the permission that it gives us to spend that money, because it's we have it, and it's set aside for that reason. Absolutely.

So our next article is four steps to starting a sinking fund, and we're gonna dive also a little bit into more types of sinking funds that you could start. But I really liked that this article started with what should you use sinking funds for? And this list that they give an example. Is there anything on the list, Jill that like you didn't think about. One of the ones that stands out to me is preparing for a

planned medical or dental procedure. I'm sure like many of our listeners, I don't have dental insurance like other things are covered. I don't know why we've decided as a nation our eyes and our teeth don't matter, but they feel really crucial to me, and we all know that when when we got a toothage or it's it's an emergency and it needs to get figured out a SAP.

That is weird to me. So planning for having a sinking fund for those things that aren't covered by our medical insurance, but we definitely know we need like I care and dental care. Holy smokes, and that's not what this podcast is about. But get me all tizzy over here. I like that idea having a sinking fund for that. Yeah, so they've got the standard ones on here, like sinking funds for Christmas, for the planned medical or dental procedures. Um,

a family reunion or vacation. We didn't talk about that, but that's a very common sinking fund is for vacation, and it should be UM. Buying a new car, taking on a new home renovation. I've said it before and I'll said it again. Home renovations are not investments. They are quality of life improvements. So they should be safe for except in my case. Okay, you are creating an income producing section of your house. That's true. But also you saw my kitchen. This is an upgrade and it

will help them the sale of the house. The kitchen was a dumpster fire, right, We'll all upgrades. Okay, all upgrades are benefit in the sale of the house, but then you dump that money right back into a different form of living. So that just that's circular for for cost of living. So it's not something you should be taking out a loan for, is what I'm saying, is taking out a loan for home improvements for things that

won't make you money. Should you create a second part of your house that it generates income, sure, then that could that could make its money back. But typically home renovations that are quality of life improving and yes they improve the house value, those should be saved for in a sinking fund. Covering annual twition costs for private school or daycare, um renewing yearly memberships or subscriptions like Costco

or Amazon Prime. I would push back on that, that's that's just a part of the budget, right, that's a twenty bucks or less. So don't don't waste your time planning for property or income tax payments. That can often be something that's more than your miscellaneous fun back to school shopping, new living room in bedroom furniture, or major appliance upgrades, routine car repair costs, and then the unexpected

expenses like medical emergencies and forgotten insurance premiums. I don't know how many insurance premiums you have that you could have forgotten ones, unless it's like I have his few necessary insurance premiums as possible. Okay, well let's go through. Let's go through the steps. Uh. The first step is

to determine your timeline and input. I mean I would I would actually argue before that, decide what the funds are for, unless you're doing a gen approach and you're just you're throwing it all into a bucket and walking away and moving on with your life, which is fine too. You know, some people just like to wing it, Jill. Yeah, yeah, you're like, you're proactively winging it. And I love that

about you're proactively winging it. So I would say one A is to have some idea of the sinking funds that you want, what are you going to be putting these things towards, and whether or not you have it actually separated out or it's just one fund. That's fine to decide that, and then one B determine your timeline and how much you're gonna put into it. So let's say you've got a kid and you're already starting to see their teeth are a little funky, and you're gonna

want to put some braces on that mouth. All right? How much time do you have until you're gonna do braces for your child? Is it five years? Is it ten years? Those are some of the things that are going to help determine the timeline or are we saving for the holidays? Usually that's just an annual thing. So you've got the one year, or maybe you haven't started until right now, You've got two months. It comes the same day every year, Christmas. It's the same day, sure

every year. Sure, but we just didn't think about it until right now. And then how much do you want ultimately save for that thing? Sometimes then you can just divide it by the month. Okay, that means I need to put this munch aside every month. You you decide the timeline, you decide the input. But that is going to help you determine how you're approaching this sinking fund. For me, for a Christmas sinking fund, I decided I wanted to have three fifty for me. That's a good price.

I can whatever whatever it's going to end up covering around the holidays. I wanted three fifty and that fund. So depending on the timeline that I started it, I could have put it anywhere from yeah, fifty bucks here, ten bucks there, until eventually December comes and I got three fifty sitting in that account. Yes, so yeah, definitely figure out. Look, just look around your home. Just go around and walk around, walk around and walk around and

skip around, walk around the inside and the outside. And that may also determine how soon you need a vacation UM, depending on how many toys you see on the floor. But and then figure out what you want to say for prioritize it, because you you should not say for everything at once. Here here me now if you need if you have three things that need to be replaced, don't say from all at once, sayer and back to back, and should one go out before the the other one?

So if number two goes out before number one, then you can just use the stuff you save for number one and then save for number one. Again, it's very flexible. It's your money. But prioritize complete one thing before you go to the next, and figure out a time timeline

for that. And many of the UM savings accounts actually you can have one savings account, but with different quote unquote buckets that you can say, Okay, I have five thousand in this account, but you know fifteen hundred of it is for this, fifteen hundred of it is for this, YadA YadA. I keep a spreadsheet for that so that you don't lose track, or you can keep a spreadsheet if you're not winging it. So next is decide what type of account will work best. We've already said that

high yield savings accounts those are the best. Those are what when you want to work with. Because we even say keep your emergency fund in a high yeld savings account. This is an even shorter term than a high yield savings account um and you still don't know when you're gonna need it typically, So keep it in something that's high yield that doesn't charge fees if you're not actively putting money into it, because you won't. You don't always have to put money into your sinking fun all the time.

If you've saved for hopefully you'll get to a point where you've saved for the things you need to save for, and that money is just sitting there and you don't want to be charged a fee for it to sit there. And most of the online high yield savings accounts nowadays do not have fees for stuff like that. They have you know, two fifty dollar minimum to put in, but no minimum minimum to hold after that, or you know, you don't have to set up direct deposit to it

or anything, so make sure you're checking that again. Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash c i T meets all those qualifications has a really good a p Y above two, so that is what we think works best. And you typically will get a debit card with the account as well, UM, so that you'll never have to wait that one to three days to transfer it to your regular account. And

number three on here is to organize a tracking system. UM. So, like we've mentioned, maybe you're working with a savings account that allows you to kind of allocate buckets within that

one account, or you need a separate spreadsheet. That's kind of how I approach it is having a spreadsheet where maybe all the money is just in one account, but I'm keeping track of but how much of that money is for this fund, how much of it is for that fund, And so that's where I kind of track as I put money in what's being allocated to what

thing that I'm saving for. But some sort of system is going to be helpful so that you make sure you're not accidentally spending money on something that you didn't you didn't mean to that the money is actually being allocated for something else. So having some sort of way to keep track is important. Yeah, and then the last is to just get started. Saving for sinking fund is

a habit, not a goal. Again, a lot of the times were like, how do I allan's all of these goals, like saving for this, saving for that, This is not a goal. A sinking fund is not a goal. It's a habit and you save into it every month along

with your bigger goal. So whatever your bigger goal at the time is, whether it's saving a full emergency fund, whether it's paying off debt, this is something that is a a habit and sometimes it will transcend into a goal if it's a short term you know, like your friends getting married in a whirlwind marriage and they want you to be there in Italy and you're like, okay, I'll say for it. I'm gonna pause this and say for this. Sometimes you get stuff like that, but ultimately,

regularly saving is a habit. It's just something you do. You gotta go, you gotta do it, you gotta start, start somewhere, and you'll just get even better and better at it has become muscle memory. Yeah, you know what's muscle memory that I have started and can never stop. Oh, it's the best kind of habit. So I just do it. The bill. 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. To Bill Buffalo Bills, Bill Clint, this is the bill of the week. Hey, Jen and Jill, This is Ashley. I'm from Columbus, Ohio, and my son and I are very excited to give you a bill of the week because we listened to your show all

the time. He is seven, by the way. But our bill of the week is a couple of weeks ago, our kitchen fawcett busted off in our home, so we were unable to use it without water just being everywhere, and I was able to through the help of YouTube and my dad coaching me over the phone. Go out and get my own kitchen sink faucet, replace it, and add shut off valves that were not already in place, so if there's ever an emergency again, we at least have shut off valves that we did not have prior

to this. So I saved myself a plumber bill by doing this and it was absolutely fantastic. And also my seven year old name is William, so there's a second bill. I love you guys. You guys are great. You're my heroes. Keep doing what you do. You give me so much inspiration. Thanks by Ashley. Actually, how did you save the best part for last? How was that? Like? Oh side note, by the way, this is the very thing that the Bill of the Week theme song calls for, and we

have not gotten it until this very moment. I mean my sidebar is I'm very proud of you for doing your own plumbing work and saving yourself on that bill. But also, seven year old William, we are here for you than to us. You are the bill of the week, if not the bill of the month, year, decade, millennium. This is amazing. Thanks for telling your mom to call in and tell us about her amazing plumbing d I

y problem solving skills and just for being you. Yes, congrats. Actually, what a great feeling to try and do something on your own shout out to your dad and to YouTube, and then actually being able to do it, like you know when you're when something's outside of your capabilities and you're like, yeah, let a professional do this versus just you know, screwing it all up. But like it's hey, that's something that's actually doable. You figured out how to

do it. You've got creative, you got scrappy, you did it, and I'm so proud of you, Ashley. And it's just serendipitous that your son's name is William. Hey, William, shout out. I'm so happy to have you guys. Wow, frugal friends. It's gonna take me a long time to come down from this high. Yeah. I always think all these this bill of the week can't get topped, and I think we've truly now arrived. I am not certain, but hey,

give it a try. If you want to submit your bill of the week, if you have an actual son named William who listens to our podcast, if you are Bill Curtis, oh my gosh, okay, that'll be I don't know this might top it for me, William. You can try visit for bol Friends Podcast dot com slash bill. Leave us your bill, but truly we'll listen to any bill. I get excited about all of them. I'm just really really stoked on this one, but I'll be I'll be by the time you submit your bill. I'll be stoked

on your message too. So do it for Bold Friends Podcast dot com, slash bill. And now it's time for the world. That was a new way. Yeah, that was That was good from Goldie. What kind of things do you have sinking funds for? Jill, I'll let you go. I got I got him ever since I learned what a sinking fund was and a new favorite fan girl, and I'm here for it. Sinking You're seen. So, as you mentioned, Jen, my sinking funds are connected to my

core values. So if we're thinking about prioritizing, that's another way to kind of consider this. Of course, you've just got the necessity is like new tires on my car aren't necessarily a core value, although you know, if safety is really important, that's good too. But my sinking funds are connected to a lot of my core values. So I've got uh, sinking fund for Christmas, because, like you said, Jen's Christmas is on the same day every year, so

we should see it coming. But mind you, this is actually the first year that I created a sinking fund for Christmas, so I'm finally a full grown frugal adult who's planning for the impending holiday, so proud of that. And I also have a sinking fund for travel. I will say that I don't actually have a goal for how much money goes into travel. I just have the

regularity an amount that I add to the travel. So then when I finally do get to the point of, oh I want to book a trip, it kind of helps me to determine, oh, well, I've got this much set aside for travel. So I don't have an end goal of what amount is going to go into that account, more so just I just keep adding to it and then pulling from it, adding to it and pulling from it. We also have a sinking fund for Eric's music equipment.

That is a core value of his really important. It's an important aspect of his personhood and what he likes to engage in. So having letting him have his letting him him having his own account for that where he knows I can pull money from this and I don't feel stressed about you've been how much on a new drumhead. He's got the money for it and that set aside, so that that's just a helpful thing for our marriage. And then we've got a sinking fund for our renovations

because we're deep into that. Again. That helps us to set our budgets for how much we can spend on cabinetry and countertops. We've got this renovations fund, and then I have a Generosity fund, so money just goes into this other sinking fund that I know, as a need arises, I can pull from that and give to whatever it is that might be in front of me. M hm. Those my sinking funds, Christmas, travel, music, Reno, Generosity beautiful. What about you, John? Uh? Well, I got h sinking fund.

I've got one sinking fund for kind of everything. Um, we have money saved for our renovation. So that's pretty much all in there, and we are it's pretty much all that's in there right now because that encompasses like everything in our house getting replaced, like we don't have to have several like for the water heater and the oven in the fridge and it's like it's all in there, it all needs to be replaced. It's all under renovation. Yeah, it's all from like the eighties and it's going to

go soon. And then we are hoping to get a new car next year because the car I have is definitely a lemon. Unfortunately it's I wouldn't want to change my car, but it's it's unsafe to drive and Hyundai doesn't care. So that's been frustrating to deal with for the past three years. And and it's just kind of like, Okay,

I give up, I'm tired. And so so, yeah, that a couple of thousand for that, but most of that because that car is paid off, so all of it can go towards um just transferring into another used car. But so we just got a couple of grand for that, and I think I think that's it. I mean, I do have a baby sinking fund. I'm miss saving some for a baby. So m hm, surprise is this is

an announcement? Is it happening in this episode? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I love how you watching you announce this pregnancy is like one of my new faves because it's very minimal build up. It carries so much excitement we don't even discuss, like when are you going to announce it to our podcast community? And apparently it's right now and it's baked into side notes sinking fund. Oh my gosh, you're so

funny and I'm so excited for you. Well, our next episode is about health insurance and I was thinking about doing it then, but then I just like, the time never came. But I am saving for the hospital bills that will arise from this pregnancy ordeal. Um, when it's your second, it's an ordeal. Apparently, Yeah, when it's your second, it's an ordeal. So so yeah, I think that's the biggest that's that is the only thing we are actively

saving for. Everything else is in the bag. And um, so I still got a couple more months for that. Jen's having a baby. It's gonna be her second child. What do you do? Everyone's gonna want to know March. So we will have um, you will hear me on the show. We're gonna batch a lot of them before I leave, and then we're gonna have some guest co hosts that you have heard before, so stay tuned for that. Jill holding it down with no kids, and some guest

co hosts. Mm hmmm, so yeah, but it'll be mostly me up until just a few weeks of guest co hosts. But um, but yeah, that's what's going on. You all are so excited and want to one a more intimate look on Jen's pregnancy journey. Should probably join our patreon,

which we're about talk about. Thank you everyone for listening, and many of you know we have a private club for listeners trying to pay off debt, but we also have a patreon for frugal friends who just want to support the show and get some free goodies and some side piece inside that includes a bonus episode where you can definitely ask me questions about my pregnancy. For sure, you can ask questions about any I'm going to ask Jen my one of my favorite things. I probably shouldn't

admit this this platform, but here we are. We're here. I love watching pregnant women dance, like when they're real big and pregnant and then they dance to club songs. It's one of my favorite things. So my request to you that you're just finding out now, is I'm going to have you dance to something. Oh, it'll probably yummy. By Justin Bieber. I'm gonna wait till you're like seven or eight months pregnant, and then I'm gonna play it and I'm going to videotape it. So we wanted shout out.

Won't play anywhere except for the page, Robaly anywhere except for the Patreon, and we want to shout out our newest patrons on Patreon from September. We got Janine T. Chapin, C Felicia be Stamantha H. Actually are Deborah M, Elizabeth C, Alicia M, Jennifer E, Elena E, Donna F, Alison H, Rachel Pee, Jennifer J, Christie L, Chris A actually Cindy A, Kristin W, Kelly K, Savannah DNA Yo, me h, if you want your name on this list, I'm join so good ye yeah, so glad to have all of you

with us. Uh and we love each and every one of you, and yeah we're over there. Do one bonus episode a month. We get to We asked the Lightning Round question every Tuesday and Friday, so people chime in. If you have an answer to the Lightning Round, you get to answer it in the Patreon and hear other people's answer and yeah, and we send uh free bumper stickers to so check it out. Frugal Friends podcast dot com, Slash, Patreon, see what we've got going on, and see you next

time on this pod. Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirian Jill. I don't know if I'm going to dance for you. Yeah you are, Yeah you are, because you just said you're going to do it for the Patreon, so well it's ill. I'm not going to do it for you for the Patreon pats, yeah, and I'll just be here for it. I don't like to be used. Here's turning a mindset shift on that one. It's not used,

it's being a public servant. Okay, let's transition away from my body and talk about Halloween, which is this weekend. And on our episode of Favorite Like Fall Things, Um, I said I wanted to do like a family costume of Pop Patrol. But I'm not a big Halloween person. I mean, I love Halloween, I'm not a big costume person. I love attending. I hate scary things, but I love I love fun Halloween stuff. So not scary kids. I

feel like you get into the cute stuff of this. Okay, So that's where I'm at, and uh so, but I hate costumes. I hate single wear items. And so instead of getting kaya costume, I bought him a sweatshirt that has the face of his favorite pot Patrol and we actually shout out to one of our listeners. She's sent me a picture of her kids dressed up as the pop Patrol and one of them was Zuma, and she

had to like make it herself. Zooma is the most underrated pop Patrol, but he is my son's favorite, and um, but I just don't have the creativity or the desire to create a costume that because it's because you're pregnant, and also that sucks. Oh no, that's just me, just me. I just don't like costumes. Um, I don't like costumes. But I got him the sweatshirt and he has been so excited about it, and so he's gonna be Zuma but essentially just wearing a sweatshirt and he's so excited

for it. And I got him this bucket, like a jack O lantern bucket, and for two weeks, this kid has been all over it, like taking it everywhere, like he's never had this attachment to a stuffed animal before or any kind of toy. But he is obsessed with this jack o lantern bucket, and I think this is just gonna be the best Halloween for him ever. And I'm going to wear a red tank top and I'm gonna be Marshal I love it. Are you gonna come to my house? Am I supposed to have candy for you? No?

I've made a list of all of the well twelve trunk or treats over two weeks that are in the area where we can get free candy that legit. Yeah. Pro tip, check out Facebook events, just search trunk or treat and look at all the ones in your area and just use them to supplement the neighborhood. Because there's not a lot of stuff going on on Monday, but like tonight, there's so much going on. Saturday night is

more for the adults. So there wasn't a lot of kids stuff going on Saturday night, but Sunday, yeah, but tonight it's all about the kids. There's like, we're going to six events. We're going trigger treating at six places tonight, so then tomorrow I'll be over at your house swiping some of that candy, eating candy. Yeah, all right, there's a pro tip, pro parenting tip for you, all the free candy, our favorite f word, our second favorite word, kay bye,