Episode four ninety nine, the Ultimate Guide to Frugal Grocery shopping.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and live at your life. Here your hosts Jen and Jill.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jill, and we have our annual mega episode on how to save money on groceries, and we found so many new things this year. I am always surprised every year when we do this episode, there are more ways to save money on groceries.
If you clicked on this episode thinking probably not gonna say anything new, but I'm curious, Oh boy, we learned. I learned there are new things out there that can help us save even more on groceries, and we're gonna yes.
But first, this episode is brought to you by apps and websites. In doing research for this episode, I found some amazing apps and websites I had no idea existed, and that I've already started using. You'll hear them here first, but you know where, We'll be showing them on our YouTube. These resources are so cool that we will for sure be talking about them more in depth on the Frugal
Friends YouTube channel in the future. So if you don't want to miss seeing these things, head to YouTube dot com slash frugal Friends, or just Google or search Frugal Friends in YouTube and subscribe. There's already some great stuff on there that we've been doing in the month of March, and new things are coming mid April.
You cannot wait for that. Yes, so smash that subscribe buttons.
Smash, smash that subscribe button.
All right, So we have we do a lot of episodes on food and so this episode four ninety nine, in episode five hundred, we will be talking about this next phase of Frugal Friends, this quote unquote new era, and that starts today. Actually, uh so we're gonna be
doing some new things in this episode. We're gonna be doing some new things, some new old things I think coming up this year, which means a lot more how to save money on X and a lot of food things like so how to save money on meat, how to save money on restaurants and takeout organic food, all these things that you've been asking for in the mega survey that we sent out in February. We're just gonna
dive a very niche into different food categories. And this is going to be our overarching groceries episode, but we do have some other episodes. You can go back into the archives if you can't wait for all the new stuff coming. Episode four thirty three Tips for Grocery Shopping on a Budget. Episode two ninety six Grocery Shopping Strategies that will cut your bill in half with Gina Zachariya, the Savings.
Wiz love her.
So lots of food coming up and a new format.
Yeah, we are not doing headlines anymore. Runs we are. We used to go through at one point two articles on the Internet based on whatever topic we were talking about. Whatever you would google, whatever would come up on the first page of Google. What do they say about it? What do we have to say about it? And you know what, Google's changed, and so are we so Google shifting. We're shifting. You're just not getting quality information anymore when
you are googling things. And so we say, we have seven years of this podcast under our belt and we're just going to take the reins now, move over Google, and here's how we're going to talk about things now. When we do a Save on XYZ episode, We're going to we want to talk to you about how to get that item for free, how to get at low cost, how to get a deal on it, and how to get it guilt free, so maybe even paying full price for it brand new, but what's the best way to
spend our money? So with this new framework, it's something that we hope you can take with you on any of your purchases to go through this filter of can I get it for free? Can I get it for low cost? Can I get it for a deal, and if not, how do I spend on it guilt free? And we're going to kind of show you how to do that with each of these episodes on the topic that we're talking about.
Yeah, and we're shifting away from Google, but we're not relying just on our own experience. We're also going to be using AI, so a lot of chat, GPT and honestly, that's why I believe it's harder to get quality answers from Google is because as Google is shifting its workforce into AI, so we're gonna shift with it. And so we're going to tell you how we are finding ways
to save money using AI. So you can use similar prompts and you can start start to shift some of the ways you search, because it really does save time. As long as you know the proper prompts to put in, you can get more customized, more local, hyper local, and faster answers to your specific questions. So we're starting that with groceries. And so we're going to start how do
we get groceries for free? So we look at local We're looking at local places, but also apps that can help us in each of these so as far as local places, food pantries and suit kitchens, that sort of thing. And I want to start out and I know this episode, these types of episodes, these filters.
That we run through.
I love them because they will benefit those who are of low income and they will also benefit those who are of mid or high income. But I think everybody of every income can benefit from every single level, especially.
This free one.
So food pantries for sure have a stigma around them. I was doing an interview the other day about how now you can use Klarna or pay and installments on door dash, so you can like break up your burrito into four interest free payments, and she was like, what
about using it for stuff like groceries? And it really does come down to it's there are resources out there even if you or maybe not low income, but you're in a place where maybe you're a federal employee and you lost your job and you were unprepared right and you're in a season where you need to use.
Some kind of program.
There can be a stigma around these places because a maybe we don't want to admit that we need it, we don't want to put ourselves at that perceived social level, or we just feel guilty because this is not you know, I shouldn't be here, I should have saved. I don't deserve to take advantage of this this resource because I had every opportunity to save and I didn't. So I don't want to take it from people who don't have
the opportunity. And I want to break down that stigma and say these resources are available, they are not one hundred percent utilized. There is always room for people to be using them if they need them. And and so there's something to be said for like whether you need them versus whether you're just like trying to retire in five years and make your spending as low as possible and you make two hundred thousand dollars a year that's that's
totally different. That's probably not you. You think that's you think that's it's probably not you. You're probably not going to be taking advantage of this resource. But like my neighbor works, My neighbor across the street works at a food pantry, and every couple of weeks he's bringing boxes of food over that were not taken from the food pantry. And so this is fresh produce, frozen meats from grocery stores. These are not like from camped food drives, you know,
from somebody's discarded dented can. Right, this is good food that needs to be cooked immediately. But it's these programs are not being one hundred percent utilized. So if you need to lower your grocery spending because of life ser circumstances, they are available and it's worth checking them out.
Yeah, And I mean, I love what you're saying here. If you're not totally in a position where you absolutely need to be getting these things for free and you don't want to take from somebody else who maybe you perceive has a greater need than you, then calling the food pantries and asking them, you know, what's their turnover date?
When do they get new supplies in when are they getting rid of supplies, just so that you can make sure that less is being wasted and you could pick up the things that are maybe about to be expired, kind of at the tail end of what they might be donating to somebody. And I know there's plenty of communities too who will even have almost like swaps with their local food pantries, so you know, take something, but then when you have a surplus, go and give back.
There can also be some reciprocity with it too, where you know you don't have to feel like you're only receiving, but there's also opportunity for you to give as you have ability to do that. But ultimately we want to say these are available. It's not going to be the right solution for everybody, but if you are really in a pinch and grow affording groceries has been one of your biggest struggles. We know it's one of the things we spend the most money on. There are ways to get it for free.
It's worth doing this before you put your groceries on for interest free installments on Klarna, I will say that, yeah.
And you can also look for community fridges. Some cities have public refrigerators where people can donate food that is maybe not even as shelf stable as your rice and beans and canned goods. So you can search even in chat GPT community fridge near me or type in your exact city community fridge in XYZ wherever you live, and they should be able to spit out some options to you.
And then there are a couple apps everyone should download. This is gonna be a very app heavy episode. The first is too Good to Go, so not all the food on there is free, but it's either low cost or free leftover food from restaurants. And then olio O l i O people will give away extra food for free, so not necessarily restaurants, but it's a essentially a food sharing app.
All right, moving on to low cost, how can we get groceries at a lower cost than maybe what they typically would retail for. First of all, we're going to want to shop in season produce. This is one of the best ways for us to be able to reduce our grocery bill is when we are purchasing the items that are currently being produced by the land, hopefully even more locally to you, so you know, is it fall. Then we're talking more apples and squashes. Is it summer
great berries and lettuce? You decide, you know, kind of look up. That's another thing that you can use chat GPT on what what produce is in season in the area that I live in. Right, that's an important one in the area I live in because that then you're going to be getting fresh produce from your local area. It's going to be pretty plentiful. So the costs on
that are going to be lower. So this is also going to be coming handy when we're meal planning, so making sure that we are creating meal plans around what's in season, so we're not just randomly picking recipes and then needing to buy ingredients that may or may not be in season. And of course, if you watch our Sunday resets on YouTube for well Friends on YouTube, we talk about our meal plans weekly and so we're always going to be eating in season stuff of course for Florida.
So keep that in mind. But if you need some ideas, you know, certainly follow follow us there.
Yes, okay.
And so for the locations where we are shopping plays a big role in the cost we will incur, So doing discount grocery stores.
We love.
Ald Legal Grocery Outlet is another one. Ethnic grocery stores will often have lower costs on things they have lower overhead day old bread and bakery outlets, so stores like Wonderbread or Pepperidge Farm will sell their baked goods discounted. And then if you can't just always going generic or store brand. If these these places aren't, you know, available to you, also farmers Market at closing time, vendors will
often lower their prices to sell off remaining produce. Another app, in addition to Food Hero and an odd Bunch, I tried this one.
It's called flash Food.
And this was so exciting.
Yeah, so flash Food and food Hero are similar, but I think they're going to be in different locations, so search both. And I know Flash Food is also in Canada, but it's an app that gives you deals on like fresh affordable groceries. They partner with grocery stores to take food that's nearing it's best by date listed on the app for fifty percent off. And I had to try it because there was one a mile and a half from my house and it was a dashmart and I
was like, what is a dashmart? It sounds like a skive, like like seven eleven almost yeah, but they were having strawberries and milk and raspberries and like specialty foods, and I was like, okay, So, like, I got a promo code for five dollars off my first order of ten dollars or more, and we will put that promo code in the description or in the show notes wherever you're listening to this. And I so, I order ten dollars worth of things they charged me five dollars for them.
I show up and Dashmart is literally a grocery store, but the only people who shop there are the employees because they're getting food together for door dash deliveries. So it's this legit grocery store, not skivy at all. I just went up there. I said, I'm picking up a flash food order for Gen, and they then took five minutes to get my order together and I walked out with completely fresh food.
That's insane.
It wasn't even starting to mold or anything. It was better quality than the strawberries. There were better quality than the ones I got from Costco that I paid full price for.
No better than Costco. I know you're saying, crazy thing I am.
I was so pleased with it.
So definitely they mostly partner with DoorDash because that was most dashmarts were most of what I saw. I saw like in Orlando there were a few smaller grocery stores. It's mostly DoorDash though, and they had a big flash food sign right when you walk in. So all the door dash people will know about it and take advantage of it, right, But it is for everyone, and it was. I get my groceries at Walmart, so I pay pretty low prices for groceries and it was still less expensive.
I wonder how many places have access to flash food.
It's in the major cities where there's a lot of door dash stuff.
So if you're in a city like.
Where DoorDash is available, then probably flash food does uh huh yeah.
So but check, even if you don't, check all these apps to see if they're available, because eventually they could be. When Too Good to Go first came out, it wasn't available here, and now it is, it is, and so you'll be the first to know if you sign up.
Just the side pause to again reflect on we don't know all of the resources out there available to us like I would have thought. I know the groceries in this area. I know where to get the food.
And turns out I don't.
There is something hidden right underneath my nose of discounted groceries.
I was shocked.
I was shook.
Yeah, and I am so pleased. I put in another I've done flash food several times.
Now, why wouldn't you?
It is fresh food that I was going to buy anyway at half the cost.
Okay, clearly we are loving to talk about this. We gotta make it through the low cost. So a few more things to say on this. Of course, you've got community supporting agriculture, your csays or CSA shares. These are local farms or maybe even homesteads that have extra land that you would be able to go and farm a bit of it, or just be able to take advantage of the produce that is harvested from the land. Many CSAs will require maybe a Saturday of work a month,
like a couple hours on Saturday a month. Some of them don't. Maybe they'll charge you a little bit extra to just come and pick up a box weekly of whatever produce is in season. That fresh produce is usually going to be more nutritious, less pesticides and even less expensive, so definitely search for a local CSA in your area. There's also you pick farms, so of course this is going to depend on the area that you live in
and seasonality, but you pick farms are everywhere where. You can go onto their property, get a bag or a bin from them. They'll let you know where you can pick the fruits and vegetables from. You pick them yourself, and because you're doing that, they give them to you for less money. Your father in law has a U pick farm, and.
My father in law owns a you pick farm, and I can confirm that the prices on their produce, their eggs, all of it is less than what you'd pay for in a grocery store. And they what they don't grow, they'll go to the wholesale market and bring in so that they still have they can be, you know, as much as possible, a one stop shop for people.
Not to mention that's just a fun afternoon activity. Take the kids with you. You're getting out of the house, you're doing something for kind of free, and then getting low cost vegetables and fruits, and then probably getting more interest from the kids to maybe even help you in the kitchen build up those skills, so eventually they're the ones meal planning and meal prepping for you, you know, just well tip from me, the child free one over here.
And just like we don't know the things in art, we don't know everything because things are always updating.
You may assume that.
You don't have a CSA or you don't have a upick farm near you, but a formally commercial farm could have switched to a U pick farm, which is what my father in law did. Things are always changing, So head to chat, GBT or your nearest AI website and search for that. Like are there You can say, are there any U pick farms near me? And if so, what are there hours? Are there any community supported agriculture shares?
What are their prices? When are their pickup dates? And you can compare all in one place very quickly.
Moving on to how to get a deal, Make me a deal I can't refuse.
Okay, before we start with the deal with how to get the deal, here's how not to get the deal.
Yeah, tell them Jen, do not buy from the dollar Store.
I think we can all agree that by now the Dollar Store has a cheaper overall price, but it is a higher price per unit. So dollar store is not going to be where we go. Also, don't assume it's cheaper to buy in bulk. A warehouse store can be just as expensive and you will spend more if you don't use it all. So this is a big one.
I have spent several years researching warehouse stores compared to grocery stores and can confirm that, especially in places where there's a lot of competition, that the grocery stores can be same price or less than a Sam's Club or a Costco, and you will you will save money by buying a lesser quality if you're not going to use the entirety of the bulk.
Okay, so far apps go for getting deals, We're going to recommend fetch an ibota a lot of time. So with these apps, you generally upload your receipt. They then are able to, based on what you've purchased, give you cash back or rebates for different things that you bought during that grocery trip. So with either of these apps that you download or both of them, you kind of just follow the prompts and eventually be able to get money back for what you've purchased.
It's always worth it to have them working. In the background, so I don't necessarily use them regularly, but have them running in the background for online purchases.
It's nice.
Next is flip flipp. Flip aggregates weekly ads from various local retailers and allows you to browse and compare deals to find the best prices on groceries and other items. So if you're not loyal to a grocery store, then you can compare deals and then you're not running around to a bunch of different grocery stores. You can kind of pick the one that has the deals that you want on the things you're buying.
Yeah, and then of course you can do these loyalty programs with the grocers that you go to most regularly. Of course, you're not going to get loyalty programs at an all they or idle, but if you don't have those near you, and your local grocery store does have loyalty programs, then it's worth having that grocer's card on you be able to take advantage of whatever sales or deals are happening. It's then worth it to be looking
up what they have on sale. They're circulars, not saying to get them in the mail, but you can look these things up on the grocery stores app what's on sale that week, and again plan your meals around that. Look for the double coupon days as well, and again this is something that apps can help you with. Gone are the days of clipping coupons. You do not have to do that anymore because it all can exist on your phone, so you don't have to take hours to
flip through coupon books. You can find the coupons for the things that you are shopping, and a lot of times, especially manufacturers, might offer you an ability to kind of double up on sales.
Yeah, and this is where I would go to chat GPT and be like, are there any grocery stores with double coupon days near me? And what are those days? So then you know what they are because they will make it hard to find. They don't want you to know. And then you can even go further and be like, Okay, what where do I get the coupons for these? And you can find where those are. If you are really committed to getting organic groceries, then Costco is it for you.
It does specialize in organic groceries, and I think that's one of the reasons why some of the I don't care about get most things I don't care about getting organic. So Costco actually costs me more for things like meat and frozen fruits and stuff like that because all the Kirkland brand is organic, which works for which works for Costco because they can charge more and only carry you know, one version. So Costco is for sure your place if
organic is what you're passionate about. And then also if there's a sale on something you buy frequently, buy it in bulk and freeze it. You know, we love the freezer, just getting it in the yes and eat from there.
Yeah, buying in bulk in general just isn't always the best idea. But for things you do eat regularly, you go through fast. Yeah, have a bunch of it on hand. I got a ton of rice, a ton of black beans. Mm hmmm, because I eat it a lot. Yeah, what I eat rice beats. I also put all my cheese the freezer.
A lot of cheese in the freezer. All right.
So this last section is is guilt free spending, And so this is essentially when we do spend, like pay for something full price, how can we feel guilt free about it? Because that's a big thing in our frugal community, like how how do I spend in alignment with my
values even when it's not the lowest cost. And I think going through these first three steps is a real good framework so that when there is something that we want that we've been through the you know, free low cost deal, still can't get it, but it's aligned with our values, we can spend on it without guilt because we know we have done all we can, but we're not going to deprive ourselves by not spending within our values.
So a couple of ways we can get groceries like guilt free maybe aligned with our values is starting a garden. Starting a garden is not a way to save money, for sure. It is a high upfront cost, it is a high time investment. It's truly a values driven investment though, and a way to get groceries as a result. That's how we view gardening. If you look back, we did an episode last year with Nicole from Gardenery. She really changed my perspective on gardening to look at it as
a values based activity. And we're investing money in this to get so many more things, and the food is kind of just a result of all these other things.
We're getting at, and I love that.
It's not only the food, it's all these other things. Now, I will say, you could start a garden for also not a ton of money. It doesn't have to be thousands of dollars. It could be one hundred dollars. And then from there, if you're able to compost yourself and you are making your own soil from your scrap, so eventually it does become pretty sustainable. Not to say that there aren't any upfront costs, but it doesn't have to
be to the nines either. But I agree, I love the idea of just starting small, doing some of those herbs like you mentioned, or some of the easy vegetables, because these are the things that are even going to
be flavor enhancers. Herbs you can't just eat and be full, but they can help you to want to cook in the kitchen, want to pull from your garden, enjoy what you're eating, so make you want to cook at home even more so for that reason, it's one of those things that Yeah, spend on it because you've saved money
in every other area. Of course, we also want to talk about ways that we can support local, small, independent businesses like our groceries store door, and our local farmers, even our local homesteaders who maybe have a chicken coop and they're putting out free range chicken eggs, and yeah, maybe they're even a dollar more than they are at the store, so they are goal.
Which makes them like fifty dollars exactly.
But if that's of high value to you, not only to get high quality, nutritious eggs, but to support local people, then do it and do it guilt free. And again, some of these independent grocery stores, if you have those around you and they're not chains, and of course they're going to be a little bit more expensive on their various items, but if they're employing people in your neighborhood and giving back to the community, then they might be where you want to shop.
Occasionally, you're you'll be spending more upfront, but you'll get more back in other ways when you shop local, So don't feel guilty about that. If you can't save money on something particular you want, then buying it locally instead of just heading to Amazon is a great way to invest in your community and invest those dollars wisely.
Do you know how we've invested wisely into this podcast? And how others have invested their time wisely into this podcast.
The most guilt free thing that we do every day.
The Bill of the week.
That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you've paid off your mortgage, maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. That's Bill Buffalo, Bill, Bill Clinton. This is the bill of the week.
Hey guys, this is Megan in Oklahoma, and I have been waiting to call this bill of the week in for almost a year now. It's actually not my bill of the week. It is my dad's. He is retiring this month after working forty years for the same company here in Oklahoma. So we are super excited for him. And guess what else. His name is William, and guess what else He goes by Bill.
Bell.
He goes by Bill, of course he does.
Happy retirement to.
Bill, Bill, Happy retirement to Bill. You were but for forty years and now you're tired. Happy retirement to Bill.
How you play that for him?
Megan, We absolutely do go on stage nightly to sing.
Obviously, obviously.
This is so exciting you know we love people named Bill and he sounds like a gem. Your dad working for the same company for forty years. That committed takes commitment, probably bravery and courage, long suffering, patience, and now he's done and that's amazing. We hope you all through a big old party and you're celebrating and just enjoying life
now without the work. That's so fun. If you all are listening and you have a bill that you want to share, if it's about your father just putting in the time, If his name's William, we want to hear about him. If your name is William or you go by Bill.
Or maybe your name's not William and you still go by Bill, please let us know.
We'd love to hear that story.
Brugal friendspodcast dot com slash Bill. We can't wait to hear it.
And now it's time for being rush. All right, your most beloved grocery store purchase and how you like to save on it. I'm going to add that little caveat.
Oh love this? Okay. I took this to mean when I look at my grocery cart, what do I feel best about being in there? And I love a grocery store run that just has a ton of fresh produce and fruit. I just like how that feels to have a cart full of nutritious fruits and veggies. And so that's my answer. But how do I like to save?
I like to save by shopping at Aldi. I have found some really great prices and actually great prot There was a time that the Aldi near Us took a dip in the quality of their produce, so I stopped shopping there. But then they did a refresh on the store and the quality has been better.
Just like when you do a refresh on your look and you perform better.
Yeah, same, same, so shopping at Aldi. There was a time that I also got boxes of fresh produce from a local farm that they would bring me fresh produce every other week, and it would be a variety like I wouldn't quite know what was in it. It was just always a combination of whatever was in season, veggies and fruit. That was so fun. I did that for
I want to say, close to a year. It just for me got to the point where it was so much produce that I couldn't keep up with it in the seasons when I had a lot of guests in town. So I really enjoyed when I had the time to be in the kitchen, but then it kind of got to be a little bit too much produce than I would typically buy. They did offer boxes that had less in it, but I wanted the combination of the fruit and veggie. So anyways, that was a way that I
did save. So I'm mentioning it just in case it's something that somebody else would want to pursue, because again, it's only Eric and I in our household, so if you've got more people, that's definitely something to consider. Is whether local. So this farm would actually mostly supply to restaurants, but they would have leftover fruits and veggies that then they would sell to just households. So that was the
deal with this one. So that could even be something to look up, like local restaurant suppliers and see if any of them offer something sah.
Maybe a prompt would be, are there any wholesale farms that sell leftovers to consume something like that? Mine is coffee and I don't go to the grocery store for it. Actually I buy directly from a coffee company over here in Cape Coral. Cape Coral, That's what it's called Florida, so nearby, and it's called Bones Coffee Company. There are artificially flavored coffees, but in like very great flavors. So canol is my favorite. Moores one there's oh my gosh, Okay,
it's not diet coke, all right, get over it. And I went on a limb telling you that it's artificial.
Okay, and I feel.
Okay, you do love like I put yourself into the fire.
Right, there's clearly no protection here, so I'm being exploited. I love Conolores right now on this like Jamaican one, which is like kind of like rum vanilla caramel.
Yes, I love what you're supporting local, but you're not buying coffee.
I'm buying coffee beans.
You're buying some version of caffeine.
Listen, you don't have any You don't even drink coffee anymore. Okay, So don't don't snob me into saying I'm not drinking coffee because my beans have a little bit of artificial flavor.
You're right, I am not leaning wow empathy and no judgment.
You're right, You're incorrect, honestly, I mean devoid from empathy, but also correctness. Okay, So for everyone else.
Just I mean bones coffee maker.
That's talk to coffee makers. I just drink coffee. Okay, okay, thank you. And that's the mistake you made, is you probably talk to people that make coffee and roast it and had to Guatemala and source bean. You're exactly right up, and that's a problem, not mine. It's not my problem because I don't talk to those people.
So you just get your coffee beans soaked in gnoli and then.
I just really wish that we're literally let me.
Just squeeze it out in your cup. Oh I love it.
I love it. It's so good.
So if you're not a coffee snob, I highly recommend it, and I love it. And so the way I save is that I so it is end of March when we're recording this.
I bought a.
Big bulk order when they were doing a Black Friday sale and I'm.
Still I love it. As you can't here.
It's not fresh. Coffee doesn't stay fresh that long.
It doesn't fuck, but it's protected in its icing around the beans. The icing protects it so the beans can last longer. Huh.
She doesn't drink.
I just want to reiterate the fact she doesn't drink coffee anymore, so she doesn't have a right to be like this.
Okay.
Also, I still am this.
She used an espresso like, so, how long are those pods in your drawer in your cabinets?
Right?
Yeah?
I just okay, okay.
Okay, I love it.
I buy in bulk when they're doing like big seasonal sales, and I just ride that wave for a long time. And you know what, it's end of March, and my coffee still tastes good, and it still tastes like coffee from what I from the taste that I am familiar with.
I'm glad. I'm glad for you that this is your beloved shamefree grocery burchase.
Well, they have to have really thick skin.
Co Hosting this podcast with Jill, I just want everyone to know.
That we both do. Don't even kids yourself. This is where I get on my high horse.
But ohkay, okay, stay on your high horse, stay there for a little while.
Bring us out, Okay, bring us out.
Okay. Thanks so much everyone for listening. Thanks you're still being here. I promise we're still friends. If you have also read the book where we truly are we wrote a book together, and we are not judgmental in that book. I honestly feel like I'm the really the most judgmental about coffee, like more so than I am about money, which you're right. It's like, it's really unfair and unreasonable
because I don't drink coffee anymore. But you know what, so many of you have loved reading the book, and we're so appreciative. Four reviews like this one that came from Pam five stars. This book was like a warm hug as a personal finance guide where not only was it a breeze to read, but also relatable and practical. I love the focus on finding what you value and prioritizing what you value instead of what others or social
media tells you. Jenna make saving and spending fun where it's possible to see it as a hobby instead of a chore. Thank you so much for the Advanced reader copy of this book, and I look forward to hearing more from the Frugal Friends podcast. Yeah, forward to you hearing more, because again we're still friends.
Thank you, Pam, thank you for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please leave a rating and review on Spotify and let us know if you think that it's the relationship is salvageable.
And if you've read the book.
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Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Siriani. Jill, are you sitting down on that high horse?
I'm sitting, but I'm high. I'm really my head is really high.
Okay, So today, one of the things that we talk about a lot on the show, No, it's how smart people say.
I am able to stop this recording right now.
One of the big misconceptions about being scammed is that smart people don't get scammed, and we've always said it is the smart people that have the most to lose and are actually most vulnerable. It's really a wrong place, wrong time sort of thing. And we've always been very clear about that, and we have a first hand experience of a very smart person getting scared.
Here's the thing. I'm I'm a little bit of a dumb dumb though.
Okay, as much as I do, I do want to play into that with you right now because of how you made me feel about the coffee. I think this could be a really a real learning experience, just to reiterate the points.
Wow, not enough time has passed for this to be a scar instead of a scab.
But here we go.
Well, you.
Brought yourself in, you set yourself up for this. You really do have to go as hard as you did with the coffee thing. You chose that and then.
The people didn't see my face though only you saw my faces that I was making.
Not that's not their problem. Okay, that's your problem.
Here's what happened, my safe, safe friends, because I know you're safe if you're literally still here listening. I am now responsible for our rugal Friends Instagram account. First mistake, Okay, scammed y'all into that one, which means that I respond
to all of the direct messages that are sent. So there was an end and if you know how direct messages work, if there's many that are requests that come in right, so just like Rando's and a lot of them are just like I can help you grow your business. We get that this was a message from somebody who I had messaged with in the past. They had reached out with some sort of something about us. At one point we had responded to like legit conversation back and forth.
Well then they messaged me one day and they're like, Hey, this I know might seem strange, but one of my friend's sons is in the hospital with cancer and they're raising money. And I'm just sending this out to like literally anybody that I follow on Instagram. If you could give just like ten dollars or reshare this, we'd be so so grateful. And I have a personal motto, this is real in depth for me to give to anyone who asks. I like tried out this challenge about a
year ago. It was kind of like a New Year's resolution because I was noticing that I just felt uncomfortable anytime that I would like pass a homeless person. I know most people will just like walk by them, but I'm like, why am I not giving them what it is that they're asking for? And I think I had this fear of I'm gonna I'm gonna run out. There's just there's not gonna be enough to give to everybody who asks for something, But this one year, I decided
I'm going to try it out. I'm going to see how much I actually end up giving away, just like anyone who asks to my ability. Right, Like I've told some friends this. They're like, all right, Joe, can you give me two hundred thousand dollars? Like no, Like, I don't have that, but if I have it to give, I don't need to be worried about what you're going to do with it. You're asking for it. If I have it, I'm going to give it to you. Turns out it was nominal amounts of money that I've been giving,
so I've just like kept up with it. Somebody asked me, I'm going to give it to them, So this definitely hit on that value for me of this person is reaching out, they're asking for something. I did go to that website. I read the whole thing about like this kid, and the thought did occur to me like this might not be legit like this, This might not be a real kid who's sick, but kids do get sick, so it could be. And in my mind I was thinking, what's the worst that could happen if the kid's not sick,
then I'm out fifty bucks. If the kid is sick, great, I'm really glad that I gave. What I didn't consider was like giving away credit card information that then like could be utilized further from there. But anyways, so I gave the fifty dollars, wrote back to the woman and I was like, hey, I just gave. I'm so sorry for like what your friends are going through. And then the next day she responded and was like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry my account was hacked. It wasn't me.
I hope you can get your money back. So that was a really unfortunate circumstance. Now to our knowledge, just the fifty dollars was taken. We thank goodness her credit cards were able to like report it as fraud and get that money back. They didn't take more than the fifty dollars, so it really wasn't like a full blown scam where somebody's like, it's just a person who's mad at.
We sought it immediately, so we got the card canceled. So the card information they have is now unusable and we can report the fifty dollars charge as a fraud.
So the receipt though had a Shopify this the page it looked like it was a gofund me, but it was made through Shopify, So that would have been like if I would have read that, I would have been like, oh, yeah, that's definitely something I would just spam it to all my friends to make sure that it you know, I wasn't like asking for money, but just to get the word out there and raise you know, raise the fly.
I definitely didn't feel comfortable sharing it. But that that was where like I messed up. Wasn't thinking like I thought that like the worst that could happen is we're just out fifty bucks. Like I didn't take it that step further to think. But then they if it is not legit, they could charge more to the card. Again, it's a credit card. If you're paying attention, you can you know, report that, yeah, get your money back. But
I think good lesson for me. I mean, not everybody's got like business accounts with tons of people direct messaging you all the time. But everyone friends friends and friends there can get hack. Yeah, And that's the tough thing because we've had plenty of friends who have done gofundmes.
So just making sure that you know whoever sending it to you, that they know that it's legit, being sure that when we do give online, we're giving with credit cards so that we can then report it if it's not legit, and checking our credit card statements regularly.
And my I mean, my filter would be I have to know of the child. I don't have to know the child or the family personally, but know of them in order to be able to verify that there is a child and that the child is sick, so that we don't, you know, get get hacked. And like the person doesn't you know, we have no way to verify the kid. And I agree with you in giving, it's not my responsibility what the person does with my money. Like I want to have a giving spirit, a generous spirit,
and so that I do it for me. And I think you can be a selfish giver honestly.
Oh yeah, it's not entirely all true, like we get something out of giving.
But so like I agree with you there, but I think I don't you know, I don't want to compromise it. If you don't want to compromise your security, or you know, have fifty dollars go to a scammer, or just avoid that in general, then giving the rule of like making sure that you peripherally know the person.
So you're sorry everyone.
You now cannot direct message me asking for money because I now won't give it. Yeah, I now have to have boundaries around my value system. Okay, that wasn't so so bad.
Wow wow, Yeah, you'll go easier on me on the coffee.
I'm really drink.
Drink your rice and beans.