Episode four forty four is episode two thirty seven. Try this Japanese art of mindful budgeting.
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 today we are talking about a new way to budget that is really an old way and it's not even the first time we've talked about it. Uh, because this is a rerun of one of our most popular episodes from several years ago about kokebo, which is the Japanese art of mindful budgeting.
There is a lot of Japanese concepts that we have enjoyed and taken a hold of even since this episode was recorded. You have to get our book to find out what we're talking about. Buy what you Love Without Going Broke at bywolovebook dot com. But this one's a really good one, and I think you'll hear us describe some of why we think this is so good at
the beginning and throughout the episode. But I think anytime we can find another method or even just mindset around how we approach our finances and manage our finance as well. It can be the key that kind of unlocks it for us, right, like, not every exercise program is right for us, not every diet is right for us, not
every budgeting practice is right for us. And this may not be exactly your thing either, but we like to kind of give a sampling of different things to be trying to find what's going to work for you that's going to create longevity long term.
Yeah, And something I've been talking a lot about recently is the power of language. How if there is a word that triggers you, that makes you feel a certain type of way, there's usually another word that you can use in its place that means the exact same thing that has less baggage attached to it, or you may have to go to another language, but there is always something that you can do a little differently, say a
little differently that is basically an identical practice. But there are some unique things about kokebo that you will have heard us talk about in spending plans and budgets, but that is really honed in in this way the style of budgeting.
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Yes, we love things, especially when they're free.
It's just fun. It's not at all scary.
No okay, So if you love budgeting, or if you hate budgeting and you're trying to be more mindful of what you are spending, then I would recommend you get our book by What you Love without going broke at buy what youlovebook dot com. But after you preorder it, I will wait. Thank you. After you preorder it, it
won't come till January. So in the meantime, there are a few other episodes that you can queue up for after this, episode three forty nine how to Budget without Deprivation and episode three twenty two what is values based spending and how do you practice it? So those are good primers for what you're going to get in January. But we will replay this episode. It has aged so well except for my pronunciation of it, ignore that. But
it's a fantastic method. We still have not learned nope, and even to try for a week would be very useful.
So enjoy, let's do it.
I'm really excited to talk about this kind of in an older way but still very relevant, and we know what that means. It's timeless and it works, and there's many principles and tenants and here that we can take and certainly make it work for us. But I love it when these older ways, these kind of ancient pathways, resurface, because I think there's something really rich in the method for it to have that degree of longevity.
Yeah, so let's dive into our first article, which really explains the philosophies and the questions behind kokbo, because it is it's mindful budgeting. It's like what we say, I mean, all the it's it's basically like everything we've said, just like repackaged in a different way. And so I'll just let it speak for itself. But it's from shondaland it's called the Art of Kokibo. This Japanese budgeting system could change your financial life. And so this is your first
time hearing about kikibo. Jill, what are your thoughts on this article specifically.
It's fantastic. I mean, certainly, I'm really excited about this method. But the article I think is really helpful. It's quite a long article, so we're not going to obviously read off the whole thing to you all or picking out the highlights from it, but I do think that the
introduction they give and the background is really insightful. So just a few things before we get into kind of the questions and the categories and that kind of a thing, as you mentioned, Jhen, They highlight that this was a form of budgeting that was developed in nineteen oh four by a female journalist, I hope I don't get her name wrong, Hanni Modoco.
Okay, you can check me on that.
But and then they go on to talk about how budgets can feel like diets for our wallet. And I think this is always the same conversation that we come back to when budgeting gets difficult or when we experience pushback on a budget. Is when it's this concept of it feels like a diet. They're not fun, they mean a lot of restriction and denial, and results are somewhere far off in the future. I can't get it now. And then I love what they say here where they
say and budgets can make people super cranky. I don't know if that's you, if you or your experience or the experience you have with a partner. But sometimes if we approach a budget like a diet, that's why it can be really difficult. And so I think this system of budgeting presents a different mindset, a different approach, which is what we talk about all the time. So I'm so thrilled to see this be supported with an older
way of going about this. And so I also like how they describe Kakebo being really elegant and straightforward, and it pairs mindfulness practices to the process of spending and in turn budgeting, but making a big focus on the spending and an awareness of the behaviors rather than the restrictions and the denial and the parts that make us cranky.
Yeah.
I was reading somewhere actually where this is more of a philosophy like shifting our perspective on how do I save more? Or how do I save? And a shift of this perspective to you how do I spend? Which is literally all we're trying to do is to shift your mind away from how do I save, which is obviously going to take you down a path of restriction and unsustainable methods, because there are a million things ways
to save. There are over two hundred in our free ebook called Modern Frugal Living you can get at Frugal friendspodcast dot com, slash ebook for free plug. Yeah, I think you are so. There are so many ways to save it can get overwhelming and it's how we quote unquote fail or fall off the wagon or you know,
et cetera, et cetera. But when you shift your mindset to how to spend, how how do I spend, then you can get intentional about every every dollar you spend and you can feel good about it, and then you naturally save more because you are deciding to not spend money on things you don't care about, and you are spending confidently on the things you do. And it doesn't always work out the first month, because frankly, you don't
always know what you care about. The first month, you think you care about everything, And as time goes on, you get better at learning who you are and what you want and what you care about what you don't care about, so that it is a sustainable way to live life and results in more saving. And so that's what I really love about what's at the heart of this quote unquote like budgeting method, so kakibo it translates to household family ledger. So I love that terminology too.
I feel like you could use ledger instead of budget and get the same result without as much of the mental muck that budget kind of like puts forward. But like again, It was created by a female journalist in Japan for housewives, and she was really like a an advocate for Japanese housewives to be conscious of their spending and start saving for their families and to be in
charge of the family finances. And I'm just like yes, yes, yes, And she founded a magazine for house wives and this was just like one of the things she put in there as like a simple way for women to manage their household finances.
I love it.
I love all of those words combined household, family, alledger. I mean, first of all, we all know what a ledger is, but it's not a common word within our English language. And yeah, it does kind of come without all of the preconceived notions to it.
It's just a thing.
It's a ledger versus all the preconceived ideas that comes with the word budgeting and then pairing both household and family, that it's what's needed and necessary for the house, but that there's a collective unit engaged in this as well.
It's so beautiful.
I'm really vibing on a lot of oh yeah, what's being talked about here?
Yeah, we are feeling strong vibes. And one of the reasons that's seeing a resurgence is is because of all the technology that has become available in the financial sector, which is awesome, like technic fintech. Financial technology has made investing so much easier, It's made making money, earning a living like on the internet, so much easier. It's it's
done all these amazing things. But it's also allowed marketers and businesses to market to you and have you spend money without all the friction of buying in store or parting with your cash or seeing what is like without balancing your checkbook like your grandma used to do. You know. So there. While technology has has blessed us in so many ways, it's also taken a lot of the relationship away from how we spend money. And the goal of kokeepo is to reconnect you to your relationship with spending.
And so spending is a lot of what we're going to be talking about with the kokeepo method. So yeah, let's get into how to execute it.
So, since the process does pre date smartphones and computers, it does rely on that good old fashioned pen and paper. The sponsor of today's episode, per figure, and so one of the first steps with kakibo, much like any mindfulness work, is becoming aware, increasing our awareness, and as it relates to our household, family ledger, or our finances, it's what's actually happening. We need to raise our awareness there as
part of this first step. So that's going to mean keeping detailed track of your spending for a set period of time, and so there's some questions that can go along with this tracking spending and income that kind of gets at the heart of the kokubo practice, and it centers around these four questions. How much money do I have or earn, how much money do I want to save? How much am I spending? And where can I improve?
And oh my goodness that that just doesn't summarize all the questions that we need to ask and make it sound so approachable and attainable. And I particularly appreciate that last question of where can I improve. I think anytime we are mindful or do some time of reflection and processing, that needs to be one of the questions. Certainly what am I doing well? We often don't ask that question either, but also where can I improve? Where is their growth
that I want to see? And that's going to help inform the next steps.
Yeah, So once you answer these four questions, and these are four questions that you're going to be journaling about at least once a month. I would say probably with every paycheck. So if you're paid weekly, maybe asking these questions weekly. If you're paid twice a month, answering them twice a month, but at least once a month, answering these questions and then track your spending for a month.
So instead of making your ideal budget, the perfect budget that you'd love to stick to, the first step is in kokeibo, is just like put the mindfulness into practice. Just become aware of the transactions. So track your transactions for a month on pen and paper. So I would just say, find one of those journals that's hiding in your bookcase or your closet that you thought you'd use and have it used, and just use that and kind
of make a make your own columns. So there are a ton of kokebo journals, but you don't need to buy something new for this. You can just say, okay, this is the date, this is what I bought, this is how much it was, and then you can start to categorize. So there are four categories in Kokipo. The first is general, this is leisure, third is culture, and fourth is unexpected. So general this would be household expendsures
like housing, food, transportation. It's the things that you sometimes neglect writing down as your transactions because you're like, oh, I'm not impulse spending on gas. You know, I'm not impulse spending on the internet. But it still is required to write it down and put it in the transactions
because you still want to be mindful about it. Because the more you write something down, like maybe you're not impulse spending on gas, but the more you write it down, the more you realize you're spending on it, and you start to give your spouse yourself space to see, Okay, I'm doing this out of necessity, but how can I get creative with this expense? Maybe there's something I can do to get a little creative here. So you still
want to write these things down. So the next is leisure, so all the things like Netflix, shopping, general merchandise, gifts, all of these things, and sometimes so you'll see these four expensive or these four categories kind of different throughout from person to person. Some people say that general is essential or necessary necessities, where leisure is like non essential.
I personally like the general and the leisure, but I also like necessity like essential and non essential, because then you can when as you start to get your values in order and find out what you really love, then you can say something that might be leisure can become like essential, can can kind of get bumped up, So it's up to you. Then we've got culture, which is things that enrich your life. So a subscription to a newspaper, a magazine, or a professional organization, maybe it's a haircut.
They're also they say, considered non essentials, but just a little bit more. I don't know culture. You get to decide what's culture for you. And then fourth is unexpected. So this is stuff that comes up unexpected that we all need to pay for. It's those things that happened and you're like, oh, I bust my budget, I suck at budgeting. No, they're just unexpected costs, and I love
that this method specifically accounts for them. So when you're starting out, you track your transactions, you say what it is, how much it was, and then what category it falls in.
Yeah, and then from there, once you've done those the work of those steps, it's then setting your goals once you have increased your awareness, you've divided you're spending into different categories, then allowing that to help inform what do you want to see for your money over the course of the next month, the next few months, the next year, few years. What do you want to achieve with your money? What's your timeline for achieving those goals? What big and
small goals do you have? So setting those things for each of the categories general, leisure, culture, unexpected, and so sure that then would become like a quote unquote budget or how you would approach your household family ledger with what you want to see your spending look like. So again it is that shift from what am I spending
on versus what am I saving on? Although both will be happening, saving will be happening in certain categories as well as spending, and then continuing to track your spending and assess how you're doing, how does it align with your goals, with your values, with what you said you wanted to do. And then I like how the article moves into these questions that we can ask before we spend.
So a lot of this can be helpful, particularly in avoiding impulse spending, but just in general, before we spend, asking do I actually need this?
Will it be useful? And does it get me excited? Do I have space for this?
Will it have a place to live in my home or in my life? Do I actually have room for it? Based on my current financial situation? Can I actually afford this? How do I feel about buying this? So that's a true mindfulness practice, getting in touch with your thoughts and emotions. What is it stirring in you even viscerally inside your body? What do you noticing is happening for you when you think about purchasing this? A lot of times for me,
I've talked about this in previous episodes. If I get kind of like sweaty or my heart's racing before purchasing something, that's usually an indicator for me that I'm probably not comfortable doing it right at that moment. Maybe I need to think about it more, or it is an impulse purchase. So just paying attention to what's happening inside you. And then finally, another question we can ask is what is
my general emotional state today? So kind of even more broad, where am I at checking in with myself emotion is this maybe a coping mechanism. Do I want to give myself more of a space or a pause before I engage in this purchase?
So really great.
Check in questions and that circling back to pen and paper could even be something we carry around with us, although that could be typed into your phone as well. Kind of my checklist of questions I asked myself before purchasing. So when you're out and about pulling out those questions and kind of running through the list or asking yourself whatever questions feel most relevant to help inform that decision, so you make sure that you are making a good choice for yourself.
Yeah, I love these questions because something we've always said is you can know your values and what you really want in life, and that helps you with baking bigger financial decisions. But when it comes down to you and target, those big goals are not going to necessarily be enough to motivate you to not choose instant gratification. But pausing will and pausing and asking these questions just adds another layer to the boundaries, to the walls between you and
an impulse purchase. So yeah, I read another version of the first one, which is do I actually need this, someone was like can I live without this? Which I also thought was a good reframe of it, and then just being like do I have space for it? Can I afford this? Thinking about not just the current financial situation, but like also the goals as well, like can I afford this and still be on track to my goals?
And then just taking like we say this a lot is being aware of your emotional state and what you did beforehand, what happened beforehand, like are you here? Are you shopping to celebrate something and that's why you're wanting to buy this? Are you here to avoid some kind of emotion that you should be dealing with? So these are amazing ques questions And I feel like there should be like a phone background with these questions on it, and I.
May make one.
I don't want to make any promises, but I kind of want to make one because this is definitely worth it.
Or like an audiogram where you just play it back to yourself.
Do you have space for this? Whe're you going to put it?
Do you need it?
Do you want it? How are you feeling? What happened in your life today?
And you can pick Jill will do one and I will do one. And you can pick who's.
You want, who do you want questioning your purchase decisions.
Yeah, oh that's great.
They also say waiting on purchasing something for twenty four hours is just like an additional recommendation.
But I mean, we love that patience is a virtue always always.
That's kind of like the general like way to do kokibo. It's very simple, and that's something else that I love about it. So simple, it's the four questions, categorize you're spending into four categories, and then in practice, which very few budgeting methods actually have. I would say no other budgeting method has actual implementation. So in addition to the structure of the ledger, then there's implementation guidelines for following the plan.
And I feel very affirmed in this because I am I'm pen and paper. I still do write all my transactions down. I just I love it, and I think some of it is for this reason. While that could sound like a lot of work to some people, to me, it feels simple, just pen and paper, aware of what I'm doing, informing my decisions upcoming, aligning it with my goals.
It feels so cathartic to me. I realize that's not going to be everybody's situation, and they may not write down every transaction every single month, but for me, this is essentially what I have been doing already. So I'm glad to have a term for it.
I know, I feel the same way, like we've been talking about this stuff for years and to actually have a name for it. And this just really simple, like beautiful. We've said the word elegant several times in this episode, but I really feel that's.
Yeah.
I love it. It's so simple, it's so elegant, and I'm already obsessed. But let's move on to our next article. It's from Refinery twenty nine and it's learn about kokibo, the Japanese art of saving money.
So a lot of the same things highlighted in this article as the previous one, but this takes a specific look at what are the things we need to know about kokepo in order to engage with it. So, yes, it does sound simple, sitting down at the start of each month and making a plan for how we're going to spend and having categories and awareness of our goals. It's so beautiful and what else do we need to know?
And so, first off, the bat is this shifting of focus, Jen, and you and I have already mentioned this, but just to highlight it one more time, it really is looking a lot at the spending aspect of our finances rather than the saving. Again, both will happen, but clearly we're looking a lot more at our spending decisions, the things that we're acquiring, where our money is going, and oftentimes that can feel more approachable than when we're just talking
about saving. If we're using the words saving and we can't and we can't have and we need to restrict, then it can feel like a chore versus becoming more what we can do, what we can have, can afford, how are we going to do that? I like how this article frames this that it becomes a much more inviting prospect, and it does feel that way of we're all spending money, so here's a method to become more engaged in that and align it more with your values and goals.
Yeah.
I think in frugality sometimes we're tricked into thinking that spending is bad and it's how can I spend less? How can I buy less? Which is yes, we invite that, especially when you are spending on a lot of different things that maybe you don't love, but I think what we want to reframe frugality to be is the emphasism how do I spend better? Spending is great, spending is neutral, So how do I just improve my spending instead of shaming yourself for spending on a plethora of different things that.
Actually are neutral.
They're not bad to spend, even if somebody's trying to tell you that you shouldn't be spending money on them. The things itself are not bad, and so let's lift the shame off of what we're spending on and focus on how do we spend better?
I can't be nodding harder right now.
We are not recording video on this one, but I'm giving myself whiplash for how hard I'm nodding at everything you're saying.
It's a nodding yes, not a no, thank you, not shaking my head.
I'm nodding it.
So the next is and I think all these are like mindset shifts. So if you make these mindset shifts, you'll have a much better time implementing kakibo. So the second shift is that writing things down will help. So keeping kakibo is all about recording your spending but when we do it, we just plug numbers in on a spreadsheet, or we sign up for Mint and they just automatically plug transactions in. It takes away the poor reason to
record your transactions. Putting pen to paper is a fundamental part of this practice, and it's one of the reasons
when people are like, what's your favorite budgeting app? And I still don't have one, because it just depends on where you're at on the journey, when you are very early in the journey, and I would say everyone can benefit from this at some point, whether you're just starting out or you've been doing it for a while, Like recording your transactions manually is essential to discover and learn about your relationship when with money it's essential, and so
typically I would just recommend an app where you could do things manually, or a budget spreadsheet where you could
input things manually. But I love this concept of actual like physical pen to paper, because it forces you, like to slow down, like we're all so busy and so to go to the grocery store and have to pause, like before you put the groceries in the car and write down the transaction and the amount and the category, like I and it's so it's not inconvenient, but it's not the most convenient, Like it's not going it's not going out of the way to like seven different grocery
stores to get the lowest price on everything. But it's also not just swiping your card and being totally disconnected from the bill like it's that it's that radical middle.
Yes.
The next thing that is worth noting about this method is that we're gonna need to be honest about our musts and our wants. I like how the article describes that the keepo method is about decluttering your finances, and we've described.
The simplicity and the elegance of that.
So this definitely goes hand in hand with yes, decluttering our finances. And if you followed all the other steps, then you know how much money is coming in, how much money is going out, and so now it's time to figure out what are you going to do with the rest? Assuming that there is a little bit of margin left over from the essentials, where do I want.
That money to go?
What are my musks, what are my wants, And particularly in the category of wants, how do I make sure that the money is going to the most important of my wants and not frivolously getting spent who knows where and being left at the end of the month kind of disappointed in what we see. And so of course then it's going to inform what shifts need to be made so that the spending really can align with my true wants.
Yeah, and I think this is where those questions, the monthly or bi monthly questions really come into play, because that question on how can I improve it tells you more. It allows you to think more of about, Okay, what are the things that I value that maybe non essentials for somebody else but are essential for me? And what are my actual non essentials? Because you can want anything,
but you probably don't want everything. That's very unlikely. Marketing definitely tells us we should want everything, But if you look at it over the course of months and years, and even the things you wanted like a year or two or three ago can and should be different than what you want now. And so it also gives you the time to reflect on, Okay, are the things that were like essential to me then still essential to me now? The fourth is going to kind of hurt some of
our hearts. It's going to be uncomfortable for some of us. But it's that cash is better than card and psychologically cash is better than card. Yes, for travel reward points and cash back cards.
Love.
But and I say this to people again, if you're very new to the journey, if you are just starting out, cash is almost essential. Like to just do at least a month, two months, three months with cash will really make a big difference in the speed to which you kind of get in control of your relationship with money. It will really speed it up after the first few months. I would say, once you've built a habit of mindfulness with your money, you can go back to card. It
is a very for me, inconvenient way to live. I know a lot of others agree, so I do prefer card. But it is so easy swipe your card and you have no clue how much you just spent on your card. So yeah, tying that pen and paper recording with the cash really like going off the deep and intense method to like be a catalyst to getting your relationship with money kind of solidified.
See now for me, I agree and disagree. I think on the one hand, it is a good practice and like you're saying, Jen, especially when just starting out. For me, I feel as though cash is not traceable, so oftentimes when I spend cash on it, it feels like I'm hardly spending because it's not going to show up in a paper statement. I'm not going to see it later.
Like I am very aware of what I spend on the card because there's a record, there's a paper trail more than just my receipt, and all often spent in cash when I want it to feel like, oh, this doesn't even count. There's no record, it's not traceable. So that and maybe that's just like a poor mindset I've adopted, but that's how it feels for me, like I'm using cash when like I don't even have to think about that purchase.
Yeah, it is the first time I've heard somebody say that, But I'm sure you can't be alone. And I'm not going to judge anybody for not going to cash because I couldn't. I wouldn't, And I think with the recording, like with the pen and paper recording, it does add that mindfulness. So I think maybe you wouldn't, like wouldn't need to stay in cash as long as somebody who was using an app to track their budget so I really think it does add that relationship to the spending
that a like a fintech app would not. So I'm not going to judge anyone for not doing the cash on envelopes.
Thanks, I appreciate you with holding your judgment from me. So the final thing on here to be aware of Number five is that you should finish the month by
reflecting on your progress. And I so appreciate how this is coming full circle and it is congruent with mindfulness practices, with the simplicity of it, but also the connectivity of it that we're not just setting goals and tracking our spending, we're also looking back and reflecting because oftentimes that's where the true understanding learning shifts happen is when we give ourselves space to reflect. So once we've set the month and we've done the month, this is crucial to then
pause and reflect how did that go? What went well? What do I want to see go differently? Before we set what the next month is going to be, we've got to give ourselves that space and time to look back and learn from what just happened.
Yeah, you know what else we can use to learn what has happened?
Hmmm, Look back and reflect before we move forward.
We really should create a compilation of.
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 paid off your mortgage. Maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. Duck bills, Buffalo bills, Bill claion, this is the bill of the week.
Hi, ten until. My name is em and I'm calling from Quebec, Canada, and I wanted to submit my bill of the week. So my bill is my new heating and air conditioning vice that has been installed last week. I've been working from home for the last two years and it was getting really hot in the summer, so I was looking forward for this home improvement, also knowing that it will be increasing the value of my house. The total bill was seven thousand dollars, so it was
quite high. But after getting some information, I knew that I was eligible for different grants, so I will be getting back a little bit more than three thousand dollars on grants from the government, and I will also be saving about twenty dollars per month on my heating bill. During the winter, so the system will be paid by itself quite quickly, and the value that it had to my house, if I ever decide to sell it will be way more than what I've paid for. So I'm
really happy with that. Thank you and have a nice day.
Bye bye, amazing m Thank you so much for calling in from Quebec and sharing this amazing bill.
It's so practical, and.
That is such a massive household upgrade. That can often be one of those things like, oh, it's so much money to spend on something that you don't totally notice, although heating and cooling is really essential, but it's not something we typically want to drop that amount of money on. But it sounds like you are planful and we're able to spend the money but then also put in the time, energy and effort to do the research and apply for
these grants. Getting money back is saving you forty percent on this massive home upgrade, and then like you're saying, what it's going to save you monthly, the value add that it is to your home. What an amazing bill. I'm so happy for you that this is installed and working in your house. You're getting to enjoy it. You just feel really good about this purchase you've made.
Well done, Yeah, good job.
I think it teaches everyone always check for rebates and grants from your city and state before you make big home improvements, because there's always something like in Penelos you can get a free toilet for your house, Like everyone gets a free toilet, Like there's a very minimum standard you need to meet to get a free toilet, so like there's it's always worth looking for those grants.
Making us sounds so weird.
We're just getting out toilets down, were out toilet foreveryone.
We all get excited about it, right, So yeah, if you want to submit your bill of the week, visit Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash bill to leave us a bill. Maybe you got a free toilet. We'd love to hear about it.
And now it's time.
For so we are talking about spending intentionally, shifting our focus to how can I spend better? So we want to know. Inquiring minds want to know how do you feel about your intentionality towards your spending in this season? Because it is seasonal. Once you achieve intentional spending, it's not like you're there forever. It's definitely seasonal. And so let's be honest and transparent and vulnerable about our seasons.
Jill, I was gonna say, so, do you want to go first? If you want to be honestable?
All right, So I am feeling really great. Actually, you caught me in a good season. And you know, I'll be honest with you. There's times when I am not crushing it. But right now it feels really great. And I'll tell you why. I have been doing a ton of cooking at home and making meal plans and it has been going so well. Now. Part of that is because we are on a four week stretch where we.
Have no travel plans and no guests.
That has not happened in the last two years at least where we haven't had guests or travel plans for that amount of time. So part of it is my ability to really get into a rhythm and be at home and cook for us. And so that is one of the discretionary categories, discretionary spending categories that can get out of hand for us. So me being on top of it has, Yeah, it's been intentional, and it has also really saved us a lot of money over these last few weeks, which has allowed us to then put
some additional money towards the renovations that pythe away. You might be able to hear in the background if you hear any power tools, it's happening. No, it's fine. Renovations are happening. Have you've been listening to this for a long time. You can celebrate with me. I'm not going to hinder that progress because I need I need that kitchen in some real ways. So I'm feeling like, really
really great about it. I continue to not only do I keep a pen and paper account of all of my transactions, I also back in June, I made a new spreadsheet that I am so stoked about. It's a more complicated spreadsheet, but it gets my finances to a more detailed measure that is really cool for me and has a few more categories of sinking funds. That has been helpful for me because I'm realizing I've got a couple of things that I want to be saving for that I just wasn't doing when I didn't have it
allocated to different sinking funds. So I've done a couple of these, like minor shifts recently that have really brought my budget my finances together in a nice way, and I appreciate what you're saying there. Jen of for this season, I don't think I'm going to need to have such a tight hold on the money in and out in
you know, a year from now. But because we're going so hard at renovations and cash flowing them, I'm trying to be really mindful, really intentional in some of these different areas, and these are the things that have helped. So right now I feel great. I feel on top of the world with it.
What about you, Well, I wanted you to go first, because mine is a bit of the opposite. So and it's not so like it's I've been intentional. So it hasn't been like negative spending, but it has been increased spending. So it has been this like interesting dichotomy. I don't know if that's the right word. But we are recording this at the end of summer, and so I have allowed myself this summer kind of to be freer with my time. This is a slower season in the personal
finance world. Nobody not as many people care about their money over the summer.
After summers my dam occasion.
Yeah, So it's been light and I've been allowing myself to rest, and allowing myself to rest has meant going out with friends a little bit more, so I have been spending more. And also July was the first month that we paid a mortgage on the new house, so now we have two mortgages instead of one, and we still have not We've only rented out one of the
two rental you know areas. So this month will involve a tightening just because a we need to focus on renovating the rental half of our house and be because we have we have saved and so that money is not coming The money for that mortgage is not coming out of our month to month it's coming out of our savings. But it's still something that I want to
be mindful of. And we're entering back into our quote unquote busier season, and so I will allow myself to say no more to going out and finding alternatives for things that, you know, activities that I would normally spend money on, and kind of suggesting alternative activities. But yeah, I did give myself space to rest and spend over the summer, and now heading into fall being a lot more aware, and so I think I'm going to be
trying this Kokibo for the fall. I have not personally like tried it, and just learning about it for this episode has made me like think, Okay, I actually really need this, because even though I am frugal and I care about my money, some seasons just get you out of your groove. Maybe not even a bad way, but they just get you out of your groove and it's time to reset and rethink heading into the next season, Like what is essential for me? What is non essential? Et cetera, et cetera.
Well, I think in all of it, what I am hearing you say is there are degrees of intentionality. Maybe the rains how tightly the rains are on your spending might have shifted, but you have given yourself that space intentionally to spend this summer. So it doesn't sound like it's lacking intentionality. It just might be lacking the amount of boundaries that you are going to be putting around
it in the fall because of the different goals. So yeah, each season requires different boundaries and maybe a tighter grip or a looser grip on our finances.
Yeah I did. I went out to brunch with friends two days in a row, and after the second one, I turned to my friend. I was like, we can't do this every day. I love that story.
I saw yet night.
You're like I went out to brunch, was like, great, You're like two days in a row.
It was great and fun, but I was like, we gotta get this together. I gotta get it together.
Oh I love it so much. Yeah, well, Jen, did you end up doing two brunches in a row? Now?
I honored my my voice and I did not do that level of brunch again. I think maybe that's the last time I did do brunch. Maybe I think I can't recall on.
A brunch bender. And now it's over.
Yeah, I got it all out.
Of my system. Amazing. Well, we're back.
We hope that that episode felt as a timeless to you as it did to us, and that you've got some takeaways or new ways to look at managing your money that will be helpful for you.
Yeah.
I love I mean, we always love the idea of looking at your purchases objectively and kind of asking questions about them. And if you're afraid of doing this, then we would just encourage you to look at your spending from a place of curiosity, start asking yourself questions that get to the root of the purchase, not in a defensive way. Take out the why why questions can be
very informative. But just like I was saying with language at the top of the episode, sometimes whys can put us on the defensive, and it's just a way to get us out of the habit of being judgmental about ourselves. So let's take why off the table for a little bit. Let's ask ourselves different questions so that we can look at the spending journal with more objectivity, more neutrality, so that we can really learn about ourselves our spending and
use that information to improve. Yeah, so thank you for listening, and thank you for leaving kind reviews. We especially love this one from Kitty Pooh eight eight eight eight eight eight eight Happy Pod, Happy Gah. Kitty Pooh says, this show has been one of my relaxing chill out pods for a long time. I can always rely on a positive attitude from both Jen and Jill, and they keep
it very fun. It also has the added bonus of some helpful tips about living life in an ethical and sustainable way, so I get to feel a little productive while I listen. I've probably listened to about eighty to ninety percent of the episodes, and I can tell you there's not one I've heard that's been a bummer.
It's all positive.
She's just keeping going with the eight eight eight. Thank you, she's listening eighty to nineties.
She's listened to.
Eight eight eight eight eight eight eight episodes eight eight eight eight eight eight eight amazing.
Thanks Kitty Boo for that lovely review. We're so glad that we're bringing the positivity to you. If anybody else listening has nice things to say and helpful things for other potential podcasts, listeners of the Frugal Friends to kind of know what to expect, what this podcast is about. Those are the ways that reviews can be helpful to us. So please, wherever you're listening to us, leave us a review. It really helps us, it helps other people.
You just be helpful and.
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It can be your good deed for the day, and then you can do whatever else you want after that because you've done a good deed.
There you go.
Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni.
Okay, Jen Jill, I have, I'm probably gonna I'm essentially organically starting a series over here of my Florida experiences.
Yes, I live for this series. This is one I could binge. I look forward to it every week.
We are four years into living in Florida, and all of a sudden, it feels like we're we're getting the real deal lately, just back to back Florida stuff happening, happening to us.
I feel like the first two or three years you were here, Florida was on a different vibe. It was just a different vibe. And now Florida is floording again. It's back, She's back better.
Yeah, And most of it has to do with other living creatures that are not humans. If you've heard Yeah, She's back, if you've heard my other series, the other installments in this series, it's been a cockroach in my pants, it's been a massive spider in my clean laundry. And now what I have for you, friends, is we got roosters, or at least you have a rooster. There's a rooster.
It would be bad if you had more than one rooster, because then you would have a different problem.
Yeah.
I was driving so through the alley the other day and they were just chickens, just chickens in the alley, run and loose, free range.
Free range. They would call that.
Yes, they're highly sought after except for in my alley. And I don't know who they belong to. But I'm just like, oh fun, just wild chickens. I suppose. Until that night, in what felt like the very middle of the night, there was a rooster cocking where cockadoodling.
Where the women are the men will come?
Yeah, And that felt abrasive and uncalled for, because chickens are more than welcome without a rooster. They bring edible eggs. With a rooster, you never know what's going to happen.
They just bring their voice, and they think their voice is so important that it has to they have to say what they've got to say, say at two o'clock in the morning, and everyone has to hear it.
We are two miles from downtown. I don't think it's allowed to have a rooster here. I think chickens. You could have up to four chickens, but not roosters. And yet here we are.
I don't know who has them.
Here, because somebody probably had them. They told them to get rid of them and the loose, and now here they are.
But now I'm so shocked because we do so we live right on a nature preserve and there are foxes and coyotes in the nature preserve, and I would have imagined that they would have been.
Probably why they brought there.
That's why they brought them here.
Right, But three or four days in a row now we've been on a farm and we've been getting up to melt the cows before the crack of dawn, and it's wild and it's happening, and they're still alive, and well.
Well, good for them.
Yeah, but I'm gonna go.
On a on a bit of a scavenger hunt today to try to figure out where these animals are, if they are on someone's property or if they're just wild in the park. I don't know. If they're wild in the park. I might become a chicken mom. I've already done sour dough cool.
I will not. I will not be having a rooster though. That's not going to happen.
Nobody should do that.
It's fine, it's just them.
Let him live.
In the preserve and what happens to him. What happens to him.
We'll see, we'll find out. Stay tuned for my Florid adventures.
Stay tuned