Uber Frugal in 1 Month | Frugality Challenge w/ Mrs. Frugalwoods

her on the show. She is our fairy godmother and has so many good tips. It's it's amazing how much we can talk about frugality, how often we can read Liza's stuff on her website, out with her and still learn more from her. So we're so excited to share this with you. If if you consider us your go to for frugality, we consider her our go to for frugality, so she always brings the heat with her interviews, so

we're so excited to share it with you. But first, our sponsors our goal Planning workshop on December We're doing a free planning and strategy workshop to help you break down your money goal into actionable month by month goals and steps. We think it's going to be super fun and helpful. I mean, it's always fun when we all get to hang out, It's always fun. Space is limited and a replay will be sent out to everyone who registers, So grab your seat at Frugal Friends podcast dot com.

Slash training. Yes, and if you are not excited for planning goals now by the end of the episode, you for sure will be. This episode is also brought to you by eggnog. Who doesn't love a good eggnog this time of year? It's the most frugal holiday beverage. Let me tell you why a drink literally so heavy you can't physically drink more than one at a time, and none of your friends like it. So one carton should last you all season and put your nice liquor back

on the shelf. Because eggnog is so dense you'll want to use the cheapest bourbon rum or brandy to cut through it. Eggnog the thick drink. Two it did. Thanks, that's copy. That's copy from the source, So yeah, I'm just obliged. Anyways. Anyways, if you want more from Mrs frugal Woods. We're going to give you a lot to go through. But we also had her back on like vintage episode forty four Frugal Pregnancy and Parenting, and that's when I was pregnant and so now I have a

two and a half year old. But that was our first interview with her. And we also had her on at the Future of Frugal Summit that we did back in July, uh and it was such a good episode talking about frugal. All I remember really is how anti homesteading urban homestead she is. She is a real homestutter. She's like, it doesn't save you money, it's just a passion project. So take with that what you will. But yeah, so we're we're super excited to be talking about how

to become uber frugal in one month. And that's kind of a joke because it is a process. But with Lizz's foundations in her Uber Frugal Month challenge, which we love, you can start to set the foundations for frug galanty and it's it's kind of like what we do with the No spa and challenge, and we'll we'll mention not a little in the episode, but yeah, so buckle up and uh let's go for an uber frugal ride. Liz, thank you so much for coming back to the show.

We're so excited to have you here. Thank you for having me. We were commenting before we started the recording, how you are our most frequent visitor, even though it's been like three years since the last time we were on the show, but you joined us for the summit and back again and just an overall fan favorite and one of our favorites. So thank you so much for being here. Well, I'm honored. Thank you. So we are

every year really excited. You do this thing called the Uber Frugal Month, and you do it every January with your subscribers, with everyone, and we wanted to highlight that a little bit because we're always looking to become more frugal. Can you just like tell us a little bit about like why you started it and like why you continue to do it. Sure, So, the Uber Frugal Months started when my husband and I decided to become financially independence

and independent and work towards fire. So this was back in fourteen, and we realized that although we've been sort of moderately frugal, we were not as frugal as we could be, and we were not tracking our expenses as careful as we should be. So we decided to have like our most frugal month ever, and that coincided with

the start of my work on Frugal Woods. And then a couple of years later, I thought, you know what, maybe other people would like to do this with me, and so I wrote out the steps that he and I took, and so I tried to really reflect back and think, like, all right, what did we do what worked for us? And then I catalyzed that into this post and this thirty one day program. So it's you get an email a day from me every morning, and it contains an action item, a mantra, some required reading

or suggested reading. So it's really kind of like going through a course or a class. And some people do it every day for the month. Other people have told me they'll take one item and do it for several days, then they'll move on to the next email and do that for several days. Some people have told me they spread it out over months. That is totally fine. It

is free. You can sign up at any time and you'll get those emails in the sequential order, and they're all numbered, so you can really sort of start and stop and start and stop as you need to. I do update it over the years. I think I originally wrote it, I want to say, just because I feel like I had a kid or I was pregnant with somebody. I don't know, so I just feel like I feel

I was like super uncomfortable at the time. So I've either like just had a child that was pregnant on another one, and I have updated it over the years, so you know, the the initial one is not the way that it is today, but it is the same basis of idea. I just try to add in basically new things I have learned and incorporate that into the course of the month. And we do it together as a group every January, like Jen said, but you can also take it, you know, sort of on your own time.

But I love doing it as a group because everybody is like focused and on the same day and talking about it. I run a private Facebook group whatever it is, it's private. I think it's a group, and so you can be a part of that if you're signed up for the challenge. And I learned so much from the people in there, I'm like, oh, I never thought of that. That's a good idea. So we have a really nice community that that comes together, um every January. It's beautiful.

I love the hand holding that's a part of this. I think sometimes we know in theory what we might need to do, but the actual action steps and community is so important for act implementation. So just imagining an email coming every morning telling me what to do, Oh, can that be for like the rest of my life too? I know I've had people can you do one every month? I'm like, listen, it's like words long, it's like a book, and I can't. I can't do not have it in

me to do another one. But I do have people take it over and over and over again. I have a lot of people who come and do it annually and they say they get something out of it every year, and I do too, because I read through it and edit it and I'm like, oh, that's a great idea. I should do that. So it's kind of like this refresher of like, oh, right, these are some tips, some tricks that I can be implementing. And if you've kind of like forgotten or you know, maybe sort of shifted

a little bit in some of your spending. January is like great reset time. Yeah, I love retaking it because sometimes what didn't work for me in that moment, like the next year, next time I see it, it will be better for me. What works for me then won't work for me now. So it's really like take what

works in the season, leave what doesn't kind of thing. Absolutely. So, speaking of the article that you kind of started out with after your own journey, we want to go through some of those tips for our listeners, not all of them. There's eleven steps, so we don't have time to go through all of them, but we wanted to pull out the first few and hear your thoughts on it, kind of the the annotated version. So you talk about that the first step is to establish your goals. Can you

talk us through what that might look like. I think it's really important to know why you're doing this, and it doesn't have to be a dollar amount. It doesn't have to be like a herculean I am going to retire in a year with ten million dollars, you know, it does not have to be something like that. But I do think that the more specific you can get, the more granular, the goal, the more likely you are

to fall allow through on it. That is the case for me, But like I'm going to save more money is really hard for me because it's just that that doesn't really mean anything in my daily life. And so people have told me that goals sometimes are pretty large, Like I would like to be able to have my husband quit his job and be the stay at home parents, right, that's a pretty specific goal. Other people are looking at a career transition. I don't want to be a lawyer anymore.

I want to be a yoga teacher. You know, how can I get my spending into alignment with the earnings change that I would have? For other people, it's like, I just I feel like I'm spending way too much at the grocery store and we're eating out all the time, and I feel out of control with food, and so let's really focus in on the food stuff this month. For other people, they're saying, you know, I never treat myself. I never get a massage. I never sort of feel

as though I'm spending on me. How can I incorporate that into my budget without feeling guilty and with knowing that I'm still able to be financially stable. So it's really a very broad range of goals that I get from folks that I hear back. And so I think wherever you are, you can kind of identify if this is something that you want to work on for this month or for this year, or maybe this is part of a five year plan or a ten year plan that you're envisioning. And this kind of leads into doing

this with your partner. So if you have a partner, especially if you are sharing finances or living together, I think it's very helpful to be doing this together. I you know, it seems like the biggest transformations that I hear about come from partners who are doing it together. And then if you have kids who are old enough to sort of comprehend what goes on with the family

household budget, getting there by in is fantastic. I have heard so many stories of people getting their teens involved, getting there, you know, ten year olds involved to the extent that it's age appropriate for them, but really saying like, listen, you know there's a family. We operate as a unit. The money that we have is shared, and so how can we put that money towards a goal as a family? And sometimes that's for a vacation or sometimes it's just you know, we need to just feel more secure at

the end of every month. I love that you've incorporated that getting the spouse a part of it. It doesn't yeah getting the spouse on board, but even just for this one thing. It may not be that you agree on all things financial, but I really appreciate that incorporation there. I'm curious your thoughts on if you were to have a spouse or older child be a part of that first step of establishing goals. Is it possible. Have you seen people have two separate goals but the action items

towards that can help both towards separate goals. What are your thoughts about that? Absolutely, I've I have heard stories of, you know, sort of all manner of this entire spectrum of how you know, couples or partners do or do not do this together. I think that if you had all the same finance, mental goals and feelings, that would

be a little strange. Like, I don't think anybody is going to be in lockstep with their partner, but I think having this generalized vision together is really really useful, and maybe for you it has to do with the groceries. Maybe for your spouse, it has to do with reducing the hours of childcare that you're spending on, whatever it is.

I think that you can sort of come to this challenge together, kind of this conversation together with Look like, we're not going to be able to reach any of these goals if we don't sit down and sort of talk this through and think about this as a unit and how this impacts both of us, because it's it's definitely not about shaming the other person and being like, listen, you're spending twenty dollars a month on lattes. I cannot believe this. You must stop. You know that that is

very much not the spirit of this. It's much more this holistic conversation of what are those lattes bring to your life? Oh, oh, that's when you see your friends and you sit down and that time together is really sacred. Or maybe oh, I didn't realize I was spending that much on latte's. I'll just make coffee at home, right, And so it's really getting to the deeper understanding of

what that's spending is. And you will see this in my spending because I share my spending every single month, I spent money on like all kinds of like frivolous stuff, right, And it's the difference. And what the uber frog a month has helped me realize is that it's all goal oriented. So my husband and I go out, we have lunch dates while the kids are at cool we go out to lunch and we spend quite a bit on that.

But we know it's a conscious decision. It's a choice that we made together, and so we're not shocked at the end of the month. And we also don't look at it and think, what when did we go out to eat? Did we go out to eat? It's like, oh, that's when we went to such and such with such a good time, and it was it was of values

based purchase. So this kind of gets into this gets us a little bit off of the like nuts and bolts steps and a little bit more into how this is a holistic view, like the the you know whatever it is thirty ft view of your life and of your money that which you kind of ultimately want to get into is not saving every penny, Like that's not that's not what we're about. You can go other places on the internet, they'll shame you, they'll yell at you. Is not thank well, thank you, as my three year

old sast thank you. This is all about figuring out what's tenable for your family, what's tenable for you. How you're all sort of having your needs met but also meeting you know, financial goals, financial milestones. Yes, yes, yes to all of that. That's all I have to say. Okay, no, but yeah, And I we get emails all the time from mainly women, but some men who spouses just not on board with frugality. And I think this first step of like creating your goals, they are most likely not

going to be the same. If one of you wants to like just be frugal pay off debt, and the other ones are not on board, but they still have goals and frugality can help them get to their goals. And so really you just need alignment in your lifestyles even if your goals are different. So yeah, and learning more about your partner is like so life giving and and promotes like a longer relationship. So this is just

there's so much good in this. And not to be like super negative, but you know, money is one of the leading causes of divorce. In the US for a while it was the number one cause I don't know if it's still is that study is a couple of years old. But you know, this is like, this is a real thing. You know, this is we can kind of more money and say like, oh, I'm not materialistic,

I'm not a math person. I don't I don't think about money, but that often does manifest in, you know, challenges within the relationship unless you're just like fabulously wealthy and have tons of money. But then I really don't think you're listening to this podcast if that's the case. So you know, it's one partner might have the goal of let's say, paying off the debt, and the other

partner has a goal of quality time. I would like to go out to dinner with you once a month, Okay, find do both of those things, right, Like find a way that I think so often we think like either I am paying off debt or I am eating out every day. For every male it's like no, no, there's like a lot of bread. So there's a lot of nuance that you and your partner can tease out and figure out where the values are and who can compromise

and on what nice. That leads us into step two when we're thinking about our spending, is to review your last month's spending. Why is this step two? Oh? This is so important. This is something I did not I did not do this. When we first started tracking our expenses. I was like, there is no way that we spend that much of money at Trader Joe's. My husband was like, well, it's like kind of like right here. It's like, you know the cheese section at Trader's Joe's, you know the

wine section. I was like, oh, I know. Those ar count was it was like a thousand dollars or something, which in it have been to summer so it was Christmas. Ti'm like, layoff. But the point is you really need to know what you're spending and what you're spending it on because that really leads you into all the other steps of this process. So I say, look at the

last month of spending. What you're gonna come out of this challenge doing, I hope is tracking or spending every single month because it changes, it varies like you would not believe. Right. So you've got you know, your car insurances do one month you have to pay for your heating oil for the winter in the next month, you have to pay for Christmas the next month. What you eventually want to do is know what your twelve month

average is. So when I do reader case studies on my blog where I have real people send in real numbers, I say, listen, you gotta like average out Christmas. I don't want to see no zero dollars for Christmas because I know that that spending occurred. I'm using Christmas as an example that spending occurred in ice elation. But you need to really amortize that overall twelve months. So this is getting you into that habit of tracking and and

understanding the trends. Because spending three dollars on groceries one month sounds great, but if it's a boomerang where the next month you're spending a thousand on groceries, you need to look at how you might even that out, how you might stabilize that, and where the efficiencies might be. So I have a lot of people come to me and say, ah, I can't. I was doing the Uber Frugal Month, but then my car needed a repair, So now I'm not doing Uber Frugal Month anymore. But yes

you are. You know your your life is going to happen, like your car is going to break down, your kid is gonna get sick, like these things are going to happen, And so you want to be figuring out, like what's the holistic view of my finances over the course of a year. And I think a year is like pretty decent unless you have major life changes like you have a baby or you move, that maybe an aberrational year.

But you want to start seeing that data year after year so that you really know what you're spending over the course of the year. So start with the previous month and then go forward with tracking. And I talk a lot in the challenge itself about software that you might use for tracking. There's a lot of free programs available. There are plenty of people who also write it down or do it in a spreadsheet. It doesn't really matter

how you do it, just do something that works for you. So, once you've got it written down pen and paper or you've input it into a software and you've got all of your spending kind of you've seen it, you've interacted with it, you talk about step three, which is then categorizing. Can you talk a little bit about what that process is like sure, So we all have expenses that are fixed and expenses that are not fixed, and those are

kind of the two big categories. So fixed expenses are the things that do not change or do not change easily. So that is your more, get your your rent, if you have debt repayments, student loan repayments, car loan payments, UH, utilities, electricity, UM, internet, things like that, those are fixed expenses. Everything else is discretionary. So even things like groceries, those are discretionary. UM, even

though they are mandatory, that amount can change. So you want to kind of think about what are the things that I just absolutely have to spend on every month. Okay, I have to spend on daycare, I have to pay my rent, I have to you know, sort of do these things that are a fixed cost, and then everything else we're gonna look at it and further categorized. So within that fixed cost bucket, that stuff could change, right,

you could move. These are changes that you could make, and I don't think we're gonna get to that within the context of this conversation, but the uber frugal month will take you there because at a certain point, you know you can do everything you want with a discretionary you may need to move, right, Like, if your mortgage is more than you can afford, you're never I mean you're not. You either earn more or you move and you change that fixed cost. So it's yes, they are

fixed expenses, but you don't just throw them out. You know, you need to keep them in mind and remember that you do, to a certain extent have control over that, even though it might be a very difficult change to for example, to move. So then in that sort of non fixed discretionary bucket, you can start to subdivise and subdivide and categorize because you're gonna have stuff that's mandatory and then stuff that's not mandatory. So groceries are mandatory,

Gasoline for your car is mandatory. Close maybe they're not mandatory. You know, really think about kind of why you're spending the money and what it's going towards. And so then that gets us into sort of like what can we reduce, what can we eliminate, and that takes us into the

next step of the challenge. Yeah, I love the mindset shift you have to make knowing that your your fixed expenses aren't a hundred percent fixed And I think it overflows into thinking about your income too, to think, Okay, so my expenses aren't fixed, There's always something I can do, even if it's really hard, I can do it, and say with your income, your income isn't always fixed. You can always increase your income. It's it's sometimes it's really hard,

but it is doable. So it's an entire mindset shift on income and expenses. Absolutely, And the reason why I encourage people to start with Uber Frugal Month as opposed to thinking about their income is that you can do this right away. You know, you don't need to ask your boss for a raise, you don't need to go

on a job search. You can start making these changes immediately and seeing results immediately, and then like Jenna saying, you can look and say, you know what, with this income, I am never going to reach these goals, Like there's there's only so much you can frugalize, right, I mean, eventually it's like you can't. You know, you hit a certain point and you can't save anymore. You have to change the other side of the equation. But I encourage

people like start with this part. This in my mind is sort of the easier part because you are in control of it and then start looking externally at your job and how you might need to change that. So then we get into the next part, which is step four. And I love this one. What can I eliminate entirely? Because I would much rather eliminate things and expenses entirely than try and like scrimp and save a little bit

on every single thing. So tell us about this. So this is like, this is kind of the hard one because you're just giving stuff up, Like there's not a there's not like a trick or anything like cool here, You're just doing stuff anymore, Like I don't you know. This is sort of where people start to think this is deprivation, and I'm like, it's not, because we're going to get to the next step in a minute. But this is the stuff that you, like Jenna saying, you

can't eliminate it whole cloth. So these are things that you look at at the end of the month and you can't remember them, you know, So like meals out that you don't remember clothes that you forgot you even bought, uh subscriptions, you know, so magazine streaming, Um, I don't know people subscribe to anything that you might subscribe to that is sort of a monthly recurring charge that you're not necessarily deriving value from really anything that you feel

you could take out and still live, you know, a life that you enjoy living. So everybody's answer is going to be different here because this goes back to step one. What are your goals? Are you trying to pay off

a thousand dollars in debt? You're gonna need to give up more than the person who's trying to save a thousand dollars for a family vacation, right, So this again, that's why we start with the goals, so that you have in mind, Okay, if I want to pay this debt off, you know, I can't buy shoes for a while, Like I can't pay for yoga classes for a while. You know, I need to do yoga at home. I can't buy a new car and take on the expense

of that lease. So it's really again going back to the goals and then looking at it and just like crossing stuff offul list, like Okay, I'm just not going to do this anymore, and that is going to be a simplification of my expenses of my life. I'm letting go of clutter so I think a lot about minimals

and with this step. And I have thought about this a lot in the context of my kids activities, because my oldest is almost six, and this is like, so they're like doing like sports now, and you know, you and have an activity every single day of the week after school. But that's expensive and to me, it's stressful and hectic. So we have we do one activity at a time, and so we did swimming, then we did soccer,

Then we'll do basketball, then we'll do skiing. And so it's spending money in a way that I think is important on something that she wants to do, but it's being sort of minimal about it and trying to reduce the clutter that it would bring into my life. So this is where it really becomes a holistic question. It is not just the money, it's also how you're spending your time. Yeah, we were just talking about this two days ago, decluttering your transactions and like choosing quality transactions

over quantity. I also love the example you gave Liz in your article about just deciding to stop needing makeup, like constantly looking for inexpensive good makeup, but then realizing through through this challenge what if I just didn't need it anymore? And of course, as you say, that example could shift person to person, but even that question of what what if I didn't need it anymore, I might be able to find a more frugal, cost effective option.

What if I just cut it out altogether? Absolutely, And that's a great one because for a while what I did is I like total makeup, fast, no makeup. Now I am wearing some makeup. I have on some I makeup and some lip makeup. But for me, I don't do this every day. So it's kind of that like it has become for me an occasional thing. I would say, like maybe once a week I put on I makeup and lipstick and you know, and so it's like I'm doing it, but I'm not doing it every single day

as a matter of habits. Same thing with painting my nails. Like I was painting my own nails buying like all this nail polish. I still paint my nails occasionally, it's not as much of a habit and it's not as expensive as it used to be for me. So one of the things with you a Frugal Month that I encourage people to do is to consider doing a fast like consider doing the month with let's say no eating out, let's say no makeup, See how that goes, and then decide how you might what you might want to add

back in. So maybe you're like me, You're like, Okay, I'm gonna wear makeup, like maybe once a week. I'm going to eat out once a month or once a week. I'm going to stop the like mindless buying lunch at work. I don't even remember what I ate purchases. So a lot of this is to really just to get you to think about what you're spending and it's you know, so if you stop spending it and you don't miss it at all, that is very telling. If you stop

spending and you're like, this is awful. I hate not wearing makeup, there's your answer, then you know that you are a makeup person. Right for me, I stopped wearing makeup. I just thought the world was gonna end. Nobody noticed. I was like, really, who even notices? So it was kind of this reset for me in a lot of ways. Financial, body, image, time, the amount of time it took to put this up on. So you're really kind of trying to give yourself the freedom in the space to think about what you want

to be doing. Again, it comes back to your time and your money every day. Yeah, I actually gave up make up for a year, and uh yeah, it was the same story at like after I had Kai, though, I was like just feeling icky, and so then I started like wearing it sometimes, like going out again, and so no, yeah, I wear it like once or twice a week. But yeah, And that's why we love no spend challenges because they challenge you to, let's get rid

of everything discretionary. We figure out what we need, what we don't need, what we want, what we don't want, and then we bring back what we truly value absolutely. And I wanted to say too that what you mentioned earlier about taking some things from the challenge and leaving others. The phase of life that you're in right what is it that you need right now? Because when I was younger and had not had kids, this is a very different.

I'm like, I can wear anything and look great, and then I'm like, I can, but do I feel great? And so after my second was born, I was wearing maternity clothes all the time, and I had done this like no clothes buying for like four years or something, and I had to sit down myself and be like, you know what, I really don't like wearing maternity clothes when I'm six months postpartum, and I don't nothing else fits, Like I just cry every time I look in my closet.

And so I got rid of it's pretty much everything I own and bought new clothes, you know, and some summer from the thrift store summer new and I'm just I have like a uniform. My friends all joke because I learned leggings and a dress every day, Like I don't believen like pants zip anymore, Like I just don't. They're not I can't literally love that. I love that. But my friends was like, can I borrow a pair of jeans? Like I do not own jeans? Like I know,

they're not part of my life. So phase, the phase of life you're in, right, you know, if you're a postpartum and feeling you know, not great, this may be the time to spend money on clothing, right. So it's it's very much identifying that phase of life and what's a priority now, because sometimes what's a priority now is

not a priority in a year. You know, you don't need to buy a new wardrobe every year, right, But it's knowing what's going to help you to feel good, I think is really important because sometimes money is the answer, Like sometimes you just need money to like get some leggings that fit what you're saying. Speak so much too, I think naturally what you define as the next step

here of embracing the art of substitutions. Once you've identified, eliminate, slice and dice this other stuff, then you talk about getting creative with some substitution. Can you say more about that? This is my favorite thing because you don't have to give anything up here. You just have to like swap stuff around. So the easiest one is yourself phone. If you are an not using an m n v O which or an m v n OH mobile virtual network operator. This is the T J max of cell phones, all right.

So they they re sell name brand service, they resell T Mobile, a T and T Sprint for a like way cheaper price. So my husband and I were spending something like eighty dollars of phone on service, and we now spend I think it's about ten dollars per phone per month. That is the easiest substitution. There is no excuse. There's a whole day on the UBU frug a month like devoted to this. I have a chart on Frugalds that shows you which m v N O S resell which service and sort of what the base price is.

So like do that. You're getting the same thing but for less anywhere that you can find that, we'll be doing that. That is that is the best. Usually the cost here is some administrative labor on your part. You have to like call the phone company. You got to get the SIM card. You could take it out and then drop it on the floor, lose it, find it again, put it in the phone. You know, this is not a frictionless process, so it's not like, oh, just do this.

And you know, I don't have a personal assistant. I don't know, so it's like, yeah, I have to get on the phone with the phone company and like it's kind of annoying. And I don't have cell reception at my house, so I had to drive to town to like put in the pin code. Reality that you're this process really is like they were like, we will text you a code. I was like, do not text it to me? And they're like we have texted you a code and it's like, oh you have you have three

minutes to use that. So my husband is like drive was like it's like a little spot kind of on a mountain like park on the side of the road, and like trying and put in so like I just want to, you know, be real, like it's not like this stuff is not kind of annoying to do. But when you're talking about saving thousands of dollars over the course of the year, you know, have some discomfort, Like this is a little annoying. Just do it and then

you will save money forever. And so that's the other great thing about this is like you do it once. It's super annoying, but then it's done. The other thing I talked about too is comparison shopping for things that people don't think to comparison shop for. The example I use is um oil and propane. So we have oil as backup heat, we have propane for our stove. Those prices are not set prices, there is a market price.

Every company will quote you a different rate. So every year I sit down and I spend I mean probably like three hours calling all these companies because of you know, God forbid. They list the price on their website, So like calling all of them and I make a spreadsheet and then I calculate how much we save every year, and again it's thousands and thousands of dollars. So yes, it is. It is not frictionless. It is kind of annoying,

but um, I find it to be worthwhile. So this is where you know you are putting some effort into it, but you're reaping a benefit. And I don't suggest doing this for stuff that costs under five dollars, right you. You want to see a pretty significant return on the investment of your time. So I have a great example about this. I needed some new underwear and I bought some at Walmart. But I bought like you, you don't

try it on. So I bought like three packages, you know, because I didn't know like the style, the style I don't know so style the underwear we like where it's cut, you know, and my husband, you don't know when they're coming in those packages. You don't know there is help. You're looking at the picture, You're like, oh great, she's

like me. So that's not h anyway. So I found the one that worked, kept it had the other two packages in the back of my car for like I want to say, six months, because Walmart is forty five minutes away, Okay. Instead of returning those to get my twenty bucks back, I donated them to the thrift store in the package. So so it's like you got to

think about the amount of time versus the benefits. So me like driving to Walmart standing in line, that's not worth my time, you know, twenty dollars for two hours of my time. No way I make more if I'm working right. So I'm not encouraging people to be like, you know, trying to recoup that the five dollars or the twenty dollars from the Walmart underwear donated to the thrift store. But do spend the time on the heating oil, on the cell phone, on the stuff that that again

you're gonna see the higher return. And that threshold is different for everybody. You know, it may very well be that you need to return the underwear because that twenty is going to have an impact. I'm not saying that that doesn't for some folks. But that's sort of my most recent example of know what the end result is because when I started, I did have this very much,

this mentality of like every cent matters. And my husband was like, okay, so you just spent all this time finding coupons to save four dollars and I'm like, but it's four dollars. He's like, right, but you just spent two hours doing coupons. And I was like, Oh, that's kind of a good point. So your time has has something. Absolutely your time is valuable too. I think a lot of times we can forget that. And yeah, that is an example in some ways of being cheap. We do

have frugal fails along the way. And we were in that Oh that wasn't eric and I just bought a six dollar pack of like twenty granola bars or like these granola bars are normally like three dollars apiece, so this is great, but they're like two months from expiring and they're super hard and we might break a tooth on them. That was a frugal fail. Yeah, exactly. It's like a bomber. It's and we always say, like, frugality is it's it's not the it's not inconvenient. It's just

not the most convenient, that's what it is. It's not inconvenient, it's not consistently being inconvenience or inconveniencing others. It's just not the most convenient option. So take take with that. And on the subject of m v n o S. Shout out to our partner, Ting Mobile, who loves the show and supports us. And you can get twenty five off on a plan by going to frugal dot ting dot com that's got the switch to them from another provider. And I, yeah, I'm really happy right there there. I

keep it, keep it handy, alright. So the last step we're going to talk about on this UM episode is step six to reduce spending on discretionary expenses. So we we I feel like we're we got into this a little bit, but expound on it for us. Sure, So we kind of saved the hardest part for last because f you, you eliminated stuff right then, you substituted, You got your ting, you got your cheaper heating oil. Why can't I not think of another example? Whatever you got

to like? For me, it's like, what did I just buy last week? Because if I had never spent money before. You talk about exercise, that can be and gym memberships can be expensive. Okay, they can be worth it for some people that The example that I had for exercise, which it's like so obvious that this started before I had kids, was that I was going to yoga like five times a week, which is the thought of just

like having the time to do that. Now to me, it's like and my husband we went together every Saturday morning and then they got a coffee. I'm like, that's so cute, and you thought you had clap. Oh my god. So the example at the time was I was doing this yoga all the time. That's good, right, that's a that's a good thing. That's a beneficial thing. It's good for my mental health. I had a lot of friends,

it's good for my physical health. It was twenty dollars a class, you know, And so sitting down and looking at that expense at the end of the month, said, gosh, I do derive a lot of value from this in these different categories of my life. But I think, you know, it was probably two a month. It was like, that seems ludicrous, Like that seems just a ridiculous amount. And so I looked at the studio the next time I was there, and I saw that you could do a

work trade. So you could work at the desk and check people in and then take the class for free. So that's what I did. I did that until we left Cambridge, so I did it when I was pregnant. I did it after I had my first I would check people in for the class and then I would like mop the floor afterwards, and I would take the class for free. And then I also I asked them if they had an asynchronous time thing that I could do because it was hard for me to get there

after work to check people in. And they said, well, we need somebody to take the trash barrel out like around the alley and then bring it back. I's like on it. So I would like get off the bus there, take the trash barrel around, and then I would be able to book a free class for that. And you know that that's a very specific example, but I have heard from people who have been able to work out this kind of barter and trade situation for so many

different things. I have heard it for childcare, I have heard it for all manner of exercise. I have heard it for specific services. So I have someone a reader of mine who is a massage therapist, and she has a client who is a lawyer, and so they actually trade legal for massages and then and that works for them. You know, they have an agreement whereby that is beneficial for both people. So this is again you're finding those expenses that you didn't want to eliminate. You could not

find a good substitution. Can you bring barter and trade into it to make it equitable for everyone and to make it something that you know that works for everybody. So I often find like if you talk to people, they're like, oh, yeah, well we can. You know, I really need someone to pick my kid up from school. So if you can pick my kid up, I will give your kid free piano lessons. Right. So have these conversations in your community. What I have found is that

like most people would like to save money. You know, this is not a radical thing. Most people are like, oh, yeah, we can both save by yes. So the more comfortable that you can become sort of having these conversations with your friends, with your community, I think the more you will find people are like, oh, that's a that's a great idea. You know, if we can find a way to economize and create efficiencies and also hey, create like

a deeper friendship and a better community environment. Yes, absolutely these things. I mean people are so afraid of like bartering or trading because they don't want to look like cheap or poor. But it fosters this sense of community that you don't get when you just solve your problems with money. Like when you look to solve them in creative ways, you can foster like deeper sense of community. Right,

And you're not trying to get something for free. You're not trying to rip some money off, right, that's not that's not the goal. The goal is like, how can I help you? Jen, Like, I don't want to pay you for these piano lessons for my child? What can I do for you? Could I clean your house while you give her lessons? You know, my sister for a long time cleaned the ballet studio so that she and

her three kids could take free classes. So she'd go one night a week and she cleaned, do all the bathrooms, clean the whole studio, And the studio manager said, this is great. This is way less than what I was paying a cleaning service. You're doing a great job. Fine for you and your kids to have classes. Right, So again, it's like expanding your mind what could I What could I offer that's going to be helpful to you and

you can help me meet my goals too. It's recognizing that time and skill are valuable to not just money, and it's almost cutting out the middleman of money in some really beneficial ways. It's a win win, not yeah, taking advantage of or just being cheap. I love of it. There was a time that I traded childcare for food. This woman would make me meals and I would watch her kid and that was far better than money for me because I just didn't have the time to cook,

or desire or skills. I love that that That is so perfect. That is like the perfect example. And I have to continue. With my sister and the ballet studio, this started that way. She now teaches there because she created this relationship. She's been a dancer for decades and you know, she created this relationship with the studio manager, and the studio manager was like, you're an incredible dancer.

Would you ever be interested in teaching? And she's like, well, yes I would, And so it's you know, uh, kind of creating again. You never know sort of where this network will lead you when you sort of open yourself up and you're a little bit vulnerable, right, You're like, I would like to do this, but I can't really afford it, and and so you're kind of inviting that

confidence and that intimacy and that relationship might go great places. Amazing, so much fruit goodness here, Liz, thank you so much. And we didn't even get through the whole list, So if you want to see the rest of the list, you're yeah, if we didn't, yeah, we didn't even get through the list. We're gonna have it up on our show notes, so we are. Or you can just sign up for the Uber Frugal Month too. That's also a thing. And you know what else is a thing? 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. Tough bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Clinton, this is the bill of the week, Liz. You know this. Every time every episode we invite a listener or guests to share with us. There, Bill, and we know that you have one for us. It is traditionally, even duck bills.

It's what you're known for. I've done a lot of friends. Yeah, but I hear you might have something you might be deviating. I am deviating from the duck bill today because it ties right into another step in the U Frugal Month that we that I didn't quite cover because I was got so carried away on the barter and trade. Sorry about that. This bill is my bill, my most recent thrift store bill. So I went to the thrift store because now that my kids are in school, I can

actually go to the surf store. So I'm looking at my list. My bill was forty nine dollars and seventy five cents. Here is what I bought. Three winter coats from my kids, one of them brand new with tags on, one pair of kid winter gloves, one puzzle which I'm gonna give to one of my daughters as a Christmas present, one princess snow globe which is a birth a present

for the other daughter. A dress for me which I am wearing right now, a jean jacket for me, dresses for each of my kids, three pairs of kids shoes, and a superwoman costume for a future Halloween and also this mug for fifty cents. So this is another ethos of frugality, ethos of uber frugal month is really you gotta embrace the used market, all right. I am a great lover of clothing. Three dollars for address fifty cents for a fashionable mug. My husband was like, do we

need another mug? I was like, doesn't matter. It is so cute. So, you know, finding this is a great way of finding a way to treat yourself to enjoy life. I sufused, you know, and I have a lot of articles on like if that's kind of a hurdle for you, or a mindset that's hard for you. I've talked a lot about sort of the myth of like the gross used thing, or the myth of like who buys used things?

So you know, if you kind of it's yourself over that hunt and then really embrace that and sort of your first entry point anytime you need anything, you will save so much money and you will find such like cute, unique stuff a men. I just did a thrift trip last week on half price. They do the tags half

price they start every Tuesday. They switched to a new tag, so went last Tuesday because Kai needed pants and I spent I think thirty dollars and I maybe got like everything was definitely a dollar, and so I had to have gotten like twenty pairs of pants and some other things. Like kid is stocked for the winter. You know, he'll go through all those pants and get holes in all of them. Yeah, I mean it'll be and then we can pass them on to like somebody else through by

nothing group and it's like a great donation. Yeah, thrift is everything. And I actually this morning was thinking like, how am I going to describe it the reason we do this, like to my children in the future, because like most kids, their mom shops at the thrift store and they're like, oh, but I just want new clothes. But I really want to emphasize, like, we don't just

buy second hand because it's cheaper. We buy it because it's better for the people who are making the clothes, so that if collectively we buy less new clothing, then they're you know, less you know, indebted to their you know, employers, and have more freedom and can raise wages. So for those people. We do it for the environment because we don't need half of the new things that are are created every year. Um, and so we do it. We do it for that, and then we also save money.

And and then the other thing that I that it does, I think is that it reduces the endowment effect, so such that as you were saying, when your son is done with those clothes, you will pass them along. You will not be trying to recoup your costs. You will not sort of cling to material items because the value that you have on them is a little bit lower. And I find that with my kid's clothes, like they grow stuff, they have grow toys and out of my

house to take it, somebody take it. I don't feel that I need to get money back because I spent so little on it. And I also don't have this like deep attachment to most of my material things because they were so inexpensive to begin with. My garage sale lamp is right here. That's my five dollar lamp. I'm so happy about that. So I think it's like when you start thinking and using this mindset, it is holistic.

And now my kids this is the greatest thing. As we drive down the road, if there is like a pile of free stuff on the side of the road, they go, oh, Mama, garage sale. You gotta stop, we might need something saying that, I'm like, we do not need everything just because it's free or just because it's on sale, does not need we need it because they're like, but there's a garage sale, so they're like so into

like the used thing. I think I don't know that they even know this stuff like can be bought new. I'm sure they do. That's amazing, Liz, thanks for sharing your bill. I can't believe you remembered all of the things that you and my most recent monthly expend support on frugal was Otherwise I would not. If you have a bill that you want to share, whether it is about how how much you got at the thrift store for a low amount, or bills you paid off, you know the drill, submit your bill of the week at

Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash bill. We love to hear it. And now it's time for ground. So today we are going to all share a reset or re check. We will be doing this January because it definitely pays every year to check in with what you're doing, check in with your habits, and just because we've been doing fruality for a while, doesn't mean we don't check in. So, Liz, is there anything that you will be resetting or checking in January? Yes, I am going to reset on my

seventy two our rules. So this is part of the Uber Frugal Month, and it's that you wait seventy two hours before buying something that you think you want. During the pandemic and now with the supply chain issues, I have gotten into this really bad habit of being like, we need this, we need it now, get it on Amazon right now because I don't know when it will

be delivered. I don't know when it will be available, and I'm not giving myself the space and time to go through all the considerations of could I borrow this, do I already have something that would work, Do I even need this thing to begin with? Can I find it used? I'm I've kind of fallen out of habit with that, and I find myself like thinking like, oh, I need to like buy this this thing right now

online so that I make sure and have it. So I'm going to try this January to really start putting that space in between me identifying a need or a want and then buying it. That's awesome, beautiful, I like the example that you're giving of why you kind of fell off the wagon with that rule. I think that's realistic for so many of us. We kind of have these set ways of engaging, but then something shifts in our circumstances. But then there's always opportunity to revisit and

re establish that way of engaging again. That's amazing. I just love that tipe. I want to reevaluate home renovations in January. It's obviously for so many a really good time for to sit down and look back and look ahead.

So we are in the middle of tons of home renovations, but I've been seeing in the past year that some of our big stuff is getting put on hold, or our savings for the big stuff is getting a bit hijacked by the attainable projects that I can do immediately, But then it's kind of stealing away from the bigger stuff, like the kitchen that absolutely needs to get done hopefully in so miss January, we're sitting down and looking at, Okay, how can we put these tinier little outdoor garden projects

maybe on hold so that we can get at the bigger goals. M Yeah, that I mean that kitchen really does now that I've seen your laundry room and how beautiful that is, Like I I personally need your kitchen to look like that. So for those who don't know, it's it's exposed wires, it's foam on the wall. I think we have a cabinets. We have video of it in the highlights of our Instagram. Oh, I thought that. I thought it was like deleted after twenty four hours

there for everyone. Thanks John. I think I think our social media or Rebecca put it in our highlights. She made a highlight reel just so everyone can just what a dumpster fire it is, and then you'll know how much that priority needs to be. Bottles of wine on the floor to that is that makes it che check that Yeah, alright, So mine is to rese I want to reset my spending so that I can save for

like some smaller trips. So we've been consistently saving my income to invest in real estate, and so hopefully that is going to happen soon. I've been told that I need to stop saying hopefully and to say it will happen soon. So but in like after we get that, I'd like to take some more like smaller trips like weekend trips. We're we're good at planning like the bigger ones. But I mean there's like, we live so close to Orlando, and like a are places you know that are touristy

in Florida. So I would I would like to to reset and reprioritize to incorporate those Oh that's me amazing big things, big things for all of us in January and hopefully all of two. Liz, thank you so much for joining us again. If people want more from you, when there is so much more they can get from you, where can they find you? So I'm at frugal Woods dot com and you can sign up for the free uber Frugal Month challenge there. I'm also on Instagram, Facebook,

and Twitter at frugal Woods. And I also wrote a book that is Meet the Frugal Woods Achieving Financial Independence through Simple Living. Thank you coming, And yes, I think I might participate in the January Challenge this year. I don't know, we'll see. Maybe we could do like a debrief afterwards. Okay, okay, I see experience like, Okay, this sounds good. All right, well we'll see you in the challenge. Sounds good. I am amazing about it. Yeah, I just

I really enjoy her. I think one of the things that I appreciate is how much she's able to back up each statement. She's not just this rotating I've got my talking pieces. She has such a wealth of examples, not only from her own life but from her own fans and followers. And that really helps, at least for me to solidify concepts. Is when I can hear all these different ideas of how it looks to implement the creativity part of it, the lack of deprivation just so

so much goody goodness. And you could just tell she's been doing this for over a decade because she speaks like a fair godmother. Yeah, I I love her so much for just how relatable she is. And I think this is it's why I love our show too, is that none of us were like frugal at birth. We don't come on this like I think of Travis when I think of people who just love saving money and hate spending money just for the sake of not spending and saving. Even his mom's like, I don't know where

he got this from. So it's just so true. That is so true, and and and so we're not like that, and Liz isn't like that. She came upon this through learning, and that makes like what she writes more relatable and easier to understand because like talking from prior experience. So I just I love that about her so much wisdom gained from experience and not just like, well this is what I do. This comes natural to me, so it

should come natural to everyone sort of thing. So thank you for listening, and we want to thank you for your kind reviews on Apple podcasts like this one. It's from Melissa vladish Skin and she just happens to give us five stars. Relatable, hilarious, and informative. Frugal Friends is more of a podcast. Is more than a podcast. It's a community. Jen and Jill have brought together so many

like minded individuals who all have similar goals. The podcast has motivated motivated me to become a better person and has positively impacted my family in our future. I recommend Jen and Jill's podcast anyone looking for more tips on leading a frugal lifestyle and a brighter financial future. Meliss for all your kindness, And that is the thing. It's not just about frugality, is also about community. So glad that you've picked up on that and have been able

to engage and enjoy that aspect of this podcast. We also want to thank our friends who share these episodes on social media, So when you share the latest episode on Instagram, we're adding you to our monthly drawing. For every five tags and reviews we get each month, we give away or currently we're giving away fifty dollars five zero for you to spend in the Frugal Friends shop.

M h. I got a lot of digital products to help you become more frugal, So keep leaving us reviews wherever you listen to podcasts and sending the screenshot to Frugal Friends podcast at gmail dot com, and don't forget to tag us on social See you all next week. Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Syrian jill Um. The day after this comes out is your Um. The syrianis

annual Christmas Holidays bonan'sa blowout. We're calling it annual even though this is the first time we're doing it, we're just already committing to doing it regularly on an annual basi that on you. I'm going to put that party on like on you to just do every year. I was actually told about it at the gym. Oh yeah, Justin told Yeah. Justin's like, yeah, we were We felt so special. We were invited to Um, Jill and Eric's

Christmas party. You were too, And because I hadn't checked Facebook yet, I was like, oh, that's good to know that I was also invited. Thank you. Of course, because we're actually friends, like believe it or not, right, Um, so we go to each other's parties and and yeah,

so everyone is excited. Jill, Hey, we we decided this year we're going to get out the invitations early because everybody's December books up, and even still, I know there'll be other opportunities and people might flake out because something might seem better. But you know, you get in that invitation early, you make it seem awesome. And we really did it this year, and I'm I'm excited for it. So yeah, the day after this comes out, I'm gonna have to get my rest and I have to start

prepping all that food. We talked about, I think in an earlier episode about spending around the holidays and what we are willing to spend on and save in other areas, and this type of thing is that for me that I really enjoy hosting. I want to provide for people to come and enjoy, and this is going to be one of those where I just I have all the food and bevies, including that eggnog, including that we Eric did by agnog. Already he's like, this always sells out.

I gotta get in early. I know he's got to really embrace that seventy two hour rule, but they did sponsor, so mm hmmm, I know. Yeah, it's just better for us. See you there, m