Hello and welcome to choose a fight today in the show we have two of my really good friends we have Jen and Jill from the Frugal Friends podcast and they have a new book coming out on January 7th called buy what you love without going broke. This book is really fantastic and it dives into just a ton of critical areas that I think all of us need to consider. It's that tension between overspending and ultra frugality.
It's trying to find out what do you value in life and how to actually undertake experiments to figure out what do i want my life to look like and maybe some really specific action will take away on 30 day no spend challenges or 90 day transaction inventories so.
This episode has a little bit of everything from the really, really hyper actionable to the broad aspects of, hey, fire's a journey. It's a constantly evolving life. And we need to be there for that journey with an open mind. I think you're really, really going to enjoy this episode. And with that, welcome to Choose the Fire.
All right, Jen and Jill, two of my absolute favorite people. I love having you on the show. This is gonna be fun. We love being here. Thanks for having us. Yeah, this is gonna be cool. So, okay, in a week, you have a book coming out called, Buy What You Love Without Going Broke. Transform your spending and get more of what money can't buy. And I think what's so interesting about you two is obviously you are the frugal friends. And I think it is a reframe
on frugality in the best possible way. And I think frugality has taken a lot of hits over the last handful of years, even in our community. And we are the frugal community, right? But we've gone so far away from it. I'd love to hear your thoughts on maybe why that's happened. Why have we gone away from frugality so much?
So you're saying like people have been anti-frugality at this point and pro making lots of names. The general sentiment behind the gallery. So I think we love to operate in extremes and black and white. It's just easier to navigate with as little nuance as possible. That's just like how our brains work, right? So for me,
So my husband and I paid off $78,000 of debt in two years. And once we were done with that, I thought my financial problems in securities, fears were just gonna go away and they didn't. And so instead of navigating why that was, I just decided to jump into Phi and put the same amount that I was putting towards debt into 401K IRA and just go the same like full steam ahead with Phi.
And then I got let go from my job seven weeks before I had my first son, and I no longer could go full steam ahead. And I was forced to try to navigate some of this nuance between why did I feel like I needed to go full steam ahead?
And that led to starting my own financial writing business. And I really got started with, okay, I'll just make as much money as possible. Then I won't have to think about all of the spending, which is hilarious because a year later, I started Frugal Friends and I was modern frugality. So I was thinking more about the saving money aspect, but there was still in my own personal life, this disconnect.
I just wanted to navigate in the black or white in the extremes because it was easier. I didn't have to think about why these things were hard, why I felt guilty when I spent money, why I felt so fearful when I spent money because I didn't know if I was going to need it down the road.
And so I think that's why we see these pendulum swings in the fi community between ultra frugality extreme and ultra income earning extreme. I think that's why we've also seen so many like flavors of fi in these different degrees.
You know, people want to label themselves five, but they're starting to find their radical middle, their balance between the extremes and giving them new labels, which I think is amazing because people are starting to embrace the nuance and try to navigate it.
Yeah, I love that embracing of the nuance. I can't keep up with all the flavors of fine. Most of the truth of my podcast, it's utterly ridiculous. I can't either, but I'm just like, if you found a label for yourself that you love, I love that for you. I love cookies and cream ice cream. I don't need the bacon and pistachio flavor. They did it well the first time. Exactly. And Joe, you've talked in the past before about the tension of living in the middle of these extremes, the extremes that Jen was talking about.
I'd love to hear you talk a little bit more about that because i just think this is so critical for all of us. Yeah, this is what we call the radical middle between Jen and i and i think our community has kind of picked up this term radical because not many people venture there we are drawn to extremes and sometimes we do visit those extremes but we are really advocating for holding the tension between the two.
So recognizing what's good on this side of maybe high income earning and what's good on the other side of maybe ultra extreme frugality and taking from both ends and holding it in the middle. So not expelling everything from one side or the other. That's where we then find ourselves in an extreme that eventually we're going to burn out from.
But rather finding what works for us from both sides and creating our own individualized again radical middle of yeah i like this but not that aspect of it yes i do want to earn more but not just for the sake of earning more i want to be able to define my enough and what that looks like in my season.
And i also want to practice good stewardship of my resources which is going to look like frugality in some ways of conscious consumption of i actually don't need to buy all of the paper products or i don't actually need to get a ton of decor and for some that may look like deprivation but for me i have found.
I don't need all of those things i found other solutions but i will absolutely say yes to spending on travel and so it's this give and take and holding the tension rather than saying i'm gonna just stay here stay planted here because this is what i've been told to do and never questioning it or identifying could there be other things that are beneficial to me here.
As always, when you talk, I have like 45 things that I want to talk about. It's so frustrating. So first comes to mind, we're going to talk about all these, but life is an experiment, right? Trying to figure out what you actually like. Minimalism is something that is near and dear to my heart and it's becoming much more so. So I definitely want to talk about that.
But let's go back to this radical middle and maybe like specific nuts and bolts steps on how people can find this because I think frankly, and you two talk about this in your book, like we live in an ultra consumerist society, right? We have been basically our dopamine centers have been hijacked very intelligently by many of these companies and it is hard to get out of that trap.
So maybe we talk a little bit about dopamine, but maybe then we also talk about how do we find that radical middle, like actual experiments? How do we do this? What's the methodology? So that's if we can kind of jump off from there on those two topics. I know they sound wildly disparate maybe to the audience, but I think they are inextricably like. So connected. Okay. So between dopamine and the radical middle,
This isn't like the first step that I usually give, but I'll like dive into this because it's one of my favorites. It's a no-spend challenge. And I've been talking about no-spend challenges since I did my first one in college out of necessity, but my first intentional one for financial reasons was while we were paying off debt. And I did it just to save money. But what I learned, what I got from it, extended far beyond the extra $300 or $400 it saved me.
And what I really learned was that it forced me to take space, to hold space, to figure out creative alternatives, to meet my wants and needs. And that was what I thought was really interesting, because when you can just solve all your problems by throwing money at them, and I'm not even talking about big things, but like I'm having a bad day,
And I want a little treat, so I'm going to get myself a little coffee, you know, like that is we're throwing money at a problem instead of forcing ourselves to get creative with how we meet the need. Do we deserve a little treat? Absolutely. Every day, multiple times a day. But let's make sure that they are real treats and not just poor, easy excuses for treats because it's just so easy to throw money at problems.
So no spend challenge for 30 days requires you at least you know there are a lot of nuances even in that but overarching requires you to not spend money on discretionary expenses for 30 days one month. You could do it longer but I think if we're learning how to spend money well.
You only need 30 days. If you're trying to learn how to not spend money, you can do it for as long as you want. But we want to help people learn how to spend money without guilt, shame, or going broke.
And so what that does is it takes off all the decisions that you make throughout the day that ask, do I want to buy this or do I not want to buy this? Because the answer is no. So you've got less decision fatigue. You've got less dopamine spike. Dr. Ann Lemke wrote a book called dopamine nation and she helps people with all kinds of addictions, all involving dopamine. And she saw after two weeks, the first two weeks were the hardest for her patients that were doing dopamine fast.
After four weeks though, her patients, excluding drug and alcohol and physical addictions, but her patients after four weeks of abstaining from their dopamine eliciting addiction really did see substantial results and differences in how much dopamine was released or absorbed after they were encountering that addiction, quote unquote. And so we think that four weeks is a really good amount of time.
And that is an extreme. If we're going to, by definition, a no-spend challenge is extreme. But it's by visiting these extremes that we can find our radical middle. So if we're living in this, we either spend money on whatever we want without thinking, or we spend no money out of fear, and we go to this intentional other extreme where we are thinking about our spending decisions more or less, in some cases,
After a month, we are more close to whatever that radical middle is going to be. That's just a physical way that you can get closer. That'll make sense. These really are quite tied together. In essence, you're taking this dopamine fast as part of this 30-day challenge. You're teaching yourself, put that little bit of space between stimulus and response. That's the Victor Frankl quote, which is just so exceedingly powerful.
Okay, I like this. This is making a talk of a lot of sense to me as I'm thinking through it, right? Can we take a step back? So, Jill, for a lot of people who aren't aware of dopamine or what's going on, like, is there a high-level overview we can direct them to? Or, like, what are your thoughts on, like, hey, what's even going on here? Why? Like, a lot of people might not have ever heard of this neurotransmitter, I guess, is probably what it is.
Yeah, sure. I mean, I think Dopamine Nation by Ann Lemke would be a great resource to look into. We'll put that on the show now, for sure. Yeah. And we don't talk extensively about kind of the neurological aspect of Dopamine, just recognizing that it is what is released when we go to make a purchase.
Usually the excitement leading up to a purchase, not even necessarily when we actually pull the trigger on the fingers usually then a little bit of a let down that happens, but we can become drawn to this because of what it does for our bodies, but there are a lot of ways and this isn't to repel dopamine. It's an amazing thing that our body releases and it's the feel good hormone. We love it.
But there are plenty of other ways that we can engage and experience a dopamine release that doesn't end up costing us a ton of money. And so one of the things, speaking of life experiments, that we will recommend people do is to make a list of alternatives that they can engage in to shopping.
And we like to talk about small medium big exchanges if you are one who wants to shop on your phone late at night scrolling. It's not going to be a great exchange to say well i'm gonna go out for a run because it's midnight and that's not what's gonna happen and it's winter.
But maybe it means that you're going to play a fun free game on your phone or you're going to get out some stationary and write a letter to a friend. There are plenty of other free alternatives that can help us connect with maybe the deeper need that is happening.
Yeah, okay, this I love and I want to really dive into. Maybe we can just have a conversation about this because I think so creative alternatives and life is an experiment. What do you really want? These are so critical. And I think the way that I look at life now, especially in terms of travel and trying to figure out what does a future life look like is
I'm just experimenting. Like every time I go on a trip, specifically a trip, but it can also frankly just be in your local area. Obviously, it's trying to get a little bit closer to what do I want my perfect life to be and obviously understanding there's no perfect life, right? Let's be clear. But what
Can i set up as an environment what lights me up so in terms of even just something as simple as i went on this big trip to bali recently so for the five freedom retreat i went to bali in singapore and doha which is just the most amazing trip and it was fascinating because i think bali a lot of people think of as
The connotations in American's heads are like, it's just perfect paradise. And the honest answer is it's not a perfect paradise. I went to Polly and got sick for most of the trip. Oh, yeah. Did you have Polly Belly? So you said that I was like,
You think that pretty much plagued everybody. But this is not to denigrate Bali because Bali, there's a lot of amazing, amazing things. But just for me, it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. There were aspects of it. So again, it's like you kind of pick and choose. And then you put life experiences together, right? Like when I visited London a handful of years ago, and we were 100 yards off of like,
the high street in this little chisick suburb and it was like oh you mean i can walk to restaurants and the grocery store in a minute or two and that's just part of the pitter patter of life if you will or when i was here in bally yeah we were on a resort but it was only a hundred yards off the main street and there were
25 restaurants within a couple hundred yards and that was just really cool But there was nowhere to walk because the sidewalks are very limited because the infrastructure is limited, right? So it's like again life is an experiment, right? It's like you pick and choose and it's like okay now I realize like this is important to me that I wouldn't have assumed This is important to me that maybe I would have assumed but not I didn't realize just how important so like that's how I think about it But I'd love to hear you to talk through this in your own lives and how you think about life as an experiment
Yeah, it's a great mindset to have essential mindset because so often we will try to replicate somebody else's like version of what looks like fulfillment. And then it doesn't work out like it doesn't make us feel like we thought it would. And then give up because, okay, well, what works doesn't work for me. So I'm just going to go back to, you know, whatever I was doing before.
But truly like looking at and we say like playing around like playing with different solutions once you give yourself space to get creative and creativity is something we talk about a lot because we talk about values based spending a lot and how we derived those values are from Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
And right at the very top is self actualization, self fulfillment, but creativity is also in that very top spot. So we have an innate need to be creative and not just like arts and crafts and stuff, but really being creative in problem solving solutions.
in how we're living our life every day. If we feel like we are coming up with innovative solutions to old problems, even the smallest, that makes us feel good. So when we give ourselves space to do that, to get creative in
how we're creating this really fulfilling life or whatever version of perfect life you want. I mean, you start impulse spending a lot less because no manufacturer can tell you I have the solution to your problem and you can just buy it because you're like, actually, that maybe is a problem. Let me get creative in how I solve it. Or, I don't actually think it's a problem for me. I think you're wrong. Maybe it's a problem for someone else, but not for me.
And the context for creativity are the parameters that we decide, and maybe the parameters that have been decided for us. Of course, our income and resources and current living situation are parameters. It doesn't mean that we can't shift what those look like, but rather than bucking against them and thinking, oh, if I just made more money, then I wouldn't have to deal with this constraint.
but rather looking at as what if this constraint provided the context for my creativity what might i choose instead to be able to solve for whatever problem it is that i'm facing in a more creative way that was the case for my husband and i when we were living on a very small income i'm a social worker and my job out of college was not paying a ton of money.
And we weren't paying a ton for housing, but we just weren't able to make big strides in paying off my student loan debt. And so recognizing that housing is one of our biggest expenses, we decided to move into an RV, and we live in two different RVs for two years, and we saved incredibly on our living expenses. And not to mention, we were able to sell the RVs at a profit because we renovated them and made them look.
really nice so i was able to then cash flow my master's degree and i'm not saying that's what everybody needs to do but my limited income created the context for what we could then solve for because i didn't want to go find a new job i did really enjoy what i was doing it felt fulfilling so what else could we do and that's what worked for us.
And we're also not saying everybody's limitation has to be income. Exactly. It could be other self-imposed parameters for creativity. But that's what the 30-day no-spend challenge is, too. It's a self-imposed constraint that could allow for creativity to flourish, where normally I'm going to go buy to solve this problem. Now I've got to think through what would I want to do instead and sometimes find better solutions.
where i might normally just go shopping at the mall and pick whatever stands out to me instead i'm calling up a friend and we're going for a walk and i'm learning more things about them and i'm able to share myself and actually that met my needs a whole lot more than a new dress would have okay now we've got even new behaviors to be replacing something we can take with us as we then find our radical middle going forward.
Yeah, to me, this is all about exploring the edges of that creativity. And then also, frankly, it delves immediately into life happiness and satisfaction. And I know those are kind of loaded terms, but I think it's important to think about what do you actually value in life?
Because I think it's very rarely Jill that that new dress. I think it's very rarely for me buying some little Electronic gadget or trinket or something like it almost never is right and I think because our dopamine centers have been hacked like I mean no joke I kid you not this is like so perfect in the last 30 minutes I was on Facebook which I try not to do and You know they're always serving up ads. I literally click through which I very rarely do I'm like oh
This little trinket, I don't even want to talk about it because it's embarrassing. What was it, Brad? We all have it. We all have those things that we click through. Everyone relates. They're just so good. They are so good at targeting. It used to be advertising was just like newspaper ads or radio ads and you had to be there at the right time to get served the ad. Now you open your eyes and there's a targeted ad
that's tailored to you. It's just a lot harder. You couldn't have nailed that even more with the word tailored, because mine was literally Taylor Swift inspired. The last time we were on with you, you had taken your daughter to the air story, I think.
Yeah. And I've been again since the last time I spoke with people. I am a full-on, swiftly at this point. Okay. So that's a little insight into my algorithm here, but I think it's really important.
So you're talking about this the context for creativity it's these parameters but again it's also this to me is a deep understanding of yourself right and this is the hardest part about life like work is really difficult and it is not an overnight thing.
This is a lifetime journey, it's a multi decade journey, but it has to start somewhere, right? And I think honestly, I think, and I've seen this in my own life, that really questioning what I spend money on has helped my inner work journey.
Because at the end of the day, I get down to I need so little in my life. It is stunning when I think about it. Like I'm also on a minimalism journey. So again, we'll probably talk about that later. But like at this point, I could probably live on one suitcase. I have a couple of digital subscriptions because I want to watch my English Premier League soccer. I have a $15 a month gym membership and I need some food.
And frankly, I need connection, right? Like that's actually what I crave. And that's you're able to do that over the internet now, you're able to like, I'm able to travel a lot more often. So like, that's where I'm leading on these experiments. But I'd love to hear like, where have your experiments taken you?
a couple of thoughts here and a tangible piece. First of all, I want to say that yes, it is a journey and it is about self understanding, but I think it can be helpful to frame it as a kindness to ourselves and valuing ourselves to give ourselves the opportunity to
Learn who we are, how we tick, how we operate, and recognize that we are morphing and changing. We're dynamic beings, the things that maybe we used to love or we're fulfilling a decade ago are no longer that anymore. And allowing ourselves also the room to shift and change and redefine is important here.
And I think, too, there's this concept that we talk about a lot of practicing curiosity and really this stance of not knowing, approaching ourselves like a science experiment a little bit and observing objectively as possible, not coming at it with a shaming perspective or a heavily questioning perspective, but rather,
What is it about that activity that i like so much what is it about spending on this that makes me feel fulfilled or if it's not fulfilling you what am i trying to get at here. And for the tangible piece here an experiment that we can all do is a ninety day transaction inventory like you said looking at your spending can reveal a lot.
And so we recommend going through the last 90 days of spending. So three months is going to give us a really good picture of the decisions that we make, some of the habits that we have, and maybe capture some of those outliers that might have existed. So gathering all of this into a spreadsheet
and being able to look at where am I spending the most money? The beautiful thing about spreadsheets is that we can organize them in all sorts of ways. We can organize by date. We can organize by location. We can organize by timeframe and amount of money spent. However, we kind of want to run this experiment, so to speak, we can identify where am I spending the most kind of discretionary money? What time of day is it? How might this help me understand the ways in which I impulse spend?
And we can even create another column within this spreadsheet to journal a little bit, not lengthy. We're not writing paragraphs here, but to identify what came before this purchase. Can I remember what I was thinking or feeling or who I was with or the need that I thought that I was trying to meet by doing this?
You don't ask all those questions but pick what works for you and what we're going to find is some observations rising to the surface of okay, this is where i typically impulse spent. I'm apparently spending a lot when i'm feeling you know certain types of emotions whether i'm.
really happy i was celebratory or i was a little down in the dumps or i felt like i was lacking connection and i went for these things in just observing just asking ourselves these questions avoiding why questions because why can put us in automatic fight mode set us on the defense a little bit but rather asking what was it about this purchase when was this purchase made what did it do for me.
And then that can inform our action but there's so much self understanding that's going to happen before we get to okay now what behaviors can i replace this with.
You're also going to be able to see if maybe you're spending a lot of money on other people versus yourself. So you're spending a lot on your kids and nothing on yourself or for your family members and nothing on yourself or in your business and nothing in your personal life. So it's going to reveal a lot of these other things too, even if you don't consider yourself like a superfluous spender.
Yeah, you both know, we love nothing more issues of either actionable takeaways. So I think that 90 day transaction inventory avoiding those why questions, but trying to get to, hey, where was I when this was happening for everybody listening? That is a massive takeaway. I think that can dramatically improve your life if you do that.
Now, I want to really, because I think stories make the world go round, honestly. And that's why I do try to dive into, into my own personal example, pretty often, because I think sometimes people can take away just those little, like, oh, I would have never thought about that unless Rad said it or Jill or Jen, like, are there any things that each of you have found in your own experimentation that you've been surprised by that has added value to your life?
So not in my life, but there's a story from the book that I really like telling that is a really good example. So our friend Paige, she started a new job right out of college. And she was so excited. As she started making money, she started buying new clothes for this new job. She was changing out her college wardrobe for her adult wardrobe, which was great.
And then after a few months, realized she hates this job. And now she doesn't need to buy clothes anymore, but she continues to go on her lunch break and buy clothes, shoes, handbags, makeup, all the stuff, just to escape the job, just to get away. And she didn't realize what she was doing until a year in. And she had spent, she was living with her parents, eating their food. She realized she had spent her entire $60,000 salary on stuff.
like just without realizing it. And so at the end, there was, you know, a little inventory of transactions, right? Like where did all this money go and where she was able to pinpoint that it's these lunch breaks shopping trips. So then comes, you know, a lot of you guys will be familiar with atomic habits and all of the cute. Yeah. So what we're really looking at is cues, right? Proceeding event, person, place, time, stuff like that. So she
identified like two cues. The main one was her job, the location. So she immediately started looking for a new job, but she didn't find one overnight. So she had to find an alternative that was, you know, she wanted to just get out on her lunch break. She couldn't leave all together. So she could get out for an hour. That was really what she was after. And she just found herself at the mall.
So instead she started going to a park. She just brought her lunch and she took it to a park. So she was still able to escape for that hour a day, but she wasn't tempted to spend money. And so like one day, and I love this like part of the story, but she was like, one day I was just sitting under a tree at this park and the sun was shining and birds were chirping and it was like this picturesque beautiful scene. And she's like, what was I doing? Like,
spending an hour a day inside a dingy mall wasting my money when this is truly beautiful and fulfilling. And so like eventually she did leave and she got to the major queue trigger, but she forced herself to get creative after she identified all these habits. And like she wasn't even thinking about values based spending at the time, but it was just like looking at these tangible habits and getting creative with what she could change.
For me, I think similarly, shopping as an activity is one of the draws for impulse spending for me. I am accustomed to just on the weekends, it's how I grew up. My mom and I would go to the mall as teenagers. We would meet up at the mall because there wasn't a lot going on. So you just shop around and hold your head thousands. I was going to say, how are we dating ourselves?
Yeah, exactly. And I still love it getting out of the house and kind of paired with the thrill of the hunt a little bit. I love digging, even at a thrift store. I love just digging through piles of stuff and finding the hidden gem. But it got to a point where I don't need this stuff, though, and especially when I lived in a vehicle, essentially, I couldn't have more stuff. It was I needed to deal with the four bowls and the two forks that I had.
and move on with my life. And I think it has propelled me into this even continual years later, identifying new things to try. I think I'm a person who needs a decently high level of stimulation I've learned about myself. And so I need different activity, but it doesn't mean that I have to go shopping. That now has become a little boring to me. I want something different. And so even just in the past year,
I have engaged in new things that I have now found. I really enjoy. I took up sourdough baking a little bit late to the party. I know everyone was doing 2020, but I did in 2024. Yeah. I've been going with friends to trivia night and I joined a book club. I used to love reading and just detached from it for so long. And now with other people kind of getting together, chatting about something, identifying what we're going to read next gave me
not just an activity to do through the month to engage in new resources but people connection that i can get together with them monthly and so i'm trying out all of these new things none of its costing me money thanks to the library and i'm learning so much about myself and really actually fulfilling those higher needs in ways that actually hit the target rather than just trying to throw money to solve my problems.
I love that so very much. I think that is the kind of experimentation that we should all be doing. It's just trying to understand ourselves a little bit more and being creative. That's actually one of the backgrounds of Phi in general. We're living
Just this slightly different life hopefully you don't feel deprived like that's how i've always thought of it as like this fun game that i get to play creativity is really the subtext i rarely use that word but that is a subtext is i'm living the same middle or even upper middle class life is everybody around me and i'm getting wildly wealthy at the same time like that's that's the fun stuff about fire and it's crazy.
For me, I think some of the joy is in identifying that it's the simple luxuries of life that are actually the most fulfilling, that it is not this extravagant lifestyle that I have to find. Because like you said, it's not deprivation. It's really identifying, oh, it's not these lavish things that bring me joy, contentment, peace. It's these simple pleasures that I identify work for me and bring me joy.
Yeah, it's not wanting less. It's wanting different and really targeting your want. Oh, it's wanting different. Damn. We can just close up shop right now. That's amazing. Yeah. I think for me, I've found it's connection. That is the biggest point of differentiation in my life now.
Compared with 10 years ago. Let's say but that's me and you both have mentioned values based spending a couple times now and in your book you highlight something the four F's as key values and I think this is the perfect time to tie into that because frankly there might be somebody listening who Okay, yeah, they've heard us talk about creativity and figuring this out and experimenting and 90-day transaction inventory and all this stuff But like what if they're just kind of a drift right now and they don't know even where to
to start in terms of values-based spending.
Yeah, that's why we kind of coined the four Fs because it can values based spending and figuring out what you value can feel like this really big daunting task. And while it is a lifelong journey, it shouldn't feel like an overwhelming task. It's why we start with a one month no spend challenge. Why we do a 90 day transaction inventory. I was actually talking with my husband last night and we're about to do one. And he's like, well, we should do a one year. Like we should just do the full year. And I was like Travis,
Aside from the fact that I wrote a book on this, the goal is to get it done, not for it to be all-encompassing and perfect. But he didn't listen to me because his wife is not his personal finance author.
So we start with manageable size tasks, right? And so the four Fs are family, friends, faith, and fulfilling work. And they are derived from that Maslow's hierarchy of needs I was talking about. So if you are not familiar with the hierarchy of needs, it's five levels. The first is
food, water, shelter, above it, we've got safety, consistency. So those are our basic needs. And in personal finance, we focus on those a lot. But our hired needs, which is what we like to focus on, are things that you're going to be pursuing, even if your basic needs are not 100% met.
Obviously, if you don't know where your next meal is coming from, you're not going to be focusing on these higher needs. But if you're hungry and you know you can eat later and a friend asks you to go get a drink or something, you can put off dinner for a while to go get that connection. So our next level is belonging, friendship, romantic relationships.
Above that, we have self-esteem, respect, and that's where a lot of overspending, if we don't feel self-confident, then we will overspend on beauty, skin care, fitness, clothes, all these things to make ourselves feel better when really we need to be pursuing these other things on the hierarchy. And then at the very top, again, self-actualization, fulfillment, creativity, the feeling like you are living into your full human potential.
That's a lot, right? So it can be a lot of different things to a lot of different people. But we found in studies, when Americans at least are pursuing a quote unquote fulfilling life, the things that they mean in that tend to be relationships with family, relationships with friends and belonging, some kind of faith or spirituality practice.
And that's where a lot of that self actualization and passion come in and then fulfilling work. And they actually said work and money. So we just combine those because we believe your fulfilling work shouldn't make you broke or poor, right? Your fulfilling work should pay you, but it should also make you feel like you're living into your full potential.
So those are where to start. If you can base the way you're spending your money and your time and the way your physical spaces are set up, if you can arrange them to pursue those things first, then you have a much better chance of getting that dream life that you're picturing.
And as you go on, you'll find different things that fall into there, but the four Fs are really, you know, it's like that 80-20 principle, like 80% of the time it's going to be one of those four. And with this context, I think it can be helpful in doing that 90-day transaction inventory with some of those questions of what was this purchase trying to get at?
was I trying to meet one of my four Fs in buying this thing. I was just talking with somebody on the podcast recently who was describing that her online shopping was a very vulnerable moment for her to realize, oh my, I did just spend this week a lot of money on clothing that I saw people wearing on Instagram. I thought it looked
So cute. They are kind of representing this lifestyle that I want and all these friends are wearing this style of things. She's like, I think I bought that to fit in, to try and belong and to maybe hopefully be a part of this group or this club. How is that actually going to happen between these digital Instagram influencers? Yeah. Yeah.
And i think a lot of it can be very subconscious like that but when we give ourselves the opportunity to ask these questions it can feel vulnerable but there is action that can be taken from there and their self understanding that we can walk away with to know.
Okay, some of my spending might be to reach some of these esteem needs, these friendship and family and faith needs. Are there other ways that I could meet that that actually meets the need rather than circumvents it? And then I feel bummed about the amount of money that I spend on it and wishing that I hadn't have bought that or shaming myself for it. But instead, how can this help me choose differently?
I love that as a starting point, so these four apps. And I think looking at the hierarchy of needs is such an interesting exercise, I feel like, because this to me is one of maybe the paradoxes of Phi might be the way to term this, but I feel like most people, and this is not to denigrate here a wide swath of our society, but like most people are just like trying to get through the day. Whereas one of the really fortunate aspects of those of us in the Phi community who have some
Financial space who aren't at that fight or flight stress every day of do i have enough money to pay the bills and that is not to minimize that that is an ever present stress for a significant portion of society right but those of us in the five community.
most of us are beyond that point and then we get to move from those bottom two levels of the hierarchy up towards the top and even up towards self actualization right and and this to me is where the paradox comes in it's like sometimes you can be more stressed because like you're so close to maybe what you see as like a perfection if you will and it reminds me of this book that i've read recently called the gap and the gain so it's
As opposed to focusing on the negative aspect of the gap between where you are in perfection you miss the game from where you started to where you are today and i feel like this is a fundamental shift for me but nevertheless i think a lot of us because we have these lives a buddy of mine.
who I quoted on the podcast in 2017. It was, I never dreamed past here. And for a lot of us, we've never dreamed past where we are today. I think this would be kind of a fun launching point for a conversation because we're so fortunate, but yet a lot of us focus on what we're missing. And I just feel like we can do better and maybe we can help kind of lead that conversation.
I feel this so deeply. I have hit this point where I'm realizing, okay, life is short, yes, but sometimes it feels really long. And to recognize, oh my, I got to a certain point in my social work career that I thought was going to take me 20 years and really it took me five.
And then it's like, well, now what? Because I didn't think beyond that. And I know Jen and I have talked about debt payoff. You know, okay, we're just going hard at this thing. And it's the only thing that we can see in front of us. And then we reach it. And it's not the Nirvana that was promised to us. It's great. I'm really glad I accomplished it.
but it doesn't solve all of my other problems and in fact now i've got a really hunker down and understand money in a real way to know what comes next after this and i think this then is that call to the radical middle i think it fits in a lot of context here of.
Okay we've got a goal in mind but let's also look at the bigger picture of our lives as well and how can we still fulfill some of our needs in the here and now honor the season that we're in while we're working towards this goal and not give every ounce of our time energy and attention to this one singular thing that we could find ourselves depleted on the other side of a completely miss all of these other aspects of.
Living a really beautiful life because we were so head down in the sand so extreme on this one thing, but taking the holistic approach to it and identifying how can i weave in all these aspects of my personhood.
all these aspects of the four F's and really find a lifestyle that fits for me now that I'm also willing to be fluid with in the future. Here's how it looks today, but I'm willing to make changes to in years down the road, if need be.
And there is something to be said for singularity of focus, right? I love the one thing by Gary Keller and Jay Popison, like what's one thing you can do now, which by accomplishing will make everything else easier or unnecessary in the future. And that is a route that we say, you know, this is an important way to look at goals.
But with that, that is a very seasonal approach and a short-term approach to things. And even that begs us to consider the future. We have to look at how our goal now in the short-term impacts our future before we just blindly go accomplishing it. We always have to be checking back in
as we are singularly focused on each of our goals. And again, realizing that it's the ends never justify the means. All we have are the ends, right? So like, that's a lot of the justification for people like paying off debt or trying to retire early very quickly. Like the ends, they justify the means, whatever means necessary, but they don't because really all we have is the journey.
And so if your mindset is there, then you can have that singularity of focus with goals and not become isolated by them. Yeah, I think this ties into so many things we talked about, right? So Jill said before we are dynamic beings. I think that's so important to remember is
Things change. Things are constantly changing. If you think you're going to set a plan in motion and it's going to be the exact same plan, 15 years from now, that's just not the reality of life, right? It just isn't. And Joey also said, like, it's not the Nirvana, I was promised, right? Whether this is debt free, reaching five, right? Reaching some number on a spreadsheet. I don't know. Becoming CEO. Going to Bali. Going to Bali. Oh, core ball. Bali was really great.
Getting the business to seven figures or whatever it is. There's no world. The three of us are here to tell you, that is not the secret. It isn't the answer. That's not the lived reality of life. It just simply isn't. Life is a constant iterative process of trying to figure out, hey, what lights me up? Maybe in this season of life, and you're trying to get more directionally accurate, maybe holistically,
But there are seasons of life and we have to be okay with that but if somebody thinks this again is another maybe paradox right it's like if you think your life is going to be this wonderful unicorns and rainbows shangarla when you hit your fine number.
I am here to tell you that is not the way the world works. It just is not. Now, are you in a dramatically better spot when you've reached fire when you're on the path to find and when you started? Very obviously you are, right? Like there is no world where I'm going to say to anybody that following the path to fight isn't going to put you in a better spot. It is. But if you think that's the sole answer, it is not. It just isn't.
And if you think you can figure it out when you get there and ignore it on the way there, you can't. There is a research study that we referenced in the book about the amount of money that people think is going to make them happy. And what they did discover is, yes, as incomes increased to a certain extent, it did cause people greater levels of satisfaction.
The previous study was at about like $60,000, but now they've redone it and it's actually at like about a half a million and then you plateau, which does make a lot more sense to me now. However, it only increases satisfaction to the degree that people were already satisfied and had these practices in place already.
So the more money didn't make unsatisfied people satisfied. It's the practice of contentment, gratitude, finding what brings you joy along the way that can follow with you and carry on to, yeah, this is I'm finding my enough. And so I think that that call, like what you're describing here is to say,
while we are focused on goals how can we also find these simple pleasures these little luxuries of life that we can be engaging in that go with us whatever season of life that we find ourselves in these ways of identifying here's how i care for myself here's how i value myself here's how i engage in family friends faith in fulfilling work
Because that number in the bank account will shift hopefully it goes up sometimes it will go down, but the things that are the constant that we have control over i do think it's worth cultivating that for the long term.
It's truly that Adam Sandler SNL skit where he's the Italian tour guide and he's like, if you are not happy, Italy will not make you happy. If you are sad in America, you will be sad in Italy. If you are happy in America, you will be happy in Italy. And that is truly what it is with money. Good summary.
That is amazing. Okay. We're going to need to dig that up and put that in the show notes. I love that skit. You're going to help me find that. Absolutely. Okay. So this has been essentially the most important conversation we can have in our community. So thank you both for having it with me. I think this is so critical. As you know, of course, we always like to leave on unactionable tips, right? So while the theory, I think is so critical, like the hallmark of choose of I has always been the actionable. So
You talk in the book about saving smarter, not harder and high impact strategies for saving on, on essential items and maybe even other things. So why don't we kind of land the plane here in terms of, are there specific tips that you could give somebody like, Hey, I want to make a change in my life tomorrow. Just one thing, like, where can they think about maybe making that high impact change?
So if you're thinking about a high impact change to actually like saving money, again, I love the 80-20 rule. So we've really tried to change frugality to be defined as good stewardship of your resources. That's money, time, natural resources, physical space, all of that, mental energy. And then in the traditional sense of frugality, the ways that you save money, we like to take an 80-20 approach.
And so this can be really freeing, especially for a lot of people in the Thai community who really want to hold money close in everything and realizing that Americans, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, spend most of their money in just three categories. It's 80% if you include four, but the fourth category is investing. So we don't want to lower that.
So we'll look at the top three, which is about, I would say, like 60, 70. It is housing, transportation, and food. So if you focused on just those three things and keeping those three things in check, you wouldn't have to worry about any other expense. No coupon, no rebate apps.
No bogo sales nobody cares it's fine you could buy all the sustainable and local everything and it would be fine if you just kept those three areas in check and realize no expense is quote unquote fixed everything can be creatively reworked.
I like the sound of that. You may not be able to change your housing situation tomorrow, but it could be something worth looking at. We don't want to assume, well, that's fixed. So what else can I do? Let's look at it. And it may be that you decide, yeah, I'm going to stay here. This makes the most sense for me.
But there's also people who when they give themselves the opportunity to question it can realize, actually, I don't think I want to be a homeowner anymore. It's not the nirvana that was promised to me. And it actually costs so much more than I ever would have thought that it would have cost. And maybe, oh, I really love living in this area, but I don't actually have to live in this neighborhood. Or what if I did take that job in another state and try out another area with possibly a lower cost of living?
So that is possible. And also looking at, if you are looking at buying a house, the price point that you are looking at purchasing that house at Eric and I bought our house off of my salary alone, a pre-approval off of my salary. So very conservatively for the two of us. And so it's these types of decisions that can help us in the long term rather than
Okay yeah I like the houses that are three hundred thousand dollars but then we get talked into a three hundred fifty thousand dollar home and just that extra fifty thousand dollars over the life of the loan depending on our interest rate could mean hundreds of thousands of dollars that we are then not able to invest.
and grow our money so really being strategic about a housing decision and then of course like Jen said with transportation do we have to have the cars that we have do we have to have multiple vehicles my husband and I now granted we work from home but we only have one vehicle.
Well, we have one car, we have two scooters and that's very fun talking about simple pleasures of life riding that scooter around downtown and that works for us because we live in kind of a metro area. So we're able to, if even both of us need to go different directions, one can take the scooter, the other can take the car and then of course food and there's all sorts of things you can do with that.
for meal planning, meal prep. That is a whole other episode. That is something you could start tomorrow. These other decisions are made every five to 15 years, but food decisions are made daily. So if you're looking for something actionable in the immediate, looking at your food purchases and ways that you can decrease costs there would be ideal.
Yeah, totally agreed. That's the low hanging fruit of the big three expenses. You can start in that tomorrow with meal planning, start cooking at home a little bit. Just be intentional, I think, would be my biggest advice. I think most people are reflexively, hey, it's 545. We're driving home. And what do we do now? Right now, it's when you make poor decisions. So it's just like anything in life. It's long-term thinking. It's just looking a little bit down the field to making a positive decision.
And Jill, I love it's not the Nirvana that was promised to me. That's the takeaway from American society at large, right? It's like, that's a total random aside. Sorry, that's the takeaway.
No, that's the tongue-in-cheek takeaway. We're all a little jaded at this point in our decades of life. Yep, 2024. Yeah, the year being jaded. No. Yeah, I don't think I'll ever own a home again. Like, as you were describing that, I'm like, oh, it just doesn't appeal to me. It's just not the thing.
I was thinking the same, like, even if you do want to own a home, maybe owning a second or third or maybe being a landlord is not for you. Like I am finding out. So I was a big, a big one in our personal community, you know, gets you to play. It gets your product and it works for some people works for some people. And it is not for everybody.
It is not. And that's okay. I think maybe that's where the takeaway we leave with is it's okay to experiment and just find out something isn't for you. You've learned something. That's not a failure. It means you've learned something about yourself. It means you've learned something about the world. And that is a win as far as I'm concerned. Life is a series of experiments, hundreds and thousands of them. And you're just learning a little bit more about yourself every single time.
Jen, Jill, you too, Rock. I love chatting with you. Love, love, love. Thank you so much for coming on. So okay, I'm going to try to fill in the blanks. People can find you obviously at the Frugal Friends podcast. They're listening to a podcast now on a podcast player. Just search for Frugal Friends. They're amazing. Yeah. And the book is coming out January 7th. Everywhere our books are found. So buy what you love without going broke. And we will obviously have a link in the show notes. Is there anything else that you want to send people to? Are those the two spots?
Well, I think I would just add like, yes, if you feel like you want to improve how you spend money, the book will be great. But even if you don't feel like that's where you're at, we're hoping to usher in this new perspective in personal finance. Exactly what you've been here, like listening to us for the last hour, that we feel like a lot of this conversation is missing from the business and investing bookshelf.
We want usher in that conversation and the only way more writers with similar voices will get heard is if this book does well. So I would encourage you to buy a copy and give it to a friend that wants to buy what they love without going broke. And yeah, let's further this conversation for decades to come through not just our voices, but a lot more diverse voices.
I love that. Absolutely love that. Thank you both again for coming on and to everyone get this book. It's really great. It's genuinely great. I read it and really enjoyed it. So until next time, thanks for listening and being part of the Chooseify community.
Thank you for listening to today's show and for being part of the Chooseify community. If you haven't already, the best ways to get involved are first, subscribe to the podcast. So you're listening to this on a podcast player and just hit subscribe and then subscribe to my weekly newsletter. I actually sit down every Monday and write this by hand and I send it out Tuesday morning. So just head over to chooseify.com slash subscribe. And it's really, really easy to get on the
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And if you're just getting started with Fi, or you have a family member or friend who you think would be interested, two easy ways. Choose a Fi episode 100 is kind of our welcome to the Fi community. And even though it's a couple years old at this point, it still stands up and it's a really great just starting point to get an understanding of what is financial independence? What are we doing here? Why are we looking to live a more intentional life where we save money and use it as a springboard to live a better life?
and then choose if I created a financial independence 101 course. That's entirely free. Just head to choosify.com slash fi 101. And again, thanks for listening.
