Personal finance tips are everywhere, and let’s be honest—it can feel overwhelming. How are you supposed to keep up, let alone know what actually works for you? But what if money management didn’t have to be so complicated? What if it could actually be simple? In this episode, Jen and Jill reveal what they call 'The Money Management Holy Trinity.' With these three, you’ll see just how manageable your money can be!
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Episode four sixty The Money Management Holy Trinity.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and live a life. Here your hosts Jen and Jill.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jill, and today we are talking about really money simplicity. There are countless articles, podcasts, YouTube videos that talk about so many aspects of personal finance. It is overwhelming. But I promise you, I guarantee you, if you focus on just three things once a month, no caveats, no exceptions, you will be okay, You'll be more than okay.
Yeah.
I love it when we can simplify something down to its basics to really help us understand something, and that's essentially what this is. But first, this episode is brought to you by Frugal Friends fans. That's right, this one is brought to you by you. We're talking straight to all the super fans, the real ones, the true gems. You've written your podcast reviews, you've called in a Bill of the Week, maybe multiple, you're singing about living your life in your sleep because the tune is so dan catchy. Not sorry, we both need and want you. As you know, we're launching our book by What You Love Without Going Broke. It can get it at bywoulovebook dot com and we need amazing people like you to start spreading the word. We're formulating a street team of people who believe in the Frugal Friends message to help tell others about the book. So if you're out there bringing this show, binging this show, not just bringing it binging it to every friend letter poll, this one's for you, join our street team Jen tell them how to It.
Is in the friend letter. So this release is on a Tuesday if you're already on the friend letter, because we know the real ones are subscribed to the friend letter. So look at your friend letter from yesterday, the one that got sent on the eighteenth, or if you're listening to it later you can check the eighteenth, twentieth twenty second is going to be in there and apply and we will look through these applications. It is not a it's like five questions, it's just a filter. Apply and then we will announce after Thanksgiving our street team and it's not going to be a lot of work. We know this is happening around the holidays. This is truly just a way to give you some extra goodies, some extra praise for all your support, and then while also asking for a review of the book on some kind of you know, web platform, whether you bought an Amazon bookshop or on Goodreads. So that's really the purpose of the Street Team. It's not a lot of heavy lifting, but it is something that we're calling on our biggest fans to participate in, and we will reward you in kind.
Yes, so rewards.
Let's talk about the money management Holy Trinity. And we you know, we love talking about simplifying money management. We've got episode three point fifty two how to Simplify, and then we also got three forty six how to put good money decisions on autopilot. We love to think about money as little as possible, honestly. That is our goal is to think about this as little as possible.
Yeah, to put as much as we can on autopilot, to not have it take up so much mental or emotional space, while also feeling really confident about it. And I think when we can simplify it, when we can have a really solid understanding of it, those things then become possible. So I think part of that is what's the foundation? How do we get the foundation of money management? And it's this, it's these three things. So let's talk about it.
And because so we if you've been, if you're an OG, if you've been with us, you know we the format that we lead frugal friends with is we'll do Google something on the Internet and then we'll come back with what Google says and we'll parse out what's real and what's not. Because so many publications right for the algorithm to please Google to rank higher. So it's a lot of fluff. It's a lot of things that may be peripherally true but not true in reality. And so that has always been our goal, is to take what you might see on the Internet and give real life, real world response to it. And because of this, it's very hard to find. Honestly, personal finance can be summed up into a very short article, but that wouldn't rank well in Google search results, so you're not going to be able to find it. That's why you see so many two thousand, three thousand and five thousand word you know, mini books almost on personal finance. And so and there is a lot to be said into diving into the nuance right, But we want to give this really overall primer, and there was not a good article for it, and that's why we are going to use our own lived experience and almost a decade in personal finance to give that.
To you via podcast.
To be fair, you will find a lot of articles that list out these three things, like we're not making this up. Is the most simple the three basics of money management. If you were to look that up, you're going to find what we're about to say, but.
You're also going to find a lot of other things too that kind of cloud what the core of it is. So we will let's not bury little lead. Let's give you the Holy Trinity, and what we think that is is earning, spending, and saving.
There it is.
If you check in with them three things, no exceptions, no caveats. And I know some of you are like, what about me, don't worry, we'll get to it. There are no exceptions. This is it. If you just check in with those three things every month, then you're going to be on the right track. You won't have to second guess yourself, and you'll know more. The more you check in, the better the questions you'll be asking are and so you'll know which direction to go to learn more and it won't feel so overwhelming. So let's start with our with our deity at the top of the triangle earning. So this is so making money. Earning. This is as important as how you spend it and how you save it. None of these are more important than the other, I think in frugality. I know in frugality we get very caught up in the saving, and we think a lot of us will be like, well, I can't earn more, so I have to save more, and in seasons that can be true, and that's why we've written a whole book about it. There is so much to be said, and there are so many books on how to earn more money, you know, so there's a lot to be said to it. But I think it can be intimidating to think about earning if you are in a job where you believe that there isn't a lot of earning potential. So we want to go over some of the things that can make this a really feasible monthly check in.
Yeah.
I think one of the things that I did come across and looking at articles for this was it's not just enough to make enough. You do need to make more than what you spend. Now that's not to say that we can't look at our spending and decrease and learn what is enough and hedge against lifestyle inflation. But this is a really important place to begin. And I think one of the things I've probably talked about this over the years in our podcasting career, how I didn't really understand much about money because I didn't have any money to learn with. And I think that could be the case for a lot of us is we didn't have anything to even practice with, And so that comes down to earning enough to even be able to learn these other tenants. While no one is necessarily more important than the others, I do think that saving and spending is built upon the earning. So that is, if you're going to start somewhere, that is the place. And so I think when we're looking at this aspect of money management, it is important to check in on how much are we taking home, not just our gross salaries, but what is what's actually coming home with us at the end of the day, and what is that affording for us? Is it enough and meaning is it more than what we spend? And if not, of course there's different things we can look at both our spending and our earning, but sometimes it's worth identifying could I be making more? Is there room to increase here?
Yeah?
And I think this is the first thing we do because we want to make sure am I getting every cent I was promised by the person who employed or the company that employs me? Are they paying me the right amount? Am I getting all the benefits I was promised? Am I using the benefits to their full ability? Because that is compensation. So making sure that we are utilizing all of those benefits and that we're not being taken advantage, whether intentionally or accidentally. So that is just a baseline to make sure that you are where you are supposed to be. And then we want to start thinking about moving forward, making progress increasing our income. At minimum, we want to make sure that we are at an employer that is giving a cost of living increase every year and if they are not a pay grade, and if they are not, then it could be time to look for another company. And I think it's always time to be looking for what else is out there, But it is truly in with the profit margins that companies are making at this point, it is unethical for people not to be giving at least a cost of living. If it is a small business. Obviously that's a different story if you're invested in that business. But making sure that there's some way that what you are making is increasing with inflation and taking that into account, and then thinking about more races. And before I go into that, I want to like just set the foundation is. I think we need to have a what is enough conversation and also what are our goals? So first we have to know, like what is enough? What do I really need to be making to feel like I'm living comfortably? And not just an arbitrary number like there we're going to have like a baseline number and a dream number. But we can't all just say like, oh, the study shows I need half a million dollars a year to be happy, So that's my number, what do you really need to be comfortable? And then think about like, okay, I would love to add, you know, baseball, Like I'd love to pay for my all my kids to do baseball, and that cost this per year, and I'd love to be able to take a vacation to Hawaii, and so with flights and hotels, it's going to cost you know this, and so like do some dreaming and then add that to that enough and like that is your total your next enough goal. I would say that you have to decide what is enough or nothing is ever going to be enough and money is always going to feel like this despair that there's never enough of and and so you may not be able to easily get to your enough right, but we need to at least set a baseline so that there's more freedom and there's more sense of accomplishment and not so much despair for not being at this arbitrary like you know, six figure, quarter million, half million, wherever you know your next dream is.
On the flip side, you could find yourself in a position where you want to figure out, how can I make it work with earning maybe a little less. Maybe you are in a position or a career that is not you're not loving anymore, you're burnt out, or you want to make a career shift and it's going to require you to back down for a time, Or there's a life situation requiring more job flexibility, which means earning less, and so that can also be a part of this earning conversation. Of what if I want to earn less, what could that look like for me? And that's going to then inform these other two categories as well.
Yeah, and so when we're thinking about moving forward the monthly checkup part, we should always be doing a monthly checkup to make sure that we are on track to honestly earn in our full potential. Our goal is never to earn as much as possible, but like to see we talk about Mazow's hierarchy of needs in our book by what we Love without going Broke, and we talk about it in the context of spending. We want to spend on our basic needs and our higher needs, right, but we also like our higher needs really are fulfilled in things like work. Fulfilling work is one of these values that we value so highly in our society. I want to feel like I am living in my full potential, right, I am doing work that maybe I'm not passionate about, you know, what I'm building, But I am passionate about the creativity and the problem solving and working in my strengths like that is what I get to do. And so that's what we want to work towards. So every month we should take an inventory of any progress that we've made in becoming better at our job, any achievements we've made for our company, especially if we are able to make them more money or save them money in any way. Just want to take like a real quick inventory of anything that be useful. If you are going to a different company or going for a raise within your company, and you want to make sure your resume is updated so that you can send it to people if you meet somebody in that month that you want to be able to send your resume to, you want to keep it updated. Don't apply for jobs. I think that's a waste of time. Honestly, I think your best bet to getting really meaningful pay raises and job increases is who you know. It's not what you know, it is truly who you know, and so continuing to make new contacts in your industry or if you are not in an industry you want to be in, making contacts in the industry you want to be in, and so that you can not just build those relationships but also pass on a resume and just keep planting seeds. That's really what we are doing in this earning conversation. Every month, we are continuing to plant seeds so we can get closer to the income and the work that we want to be doing long term.
Not to say that you have to be looking for new work every month, this is right. It's more of just as you're looking at your money management, this is going to be a factor you're taking into consideration, and then as it makes sense, you're doing that. So the second part of money management is spending. We could also call this how we manage money, but essentially we're spending it in a variety of ways and looking at where is it going, how are we spending it, what is really great about our spending habits, and what might need to be shifted about our spending habits. This is the part that we are in the nitty gritty. On a more monthly basis, I would say that the earning is we're looking at this kind of maybe yearly, possibly quarterly. The saving that general will get to that is hopefully majority mostly on autopilot. But the spending, the managing our money, this is daily and we should be looking at it weekly and monthly as well. And of course one of the biggest things attached to spending is finding what you value, and we've got a whole podcast and a whole book about values based spending if you want to know more about that, by what youlovebook dot com, and literally any other podcast episode that we've put out up until now. But this really is when we're talking about the foundations of money management. Finding what you value coincides with this aspect of it, identifying what is actually important to me. Where do I want my money to be going rather than what's being told to me about where my money should be going, And in what ways can I meet my values in ways that don't cost me money. Is it possible that I'm spending to achieve or meet some need and I don't actually have to be spending, and that money could be going elsewhere. I could be spending it on more important things, or I could be utilizing it to invest for my future. So that's a big component of that, and so I think that can create opportunities for us to actually then spend our time on what matters. I know. We talk about the four fs a lot on the podcast as well as in the Book of Faith, Family, Friends, fulfilling work. These are the things that are most important to us, and so as it coincides with our spending habits. We can be looking at what is important to me within each of these categories, how can I get more of that, and then fill in the gaps with what have I earned this month? And where can that money be going? Of course to our basic needs of housing and food and transportation and paying our bills, but then identifying where else can we be putting this money and in what way do I not need to be spending it on some of these things? Can I just be getting faith, family, friends, and fulfilling work out of yeah, not spending money.
Yeah, I mean that's kind of one of those creative ways to get more fulfilling work is networking and giving your resume to people, and you don't have to go directly to getting a PhD or taking continuing education classes. You know, those things are also good. But we want to look at the freeways first, right, and so how do we get more of what matters most to us? And if we focus on that and get creative there, then it's more of like a trickle up almost, like we're utilizing the creativity to find the freeways and then the low cost ways. I know, like I love to have, you know, wine or cocktail nights with friends at my house, or just like sharing a meal together. Obviously that isn't free, but it is super low cot right. So you know, then when we can fill our cup in free and low cost ways, we find ourselves impulse spending less because we're meeting our direct needs, not these peripheral trying to meet needs in a peripheral way that don't have one hundred percent fulfill the needs. So we always feel like we're not one hundred percent there, right, and so we just spend more and more to try and get there. But the direction is is in the wrong way. So we just got to reorient ourselves to the correct way, and that way we can manage the outflow of everything more accurately. Like so, Jill's friend is here today and I told her what we were doing, like the episode, you know, the holy trinity of money management is earning, spending, and saving. She's like, what about giving? I was like, that's spending. That's how you spend your money. You choose to spend your money in a way that aligns with your values and that include it's giving.
So generosity is not left out.
And that's why we say anything that we do with money can fall under one of these categories of earning, spending, or saving. And I think specifically, when we can really hone in on this one of spending and feel really confident about it, we can feel really confident about all these other areas too, again, because it's the area that we are interacting with the most, and when we can feel really really good about how we're making decisions around money, our spending has less guilt and shame associated with it because we can know I'm meeting my needs in X Y Z ways and actually, I do have the money set aside for this vacation that I want to go on, and I know how much I'm able to set aside for my savings and investing goals. And that's why it can be a thing that doesn't take up a ton of our time, energy and attention, Because when we really know what our values are and we're able to all and are spending with that, then we're more confident. Like you said, we're impulse spending less. We need to be in our transactions less because we have this sense of knowing where things are going, how we are spending all of our resources in better ways. When it comes to spending, too, We've also got some other simple things attached to this of spending where it counts, right, we've talked about the big three of housing, transportation, and food. This is the majority of where our spending goes. Of course, there's all sorts of ancillary places that we spend on, but this is what's going to take up the majority of our spending and the majority of our money. And when it comes to managing it well, making wise decisions in these three categories can make the biggest difference for us. So, making one good housing decision can save us hundreds of thousands of dollars over decades. Making one good car choice or other transportation choice could save you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars over your lifetime. And so these are those specific decisions we really want to highlight as make good decisions there because it could make other decisions easier or unnecessary. And then food, and so similar to this holy trinity of earning, spending, saving and having spending be where the majority of our attention goes to, same thing with food amongst housing, transportation, and food. We make food decisions regularly, daily, if not hourly, if you're generi And so this is an area where we can give a good amount of attention to identifying the ways that we can make our food costs reasonable for us. That doesn't mean that we can't go out, we can't get the takeout, we can't buy the coffee at the coffee shop, but making sure that we feel really good about these food decisions, because that is a huge category with the biggest opportunity for variations in what we spend week to week, month to month. So yes, it's important to make good housing and transportation decisions. But if we're looking to do something right here, right now, looking at food is going to be a really big heavy hitter.
Yeah, so let's talk about monthly action steps you can do for this. Obviously, if you're already budgeting, you want to look at your past month spending and you want to see, Okay, what are the habits that I am maybe not conscious of, or the places where I didn't plan well and that caused me to impulse spend, et cetera. For me, I found that I was eating out a lot because I wasn't planning my meals well enough, specifically my snacks because I'm like a small meal eater, so I'll forget and I get really like focused on what I'm doing, and I'll forget to eat, and then I'll just go all day without eating, and then I'm too hungry to cook and I eat out. So once I started planning my eating throughout the day more thoroughly, I eat out far less. And that was something like I had to take a look at, Okay, why did I Why is my eating out progressively increasing? What does my day look like? And give conscious thought to it. If you are not currently budgeting, then you may want to start with a ninety day transaction inventory where you can look over the past ninety days of your transactions so that you can identify those habits. And then also, just like we're looking at our income to make sure our income is accurate, we want to look at our expenses to make sure our expenses are accurate. Nobody has stolen our credit card number and is doing weird things with it, that any subscriptions that we have canceled actually got canceled, or that we're not using our you know, not being charged. So we want to make sure our expenses are accurate. And then we look at those heavy hitters. And in frugality, we talk a lot about quote unquote saving money, and for us, we want to separate that word save. It's usually used in two different like we save money for retirement, but we also save money on groceries. Those are two different things. For us, this is spending less on groceries, so that falls into this category. So we also want to be looking at the waste that we can spend less on big things. So if you're looking at your budget, maybe you sort your expenses from highest to lowest, and we start with our highest and saying like, okay, what are ways that I can lower this mortgage payment? Did I buy a house when interest rates for seven percent? Maybe they're going down now, and I'm keeping an eye out on when I can refinance. Is my you know, transportation? You know, how can I lower it? Maybe not in a refinance right now, but just thinking about all.
Of that stuff.
So, and I will tell you a quick story that just happened yesterday, a transportation saving story. And so, my sister in law, her car got flooded in Milton, but it still worked. It wasn't it just got onto the floor, but it still ran. And she decided to submit a claim to her insurance and total it and what it did was it cost her in total between the loan and stuff, she was out fourteen grand. In reality, Like, if you looked at it, even if something had eventually gone wrong with the wiring or something, would it have cost fourteen grand to fix it. I mean, even if you had to do a total rebuild on everything, you're looking at half that, right, So she essentially lost that by choosing that total. Yeah, and I'm not here to talk about insurance. Insurance is like not my thing. But yeah, like that was a decision that that was one decision not thought out or not consulted like fully with anybody, that she just made on a whim that cost her fourteen thousand dollars.
Most of us on our own don't know the exact right answer in every situation. I think that's why we highlight communities so much when it comes to these things. It is good to be able to talk with other friends and hear other professionals and even experts opinions on these things, because, like you're highlighting, it's not just about a car buying decision. One car buy decision, but there could be transportation decisions that we make even in the midst of that In between car purchases like what you're describing, and it's important to make really judicious ones that could you know, cost less than in the long run. And that's no shade on her. I mean, I don't know that I could have, especially in a crisis mode, thought through exactly what's right to do here. But I think that the call there is ask a friend yes, and be getting the information that you need.
Take a pause.
Usually nothing is as urgent as it seems in the moment.
Create that pause and.
Give yourself the opportunity to make these wise decisions.
Because maybe she did do the right thing and we just don't know anything about insurance. That could also be the truth, right, you know, But asking people like creating new friends, new relationships, new people in your network who you can feel safe like asking questions too. So the very last part on our holy trinity is saving, and so that includes anywhere that you would put money away for anything. So that's your emergency fund, your short term goals like vacations, a new car, a new water heater, whatever, a new home, and then retirement. And I believe that it is in that order because there is an instant gratification thing in our mind right, which makes it so hard to save because saving is so future money nowadays is not really tangible. It comes in and it goes out. But when you buy something, that thing is there. That thing is tangible, right, and so we have to know that and kind of honor that part of our head while also trying to almost fight again stip But we don't want to shame ourselves for having that instinct. So your savings goals should start very immediate and then get bigger. So that's why first we do emergency fund because that is going to be money that we use in cases of emergencies. Emergencies only, so job loss your house is you know, two hurricanes hit it and you need to like fix it up real quick between hurricanes. And then we've got our short term goals, so like what are the things that we need to start saving for so that when it does break or something happens, we're not in crisis mode, so limiting our emergencies. And then we go to fun stuff like a vacation, like the fun that you deserve having fun in your life right now because tomorrow is n't promise. So whether that's saving up for a pet or a vacation or whatever like really makes you come alive is saving up for like some big things like that. And then it's not that we have to finish all these before we start saving for retirement, but I think they should take priority to saving for retirement because they cater to that fight or flight mode that we have. There's more incentive to actually get over the barrier and save and then we do retirement. So four oh one K or roth IRA, you just put it on autopilot, whatever you can, put it on autopilot, and every couple months try and this is so your your monthly check in would be to make sure I've got my emergency fund, I've got my savings goals on autopilot, I've got my retirement on autopilot, and that the money you're putting into your IRA, if you're doing roth or traditional IRA, is actually going into investments and not just into the cash account that's in there. So these are the things that you're going to do to save for yourself and your family for the future.
This is another category where I think the defining you're enough is really important. And I'm speaking from personal experience and talking to myself here. One of the things I struggle with in this category is identifying what's enough for my emergency fund and my short term goals before I do get to that retirement piece. Because I agree, I think it's important that we have something to look forward to, both in the short term and the long term, and that includes how it intersects with money. But I think in all of life, it's really important to have something on the horizon, something that holds hope for you. Most of us need that to kind of keep moving forward. And that's what we're describing here with some of these short term goals, that it's going to feel really like deprivation if we don't focus on having any sort of fun or vacations or just little little gifts to ourselves and only focus on investing for retirement. However, we do have to keep the pulse on what's going to be enough here, because for me, my emergency fund, how I defined enough for my emergency fund has changed over time, and part of that has been because my earning has shifted and lifestyle has shifted a bit.
Right, I'm in a house.
Now, I don't live in a vehicle anymore, and so needing to put more money aside for housing stuff is necessary. I'm getting older, I'm seeing the doctor more often, needing the house.
Money for that.
But truly, but still, I have to know where the cap is. I found myself getting in this place of Okay, yep, I've reached that number, but what if this catastrophe and that catastrophe happens at the same time. I'm okay, I got to reach that next goal, and then okay, I want to sinking fun for a car and the holidays and some vacations and for generosity. And I could keep adding to that list. I could keep identifying and a pool and a new roof and another vacation, and just keep pushing off retirement, in part because I want my life to look good now, and in part I'm just going to call it out friends, because investing scares me.
I feel like I still.
Don't even understand it to the degree that I would like to, and so I avoid it. I have become very good at these other aspects of managing money, this one still feels a little bit shrouded in mystery for me.
So I just avoid it.
And I think this is the call to say, we still have to identify our enough and say this is how I'm to define it for at least the next year, and we have to be investing for retirement, and we have to be putting it on autopilot. Even if it's not maxing out your roth, ira start putting something towards it.
Ten I mean even ten dollars. So I like wrote an investing course which if you buy two copies of the book you can get for free, and I start out with if you've got ten dollars a month, how you should start there and how you can increase to get to one hundred thousand invested I think in like five ten years, saying if you have one hundred dollars, how to increase that to get there in five or ten years? And then you know, and so on. So it just depends on the pace you want. It's really that first hundred thousand. So honestly, it is impossible to know how much you're gonna need in retirement. And that's what makes it so impossible to know what to save every month.
Right.
So the trick is, once you get to one hundred thousand, it becomes like you can do anything, right. It's just that first hundred thousand. You don't need to know how much you need in retirement. You just need to make it a goal is to get to one hundred thousand dollars invested. That's it. So if you can see that goal post somewhere, you're going to be on a great track because after that, compound interest starts to do the work for you, and really it is all you doing the work up to one hundred thousand and so that's that's why we say start earlier, even with a little bit, so you can get to that hundred K number. You don't you define what you're enough is, but like also you don't have to know specifically what enough is. It can just be a number. It's just so that you feel some confidence in your saving and that you limit those short term goals just enough to have some retire savings on top without feeling like those retirement savings are leading to deprivation or causing deprivation.
Do you know what I feel really confident about and I feel like as the opposite of deprivation, it is full abundance every time.
And you're living in your power and your glory in it.
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 Williams. Maybe you've paid off your mortgage, maybe your car died, and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore.
Dust bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Clinton, this is the bill of the week.
Hi, Jen and Jel.
This is Jenna from Indiana. I'm a longtime listener and a first time caller. My Bill of the week is actually two bills, one from the past and one from the future.
Let me explain.
I had my daughter while I was in the military, and see the military, everything should have been free. I was surprised when they said I couldn't leave my with my baby until I saw the cashier. I owed eight dollars for eating too much food while in the hospital with her, and I was happy to pay that bill. Twenty one years later, we are celebrating her birthday and we will go out for food and lost the drinks to celebrate and I am happy to pay that bill as well. Thanks love the show.
Oh my gosh, Jana, that hospital is rude.
Eight dollars.
Could you see the cashier at the hospital?
I can't leave with your baby?
Eight dollars?
Wow?
Too much?
Eat too much? Really, you just had a baby you as much.
I know.
Wow, gosh, but this is very funny and I love the tie in that on her birthday you owed money for food, and here you are twenty one years later, celebrating her twenty first birthday and paying for food. Talk about full search more and each time being okay with it because you know what, we are okay with paying for food.
We are okay if the food is good.
Yes, well, thanks so much Janna for that lovely bill, and happy birthday to your daughter. If you all are listening and you want to submit a bill, if it has to do with past, present future, if it has to do with paying for food, if it has to do with a rude hospital, or your name is Bill Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash Bill, we can't wait to hear it.
And now it's time for the.
Lightning around shoe me. Well, here we go. It's the vulnerability around. Let's dive in which one of the three do you find most challenging to embrace?
Lol?
Lol.
I was first gonna say investing, and then I was like, no, wrong, it's earning all of us.
Yeah, it is foundational. I mean I don't know if it's okay. So part of it is just integrity of I could not do something for money that it is outside of what I believe is like best for everyone.
I don't know.
It's I being in the internet marketing space for like literally like eight years, it has been wild. I've tried everything, and.
Except for the scams, we haven't tried scams.
I haven't tried.
Could be where the money is.
It is where the money is, and I just can't do it. But no, even like ethical things that other people can do, like really really well, like I just have a a moral I this sounds like I'm like, oh, I'm altruistic. No, it's I and that's okay. This is why it's been so easy to market the book and sell people a twenty five dollars book is because I have never felt more passionate about anything I've ever done in my life, even more so than my children. But I'm not trying to sell my children, So there we go. I am so passionate about what is in this book, how it can change lives. Yeah, I have no problem marketing this book.
Agreed.
I feel good about the book too, because I do feel like it's actually helpful. We put our heart and soul and minds and wisdom into it.
It's fun, it's helpful. Yes, yeah I could.
I do think it'd be a good investment for anybody.
But sometimes it's like.
Yeah, you could, you could pay for this, but you can also learn this information for free.
You know.
It's why I have a hard time like selling our podcast or making people like pay for content like what's in the podcast.
It's just like no, because we want you to have it.
Right, so the book. Yeah, And which is why I've never felt confidence selling anything else, And which is why we're so thankful you listen to the ads in the show because it allows us to give you the content for free, which we believe it should be free. And we definitely believe the content in the book is not stuff that can be googled. Yeah, and it is absolutely worth twenty five dollars and is the way we will pay our book, but.
Whether or not we earn money off of it is yet to be determined. True.
And so that's why like, writing a book is the worst possible way to pick to earn money, because it just doesn't make a lot of it as well as podcasting.
And here we are, Here we are, and I think that I mean I agree to in my own experience as well, I have picked career paths and professions that don't pay much, And especially my twenties, I was just like, who cares about money? And I'm starting to realize, yeah, but there's also going to come a time when my earning potential maybe diminishes because of life events or my own health. Who knows. It's like, it is important to be able to earn money, but I just haven't ever really prioritized it. And I am grateful in many ways for that, But then in other ways, I think I kind of have cut off my feet in that. What's the saying I shot myself in the foot.
I don't know what you're saying.
Actually, I don't think you've cut off your feet in really leaning into you know, I would rather do these things. I prioritize flexibility, I prioritize professions and helping people that doesn't necessarily pay me back. And I'm not complaining about that by any means. Like I've made choices in that. It has been fulfilling and purposeful in many ways, but it's what contributes to me not really knowing like.
How to earn you know, I know how to volunteer.
I know how to to give away stuff, I know how to be helpful.
We very much moved towards what feels good and what feels of service. Yeah, And I think like that's similar.
We just need to be tradwives, Jen, I mean.
We really did make the wrong choice Mary rich or Mary Capable. We've got some great husbands, but I just think we weren't thinking ahead enough. So and two kids are expensive, man, But so yeah, and I think also us growing up middle class and not having like like you had the feast or famine of an entrepreneurial parent, and I had very like rigid inside the rules, you know, w two parents, And so that very much like impacts how we view earning today. And even with all I've learned, it has really taken this podcast, this book and finding that's like the sense of living into my full potential and this is what I want to be doing all the time for the foreseeable future, to really decide, you know, this is how I want to earn money and really dive into it. So thank you for listening. If you want to support the show and you want the show to continue to be free and all of that, please pre order the book by what we Love dot com, not because we need it or we're desperate, but because we to really believe in it. We think it will help you and your communities. So thank you for listening. It also supports us if you leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, like this one from Norween eight eleven Motivating and fun Jen and Jill. Thank you Jen and Jil for keeping me motivated while I tackle endless DIY projects around the house, Sames, Listening to your episodes helps me remember why I'm putting in this wet equity to fix up our home. Thanks to frugal friends, I've saved money, I've avoided excessive spending, and I'm earning more interest on my savings. I love that the episodes come out frequently and they are all interesting and fun to listen to, even if the topic isn't directly relevant to my life.
Highly recommend Ooh, thanks so much, Noreen eight eleven. That's such a kind helpful review. If you all listening have not given us a review yet, and you have something that you want to say about the show the way that it's resonated with you, what you find helpful motivating. We'd love to hear that in the form of a review. Please do that. It helps us, it helps new listeners find the show. Thanks in advance.
Yeah, see you next time. Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni.
All right, speaking of our book, we are going to have an audiobook version of the book for all of you would prefer to listen to us, And we have a meeting in one minute.
With the with the producer to talk about how we're going to record this.
So there you go, pre order the book and then get the audio book whence it comes out.
Pre order a hardcover because that's what truly helps us. And then maybe join the street team. Maybe you could just find yourself with a copy of the audiobook. I don't know.
Yeah, So get the friend letter. I'm sure if you're listening to this you already are getting the friend letter, and follow that link to be a part of the Street Team.
Apply to be a part of it. Bye bye,