Frugality is Giving Big Impact Energy

Published Nov 24, 2023, 7:00 AM

Has anyone ever told you that you have Big Impact Energy? Every action you make has an impact on a micro- to macro-level. Whether you’re on your way to the mall to shop for the Black Friday sale or you’re decorating for Christmas, this episode is not going to shame you for it; rather, we’re empowering you to make the best and most confident frugal decisions.

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Episode three point fifty seven Frugality It's giving big impact energy.

Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and liver your life. Here your hosts Jen and Jill.

Welcome to your special Black Friday edition of the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jill, and today we are talking about nothing related to Black Friday, nothing related to sales, nothing that you should be taking advantage of. We are doing just Jill and I an episode about the impact of frugality beyond saving money, beyond controlling your spending, beyond all of that. And we would love for you to listen to this as you make your way out to the stores. There will be no shaming happening if you are shopping today. We just want you to listen to this before you make your purchases so you can take this frugal energy with you.

Yeah. So in that way, it is Black Friday adjacent. We can be empowered to make the best decisions.

Yes, and have the best mindset when you're making your decisions, because that's what we want to do when we are learning to values based spend, is to be confident in our spending decisions, and this feels like an integral piece to that that we don't cover a lot, and I am so fired up to do it. I might listen to this episode on my way to shop. Who knows, I don't know. I don't typically listen to myself speak, but this could be the day. Anyways. The episode is brought to you by another one of my favorite things things, Mariah Carey's hit single All I Want for Christmas Is You. There are three types of people in the world. This is an over generalization, but bear with me. Those who start listening to Mariah Carey's hit single All I Want for Christmas is You on November first, those who start today the day after Thanksgiving, and those who don't listen to it because Christmas makes them anxious. And I'm sorry for you. I love to ask who hurt you? And we can talk about it, and we can talk this through, we can unpack it. These people cannot relate with each other, but we have something that will bring everyone together. One thousand dollars, and we want to give one lucky frugal friend one thousand dollars to make the holidays a little easier. So head to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash pamper just like the diaper or like pampering yourself, So you can enter the giveaway, and I hope it makes you a little less anxious about Christmas so that we can all listen to Mariah carey hit single All I Want for Christmas is You Together.

You're bringing big impact energy to all of this. You're you're embodying this episode title right now.

This is me embodying big energy. So if you, if you maybe are looking for an episode that is adjacent to this one, but where my energy isn't so big and I'm not doing so many hand motions in the background that you cannot see. Episode two ninety eight, No Cost Ways to Be More eco Friendly Episode two sixty six Sustainable Minimalism with Stephanie Seferian from the Sustainable Minimalist podcast. And this episode is not explicitly actually about like being eco friendly or anything. This goes far, far, far beyond that. But we do so few episodes that are the why behind frugality. Those are kind of the most appropriate ones to mention at the top. This is our show is very much the how of frugality, and this episode is very much the why of it.

And if you've been listening to us for at least a couple of months, you know that we've been doing a few of these kind of special episodes where we're not looking at articles on the internet and giving you our curated hot take. Instead, this episode is our thoughts on frugality and the big impact energy that we can bring to it, what big impact energy it can bring to us, just that mutuality that's present. But and as we get started, let's talk about what even is big impact energy? Like what are we talking about here? And yes, it is a little bit of a spin on Ariana Grande's coined term that I won't talk about here, but if you know, you know. And so for us when it comes to frugality and understanding big impact energy, it's recognizing what's at stake if you don't take control of your spending. And I think what we're talking about here, Jen, you did mention the why of frugality, or the why of saving, the why of spending, the why of debt freedom, and all of those perspectives are super helpful. Asking us asking ourselves that question is really important and while we can't always keep it in mind, constantly. We can't always have the why right in front of us. Sometimes big picture doesn't entirely help us in our day to day. That doesn't mean that we can throw it all out and never look at it. I think sometimes recognizing this macro level big picture, what are we talking about here? Why is this so important? Beyond just my tiny spending decisions day to day, but bigger than that, my entire life, my adulthood. What am I aimed at here? How can I be a part of the collective in a beneficial way in my local community? And larger than that? So it's really giving ourselves an opportunity I would venture to say at least once a year of looking at what's at stake here? Meaning if I don't do this thing, if I don't take control of my spending saving personal finances, what could that mean for me? And I think this intersects really well with the Big Four are pillars of frugality of our time, mental and emotional capacities, physical space, natural resources. What's at stake? If I don't choose to steward this well.

And really with big impact energy, it's rejecting. It's this mindset that is rejecting frugality as a means to an end, and viewing frugality not just as a means to get what you want in life, because we view it as when you are practicing values based spending and you are being a good steward of all of your resources, it allows you to afford what money can't buy. Right, So we need money to get all of these things. We want time with our loved ones, a physical space that is conducive to having people, hosting people, feeling secure, safe, at ease our mental and emotional like not being stressed. You need money, obviously to have all of these, but money cannot buy these things explicitly. So frugality helps us put into perspective what we are really trying to achieve so that we can afford more of that. But it's more than that. Frugality is a solution to so many problems we face on a micro and macro level that it goes beyond just what frugality can do for me, and it's what frugality can do for the world. So we're gonna cover three things that we think frugality can can give you on a macro and micro level. We're gonna we're not gonna go in order. We're just gonna go I think maybe in order of descending us sending importance. I don't know, we're going to go up to what we think is most important. But uh, we'll start with just our physical space, physical beings. And that's that frugality fights over consumption, and overconsumption has a direct effect on physical spaces and human beings outside of our immediate community.

And recognizing this particular piece of overconsumption intersects with the environment, and looking at the effect that our consumerism, specifically over consumption of consumable goods has on the environment, workers, people in our community locally and abroad, this statistic is a little bit staggering, specifically looking at that around the time of the holidays, so Americans, those of us in the United States throw away twenty five percent more trash than usual, which we should also be looking up what the usual is. That's pretty high compared to the rest of the world. Between Thanksgiving and New Years, about a million extra tons of garbage each week, according to the National Environmental Education Foundation.

This is wild to me.

Twenty five percent extra just in the span of a month is being thrown away, which is showing that consumption is up or bringing in more, purchasing more, throwing away more, getting rid of more, making room for more, and then rinsing and repeating and doing it all over again. And so recognizing the impact that this level of consumption that is already high, sometimes throughout the year increases to an even higher degree, affects the world around us, the air quality, the people working these jobs, the environment locally and abroad. There's impact here on the environ meant that some of this we have control and influence over on a micro level, which absolutely is going to impact the macro level as well.

Yeah, and you might not immediately think of all of the trash you are creating by purchasing. It doesn't it doesn't necessary. It doesn't directly translate, right if I'm buying all these new things I'm hosting parties, it doesn't directly translate to trash.

Right.

But come spring when you are decluttering, think about all the things you're getting rid of because you acquired new things over Black Friday. So you may not see that twenty five percent in your own life, or this or this study may just be focusing on like the food and the direct waste. So this number may be even higher. I didn't actually look into that fact, but it does trickle out over the next three to four months as you take in new things. Your space is finite, your physical space is finite, and you will get rid of more things in order to compensate. And you pay for that. You pay to get rid of that. So you pay your city or county or whatever. You pay for their landfills, whether they're in your county or not. You pay for that. You pay for your garbage pickup. You pay for these things indirectly, and we don't always see them as a cost because they're so minor. But as a collective, if we collectively everybody listening to this podcast started to take into consideration these things and we just cut our consumable goods purchases by twenty twenty five percent, What could that do collectively? How much money could it save you? If you or if your county or city did not need to increase the land it rents for landfills, it didn't need to increase, but it could stabilize. Like at this point, we're not idealists that think we can reduce. We're just looking at how we can stabilize. Because with inflation, We're seeing all these studies that people are cutting back on the things that they're buying. Yet all I'm seeing all of these studies pop up for the holidays that people say they're going to spend more than they ever have in history, even before the pandemic, on individual holidays. And yes, some inflation is you know, to deal with that. But what if we just kept our spending the same and we bought less to compensate for inflation. So I know a lot of you listening are are going to be in that camp. But collectively, if we if if we and we'll talk about this later, but collectively, if we set the quote unquote example, but if we normalize, if we normalize this kind of practice, this kind of lifestyle, and make it, you know, make it look like we're not depriving ourselves, you know, we're not sitting on our high horses like judging people. Right then, how many others could see could see that as permission to do that and follow follow suit? And something Jill mentioned in all of this environment that it's we're not just looking at like land, right, We're not just looking at environmental factors, but we're also looking at the cost of people. A study in twenty twenty two from UNICEF found that the majority of wealthy countries are creating unhealthy, dangerous and noxious conditions for children across the world, not just in our in our wealthy countries, but across the world. The study also found that if everyone were to consume resources at the rate which people in Canada, Luxembourg and the United States do, at least five earths would be needed. That is how much we are consuming and one of the director of unisf's Office of Research, Canila Olsen, said, not only are the majority of rich countries failing to provide healthy environments for children within their borders, they are also contributing to the destruction of children's environments in other parts of the world. This means we are shipping out waste, We are creating these noxious gases with our You know, I'm not an environmental engineer. I'm not sure how it all works. I will just be honest with that. But everybody's seen a picture of goodwill shipping off like all their unwanted, unsellable stuff that we have dropped there, shipping it all off to other countries. Right, We've all heard and seen that, So it is not unthinkable to think that there are things happening we cannot see that the media is not covering, and that's us. We are doing that the country. I mean, these these corporations are just responding to our consumerism. And so when we go into the into these seasons like the holiday season, and we just have this mindset of wanting to be frugal, to decrease the overall over consumption in our country, if we collectively do that, we can make a bigger impact.

Yeah, it certainly does help when we can take it outside of ourselves that there's a reason to aim at frugality and good stewardship just for ourselves, but then to also see that when we do that, there is a positive correlation between that and all these other aspects of how we're treating the environment, how we're treating people and workers around the world. And interesting that they chose in that last study you just referenced jen children that this is what is becoming of the air quality and environment for children around the world, which definitely does cause a little bit of a higher level of response than if you were to just say people.

Like, right's childreable, right, but all about kids, So people what it is highlighting suore of course, but then with that it's showing us that we are talking about the next generation.

And so even in that, we're identifying yes for us now and for us later. And so that's the kind of big impact energy we're talking here of what we can come to understand and the behaviors we're able to shift and model and aim at sustainability at least. Then what does that produce for us, not just now, but then in the future as other generations pick up on, they will good or bad habits, and we can be a part of what are the good habits I'm cultivating with the knowledge that I now have what am I modeling to the children of the next generation, so that this kind of energy goes forward into the future.

So the next topic we want to cover is it bring it back to number one. When you practice frugality as more than just a way to save money or control your spending, you open yourself up to actually live your best life. And this is not just like a Quippi you know saying, but you do you allow yourself to actually a discover what your best life is personally, to allow your family around you to discover what their best life is and and have grace for them if it is not the same as yours, and learn to incorporate, learn to cooperate, and that that in of itself makes your best life better. Right, So when you view frugality as more than money, then you give yourself the space to really discover it. What is those things that money can't buy?

Like?

What those are for.

You more than money? Love that there's another bumper sticker. Yeah, I think when I previously would hear that term live your best life or live live in my life? Actually that is in our sound that sounds a life. There's this certain image that comes to mind previously for me of luxury, yacht living, jet setting, caveat.

White Ferraris.

And I think what we're saying is not just this quippy your best life and it's one thing, but the reality of it's more than money, and it's many, many, many multitudes of things that we can decide each individual, not letting other people dictate our life. There's this study from Global Web Index super Interesting found that fifty four percent of social media users use social media to research products and seventy one percent are more likely to purchase products and services based on social media referrals, which is great if you're a person who's trying to sell a product, social media is where you want to be. But as somebody who might just be going to social media for entertainment, for just some doom scrolling at night, this is quite can be quite a trap of consuming in a way that maybe you wouldn't otherwise, and almost worse, if I can say it this way, being sold a lifestyle that you may not even want. So even beyond purchasing products, I think what this can also lead to is designing a lifestyle based on what somebody else is telling you should be and not ever really realizing whether or not it's your version of a best life. Just that looks good for them, So I'm going to do that, And it's never even really a full thought.

So yeah, I mean it just comes. Maybe not everyone can relate to this, but like, who has dated someone because everybody around them was dating someone and they felt lonely being single, and they went up with the first guy who asked them? Who hasn't done that? Is that just me? But like nobody was influencing me to go out with this guy that I didn't That was really not worth my time, right, But it was this indirect influence, right, I didn't ask myself what is it I really want in a person? Like why is it that I'm single? Why is it that I'm waiting? Right? Like I just wanted to be coupled. And so we make so many of so many of our decisions from indirect influencing. I would think even more than direct influencing on social media. We make so many important life decisions, important financial disc decisions based on indirect influence. Just like hashtag the American dream. We have half half of the people listening to this show who do not have a house, who do not own, are saving for a home, right, and of that, how many people who own? And how many are who are saving? Like ask themselves important questions about like why why do I want to own a home? Why am I interested in the things that come along with owning a home? We are just influenced by I got to own a home because it's I've been told it's a good financial decision, and YadA YadA, Like we did that with real estate investing, if I'm going to be honest, Like we bought a second home to renovate because we were you know it was like, Oh, this is just the next step. Like, once you get your retirement start, you start investing in real estate so you can diversify your investment PORTFOLI And here we are in the dumpster fire of a house that we live in. So we all do it right, Like, maybe not to the extreme of buying a second house. You know, you're welcome. I will be your example of what not to do. But yeah, we are all so indirectly influenced.

Yeah, and I think when we don't take the time to this is the what's at stake When we don't take the time to investigate, be curious about our own spending habits, our saving habits, just our behaviors, the way that we interact with all of the resources available to us outside of us and internally right our physical capacities, mental capacities, emotional capacities. When we don't take inventory of those things and are curious about them and aligning them with our values, we lose out on living our best life. That's what's at stake in this category. If we let somebody else dictate that for us, If we allow ourselves to be mindlessly influenced and purchasing things just because it's what everybody else is purchasing. We can lose out on, miss out on what was it that maybe I would have truly wanted, what would have given me the most joy, what it would have led to the least amount of depletion. Where was the convergence of my values with what's available in front of me and my skill set and my desires and the things that I enjoy. If we don't look at those things, if we're not stewarding all of this, well, we're missing out on elements that can hardly even be described. But probably in some ways wouldn't even know what we're missing out on, but it would definitely be better than what's currently being sold to us.

Yeah, and I'll say one last thing on the like, you missing out on living your best life. I don't want to forget to mention that you need money to live your best life. Like, let's also just bring it back around and say, like this is we're first and foremost like understand that again, in order to have more of the things money can't buy, you need money. And I want to point out a study that was done so a lot of you will know, the study that says you only need like that the joy levels out when your income hit seventy five thousand dollars. Right, this year, twenty twenty three, that study was revisited by the researcher Hroote who did it, and another researcher who said, actually more money equals more happiness. So the two yeah, we have a retract No, I mean, so the two researchers came together to kind of just revamp the original study, right, and they found that you can experience well being you're up to well beyond two hundred thousand dollars a year of income. So we if you ever hear that seventy five thousand dollars stat again, just stop listening to ever saying it is the first thing, but the second is that we want to work on increasing our incomes throughout this throughout this best life, because the more money we have, the more money we have to share with those around us. And I think that when we increase our income not just for the sake of having more stuff, when we get out of this over consumption and mindset and we are content with what we have but not complacent, we're still working to refine our skills and increase our income and influence then we can use the income that we build more responsibly than other people who might just use it to buy stuff. Right, So, like we have almost a social responsibility to earn more because we are more responsible with it because we don't quote unquote need it. So I just want to add that to like, living your best life doesn't just mean like defining your enough with your consumables, but also working to increase your income and what you bring in so that you can do better things with it.

Yeah, to the level that's going to be sustainable for you too. It is possible to reach a up plateau that we are content with that is our enough and is well within our means and provides margin. But yeah, as you're saying, it's not just about cutting spending, it's also about what else could this mean for me? And that's where it does go beyond the money, because once we've got this mindset in place and we recognize what's at stake, then what more money means is that it gets filtered through this big impact energy, not just more for the sake of more and consumption for the sake of consumption and following what everybody else is telling me to do. But now that I've got a good grasp on what I want, what my best life looks like in a way that aims at contentment and sustainability. Then more money means possibilities of generosity and longevity for yourself and finding opportunities to engage in the things that you really enjoy, so so many other things that you can do with it that is beyond money. And the third category here that we see big impact energy really making just such a difference is in permission. And of course this is for ourselves first that as we are on this journey of frugality, we are similarly in a journey of finding permission for ourselves to dictate our own life, to control and bear influence on the things that we have the ability to do so with and not just going with the flow, consuming mindlessly, but finding permission to say no to this and maybe yes to that, even if it's different from what somebody else is doing. And then when we do that and we get a real good handle on it, we're giving permission to others to also choose different That's that ripple effect that we're describing. And also research is showing that this is research from MIT that social influence exhibits a ripple effect.

We do see this, we say it all the time, but it does.

Decay across social distances from the source of whatever the influence is, but it still persists up to six degrees of separation. So this isn't just the you are who you surround yourself by. This you, sir, you are who you surround yourself by, who they surround themselves by, who they surround themselves by to the sixth degree, And so it really matters certainly the communities that we're in, not just the way is others are influencing us, because we can have control over who we're surrounding ourselves by, but who we are being in the midst of that community. Who are we to the around us? What types of influence, permissions, grace, flexibility, freedom are we modeling and encouraging others towards in this journey of frugality, of again being good stewards, of pushing back the status quo, of creating an environment for ourselves and for our community and abroad that is aimed at beneficial impact and well being.

Yeah, we have talked about how the people around you affect you so often because we're I mean we're speaking to you, listening, and we want to help you improve your life. Right, and so now when we talk about our big impact energy, we want you to not just focus on you, but focus on how you are giving other people permission. And it doesn't even have to be explicit, Like all the indirect influence that's being given to you, you are giving to other people. So I mean, don't feel pressured by that, don't feel like you have to walk on eggshells like everyone's watching what you're doing. But know that when you do something good, let's be open about it, let's talk about it. Let's normalize it so that we can give permission to other people to live lives like we are when we are being financial response financially responsible, when we are happy with our expenses, we are spending enough to where we have enough leftover to save and invest, and we are still having fun, We are still full of life. We are not judgmental, We are accepting, We are gracious. When people see that, they're going to be attracted to it, and you're going to have this ripple effect to them and they're going to start living this life and then that life is going to be like personified to other people you've never met and will never meet, and permission will then be given to them. So it's you have a huge impact energy that you don't realize, and we don't always pay attention to how we're wielding it. Usually it's just happenstance, you know, like we're just living our lives, scrolling and working and all this stuff, and the impact, the ripple effect that we give off is not one of intention. But when you realize the stuff and you, you know, throw an authentic, intentional face to the world, then you could have a crazy ripple effect. And I think I think explicitly of the debt free community on Instagram of people who are taken to social media to share their debt payoff journeys honestly authentically, and people they will never meet are influenced by that to keep going and to keep improving their lives. So you don't have to start a social media account documenting, you know, your changes. I think the impact you make on the people in your real life is much more powerful than on social media, but it can and does happen. And I was reading a study at a Notre Dame and this was about teams in the workplace but I kind of thought about teams in real life, and it says the greater motivation to benefit others, the higher the levels of cooperation and viability, and the higher the subsequent team performance. So broken down essentially, that saying when the team, when the team is focused on benefiting each other, like not just themselves but working for the benefit of someone else, there are higher levels of cooperation and the team stays together, so there's lower turnover rate in the workplace, and so in your real life that can be viewed as when we are viewing our actions, our frugality to benefit other people, like those abroad, those you know in our communities, and especially those in front of us, we stick with it longer. That's that intrinsic motivation. When we're talking about external and internal motivation, you can give yourself as many dinners as you want for meeting a debt payoff goal, but eventually the novelty will wear off. You need internal motivation to stick with stuff like this and this. When you believe this stuff, that's internal motivation to keep going. When you believe the choices you make positively affect other people, that's a game changer that brings frugality out of a means to an end and makes it an integral part of your life and what you believe everyone in society's lives should be aiming for.

There's your episode on all the questions about impulse purchasing. We haven't really talked about how to take it bigger, but I think that that's going to be a real key and game changer, certainly for me, and I got to imagine for other people that if we can't find a reason enough inside of ourselves to not spend mindlessly, Yeah, bringing it out to but how does this benefit others, benefit my child who's watching me, benefit.

The world around the environment?

How does this contribute to my best life? And truly what's at stake? And I love flipping it on its head in that way regarding the environment, our best life permissions to be found influence on ourselves and others. That what's at stake here is not finding permission for ourselves, being trapped to a life somebody else dictates for me, and not being able to positively influence and benefit and care for others because I'm not able to do it for myself. What's at stake is that I don't get to live my life. I'm living somebody else's life, and who knows if that's the best option for me. What's at stake here is that I may be taking advantage of my resources, the environment around me, the people around me, without putting thought to this. I could be taking advantage of people and what's been entrusted to me, and I could consume to a point that is really harmful to me and harmful to the community around me. So if we do nothing, that's what's at stake, not even to mention finances, like what's at stake with just our money and financial literacy, but there's this whole other world of what's at stake and my goodness, if that's not just the fire that I need to keep going, do one one thing of improvement in the way that I approach money and the mindset that I'm taking on and the people that I'm choosing to surround myself by and the person I'm choosing to be in those communities.

Hmmm, yes, that is yes. And to focus on the negative and the positive, right, So not just how your actions affect things negatively, but focusing also equally, if not more, on how your actions affect things positively. That's the real internal motivator. Negative stuff is like salt. We need it, we need to know what's at stake. But what's really going to internally motivate you is knowing that you you are making a greater difference. And you know who else knows they're making a greater difference. Who's focusing on the positive? Everyone who is submitting the bill of a week?

That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you paid off your mortgage, Maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. That's bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Clinton, this is the bill of the week.

Hey Janjel, This is Ashley from Los Angeles. My bill is the week involves my three year old daughters who at the end of last year, was sleeping with my husband and I and rolled out of our bed and split open her chin on her hard floor. And by the time we realized that she had slid open her chin, she was fine and the cut had dried up, and so we sent her to school and the school nurse was like, you idiots, this need stiff is, and I was like, okay. So I called the pediatrician and the pediatrician sent us to the er and I was like, not urgent care and they're like, no, br Is by your face. You want to go to the R Okay. So four hours later, four stitches later, and several months later, I end up with a bill eight hundred dollars and I am luckily. I remembered your episode about medical debt, and I googled the hospital and see if it was a hospital, and it is. And I asked for a bill with peppeicos, which they gave me, and I applied to the financial assistance and then sent them more documents that they said I didn't send them initially, which I did. But anyway, now I have a new piddle for eighty dollars, which is a ninety percent discount. So I just wanted to say thank you and let you know bye.

Oh my gosh, Ashley, that's oh that sounds identical to something I would do, like my four year old that you were saying that story, and I'm like, uh huh, I get it. I get it. If that if that three year old falls out of the bed at three o'clock in the morning and isn't crying. I'm not waking.

Up, and I will send them on to school if they are not crying and not even realize they need such That is one hundred percent yep, that would be me and I would and the school nurse would look.

At me weird. But man, ninety.

Percent, yeah, this is this is some big impact energy on that medical bill. Ashley, I am celebrating with you. I cannot highlight enough how glad I am that you remember the medical Debt episode. It is something I reference a ton just personally to my friends who are talking about medical things that they have, So I'm referencing it now here in case any other listener hasn't heard that episode.

Super super helpful.

Something to earmark and come back to, because we're all going to be in this position, whether it's the school nurse telling us that we did something wrong or just ourselves. We rolled out of bed and now we see a ton of money.

Episode two thirty negotiating medical Debt with doctor Vergie bright Ellington. That is the episode. It's actually negotiating medical bills, but is a little bit of debt. But yes, Episode two thirty definitely a foundational episode. Of our archives.

Well, Don Ashley putting in the work of saving money and ultimately caring for your child. If you want to submit your bill of the week, if it has to do with ninety percent savings, a previous Frugal Friends episode that was just super helpful to you, or just the way you are bringing big impact energy to the world around you. And again, if none of those things are true, but what is true about you? As your name is Bill, visit Frugal friendspodcast dot com slash Bill to leave us your bill.

And now it's time for the yeld yikes today's lightning round. Uh why since we're on the topic of why is today? Why are you so passionate about frugality?

Why do jen you go first?

Why do you are you sure?

Yeah?

I'm positive looking at this outline.

Uh So, people never ask me why I'm passionate about frugality. They always ask me as the co host of a podcast about frugality. Why they asked me? How do you come up with so many episode ideas? That's what they ask They don't ask me like, why do you love frugality so much that you would host a podcast about it for six years? Never nobody's ever. But this is why this to answer the question nobody asked, but also to answer the question everyone asks, how can you just come up with so like three hundred and fifty seven episode ideas? Because I am so passionate about this topic. So let me let me just read you a little quote. This is from a nineteen twenty eight book called Propaganda from Edward Burnet's, one of the pioneers of the public relations industry, and he says mass production is profitable only if its rhythm can be maintained. That is, if it can continue to sell its product in steady or increasing quantity. Today, supply must actively seek to create its corresponding demand and cannot afford to wait until the public asks for its product. It must maintain constant touch through advertising and propaganda to assure itself the continuous demand, which alone will make its costly plant profitable. That quote, right there is why I am so passionate about frugality. For the last one hundred years, advertising has been molding us into consumer For me, frugality is not just about saving money. It replaces the American Western society deity of money and consumerism, and we are to them consumers first, people second, and I am passionate about shifting the narrative back to the right order to be people first and consumer second. And that is why I can come up with so many topics about frugality and talk about it two hours a week every week for six more years probably, and then then then we'll sell the brand. It'll probably expire by then. But there is an amazing and we will link to this. There is an amazing article from MIT Press called A Brief History of Consumer Culture, and it goes through the last one hundred years, starting from nineteen twenty eight or even a little bit before from this quote, through the last hundred years of marketers in alignment with this idea that they must create the demand, and how we have been led via propaganda to be consumers first. So yeah, it's from MIT Press. It's called a Brief History of Consumer Culture, and will linked to it in the show notes.

Shifting the narrative, helping people to be able to look at what do they actually want, recognize what's been created and molded into us, socialized into us, and getting back to the roots of who we actually are as individuals, what we actually want. Woof Wow and I'm just over here riding the wave of Jen's big impact energy for six years.

You're not writing, You're the moon cycle that heats it.

I got a strong gravitational pull you do.

For me. It's not.

I don't have as many quotes as you, if any. I think I truly genuinely feel as though I've embraced I'm fully embedded into this concept of frugality that I think talking about frugality is talking about life because it intersects every part of life, like stewarding well knowing ourselves, being the best possible friend and member of society is just what I want for life. And it intersects frugality that there's never even a conversation just with friends around coffee that we're not talking about one of these top X food, clothing, transportation, housing, vacations, values, belief systems. It all intersects, and I think people aren't necessarily asking me the same questions that they're asking Jen, But what they're commenting on is you guys are just actually friends. It just feels like I'm listening to friends talk. And I think I am so passionate about frugality because it's it just is creating space to have some of these important conversations and to learn from one another and become even more resourceful and gain tips and tricks and be encouraged and find the right mindset and aim at contentment. I think this is life, this is living life, this is doing life. And frugality I believe pairs beautifully in great synchronosity with self understanding, creativity, problem solving, resourcefulness, gratitude, generosity, identifying and living within enough and as we've already talked about, that has just so many great benefits to ourselves and the world around us that you're not going to get me to stop talking about it, even after six years. Boom jen sell the brand.

But try and shut me up. Not going to happen, not going to happen. Wouldn't even think to try, wouldn't thank you, You wouldn't even attempt it.

Yeah, muzzles don't work on me. They don't they don't really fit.

Don't ask us how we know.

Thanks everyone for listening. We hope you feel encouraged and just set on the right pathway for now and the future. Many of you know, but some of you don't know. So here we are to tell you that we have a newsletter and it's called the friend Letter because that's cute, and it goes out three times a week, which we think is just right. We send out freebies, savings, tips, life hacks, all of it around how to help you save money spend better. We want to give a shout out to this one friend who replied back to our email the friend Letter.

One second, we just realized we have a poll in every friend letter right where we pull you guys to see you know, ask you questions what direction we should take an episode, what kind of episodes and content you want more of. So if you want to have an influence in what you hear on the show, you have to subscribe to the friend Letter Frugal Friends podcast dot com. But we just realized you guys can respond to these polls like you can comment on them. And we just realized that today and so as I was looking through them, I found this respect from Monica and now, Jill, I'll let you read it.

This is so fun, Okay, Monica says, I so so so enjoy listening to you guys. You give me a good dose of happiness. That's that influence piece. Also, could you please share? And this isn't all caps. Who the guy is who does the intro and also the bill of the week. He also in all caps, crack me up? Also who's doing the drums on Bill of the week.

It's the in.

All caps best exclamation mark, exclamation work, exclamation mark. And isn't this so fun for me to say to you, Monica, I hope you're listening all of it. The answer to all of it is my husband, Eric Sirianni. He is the best. He cracked me up. He the guy, He the guy. He cracked me up. The guy, he the best. He playing the drums, he do in the voice. He wrote our entire sound design, recorded it, did all the music, did all the voices, all of it.

For three hundred and fifty seven episodes. All the sound design has been the same, Like for day one, Paul, it was perfect and it has never changed. You go back to episode one, it is the same song, the same Bill of the week, the same everything.

We thought that we would change it at some point, but I really just think he crushed it and it's who we are, and you either love it or you hate it. There's some people who think it's corny, and we're like, that's the point. And he crushed corny and Monica gets it and crack us though.

Yeah, so thank you for sharing that, Monica, and we will be sharing more of your responses to our polls hopefully an upcoming up episodes. And yeah, thank you to Eric Siriani who is the guy.

Hmm, Jill's husband. That's me. I'm Jill. I may or may not crack you up, but either way, head to frugirlfriendspodcast dot com slash friend letter get the goodies and the polls and the freebies and all of it to your inbox three times a week for free.

Bye ye. Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Siriani. I nobody knows, but in real time I was switching out the review to be this review because literally just before we started the episode, I realized that these existed. And so when I saw Jill was reading the outro, I was like, hold up, and I I had to put it in real quick before she saw what was happening so that she could read it.

I enjoy it. Eric's going to enjoy that.

He is the guy, and who will love hearing that he is the guy? Like and he will take that far. He will take that.

The unsung hero of the Frugal Friends podcast is he.

Has always been a team He has always been the third Frugal Friend, and we have just added on Frugal Friends like team members. Usually when we have a team meeting, he's there.

Yeah, exists because of Eric.

This is so true. Yes, it would not exist if Eric hadn't semi pressured us into this.

He was the podcasting matchmaker.

Yes, he was the matchmaker, sound designer editor for the first gosh year or so, and then he found the editor. Like he still takes care of the editing, just indirectly. So, I mean he is an integral part of Frugal Friends. Yeah, I'm so glad that you saw that, Monica.

He's going to be especially thrilled to hear that you noticed his drums. Yeah, drumming, Wow.

Yeah, he is. I mean a professional drummer has been paid for drumming, not by us.

But.

Although we don't pay him for anything. What do you think his most famous drumming song is. Does he get any residuals?

No?

Yeah, Unfortunately he primarily played music loud loud. No, I mean that's true, live.

Too loud to get paid.

He doesn't really have much like recording credits on albums.

He also played the music live. We could say that the Frugal Friends song is his most famous.

That's so true, most listen to. Absolutely, He's just he'll never he'll never see money from it.

Yeah, well he will never see monetary payment from it.

Residuals over here, Nope.

But a lot of gratitude, yeah, a lot of exposure.

Yes, we love exposed.

A lot of exposure, yeah,

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