Decreasing our consumption, decreases our spending, which increases our savings AND creates sustainable practices! Sounds good right?! But how do we do this practically...and frugally?? On this episode we explore attainable ways to decrease our waste in an effort to live more frugally and steward our resources well.
Sponsors:
Notable Notes:
What the Internet has to say:
This article from Hestia Speaks provides tips for sustainable living on budget
What Jen + Jill have to say:
More from the Internet
This article from Going Zero Waste describes 12 things you can STOP buying when you decrease your waste and consumption
More from Jen + Jill:
- Thanks Andy Hill from Marriage, Kids, and Money podcast! We love your bill about kids summer camps ;)BILL OF THE WEEK
Lightning Round
Our Favorite Frugal Zero-Waste Swaps
Wrap Up:
Thanks so much for listening! Keep leaving us reviews on iTunes or Stitcher, and sending the screenshot to frugalfriendspodcast@gmail.com. AND share our most recent episode on social for a chance to win a $10 Amazon gift card!
See ya next week!
Episode one oh three, how to Live a zero waste lifestyle Frugally. Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, rights, and liberate your life. Here your host Jen and Jill m. Welcome to another episode of the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my name's Jill, and we are talking all about zero waste eco friendly living today. It's always been a benefit of frugality and so now we're kind of going to talk about it in and of the It is the main goal and how to fit frugality around an eco friendly lifestyle. Yeah, so good summary. Yeah. I'm excited about the articles and the tips we've got. Yes, and I'm going to share some some personal details in this episode because this is that really hits home for me. Yeah, So I am. I'm excited. We've done a lot of listener requests and this was a me request. I put this in here because I wanted to, Yeah, because I had these questions and so now I'm answering them perfect. Yeah. I think it's another version of frugality that along the lines of how minimalism intertwines with frugality. Zero waste intertwines with it. I would not say that I live a zero waste lifestyle, but I'm definitely intrigued by it and learning more about it too, even through like researching this episode. So yeah, so I'm excited to to get into these articles. But first, our sponsors. Our other sponsor today is Earth Day. Every April, we celebrate the planet we live on and its environment. This year we celebrate the fiftieth official Earth Day by posting eco friendly quote, heartfelt post on Facebook and going to a free event with a folk band, whatever you choose to do. Remember, you only have one Earth to live on, so take care of it, because it takes longer to get to Mars than we originally thought. I was going to say something about Mars like, well there is always Mars, but there you go. You debunked that one. Yeah, So take take care of your Earth. And one of the ways to do that is by reducing your waste, especially your plastic waste. I don't know if you know this, Jill, but there there's a like a swirling vortex of plastic in the ocean, like off the coast of California that is supposedly bigger than the United States. What Yeah, that is a thing. I saw a picture of it's a meme and I saw it in a documentary, so I saw too places, so it must be true. But two times the charm right, regardless of how big it is, it exists. And if we want to keep preserving the earth that we live on because we're not getting to Mars in our lifetime, no, unfortunately no, So we have to be aware of what we're doing and it doesn't have to be expensive to do so. Right. Well, if anything, I think it is the frugal option, which is there's so many benefits to frugality, this being one of them, and there's so many tips in here that coincide with what living a frugal lifestyle means, and especially for those who are concerned about living an eco friendly lifestyle. Um, yeah, you can take it up a notch and then reap the financial benefits of it. Yes. So our first article is from Hestiest Speaks, and it is how to go zero waste on the eap or as we would say, on the frugal or on a budget fruit on the flippity frugal. And she had a lot of great ta how to make zero waste affordable? Yeah, This was a good a good article for me to to even understand more about what the goals of zero waste are and what that specific lifestyle means. Certainly it does intertwine with minimalism and frugality, um and sustainable living, but I mean, it's not too hard to grasp that it's talking about limiting the amount of waste that we create, not throwing as much away, nor being not not buying into this kind of throwaway culture that we live in. And so she gives tips for sustainable living on a budget because certainly, as with anything you could spend a lot of money, just being minimal does not necessarily mean that you're being frugal. It can just being zero waste does not mean that you're being frugal, because you could spend tons and tons and tons of money on all of the things that you need to make your own products, to have sustainable things, to have reusable things, and in the long run, a lot of those things do save you money, but you could get really carried away in like what you think you need trying to buy your way to green. Yes, yeah, that's a good way of surprising it. So anyhow, we're going to share with you our top tips, but certainly check out the article for more. There's a lot, a lot more than what we're going to go through. So the first one she mentions is glass jars and how reusable and multipurpose glass jars can be. And I love the tip that she says in here. I think sometimes we want the instagram perfect photo of all of our pay entry items and fringe items organized in glass jars that are beautiful, and yes, that does do something for me. But encouraging us to reuse what we have. So if you get pasta in a jar, don't just throw away the jar because the pasta sauces gone. Reuse it for something, clean it out, take the label off, and reuse it to store your dried pantry items or coffee or fill in the blank. So I like that to I use utilize reuse jars a lot of times to give flowers to friends, like once pasta sauces emptier or you name it um as a vase, So I'm not going out and purchasing vases every time i want to give a gift. And I love she also mentioned that you could just go to people's recycling bins and pull jars out of there instead of dumpster diving, recycle ravaging. Oh yeah, that's it, there is. Yeah, so I cover today you can find really cool doris. That way you don't have to just live with the lame jars that you buy cool jars. What did I loved the obviously the meal planning. So we talk about meal planning a lot as a way to reduce your wasted food, and so she gives it as a tip, you will buy less. If you meal plan, you will waste less. You will ultimately save money. But it's not even about saving money for people who want to live an eco friendly and zero waste lifestyle. Buying less of what you don't need, buying in like a fewer quantities helps keep agriculture sustainable because we throw away so much food these farms, whether it's wheat, corn, whatever, or dairy house chickens, whatever, These farmers are forced to meet demand. And so if we will stop wasting food, if we will stop buying a surplus um that goes wasted, then we can reduce the amount that they need. We can reduce the size of the farms that they need. We can make becoming a farmer more of a viable profession. If farmers don't need these mega farms too, so it's not just UM for the environment, but it's economical for those people as well. I know, like my father in law owns a farm and he's like a small, small time farmer, but it's his business and so it just goes down the supply chain like it starts at you, but it does have a bigger impact if we're all like making these small choices, and it's friendlier on your budget too. I mean, I would imagine that most people print when they have to throw away food that they didn't use, Like who likes that? Essentially throwing away money. You're throwing away something that could have been good, but you didn't use it and it went bad, and that's sad. And this may be one of the times where being zero waste isn't as optimizing UM as frugality, because we like to get the lowest price per ounce, price per pound, and that means buying larger quantities and sometimes you can freeze those and it's fine, but there's some things that you can't or don't want to freeze, and therefore you sacrifice the lower price per ounce to get the lower quantity, so that you waste less and that's fine. Yeah, so kind of along what you're saying. She mentions another tip in here about simplifying your meals and so not spending on all the fancy olive oils and vinegarettes and ingredient but rather really paring down to food that's going to be sustainable and tasty, but not you know, a mile wide of all these different ingredients that inevitably are going to go bad. Something's going to go bad and you're not gonna be able to use it. And so I love her one tip or example that she uses in here of when she purchases veggies, getting three rather than five. And I can struggle with this in myself. I noticed it recently, like, Okay, I'm going to make a pasta salad and I want it to be multicolored. So what do I gotta get? I gotta get, you know, like ten different veggies, and in reality it tastes just as good with three, whether that's a stir fry or salad or you name it. I love this kind of shift in mindset of I can get some fewer veggies that still have still work well together, give a lot of flavor, but not more quantity in my fridge. Me. Also, I don't have the space in my fridge that that eventually it's it's gonna go back, something's gonna get thrown away. Yeah. You can take every season and just get the same three veggies like every season or like every month, and just say, like April is carrots, celery, and onion a month, and so we're going to make things that incorporate all these and then pick something else for the next month. And it helps speed along meal planning, um. And it also helps you solidify recipes that are kind of your go to recipes, which speeds up cooking time. Um. And it also like helps the environment in yeah, which also helps you to eat in season, which I know we mentioned in a previous episode just about meal planning, but it is more cost effective to eat the produce that's in seasons rather than trying to do strawberries out of season, where you're gonna pay like double or triple the amount. Eat the strawberries when they're in sea, and do your root veggies in the winter, do your do your berries and you know, lighter veggies in the summer. And I've even read too that it's good for our bodies to be following the seasons with what we input, because we need different things when it's freezing outside versus when it's a hundred degrees outside. So all of these things that are already good for us good for the environment over our budgets, like we can be doing and it helps. It's a win win, win win win. Yes, And it's good for farmers and the people that those farmers employ. I'm obviously very sensitive to like the business behind food um, but buying in season helps everyone so and it's and you know, and it's good for the environment. Another thing I liked on this list was to simplify the non food products you use. So that kind of relates back to minimal is um and like so your makeup products, your skincare, your your bath, anything that you use up to simplify it as much as possible, kind of like our airbnb host, oh old spice body wash, shampoo, dish soap. It was so gross. It was just one one old spice bottle in different dispensers in different places around the Airbnb closing is different things. Yeah, that was a gross way of doing this. Don't do that if you're okay with that, But like cool, go for it. I hate the smell of old spice. Yeah, I learned find find a product that can be versatile for you. Um, but you can also cut out products. So maybe you're using like a toner and a face wash and a face something else, Like maybe you just need to change your face wash to something that's like a three in one or something. I don't have a really great skincare regiment, so I can't really speak to them. And like I already have a very simple makeup regiment. I didn't wear makeup for a year, so now it's I'm super simple with what I wear. But experiment and and all the things that you use that are not food, just think about those as well, because those sometimes get forgotten, like as we think of them as necessities, that it's worth like getting creative and not considering them necessities and see how that goes for you. Also, the tip on growing herbs indoors. So buying fresh herbs is a decent expense, and they can go bad pretty quickly. I mean I'll be honest, a lot of times I will rep waste fresh herbs with the dried herbs and recipes just to not purchase the new stuff, But how much better to grow it yourself and be able to use the fresh herbs but not have to pay for it. And it just is a bit more sustainable that way because then they're not all cut Like you take what you need for as you need it for each recipe, and the rest can kind of keep growing in your window sill. So I love that idea. Plus it's plants in your house and that's lovely. Yeah, I personally kill herbs, and so that doesn't work for me, But there are plenty of other tips I can follow. Yes, you do you you use the dry herbs then, but I use them all up and I make sure that when I meal plan, I'm trying to incorporate dry herbs the dryers that I have like into my recipes so they actually get used and I just don't have like dry herbs languishing in the back of my pantry forever. So that's something that a lot of people neglect in their pantry, is the herb section. But I encourage you to meal plan around your herbs as well. The next thing I liked on this list was some I mean, we talked about this almost every episode. Choose secondhand. First, it's really the way to being zero waste. It's it's the number one way, and you don't have to be like confined to thrift stores to choose secondhand first. There are so many options for getting the things you need second hand and saving money on them. eBay is a great place to go to find like specialty items. I love online thrift stores like thread up. We actually have a affiliate link for them. You go to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash threat up. You can get ten dollars off your first order, no minimums. You can get like a even dollar thing and ten dollars off of it. Um. So I love I get clothes from there whenever I need them. Um. You can also do Posh, Posh Mark and Marcari for clothes, but I found that a lot of those sellers will post the same thing on eBay and make it cheaper because fewer people are going to eBay for clothes. So like, always check eBay is the moral of this story. Um. But like also Facebook, Marketplace, Craigslist, offer up check, just check those places first and if you don't find what you need within a few weeks or a month, figure out if you even need it at all. Um. And if you really do, if you're really hurting, then go by it new the bite quality so you won't need it again. That goes to the next tip that when you do buy new, because it does happen, sometimes spend the money on quality. And this is where we've talked about this before. The difference between being frugal and being cheap. Being frugal is making wise visions with your money for sustainability for your budget in the long run, not just can I get a deal on this? And so, yes, you can spend top dollar on something and be making the frugal choice. Those two are not mutually exclusive because and she uses this example in the article of buying boots and cheap boots because she felt like that's all that she could afford at the time, but then needed to replace them every year, needing a new pair of boots because the zipper would break, or she'd get holes in the soles, or they just weren't working because they weren't quality. And now having purchased boots that she did spend a lot of money on but have lasted her over two years, and she intends for them to last at least ten years. Uh and and It's interesting. I had this conversation with a friend recently. We were in a store, like a high end store, and there was a shirt for fifty dollars and she was like, that's ridiculous, and like, well, sometimes I agree, particularly if you're if it's just named brand and it's still lacking quality and you're going to spend that amount. But it also hit me that the night before we had spent well over fifty dollars for four people to go to go out to eat, not at a super fancy place, but between tip and your food, we spent over fifty dollars. And it hit me like, why are we so okay with spending fifty dollars to go out to eat that happens once for half an hour, and so averse to spending that amount of money on a shirt that could last us years and years and years? Wow? What what is that? And And so I wouldn't say to get a plethora of clothing at top dollar, but why not spend what you would spend out at a restaurant on something that's going to last you more than like a one time experience. So I'm challenging myself with that kind of how I approach these things. And I've been conditioned to think that a shirt is worth five dollars, that's all I should spend on it. But that you know, well, I think we're all at varying degrees of knowledge on kind of the business as you're saying, behind what we're consuming, but that can perpetuate a lot of exploitation of people, both in the US as well as abroad. So just kind of rethinking where we're spending our money, how we're spending it, and is it sustainable? What a huge mindset shift. And I that challenges me as well because I would also say the same thing if I saw a fifty shirt, which you can get quite and this would still go back to use what is already out there in the world. And I love how this article talks about that sustainable living zero waste is about what is already available. Let's use that first before we create something absolutely new, uh, And and that it's possible to do that, and even if it doesn't last as long as it would if you were buying new, it's still gonna last about the same as buying the cheaper version new, and you are creating less waste. So and that is the goal. The last thing I liked from this one is to host a swap party. So this isn't just a way to get rid of clothes and get a few free things, um, but I think it's a really great way to cultivate community and to find people that share your values. I mean, it has the word party right, so we're always going to highlight that one. So hosting a swap party like Facebook makes it very easy to host events, and you can partner with organizations in your community. I know that there's a mom group that hosts a swap once a month in my area. There is a buy Nothing group that has recently hosted a few swaps and they actually did clothing swaps. One week was for like small, medium, large, and then the next week was plus size. So there's ways you can do it, and I think for me, the deeper goal behind it is to meet people and form relationships with people that share your values and your convictions. And two to be working together because sometimes frugality and not going out as much can seem isolating, and so any opportunity you have to meet people in a small group setting, we should definitely be taking those. Yeah. Yeah, I love that one. So many more great things in that article. That moving on, So this next article comes from going zero waste dot com and she goes through twelve things she stopped buying since going zero Waste. Again with this one, we're not going to go through all of them. I will say, though I was surprised by a lot of that. I expected certain things to come up of this is what I stopped spending on, and certainly some of those are on this list, but some of them surprised me. And we'll go through it, but I want to start with just a statistic that she gave and and of course this is at this point in part from two thousand nineteen. The statistics so depending on when you're listening and might change a little bit, but it says that the average American spends almost five thousand dollars on products that are thrown away every year. I believe it because you're not just throwing away food and plastics, but years down the road, you're gonna put clothes in the garbage, You're gonna put socks, accessories, you're gonna put toys. Well, yeah, there's so many there's so many things we throw away that we don't think about. Well not I mean not to mention just the products that we specifically buy to throw away. They are meant to be disposable. Your water bottles, your paper products, like anything that you use up is made to be thrown away. Which yeah, it's it's striking and five thousand dollars. I mean, as this article mentions that's a vacation, I would say that's more than a vacation than a couple of vacations that has been, depending on where you're going. But yeah, so anyhow what stood out to you Jen from this one? Going zero Waste is one of my favorite blogs right now. She is super practical. She is from America, so all of her advice is catered to America, which is where we live. So and there are a lot of zero waste bloggers from like UK Australia and they kind of like say how to do it there? But I I love how down to earth she is and also balanced because to go completely zero waste you kind of have to go off the grid, um so and she's she's just talking about balanced, realistic ways that normal people can go zero waste. Nice. Yeah, so numbers one through three on this list, we're probably where where the shock factor or for me not well, or or the areas that are most difficult for myself. I love how you noted them in the outline. I didn't just put one through three. Ah, that was kind of like how I thought about it. So so let me just tell you what those three are. I won't go into super depth, but number one is paper towels and napkins. Number two tampons and pads. We'll circle back to that. Number three toilet paper. So each one getting more and more shocking as we go down the list. Um, okay, well for starters, paper towels and napkins. Yes, I know, I know, I know this. I'm just gonna be honest with you this. This is a stickler for me. I don't do napkins. Paper towels are my all in one. They are my napkin, they are my everything. Paper towels are jills everything. And you just have to understand that. Eric. Listen, No, he's on board with it. He's not the one trying to stop this dream. So I do reuse rags, and for the most part, like I know how to get by, but there are a few circumstances where I'm just like, what would I do instead of a paper towel. And we talked about this in the Cleaning Supplies episode. I think, and I'm even recalling you mentioning wanting to go cloth napkin. Do I call you out on this? How did that go? I have been wanting to go cloth napkin for a long time, and I say it, but that involves me buying the napkins. And I just have a problem with buying things. Yeah, it's not a healthy frugality. It's that is my problem with pulling the trigger on buying. You can absolutely make it out of old fabric I have. Okay, well we'll be there, so so I don't Yes, it's an aim, but I've got to figure out these couple of things, which one of them I realized is what to do with bacon grease. Paper towels are must have when there's bacon grease involved. So if anybody's got another tip for me, like feel free. But and I think with some of these tips in here, a lot of the people who write about being zero waste are vegan. So where some of this breaks down, in my opinion, is where there's meat products involved that can't be composted and that smell gross if you don't dispose of them properly or would attract animals. So that's that's still something after I went my mind on all right, I'm getting too much on a rabbit trail. Number two was tampons and pads. I know we probably are primarily female listeners, but even still, I'll be kind and won't get too much into this. But yeah, apparently there's alternatives two your throwaway option. There are, and they are becoming so much more popular and more effective because at first you would get them and they weren't reliable. Okay, full disclosure, I've never used one, but they I've heard that now there are different kinds that are more comfortable and more reliable. So that will be like a special frugal Friends episode, like a discreet hidden episode on our experience. Maybe we do plan on doing an episode and how to save money on like specifically female products, so this will be in there. Oh gosh, it's in our future. It will be in our future. Number three was toilet paper. So, okay, I got a little bit worried when I read this, but then I kept reading and I was like, okay, okay, I feel better. So so this author has a bidet attachment to her toilet it that she loves. She does love it, and she says post on it. Yeah, yeah, there is one. And she does say that they use some toilet paper, but much much less because of the bid day. So that's you know, it's an interesting concept because I was afraid she was going to go down the route of reusable toilet paper and those people is that it's some family family cloth or like just cloth, some something cloth. Yeah, that makes me feel weird. Family cloth is that sounds the worst. Yeah, No, that's not something you want to share with your family. So and I know that there's people out there who do that. I can't say that that's going to be my journey. The family cloth is a reusable alternative to toilet paper. So you know, the thing that my mind goes to with all of this is you're you are going to be doing a lot more laundry, and so actually looking at the savings of increased water and electric use edge because of the increased amount of laundry that you're doing versus purchasing inexpensive paper towels for the few times that you're going to use them. I mean, especially for us living in a camper and having a tiny washing machine. We would be doing laundry all the time if we were washing our toilet paper in with our napkins. No, I would say. My alternative would be um to find plastic free toilet paper, So toilet paper that is made just from paper, and that doesn't necessarily make it decompose easier, but it's from the back end process that it doesn't. It doesn't need plastic um, so that's where you're being eco friendly. And yes, it will cost more, and I don't know if all d carries it, but that is an option, and it's something for me to write down, like I could do that. I could spend more on toilet paper if I get to throw it away you mean flush it? Yeah, okay, just I mean I know that's what you do in other countries just because their septic systems can't handle the toilet paper. But I didn't know if there was like a reason I loved in America and it works just fine. All right, What do you like on this list? So that we made it three one through three? Yeah, so number four is aluminum foil, and I still use aluminum foil, but I use a lot less because of these two. Well, one of these two, um alternative she liss silicone mats, So the silk pat you can put it on, and I only use it as a way to it's gonna sound so bad to save the calories from putting oil on things. Um, and because I hate cleaning. Why does that sound bad? That's well, I mean, okay, it's reasonable, Okay, thank you for val thank you. And and the other things she says is bees wax wraps, and that can also help, not necessarily in the oven, but to wrap things, so that can also take care of um. Plastic wrap And honestly, plastic wrap is the worst. It's like from satan, and so getting like a big thing of beast wax wrap might be like a godsend. Yeah. And they're cute, are really cute. They are expensive, and I'm not quite sure. I don't have any my sister does because she does anyhow, uh Um, there's not, there's not. It's just she can afford it by the cute. The dig in deep know it's I'm really happy for her. Um, it's making it sound worse and worse. I digress. I'm okay, I'm not sure what happens with bees wax wraps. Eventually, I feel as though eventually the wax you would need to replenish it, and maybe there's a way to do that, but I'm curious about them. Yeah, if you've used bees wax beeswax wraps for quite a while, let us know in the Facebook group Frugal Friends Community, uh and and let us know what you think or any of these any zero waste alternatives that you've found that are also frugal. We would love to hear about it in the group. Of course. Another thing that I was surprised to see on here was number six, and that's trash bags. Um. So making less waste means you throw away less trash, so you save on trash bags. Um. But there's also paper liners made from newsprint. But you're not necessarily throwing away your wet garbage. You're composting it so that goes in a different place. And again I mean sometimes if you eat meat, that can be wet and it has to go in a plastic bag. So for me, I wouldn't get a paper a liner. But we've started composting, and not in order to plant a garden, but because I learned that the things that we throw away what I had just assumed because it was compostable, it would get composted in a landfill somewhere, which is biodegrade. But sometimes the trash is so packed together, especially in cities, that even biodegradable things can't degrade because they are not in a setting to degrade. And so if we, if more people would take it upon ourselves to compost, we could keep the things that are able to biodegrade, to keep them, you know, degrading um and then lower our impact on trash heaps less in your own trash. If you do garden, then it's fantastic for your soil. So that's a good reason, and you can give it to people that you know, garden and stuff. We're just going to probably spread it on our patch of land back there and maybe put some grass down, grass seed. I did a science project about composting and put it in a container and then put it in in my locker and forgot about it for the rest of the year. And then when I was cleaning up my locker found it and I learned a lot about composting the hard way. Right. It does. But the thing is is that you can do all of your veggies and stuff, and then coffee grounds are nitrogen, so you don't have to like pick up leaves and put it in there. You can literally just like veggies and coffee grounds. I'm like, you're good to go. I like that, good to go. Yeah, you don't have to think about it too hard. With the amount of coffee I drink, I don't know your life. So number nine on here is conventional cleaners, and they cite another tistic that American families spend anywhere between three to eight hundred dollars a year on cleaning supplies, just cleaning supplies. So even if you're on the conservative estimate end of that, that's still a ton of money. So ditching your conventional cleaners and finding ways to make your own, or finding all purpose cleaners that I mean, do what they say, work for different purposes and not need something for your windows and something for your floors, and something for your toilet and something for your tubs, something for your sink, and it's it can get crazy. And listen to our cleaning episode because we tell you just all about vinegar. Yeah, and so for some of the things that do actually need chemicals to clean, because I won't say that you can clean. I wouldn't want to clean everything with vinegar a it smells be I just think some things need chemicals. If you're a city, I don't know what you're doing that. I'll take your word for it. If your city has a place where you can dispose of chemicals like household cleaners, paints, because you shouldn't be throwing those into garbages. I don't know if you know that, but your city should have a place where you can drop them off. Sometimes the cities at the same place where you drop them off have a little place where you can go in and pick up other people's chemicals for free. Our city has that, and so we will get cleaning products and like weed eater stuff and like just things that we don't think to buy. We will. I mean, you know frugality podcast. Yeah, I guess I don't need weed killer. Yeah, but yeah. So check to see if your city or town or wherever as that option. And another option you should check to see if they have is 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 paid off your mortgage, Maybe your car died, and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. Touch bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Clinton. This is the bill of the week. Hey, Jen and Jill. This is Andy Hill from the Marriage, Kids of Money podcast and I just wanted to share my favorite bill as of late. I am working a new career now, and this summer we had of both my wife and I working and we really had no plans for for daycare as as the summer rolls around, and so my new favorite bill now is summer camp. I can continue working on my business, and my wife can continue working at her career that she likes now, and our kids can have a fruitful summer and allow us to continue to enjoy our careers. So summer camp is is quite pricey, but man um lining up our summer camps and having that completely ready so we can keep rocking and rolling in our businesses is making me feel pretty happy. So that's my favorite fill of the week. I hope you ladies are doing well. Talk to you soon. Yes, I feel you so strongly, Andy. I love the genuine laughter. Andy, I've just loved I've got a plan for my kids. Yes, I have been saying lately that daycare is the best bill I have because I too like to work on my business during business hours and man and summer camp much more fun for kids. Kids didn't to be bored in the summer. So oh what I wouldn't have given to be able to go to summer camp. Another one of yours, like what you missed from Childhood today on today's episode of What Jen Missed from child Summer Camp. But somebody did relate with me when we did yes our episode with Caroline Bencil where I said that I did not get the life size Barbie. I would not have been able to fit into her clothes anyway, but I didn't have any friends, and I wanted a friend or sibling in a life size Barbie. And somebody felt me, at least on the close part was that even a part of life size Barbie like that you could wear her clothes, could wear them. Yeah, that was a thing alright for some kids that could fit into them things. Andy, glad your kids are going to be watched and fully supervised this summer. If you have a bill that you want to submit to us, whether that's sending your kids away to be fully supervised or or else with something else partially visit Frugal Friends podcast dot com, slash bill, leave us your bill, and now it's time for running round. Pe tapped into that. Yes, So today for our lightning round, Jill and I will dive into our favorite frugal Here we go deep dive. Yes, ll yours first, so to t in one here and not whatever, here you go. Water filter, So really love my water filter. We've got a burkey and it they say it can filter pond water. I haven't gone that far, but any water from hoses so far we've been putting into our burkey and it always tastes the same. And then I've got a reusable water bottle that I put it in so I'm not purchasing water and and the plastic and the water bottles and the water dispensers. So love that. Also food creativity, and I've been having some fun with this, Like when you get to a level where you can kind of enjoy figuring out ways to not throw food away, it's kind of fun. I'm definitely not a pro, but a few of my tricks are when I see that I'm not eating the bananas that I purchased that I thought I was going to eat, but instead I chose chips. Every time I'm I as they're on their last leg, I quick shove them in the freezer. And then when I'm ready at some point when the bananas build up over over weeks and weeks of me not eating bananas and ly that I make banana bread. This just happened yesterday. I made banana bread and it's really tasty. You know, we've got breakfast because with banana bread, you don't need like a perfectly ripe banana. You can have a like almost on its last leg banana. It's better when they're on their last leg. Yeah. And tomatoes, like my tomatoes were nearly going bad yesterday, so I made bruschetta yesterday. Yeah. So just there's different things that if it's like okay, still have a lot of this, what do I do? And the internet is great for that. So anyhow, I've been having fun getting creative with food. Nice um mine would be going back to our first article, glass containers. So I've been trying to mini mis my use of disposable bags, um, whether that is grocery bag or plastic zip block, and using more glass containers. They don't stain as easily as plastic ones, and so I'll usually use like reheatable leftovers in glass and maybe things that don't stain and I'm not heating up in plastic um. But I bought some of those recently and I have been using them a lot more. And I got ones that are a perfect portion size for a meal, so that I could like get rid of all of the random plastic ones that I had built up from lunch meat. Uh and and yeah, so I'm using more plastic containers instead of um disposable things, which I like it does it helps you organize in your fridge. Your fridge looks pretty, and I think with glass containers you can see through to what the food is and you're more likely to eat it if you know what's inside versus all the not translucent plastic that you cover with the foil and it's like, I don't even know what that is. Just leave it there. And then more ways, Yeah, another tip, my tip is to learn some simple sewing skills. I've saved a lot of clothing and purses and blankets and you name it, just by being able to do some little sewing fixes. And I've even noticed a lot of times people will get rid of quality clothing and donate them to the thrift stores because of maybe a broken zipper or a small tear or a steam kind of coming loose, And if you've got the skills to repair it, then you can get quality clothing at the thrift store or even on a clearance rack at a store, because they'll put on clearance if something's wrong with it. And if you're able to fix it yourself, then that's a really fantastic way of being able to reuse what you already have or be able to purchase used and make it last longer. YouTube is a great place to go to to learn simple and maybe one day Jill will give us a video on our YouTube sewing skill. It was so cute the other night. We were all hanging out and Travis. Travis was the one with a little sewing kit on hand because I had some buttons that fell off of a skirt and so I was sewed that back on. And then he had just gotten a sweater from the thrift store. Um that was torn, like it was a really good sweater, but like the pocket on it had kind of like pulled away from the sweater, so fix that up. We were just regular homesteading individuals, all while watching Love Is Blood on Netflix, all while watching trash taving. Now you know, yes, so I love that and I definitely think that that video will be on our YouTube one day. Sewing with Jill um So my last one. And this is um so pretty personal for me, not as like what the thing is, but just what it tells me. Um So. Convenience food swapping out like take out or individually packaged items for more bulk and other like non plastic covered stuff from the grocery store. Uh, sometimes that stuff does cost more, and I'm very tempted. I'm not just tempted. I go for the cheaper one. But I have been saying for years that one of the reasons I love frugality is because it is so environmentally friendly. Um And I say that, and I say that, and I write it, and then I look at my bank statements and I look at what's in my like, you know, previous orders from all D or M Walmart, and I'm not seeing that the places where I'm spending my money is reflecting the what I say that I value. And I think it's so important. I think are where we spend says more about what we value than what our mouths say, um, and so realizing that, And it wasn't until I was writing my course five Weeks to five hundred, where there's a module on UM like finding what you value. And then when I was writing that and I was finding I was deciding what I valued myself, and I was able to see, like, my spending is not aligning with what I say I value, and so I was. I have since been taking steps to spend differently, and overall it has not saved me a ton of money, because I've already been living pretty frugally, but it has made me more confident with the words that are coming out of my mouth. So I am like trying to buy. If I do buy something that is packaged, UM, I buy it frozen or I buy like multiple like vegetables in a in a bag. Because I don't think buying prepackaged food is necessarily bad. I think it can save you money by saving you time, which makes it easier to cook, which saves you money. So I've just been purchasing consciously. UM. So it has and I started. I bought a bamboo toothbrush and so that I can can post it. Yeah, they had numbers on them. Yeah I don't know why. Yeah, I don't know why, but it does. So so that has been like my biggest swap has been in the way I'm thinking and the way I'm approaching purchases, in making sure that they align more with what I value. And maybe like eco friendliness isn't something you value and this is just like not relevant for you, But I hope if it is something that you value, that you'll take this information and you will make sure that your transactions align with anything that you're saying you value. And that's I hope what you take away from today's episode. Good word, Thank you all so much for listening, and we want to thank you also for your kind reviews that we do see. We see all of the reviews and we're so thankful for the kind ones on iTunes and stitture like this one. It comes from Jacques Pearl. Great encouragement in a fun way. I love listening to these ladies as I take walks. They can make any financial topic understandable and interesting. Even though I am a teacher in my fifties with an almost paid off house, I still gather little tidbits of information to share with my adult daughter and daughter in laws. It's a great encouragement to hear of others doing what we do. Amazing. Thank you. I love hearing and knowing that we are like where we're joining people. Like people have said, I'm I'm in the middle of a move and listening, or yeah, I'm on a walk or on my commute to work, or while I'm making my kids breakfast. And somebody even mentioned that her her four year old is listening to us and commenting on Jen and Jill, and it's yeah, it's amazing to me. Really, it's a privilege to be invited into these places of your own. So we're so grateful and we're happy to keep providing you with content. Yeah, so thank you, thank you for sharing what you want to hear, thank you for listening, and thank you for sharing on social media. Um so we want to kind of thank our friends for reviewing and sharing. So for every five reviews or tags we get on Facebook or Instagram, we're going to give away a ten dollar Amazon gift card. I love gift cards and Amazon it's a great place to get all your dabies. But you have to tag at Frugal Friends podcasts. If you're doing on Facebook or Instagram, because that is the only way we will see those shares. So you can do that, and you can also continue leaving reviews to enter our drawing. So keep leaving us reviews on iTunes or stitcher sending the screenshot of your review to Frugal Friends podcast at gmail dot com. That is the piece you have to You have to email it to us the review to get in the running for a gift card. If it's tagged anywhere at Frugal Friends, yeah, we'll see it on social media. So thank you again. And uh, be kind to your mother, and be kind to your mother earth because Mars is not your mother. Herugal Friends is produced, edited and mixed by Eric Seria. What's amazing. It's not where I expected you to go with that. Wow, where did you think it was good? Well, just something more standard or typical or normal. Kind your mother, be kind to your mother, because Mars is not true mother. I mean, that's that's T shirt worthy. Yeah, I mean, if you want a T shirt out of it, let me know. Oh, there's so many T shirts we need to create. We need to make a list in the Facebook group of T shirts need to be created. That's true. And we could have like our whole wardrobe with frugal friends t shirts to be quality and sustainable, sustainable quotes, quotes that will never yeah, not like references to TikTok, follow frugal friends on TikTok, which we will never say. You just said it, but it's a thing t do that you can't. You can't find us on TikTok, you will be sorely disappointed for many reasons, one of them being the fact that we're not on TikTok. Yeah, we are on Instagram, are in YouTube and all the podcast platforms, but we can't be everywhere that options Yeah and a friend in me yeah okay by Footy