How to Simplify Your Money Management

Published Nov 7, 2023, 7:00 AM

Managing money is riddled with complexities and uncertainties, and we tend to forget how easy it would all have been if we only did and saw things simply. The best things in life are always free and simple! This episode covers the what, why, how, and barriers to simplifying our finances, ALL SIMPLIFIED AND FREE!

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Episode three point fifty two, How to Simplify your money management.

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

Welcome to Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jill, and today we are doing another episode just the two of us know articles, just our little little brains and our big thoughts about simplification.

And our loud mouths.

Yes and how it relates to your money management and how to simplify because while a complex money management system can look appealing, it can look like the right way to do things. The best things in life are simple, and so we're going to talk about the why behind it, the what behind it, the how, and maybe some barriers that you might have to simplification and some guidance to get over them.

The best things in life are also free, speaking of this episode is brought to you by sneakers, a weird word if you actually think about it, but a great shoe. These are the kings and queens of footwear. Going for a walk, put on a bear of sneakers, going to speed up that walk and call it a run. Put on a bear of sneakers, just grabbing a few things at the grocery store. Sneakers, You get the point. They are shoe wear, simplicity and speaking of one thing that fits all occasions. The friend Letter. It's a newsletter from us sent to your inbox three times a week for free. Want to know what you can get for free this week? Take a look at the friend Want to know how to save on your biggest expenses. Take a look at the friend Letter. Want to feel seen, validated, loved, encouraged and smart about your money? The friend Letter. You get the point. Sneakers and the friend Letter are great Google friendspodcast dot com slash friend letter, sneak.

Well, that just felt compelled to add that you're a great co host. Thank you, Thank you so much. I had what I can and what I shouldn't. So if you love these episodes, that are just the two of us making it. If we try, we're trying, then we have several other ones. We are unhinged because we're writing a book, and so we are doing these episodes kind of as a foundation to lay. We found that these are the things we're talking about when we go on other people's podcasts and they're asking us about frugality and money management and values based spending, so we wanted to talk about them on our own podcast and devote full episodes to each of the concepts that we think is most important. So we have one about efficiency and habits and routines. That's episode three forty six, how to put good money decisions on autopilot. We have one about honoring your season and how that impacts how you spend and how you create goals. That's episode three forty two, and then we have several other ones. Those are our most recent ones, but you will be able to access them all in our upcoming book coming out in twenty twenty five. So stick with us.

We are contractually obligated to be here for at least another year and beyond that, so you're going to keep getting more from us. Yeah, sneakers, So.

If you're new, cool, if you've been around for a while, cool, stay with us. So this is our episode about simplicity, and we were joking at the top of the show, but it is the best things in life are simple. Truly. When we think about the things in our life that are complex, they may seem good in the moment. I'm thinking about like the relationships you have with boys in high school and college that you don't know how to define them, but you really think that that's your soulmate. And the relationship is like so complex and convoluted, and but you can't see it while you're in it. But then you turn thirty and you're like, gosh, what was I thinking? What was I doing?

Why did it exist to say it's complicated as a relationship status on Facebook?

Uh huh yeah. Uh So let us be the hindsight to your foresight. I don't know if I said that right, But we're going to talk about simplicity and kind of maybe reveal you maybe that your money management system might be too complex, maybe that your spending might be too complex, and how to get around that.

So for starters, I mean, what do we mean when we talk about simplifying our money? And I think we're saying, ultimately, it's the opposite of chaos. I don't think many of us love chaos or thrive in chaos. We may be drawn to it, we may want to watch chaos unfold, but most of us don't want chaos to be an ever present reality in our lives, and especially not in our finances. Somehow we can find ourselves there of our money feeling chaotic, and more often than not, I think when our money feels chaotic, probably other parts of our lives feel chaotic because we know they all go hand in hand. It's why on this podcast we talk so much about all these other aspects of our life because they play an important role in what that then means for our money, our decision making, our behaviors, our relationships. And so when we're talking about simplifying our money, we want to be aiming at whatever is going to be individualized for us, but a sort of set it and forget it approach. This ability to manage our money well, feel confident about it, be good stewards of our money and all of our other resources, but yet also have the ability to move on with the rest of our lives. And so I think it's important to say that we can have a simplified money management system and way of living, and that doesn't mean it's ineffectual or possibly even not as good as someone who is in their money all of the time day trading and paying financial advisors buco dollars. That we can have both can have simplified money management strategies and effective money management strategies and where those two collide may look different for all of us, but finding the tension for all of us of where does that exist? Are there areas of my finances or even other parts of my life that feel really complicated, possibly even chaotic, And is there a way to bring a little bit more simplicity and a tethering and a tameness to it that makes me feel at peace inside myself and at peace with my finances.

So, in addition to money, which we will spend most of the episode talking about, the three other places that we find have a direct correlation to your money management simplification that you should also be simplifying are your spaces, So your physical spaces. We did an episode recently of out like doing a thirty day declutter challenge, and this is a big one. So we're not just like arbitrarily organizing, but we are moving everything unnecessary outside of our space so that our space is simple, and we don't declutter for the sake of minimalism. We declutter for the sake of simplicity. So if you want to kind of view it like that, we're not getting rid of stuff because minimalism is this virtue we declutter so that we can simplify our space. Next is our schedule, so the where we can be physically is finite. We cannot be two places at once, we cannot bounce from place to place instantaneously, so our schedules can get overrun very easily. And simplifying your schedule has a direct impact on your money, and we'll talk about why that is throughout the episode. And then lastly is our choices, and so this might also be our mental capacities. We have a finite mental capacity each day and sleep is literally the only thing that replenishes it. So we want to make sure that we are being responsible with our mental capacities throughout the day by simplifying our choices as much as possible, and we do that with routines and habits. We talked all about that in the episode Putting Good Money Decisions on Autopilot. That is integral. You should definitely listen to that if you haven't yet. But those are kind of the what when we're talking about simplifying. These are the things that we are looking to simplify is our money management, our spaces, our schedule, and our choices. And we're looking at those three and how they impact our.

Money, which then can lead us to well, why I want to aim at simplicity, Why is this so great? And again, I think it's because it's not complicated, because it's not chaotic, And of course there's going to be a spectrum for all of us of the degree of complication that we each have a threshold for or even desire for interest in. But I think at its core, simplicity implies an approachability and an attainability that historically, at least from my perspective, has not been the case, especially about money. I think there's multiple reasons for that, some of it just being gate kept information, maybe ideas and narratives that are perpetuating this idea that you kind of have to be on the inside. You've got to know the language and the acronyms, and you've got to have enough and you have to have access to the right people in order to kind of reach that next tier of success, so to speak. And I think simplicity is pushing back on that idea and also giving people and taking for ourselves freedom in these decisions that we make that it doesn't have to be complicated to be effective. It doesn't have to be gate kept in order for it to actually be true and write information. I think again, there's an intersection of simplified money that's also effective for the here and now as well as the future. I think where we can get tripped up is when we don't know our values or what we truly want out of our money, and that can be one of the things that can lead our finances to feeling chaotic, feeling complicated, or maybe even feeling like they have to be complicated in order to prove that we're good at this, it has to look a certain way. And I think we're saying in all elements of our money and our life, we can aim at simplicity and it's only going to benefit all of these aspects of our life. That doesn't mean that you have to be minimalist. I think that there's a correlation between simplicity and minimalism, but there's also a lot of differences that can happen there too, and a freedom to find what does simplicity look like for me versus for you?

Yeah, because minimalism isn't always simplicity. It can sometimes be it can feel complex trying to attain this certain minimalist aesthetic that is being talked about on YouTube and social media that can feel really confusing. And so that's why we love to think about pursuing simplicity over just the getting rid of stuff, because you can have a lot of stuff and still have a simple life, but you're a lot will be different from somebody else's a lot. And so the idea of defining your enough is foundational to starting to define your simplicity. So looking at the things in your life, especially when your money, and deciding what's enough, what feels like enough, and really going through your transactions to say that, so that the number is not just a made up number that you think is right. So like for groceries, what is supposed to be your grocery budget every week?

Right?

How much money are you supposed to spend on groceries for each person? There is no set amount that anybody has set. It's all you making this stuff up. So that's why we go back and we look at three months of grocery spending. We look at what we're buying at the grocery store and what we're buying on those weekly or semi weekly additional trips to the grocery store, see how much we're spending, and then we look at the actual food waste that is leaving our house, and we say, how much money am I throwing away? Right? How much money am I not eating? How much money am I spending on takeout? Because the meals I've planned are too complex for my lifestyle right now, for my season right now, And so you take those other expenses into account too when you are deciding what is enough for you and your family's grocery budget. So there's I mean, it's lovely to find these articles and viral social media posts of like, here's how I feed my family of four for fifty dollars a week. Is it sustainable? Probably not? Not in this economy. Is it right for you? Who knows? You have to look at what you're already spending on groceries, what you're throwing away, what you're spending outside of your grocery trips and your takeout and your restaurants and all of that to figure out what's a right number. So that's an all like a round about way of coming back to simplicity when it's simple, once you've done the hard work of defining what's enough for you because that it's not complex, but it's in depth, right, It's not something that's going to be done in five minutes. Once you've done that upfront work, then you can kind of give yourself parameters for what you will and will not do in the journey to simplicity. So like saying, I'm not going to make these extra grocery trips every week, I'm just going to spend more upfront at the grocery store so I get everything I need and it's pre chopped, because meal prep is what's keeping me from cooking the stuff and getting takeout. So these are things you have to think about and decide. And one last thing I'll add about the why for simplicity this comes. Complexity always costs you. Complexity means that somebody else is making money. So why investments have been so quote unquote complex for so long is because people make money selling certain investment products and managing your money for you. It's the same with insurance. The more complex an insurance product is, the more commission and the more money that insurance salesperson makes from you. Term life insurance as a simple product. It's a very simple product and it's also a very inexpensive product, but you can ramp that up into whole life, Universal life MPIs all the annuities, all these other types of insurance products that people will tell you about why you should get them, and the salespeople know exactly what to say to make it seem accessible enough, but just a little bit outside side of the amount of work you're willing to do to learn the product. And so it sounds like a good idea and it's not. It's complex if you can't understand it upfront. It's too complex, at least for starting out. There are times when whole life and annuities, actually it's for a small fraction of people are beneficial. It's a small fraction of people, and those people usually know who they are because other types of insurance aren't working for them. So that is that's the why for simplicity.

It's such a good point, and I think for an even more sobering reason for simplicity is just the simple fact that we can be preyed upon in leaning into feeling as though your lack of knowledge means that things need to be more complicated. I think oftentimes we just did an episode about scams and one of the things that can lead us to become a victim of a scam is the not knowing, but not that just not knowing, but thinking that others have the info that you don't, others are smarter than you. You're not on the in, and so you've got to do XYZ to protect your money. It's this kind of perpetuating this thought that it must be so complicated and I just don't get it, or because my finances are so complicated and I don't know all of my different transactions or what's going on with my money, then this thing is probably true. I probably owe money versus having simplified finances knowing your transactions to be able to say I have one hundred percent did not pull that credit card. I one hundred percent did not make that transaction. I think we can protect ourselves in many ways. In aiming at simplicity and knowing that the simple way is a fantastic path to take means that we're not going to be prey to these more nefarious scams or people taking advantage of us trying to leverage the fact that maybe we don't know as much as some purported expert in personal finance or corporate finance. You name it. So keeping it simple, knowing what's happening, and also believing and knowing and living out the realities that your simplified money is managing your money well, it is helpful just for that reason, the darker reasons.

So let's move on to how how do we simplify our money management? And how do these other factors space, schedule, choices, mental capacities, how do they impact? So the first thing to note not a step, but first thing, start small. It's counterintuitive when we want to simplify, we want to simplify everything at once, right, and that's it's difficult to do anything at once. So going back into your ninety day transaction inventory and just choosing one action, So like our efficiency question, what's one action that will make as many other actions as possible easier or unnecessary. So that might look like choosing a expense that you are making a ton of, like that it's just a habitual expense, and maybe it's not a lot of money, but it's a time suck, like to be going out and making this expense so often. Or maybe it's not many expenses, maybe it's just a high like high amount like impulse buys. But not as frequently, and so we're looking at the money thing, or maybe even the space thing, if that high amount is purchasing things for your home or cars. We did it. We did an impulse spending episode where we found out cars are actually the top three impulse buys. So kind of looking back at those and just choosing one thing to simplify and looking at the season that you're in will really help you figure out. What's that one thing I want to start with. Do I need to increase my income? Do I need to start there? Do I need to decrease my expenses because eventually everything is going to get looked at, but not all at the same time. Do I need to save for different things? And are these are big expenses coming up and I'm dipping into my emergency fund because I'm not saving in the right places. Or have I just totally been scared of investing and I haven't started investing for retirement? So what is one choice, one thing that you can simplify today moving forward that will make other actions easier or necessary to simplify.

I also like to describe this as fine tuning thin similar to what you had said, Jen, that there's a whole spectrum where we can find ourselves in wall These things on social media, people saying how they fed their family of eight for one hundred dollars a week sound so alluring and in some ways can be motivating and help us to think creatively and problem solve. I think just fine tuning that for most of us, not every single aspect of our lives needs to be overhauled, but we can find one area and then find one small change within that area that we can make. And so if we're specifically looking at groceries, because we so often do, and that's a purchase we all make very regularly, it could mean for these next few grocery trips, I'm only going to shop the perimeter of the store. I'm not going to be going up and down getting the processed foods and convenience items. I'm going to work over these next couple of weeks to create meals out of what's in the perimeter of the store, which is going to be your more fresh foods, and you're going to be using those ingredients to cook, which will often be less expensive, potentially more time consuming. That doesn't have to be something that you stick with, but I think as we look at simplifying the way that we shop, the way that we spend, the way that we manage our finances. This is what we're talking about. Where can we begin small, make decisions and choices and actions that eliminate other decisions and actions, or make those actions easier and just fine tune. We don't have to approach this with an overhaul perspective. And so then when we think about these areas of our money that can be simplified, You've got these four main areas our income, our expenses, our savings, and our investing. So I'll just start off and describing income. It's worth looking at are there ways for me to simplify the money that I bring in? I don't mean less. When we say the word simplify, we also don't mean less. Sometimes less can be more, sometimes more is more. We're here for it all. But thinking about is my income does it represent a complicated tax situation? How can I evaluate the amount of time I'm actually putting in for the amount of money I'm receiving back. Where is the intersection of what brings me joy and my highest skill sets? Am I in a job, a career, an environment where I'm making money that is taking these things into consideration. If we're thinking about having a side hustle, I think it's important to think about the eighty twenty rule, the Peretto principle that ideally we want to be putting in primarily twenty percent of our efforts should reap eighty percent of our return on this. This was a hard one for me in particular. There are I have tried so many side hustles throughout my life time really, but certainly young adulthood, selling plants on the side of the road, making little bags and purses and trying to sell them. And while I enjoyed that, that was fun for me. It was a fun outlet and hobby, I did not make the amount of money that needs to be made for the amount of time put in. You know, when I'm spending three hours on creating a little kid's purse and selling it for fifteen dollars, that's not a great return. And I had to eventually look at that of, Okay, this might just be a fun hobby, but I might be spending far too much time on this for the amount of money I'm getting back, and I just can't call it a revenue stream for myself. But then looking at other pieces, like your career. It could mean looking for a new job if that helps you to simplify. Maybe a new job means you don't have to have three side hustles plus a full time job. Is there a way to find work that meets the level of income that you're hoping for in one place? I know we have kind of elevated the gig economy and side hustles and just hustle culture, but there is something to be said for working a typical full time job, making what you need and leaving and having your weekends to yourself. If that version of simplicity is for you, take it. It could mean that we want to start our own businesses. Great, But evaluating all of these pieces, what does that mean for complications with taxes? What does that mean for just how much time time I'm putting in versus what I'm getting back? All of these things we can take into consideration as it relates to this one category of income. This doesn't have to be something we look at daily. This could be quarterly, bi annually, annually, depending on the fields that we're in, in our current situations and what we want out of life. Are seasons but at some point it's worth reevaluating. Is my income how I earn money as simplified as it could be or as I want it to be. Are there tweaks that can be made as they're fine tuning that can happen to simplify the way that I'm earning.

Yeah, so I'll come up and kind of add how are three other simplified categories affect income? So side hustle that eighty twenty rule. So the eighty twenty rule gives freedom to play around, right, it's not supposed to be constricting to where I can only, you know, put in so little effort to make so much money, and then you fail and you're like, why everybody told me to put twenty percent effort? In reality, you're putting in one hundred percent of effort. You're trying new things. The eighty twenty rule is how you refine this side hustle or side business. I prefer side businesses. I think we're jaded by the gig economy at this point in our lives, and it would be better to have a business or career that makes up that pays you enough money for you to live. But if your desire is to start your own business, and you are also working a job while you build that business. That's the side hustle. And the way that you get out of your job to run your business is by following the eighty twenty principle of refinement, and so that is going to save you time. It's going to simplify the time that it takes to build a business. So as you play around, you keep track of your KPIs your income, and you see what's making you money, and you do more of that and you do less of the things that are not worth your time, so that you have time to play around with new things, and you just keep going in that pattern, getting closer and closer to the most profitable thing. And I think I'm so glad you mentioned this, Jill, the consideration of the intersection of joy and skill set, because so many people will start a side business for joy, they will forget skill set, and they will completely ignore what the market is asking for. So if we can start by looking at the intersection of joy and skill set, what do I enjoy and what unique skills do I bring to the market, then we use the eighty twenty principle to always be looking for what the market is demanding and not just looking at what we like doing, because if you start from place of joy, you can always hire out, you know, once you start making money the stuff that you don't like. But we're always looking and going in the direction of the market. For your career, it's a schedule thing side hustle. Using that eighty twenty rule can also help you with your physical space too. But looking at your career is another time thing. You spend forty hours a week at your job, sometimes more, and are you making the most of it for you? Not just building somebody else's company, but you want to use that job to build your own resume and your own life. So are you making the most of those forty hours a week for you and your future and figuring out what you want to do in the future. And then just with the mental energy. When you are preserving your time and your physical spaces in the way that you bring an income, then you preserve your mental energy as well. If your job is very, very complex and your boss has you doing two people's jobs at once, it might be time to look for another job because your mental energy is being all used up at your job and you don't have anything left for yourself to make good financial decisions. So these are the things you have to think about when you're looking at simplifying your income.

And the next is expenses. This is everything that we have to pay for, choose to pay for or even forget that we're paying for. Looking for ways to simplify our expenses. When it comes to bill pay, subscriptions, activities, really anything that is both discretionary and fixed expenses, it's worth looking at. Is this as simplified as possible. Of course, we recommend putting as many bills as possible on auto pay. We recommend doing a review of the subscriptions that you have, whether that's monthly, bi monthly, making sure that you're utilizing those subscriptions. You want to be still subscribed to those things it's worth it, or canceling them and not just getting random charges. That's a whole other when it comes to how people can scam you. Situation when we just don't really remember all that we're paying for. That can make it complicated, it can make it chaotic, and it can make us susceptible to hemorrhaging money that we don't have to hemorrhage. When it comes to events and entertainment and activities and groceries and rent and transportation and clothing and literally you name it that we spend on. It's worth looking at. How do I simplify this? Some of this too, of course, as it relates to activities and entertainment, will absolutely intersect with understanding values based spending, knowing ourselves, knowing what we want to spend on, so that we are then only spending on those things and not all of this peripheral stuff that might bring guilt or shame or just regret or wishing that it was something that it wasn't because it brings in all of these relational and emotional and mental components. Sometimes when we spend and have expenses that we just don't feel good about, that's part of simplifying, too, is making sure nearly every transaction we can feel really good about and that we have the money for it. I think adjacent to this category, we also want to consider our payment methods. For instance, how many credit cards do you have? It is wild to me even just hanging out with friends in my circle, my community and seeing people's wallets and purses, men and women alike, just the stacks and I don't know what's going on? Sometimes I gotta get bold and ask, like, can I just see all of these cards that you feel you need to have on you all of the time, what's going on? And for those who I have gotten bold enough to ask, usually it's just complicated. I don't know if it's like something left over from childhood that having a bunch of plastic can feel really cool and like you've got stuff going on, and maybe makes us feel like we've got more money than we actually do to have so many cards in our pockets. But more often than not, yeah, it's just it's just a bunch of checking accounts that got opened, or a bunch of credit cards that were opened, and we don't really remember what's on what, which can lead us into unexpected credit card debt just forgetting that Oh no, I use that credit card for that months ago, and now I forgot to pay that bill. Like, there's just so many examples that I can give of how having so many cards can just be a complicated way of managing our money. So simplifying our expenses and simplifying the ways that we pay for our expenses is just another category to be looking at.

Where simplifying your income has to do a lot with simplifying your time and your schedule. Simplifying your expenses has a lot to do with simplifying your physical space. They all have a little bit to do with mental energy, but I think that's more the saving and investing side expenses for sure. Physical space And you even you brought up one that I didn't even think about credit cards. Your wallet. How thick is your wallet? How much physical space is your wallet taking up? Like we have these huge like clutches that are our wallets filled with receipts and credit cards and all kinds of things. And the simple fact is, no pun intended, the fewer transactions you make, the simpler your bank statement.

Look, yeah, how much digital space is your bank statement? Take? Right?

Yeah, We're I mean it's not just physical space, it's digital as well. So if you're finding it hard to track your transactions, how many transactions do you have in a day? Do you need to make fewer transactions to make it easier? And again, we're not advocating less for the sake of less, right, We're advocating for simplifying and shedding and refining until you find a spot that feels good, spot that feels manageable. And this is all money management. So what feels manageable? Because for a lot of us, I dare say, our schedules, our accounts are spending, our income feels unmanageable a lot of the times. And so it's getting to that place that feels good and manageable.

I mean, I don't mean to jump all over, but just to go back to the why. I think that's a reason too. That when we do all of this and we get ourselves into a good rhythm and habits and automation and it's simplified, that means we probably would only need thirty minutes a month to look at our money and know that it's all doing what it should be doing, going to the right places, and that's it. And Mann, does that sound like a version of freedom that I want? That's what repels a lot of people from a budget of how long is that going to take? It feels restrictive. But instead we're saying there's a simple way that is not going to take up much time.

Yeah, you have control over how complex or simple your finances are. It's not the budget that has control of it. It's not your employer or the US economy. You have control over how complex or simple your finances are. And while yes, some are naturally maybe more complex, especially if you're in a season where you have medical bills or you have tech stuff going on, but these are seasons, this is not like for most people regular life. So yes, there will be seasons where you have some more complex financial situations. But we're hoping that you can build to a place of simplicity, or maybe debuild, unbuild, get to a place of simple money management, so when these more complex situations come up, you're better equipped to manage them from a place of strength and confidence instead of a place of stress and anxiety. So yeah, expenses, obviously, credit cards, the size of your wallet, physical space, but like also, what are you buying the things that you're buying? So are they loading up your house? Are you loading up your house with home decor, kitchen gadgets, journals? Gosh, I'm speaking right to right to me and my other journal loving friends. I'm calling us out. So look at the stuff that you you're accumulating in your house. Look at the trash you're accumulating. So not everybody has to pay for their trash. Some people do, and so is there a way that you can save money on your trash bill by making less trash, buying less stuff at the grocery store, buying less takeout. Sure, there are sustainable ways that you can do take out and groceries like, but compostable bags and takeout boxes are they're a poor solution to just not consuming the trash at all. So these are a lot of the things when we talk about being good stewards of our natural resources. You can't green wash, like you can't buy your way to green and so this is a way that you can lessen your physical impact on your space, but also less in your physical impact on the world as well.

Yeah, and then we've got the category of savings, the way in which we're saving, and how that can be as simplified as possible. This would include our banking methods, who and where we're banking with, how we're banking, what kind of automations we can put onto our savings, and making sure that this isn't overly complicated, because sometimes that can then be a barrier to saving at all. If we are not sure even where to put our money, or feel just overwhelmed by the options that are out there, then we may not be saving at all, and so I think finding methods that are going to feel really simple. It doesn't mean that we need to have ten different bank accounts to leverage and hold all of our money. We've done an episode on this in the past of you know the best bank accounts to have, but ultimately it can just mean a checking account and a high yield savings account apart from investing, but keeping all of your mid to long term money goal, mid to short term money goals in a high yield savings account, maybe even just using your own spreadsheet to delineate what you've earmarked those funds for, and then keeping a certain amount in a checking account, not making it overly complicated, but of course also making sure that we're putting our money into an FDIC insured account. So this is also where people, I think can get tripped up with all these different offers of started an account with paypals, start an account with venmos, start an account with them, and everybody's offering all these different places to hold your money. And I think this is another area where we can go for simple and it's better even not just the same as complicated, but better than comple located to find a bank that works for you, that's going to hold your money, provide you the percent of return the highest that you can possibly get, and from there to automate it. To have your savings on autopilot, where every single month a certain amount is getting pulled aside for your various goals.

Yeah, and this just saves mental energy, right when you don't have to be worrying about how many accounts you have. You can just check one or two. So I just actually went through and simplified my accounts because over six years of writing about personal finance and doing this show, like I have opened up quite a few savings accounts just to test them out. So I recently went through and transferred all of my money back to my You know, I have one checking in savings account checking a low yield savings account at my credit union, and then one high yield savings account for my emergency fund and sinking funds, and then a traditional brokerage which has some fun money invested in it. So and like I said, like I keep my sinking funds and emergency funds in the same high old savings account because that works for me. You may want to separate them into different High Old Savings account if that's you. Frugal friendspodcast dot com, slash c it is the place where we recommend opening it right now.

Yeah, c it is offering the highest apy that's why we like it.

With the fewest hoops to jump through. That's another simplified thing, like you may not know, but you opened up a highield savings account because somebody told you to, like the Frugal Friends, and they have like this minimum and they'll charge you every month if you don't have a direct deposit hooked up, or if you have under a certain amount, or if you're not adding a certain amount every month, those are the hoops to jump through and we hate those. So that's why that's why we recommend CI. Because it's a minimum of one hundred dollars to start to open the account. But then after that there's no minimums and no fees for monthly maintenance. Whether you're using the account or not. You can just park your funds in there and leave them and they have a really high apoi, literally one of the highest. So that's why we recommend what we recommend. We may not recommend the highest high Yield Savings account, but probably because that one has hoops to jump through. Uh so, yeah, looking at that, making sure you're not in any accounts that are charging a monthly fee, making sure you're not holding onto any credit cards you're not using that are charging a monthly fee. So that's why simplifying these accounts is so important. Then automation. Nobody has to tell you why that's important. There's one more thing I was going to talk about on this one, but I forget what it is. We can move on to investing and it'll probably come to me.

So this is the fourth and final category of our mund that we can be looking at simplifying and when it comes to investing, this is going to be short and sweet. Automate it, do it and automate it. The do the roth ira or traditional ira, depending on your income level, take your employer match with the four oh one K, invest in that and put it all on automation. And primarily with that, we're talking the tax advantaged accounts for retirement. Of course, there's other versions of investing, but if we're talking about a simplified and especially place to start, then investing for retirement in these manners of automation and the tax advantaged accounts, and really you could stop there and be golden.

Yeah. So we could do a whole episode on simplifying your investing, and we have. It's episode one point eighty Minimalist Investing, and it's all about simplifying your investing for retirement. So highly highly recommend you check that episode out because there's so many things that we could say about why simpler investing is as or more profitable than complex investing. I just posted a gift this morning from Wall Street Memes about It's not about It was a video of the sky skateboarding doing this like six skateboarding move and how like his playing the stock market. It was just like up seven percent, up fifty percent, up one hundred percent, up seven percent or seven hundred percent, and then immediately the guy like eats it and says down one thousand percent, So like it was. It's just so true of anybody trying to time the market or play the stock market. And this includes professional brokers. It just includes them. So there are for sure complex seasonal situation things like divorce, the five years before you retire, a death in the family, and inheritance. So there are seasonal things, short term seasonal things that are complex that you should get help for outside of what you've got going on, and then there may be even some higher you know, if you are a high net worth individual, a high income earner, than getting ongoing financial help from a financial planner also is better for you. But for the rest of us, and for ninety percent of the time, just simple straightforward investing in your retirement accounts can be the most easy and profitable typically way to go. This is not investment advice, but this is investment experience, investment entertainment.

I think even when life gets complicated, though, we can still choose the simpler path of the options before us. So, even when these life events happen that can be overwhelming, stressful, chaotic, complicated with whatever's within our control and influence, finding the pathway of the most simplicity, which I'm going to in those situations, equate to the most peace. What's the most peaceable pathway forward in the realities of this event these circumstances, And so with what you just said, Jen, getting help, finding someone who is knowledgeable and trustworthy and an expert and has our best interests in mind could be the simple, peaceful pathway in the midst of complicated dynamics and circumstances. I think sometimes we can make things more complicated when we try to diy everything when it's not a DIY situation. Also being able to identify when is this mine to own and I can do it, and I can do it with ease and simplicity, and when is this a time when I need to pull someone else in for the sake of simplicity because this is going to take too much of my time. This is not the eighty twenty principle, or this is the eighty twenty principle in reverse, where it's going to take eighty percent of my time, energy efforts and I'm only going to reap a return of twenty percent. So we do want to acknowledge that there are times when life is just complicated. But in the midst of that, how can we choose simplicity?

Yeah, and when you are choosing, like when you're choosing a financial planner because the season is too complex, you can choose somebody who is promoting complex financial strategies, or you can choose a simple, fee based financial planner that has a fiduciary responsibility to you, a certified financial planner. So there are options there too, And I would say if you trust your gut, then use your gut, use your intuition, because you'll be able to decipher if something is complex and being sold to you or maybe cost some money up front. But you're getting what you pay for, So just remember that you do you do get what you pay for when it comes to financial planning.

Yeah, speaking of getting what you pay for, or in this case, getting more than what you pay for, because it's free.

Not a week, that's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born the 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.

Be bills, butfalo bills, bill claim.

This is the bill of the week.

Hi Jen, Hi Jill. My name's Emily, and my bill of the week is my home insurance. I just bought a house a couple of months ago, and I'm not having the insurance go through ESCRO. I'm paying it myself. So when I closed, I paid for the insurance like the next week, just to make sure that the whole year was done and that was paid, and then I just got an email this week saying that the title company also paid the insurance. So I'm getting an eight hundred and thirty four dollars refund because the home insurance got paid twice and that is that's why my bill of the week is the home insurance. And I'm completely blown away by this. So I hope your week is going well. Bye.

Well, there you go. That is a testament to you should never blindly trust s GROW or your mortgage company.

Always be checking, yeah, always be trying to simplify, keeping a pulse on that money. Getting an eight hundred three four dollar refund, that's a good day. It's a real good day. Yeah, thanks Emily.

And so normally I would say just go with the s GROW if you live in a state like Florida where you don't really have options for comparing home insurance, but if you can compare home insurance and get a better deal by doing it on your own, then that's definitely. It doesn't simplify it. It makes it a little more complex, but it's a very small increase income flexity because you can still automate it. So less for the sake of less isn't always the best, isn't always the best.

Yeah, then that's when we've simplified everything else. That's when we can then choose where am I willing to spend more time because the return is going to be worth it. Look at us, we're trying to make the most out of this little segment, circling back to simplicity. Can you tell we like it? Thanks Emily for sharing your bill and congrats on buying a house. If you all listening, have a bill about bills being refunded to you, what it's like living life as a person named Bill or just a duck Bill that you had an interaction with recently while out by a pond, you know, whatever it is, frugalfriendspodcast, dot com, slash bill. We're ready for it, and now it's time for Hello.

So our lightning round question today is how do you streamline and reduce the time it takes to manage your money? So time, and I would say also mental energy. This kind of saving time and mental energy are the most important reasons to simplify your money management. But Jill, I will let you go first.

Wow. So a lot of the things we just talked about in this episode that came from our little minds, big thoughts loud mouths. I think we've put into practice of automation. I've got as much as possible on automation, from savings investing to bill pay and that makes life go so smoothly. I don't have more than two credit cards at a time, and I'm about to go down to just one credit cards because sometimes that even feels too complicated to me. Literally, I carry around my phone, my license, and a credit card, which is why I'm so confused when people just have these stacks of plastic. But for me, I couldn't handle all of that. It's too overwhelming. I know that there would be bills I forget to pay, There'd be charges I have no idea about. There'd be debt somewhere. I just I personally can't handle that much plastic. So that's my rule for myself. And then I think just as a lifestyle, living a life that is simplified, where our expenses are significantly less than what we earn. Both Eric and I even combined, earn a moderate amount of money annually, and yet have looked at over years and put into practice. It's been a journey of how can we simplify our expenses and our lives style as much as possible, where every month we have at least one thousand dollars left over, And so I think that that can give us room to not have to look at our money so much. Now I enjoy it. I like sitting down and looking at my transactions and just go and ham in the spreadsheets and gamifying, saving for sinking funds. But ultimately, if there are times when life is crazy for other reasons, whether outside of my control or chosen, it's okay if I don't sit down for even a month and look at my expenses, because I've so honed in on and created habits and routines around a simplified life that I don't have to spend a lot of time looking at my money.

Yeah, I would also say automation. I just simplified my accounts, Like I said, so the checking, saving combo, high yield savings, and traditional brokerage, like that's what I have, and then I have even for our investments. We have one single stock that we got in an IPO that's fun money, and then just the iras is what we invest in. And so we travel hack, and some people love travel hacking. It's like a hobby LIKEQ pawning. Some people love c pawning because it's it's a hobby that they love. They do it, you know, more to stockpile and give away to charities than they do to save money. That's fantastic. Some people will travel hack and they'll have a credit card and they will use one for groceries, one for restaurants, one for bills all this. I will only use one credit card at a time, and we'll usually only get two per year. At this point, when we traveled more, we would do more credit cards. We don't travel as much with two young children, so those are my main money.

Simplify your life, have.

Kids, gosh, yeah, well even still so, I'll say for our five twenty nine for Kai, we haven't opened one for Atlas yet. We're waiting for him to prove his academic excellence. But we have one for Kai. That was a joke, I'm sorry, and we put five thousand dollars in it, and we don't contribute monthly. It's not a part of our budget because time in the market is more profitable than timing the market. So you make make a little bit more money if you just lump summit and let it sit versus putting the same amount in overtime essentially, So we just did that and then we don't have to think about it in our budget I do. I will lump some whatever I can. Actually, I will do annual subscriptions on things I know that I will use if I am unsure if I'll love it, I'll spend the extra money to do a couple months at a time. I'll spend a little bit more to do a monthly membership to make sure I really want it, because there are so many times, and companies know this, you'll pay for a year because it's a deal, and then after a few months you don't use it anymore. So I don't do that. I'll just pay for a few months and then if I prove myself that I really will use the subscription, then I'll do a year.

Yeah, there you go. Sometimes it's worth it to pay a little more for the sake of simplicity.

Yeah, so we're looking at long term here, but yeah, so that's kind of what I do. So thank you so much for listening. We hope this refresher on simplicity helped you and inspired you to simplify something in your finances. Just one thing, go out and just do one thing today. And so if that one thing is leaving us a review and rating on Apple Podcasts, I wouldn't hate that. Like this one from ae Harks useful practical tips for budgeting in frugality. I have fully enjoyed this podcast and the girls let you know you can start small with spending frugality at any budget. I also, as a mother, appreciated what was said when it comes to teaching our kids about being aware of our spending and being patient when saving. Looking forward to future episodes.

Oh yeah, and thanks for that kind review and thank you all for listening. So again, if you enjoyed the show, please consider taking a minute to leave a rating and a review. It really does help us find other new frugal friends who are also going to benefit from this content.

See you next time. Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni. So Jill Tonight, I'm going to a concert that's tonight. Yes you are, Yes, our friends, I am and I are going to see Noah Khan and it will be my Aras tour, So I am that excited for it.

No shade on the swifties. We do not believe Noah Khan is to the same level as Taylor, but for Jen Carabas is the same is not the same thing as Olive Gardens, So we gotta be patient.

I feel slighted on that, ah, I do. But Okay, what's the best concert you've ever been to?

Jill?

I'm not I'm going to veer away from where I was going because I don't want to offend people. What was your best concert or concerts?

Probably? Oh gosh, I have such a bad memory with things. I'm gonna go with Thrice. It's a band that I really enjoy and got to see them live. Nice. Yeah, how about you?

I have several. I have several. I went to so many shows. I'm surprised you don't have more, because I'm sure you've been to more shows in your lifetime than I have. But I went to a lot in college. In high school, I would say in high school, Panic at the Disco, Oh nice, probably the best show that I ever went to.

Yeah.

In college, I would say, Me Without You, oh nice? Yes, mm hmm. They would come out before their shows, Like you would get to the Me Without You show early because you knew they would come out and hang out and like play songs with the people waiting in line like that was just a thing.

I want to say the thrice show I was at Me without You played first or second. I think that they played together, though I hope I'm not making this up. But Eric used to tour with them, so that's always a fun experience when we go to concerts where Eric knows them from his life in music, and so we get to hang out backstage and eat all the food that they put on their riders.

Yeah. What else? Between the Trees is a local band in Orlando, and I used to go to their shows all the time, and then found out that Travis loved them. He didn't live in Orlando. I didn't realize how big they were in Florida. I thought that they were literally a local band because I lived in Orlando at the time, and so when I met Travis and found out that he liked that band, I was flabbergasted. That is fun and we still talk about that.

Okay, Wait, speaking of Travis, I've got a better question for you. How was your anniversary? Can we talk about that. It's not going to make this an extra extra long episode.

It was good. I mean, it was very chill, so we took a bike ride, we went to one of our favorite Brench places, and he had planned a few things that didn't pan out, so we ended up going to see the Barbie Movie and Travis liked it, which was the last thing I expected. I did not want to go because I didn't because I thought he was going to hate it so much it was going to ruin the experience for me, which does happen sometimes. But he liked it, and he teared up several times.

He said, yeah, uh, well, it's a sign of an emotionally intelligent man.

I know he is. He always has been. But we went back to the hotel that we got downtown and we watched Catfish. Yes yes, yes.

Yes, this goal.

If you've listened to our I forget which one of our most recent episodes, we talked about Catfish. But and then we got dinner at Bella Brava, which you may know this Jill.

But does not sound low key. This is all right, keep going.

Our listeners will not know that Brava is an actual nice Italian restaurant in downtown Saint Pete. So it's no like hoity toity place, but it is nicer than Caraba's garden. It's nicer than nice servan Carabas.

You heard it here, folks.

I never said Carabas was like the height of Carabas.

Was what you would do with a windfall. Bless you forget, that was your answer.

Well, I never said I wanted the height of restaurant ors. I never said I wanted to go to a Michelin star restaurant. I like Carabas. Even when we were sitting there, I was like, I could be at Carabas and just be having just as fun of a time. I thought that, But I also loved the food. I had a big plate of cheese filled mioki. And then the next day, when we got home, I went to the gym and ran five miles and I was like, mmmm, that's fueled by joki.

Wow. Well, we have not made this episode simple for our listeners. Sometimes simple is long. Sometimes more is long winded. More is more, like with pasta yum,

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