Caught yourself staring at your filled online shopping cart? Received another discount premium membership email on your go-to online site? Maybe it’s time we reignite our creativity, as this episode offers plenty of options before you click checkout on your Amazon cart. Prepare your notes as Jen and Jill give ways to reduce our online shopping and offer alternative sites you can browse through on your next shopping!
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Episode three nineteen, Tips to Stop Shopping on Amazon.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and liver life. Here your hosts, Jen and Jill.
Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jill, and we are doing a listener request but also kind of a personal interest piece on how do we lessen our reliance on the big A Jeffbezos dot com Amazon?
How do we do it? I don't know. Don't you should ever say the Big A again?
No?
Oh sorry, but it is.
It's that towing that line between how do we shop responsibly, be conscious consumers and then still not sacrifice a lot of the convenience that Amazon has provided for us. It's I don't believe to be evil, but it is something we don't want to become reliant on just mindlessly. So let's check reset and be intentional with our purchases on Amazon. And that's what this episode is here for.
Yes, yes, I'm here for it too. Thank you, We all thanks.
Something else we're here for is the sponsor. This episode is brought to you by the Friend Letter. So we are always looking for the best ways to help you save money and spend better. If you follow me jen or the Frugal Friends Instagram, you know, we have been teasing something that we are really excited about and we've been asking you guys to vote to help us shape it. So this is the result of your votes. Drug roll please. It's called the Friend Letter and it is our reimagined and redesigned newsletter. So we already have a super high open rate for our email. You guys seem to like it, but we know the value that email is and so we want to make it even better. So we are redesigning it, reimagining it and basically every week you're going to get the lowdown on where you can get free food, free promotions, possibly find free events in your area. We are going to give you a weekly money saving challenge, so tips to save on one part of your budget with a challenge to do something about it, and then also a mind hack or life hack that will help you practice values based spending. And so it's three emails a week. Those are the three emails and it is all for free. So our hope is that when you're in your inbox and you have the option of clicking like a store's marketing email. Ours is going to be right there above it or below it, and you can click our email instead so you know you'll be saving money instead of being tempted to spend it. So you can head to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash friend letter all one word friend letter to save your inbox and save more money in just five minutes a day.
I'm beyond excited about this. I really do think this is the best idea we've had yet, and it only took us a little over five years to get here. But if you want free and you want all of the tips, I mean, the podcast is great, but this email, man, like, you're gonna know the days and the weeks of all of the free stuff, Like when is free Slurpee Day? I don't know. I didn't even know that that was a thing, and now you do. And now you're going to know when the day is. You don't have to do your own research. We're here being your friends, writing you a letter telling you about it. So there's no downside to this. And yes, we're just going to be pumping them out three times.
A week, like when your friend texts you like, oh my gosh, I got this freebee here, you have to stop by here and get it.
That is what this.
That's what the friend letter is. It's a text in email form. So we're going back before there were text messages where there were just emails from friends telling you about how you can have free fun like every week and how you can like do a life hack to save money or control your spending.
It is like that, and all of this is going to help you stop shopping at the Big A or other online reading tailors. But if you also want a their tips on this area of spending and how to reduce or spend better. We've got episode two seventy nine, which is Tips to avoid impulse spending. That one gets all of us. It gets the best of us. You all are the best, but I know we out here impulse spending every once in a while, so that one's going to help us understand a little bit more about why we do it and how to stop doing it. And we've also got episode two fifteen, which is Creativity over Consumerism with Miranda Anderson. That was one of my personal fhaves as an interview. I thought she had a really cool creative perspective on how we engage with products and even ways to reduce reuse, recycle. So check that one out, but also stay with us right now as we talk about yes, tips to stop shopping on the big retailers, mainly Amazon.
You're going to tell me not to call it the Big A. But you're then all you're going to think in in love with it, all of it. That's the only thing you're going to call it from now on the Big A. So in our headlines today, we're going to first talk about cutting back shopping on Amazon, and then our second one is going to be alternatives. And this is not going so Amazon sells a million and one products. That's not like a number I read. I just made that up, but probably more so, it's not going to cover or solve every problem that we have with turning to Amazon. This is just something to spark your imagination to start getting creative with choosing, just checking out other options before immediately running to Amazon. That's kind of our when we give maybe options for solutions, the mindset is always try it out. Go there first, go to the better option for your wallet, better option for the environment, whatever, and see if it works for you and if it doesn't, like within a couple hours, days, weeks, whatever timeframe you have. Then you go to the mainstream big box sort of solution. We're not here to like villainize those they serve a legitimate purpose. So these articles are kind of to help you get creative first.
Yeah, and I appreciate what you're describing, Jen, because I think that there's multiple reasons that people would come to this desire of wanting to reduce their shopping, their online shopping, or particularly with the big retailers like Amazon, because of one impulse spending. So that's something because the Internet is accessible nearly everywhere, and so the ability to just one click buy is quite tempting and could lead to a lot of unnecessary things and possessions on our door step. But then also for these other reasons of sustainability, and even if you've got a desire to buy local or to reduce reuse, recycle, certainly these big box stores can be the antithesis of that. So wherever you find yourself as your reason for cutting back, hopefully there's a tip here. But I think some tips address one reason more than another. So wherever you find yourself, let's talk about it. But this first article comes from go and talks about six ways to cut back your online shopping at Amazon and other retailers. They give some kind of staggering numbers at the beginning of how much online shopping Americans do. It was about one point zero three trillion dollars in online shopping in twenty twenty two. So we're doing it. We out here, we're doing it. So the first tip on here is to really if we want to cut back, we want to know where we're starting, and that is by assessing how much you're spending. So I think sometimes we can imagine we've got a big problem with something, but then maybe come to find out, oh, but I'm not actually chopping here all that often, or it is a big problem, or maybe even bigger than you thought. But at least get your bearings, lay the foundation for what is it that I'm spending here? Into what degree do I want to cut back? Because if it's all just arbitrary, we're not actually going to see the fruits of our labor or know how to go about this. So take a look at your transactions. We would recommend over the last ninety days, how much online shopping are you doing and how much of it is at these kind of big retailers. How much have you spent on Amazon? Let's get there first, it's going to be your first step.
Yeah, and knowing that this article says that Amazon members spend between fifty one and one hundred dollars a month on Amazon, and twenty three percent of Prime members spend more than one hundred dollars a month on the site. So that's in addition to the yearly one hundred and thirty nine dollars it costs to be a Prime member. So sometimes like you are paying for a lot of things when you're paying for a Prime membership. It's not just the free shipping, but knowing that it does it can lead to increased spending just because of I don't know, maybe a sunk cost. Like I'm already paying for Prime, I might as well buy more from Amazon sort of mindset. Yeah, So the second tip on here is to leave it in the cart. And this is one that I use because I do not have Amazon Prime. Well, actually say that, I'm actually accidentally on a thirty day free trial of Amazon Prime right now, accidentally, So I had to buy something for bathroom renovation and I needed it here in a day, So Amazon was offering me a free trial, and I took it because I really needed that thing fast, and they'll offer me free trials of Prime like it seems like once a year. But so, yeah, I'm on Prime right now, but I've never paid for it, So I use this leave it in the cart until I get to twenty five dollars in my cart method all the time, just for that. But they're saying also, it gives you like a forty eight hour rule, so that you can, if you want something, put it in the cart, wait a couple days, come back, and if you still want it, then maybe then you can get it. I would say there's definitely some heartwork to be done in those forty eight hours, because sometimes I think I've done this and I can come back and be.
Like, oh, yeah, I waited forty eight hours.
I can reward myself with this thing that I didn't buy immediately.
We don't want to do that, and I can buy something else to treat myself to get to the twenty five dollars. Yeah, so don't do that to yourself.
But yes, leaving it in the cart, giving yourself that forty eight hours can be a useful tool to block impulse spending.
And on the same train of impulse spending, this next tip is talking about how we can block shopping sites. I imagine this means you could just block any site that you would want to block. But for example, if you use Firefox to browse the web, you could use something called leech block. If you use Chrome, you can use an extension called stay Focused. I'm sure there's others out there as well, but you can tell them specific sites that you don't want to be able to have access to. So it's just another barrier to keep you from going on some of these sites that you know you may be more prone to spend money that you don't actually want to spend. And these are really training tools to hopefully get us to the point where we don't need kind of like this parent over us telling us, no, don't do that, but to just interrupt that initial trigger where we just find ourselves on these sites and we're scrolling. It interrupts that, and so this could be a really great tool. If you're in a debt payoff plan and you're really going hard at that and you really want to kind of eliminate all of these temptations, this could be something good, not necessarily something I would recommend long term. I think these are great tools for a short amount of time when we are having a specific goal. But I don't think we always need or want to have our hands tied behind our backs. But to understand our impulsiveness us more, to understand our spending habits more and eventually get to that point where we don't need an external resource keeping us from it. But this could be a really great beginning step to keep us from these sites we know we are most prone to spend at.
Yeah, because if you want to buy something, you're going to turn the extension off. It's not difficult to do. So these aren't fail safes. They're more like if you are prone to kind of just like mindless scrolling or just habitual heading to Amazon, then this can be something that kind of like stops you. It's a pattern interrupt almost, that's all it is. But obviously, if you're destined and determined to buy something on a site, this isn't going to stop you. So yeah, for sure a short term kind of pattern interrupt tool. Next is to delete saved pain info. Again, not a fail safe, but just a pattern interrupt. It's it's kind of like, if you want it bad enough, will you get out of your chair and go get your card. For a lot of us who keep our cards on our phone, it's not as good of a pattern interrupt because these extensions for Chrome and Firefox, you can also get them on your as an app on your phone as well. I'm not sure what they're all called, but you can look for kind of stay focused type APICs like apps for your phone. But yeah, this is just a pattern interrupt. I would recommend the shopping blockers apps in sites probably more than this.
And another kind of pattern interrupt is unsubscribed from retailer emails. You've heard us say this in the past. Really it's kind of declutter. What are these retail sites that you just don't need to be receiving emails from anymore, or what are the ones that are really tempting to be And I know there are some who will even send text messages when you maybe made a purchase and then ended up signing up and giving your phone numbers. So not only are they in our emails now, a lot of them are in our text messages, which is even more at the forefront for those of us who are kind of glued to our phones and so clearing all of that clutter, literally hitting that unsubscribed button to keep those emails from finding their way into your inbox so that you're not it's not this top of mind thing constantly as you go through your email. And instead, because we always know, we have to replace habits with other things, replace those emails with the friend letter podcast dot com slash friend letter yes, and unsubscribe from the other emails and only get the good, the good, juicy goods.
M and I love unrolled dot me.
Unroll me that rolls.
Up all of your subscriptions, like the ones that you do want to keep, can roll those up into one daily email so that you only see them if you open that email. It's not just like you're heading in your email and you just inevitably see them by accident. So unroll me and the friend letter make your inbox.
A safe space.
Make it a safe space. And then the last one on this one, do some cleaning. One way to stop the urge to add to what you have is to go through what you already own. I loved this because I wouldn't have thought of that, but it does make so much sense. And we say it all the time, decluttering like you own what you need, You own it, You already own it, and so you can stop the urge to add to it if you go through what you own, not even doing decluttering if you don't want to, just going through it and maybe like organizing. So if there's a storage closet or a junk drawer or something and you're tempted to kind of go shopping on Amazon impulse spending, put the phone down, put the laptop down, and go to one of your drawers like you're If you have a hot sauce drawer like me, and just declutter it, organize it, clean your little hot sauce bottles and uh and yeah.
Do that instead.
You'll cut down on the clutter in your home. And you can be reminded of other things you've purchased that you haven't used and say, I am no different now than I was the day I bought this.
So what's is a perspective. If your hands need something to do, fold the laundry, don't if you're play politition. I love folding the laundry while I'm watatching TV because it is a chore you can do sitting down. Not many chores give you such a benefit. Folding the launchers is true. That is a sit down, watch TV chore. Yeah.
I would rather fold laundry than do dishes, so I'll give you that one. Yeah.
But if you just want to be on your phone and you don't want to be shopping, play solitaire, or clean up your pictures, go through your pictures. I'm just gonna say that, delete all your green shots that you took for some reason, which they actually put those in a separate folder from all your other pictures.
So you can literally just go to the screen shop shoulder and just start deleting things.
Yeah, no where You're gonna have to tell me that later. This is good. I'm getting tips, folder getting tised.
Okay, all right, we're learning. Let's continue learning with our second article from green Citizen on the twenty best online thrift stores find the best secondhand deals online. So instead of giving you another big box alternative like Walmart, Target, which again not evil, definitely serve a purpose. I shop online it I have shopped online at all of those places. I get all of my groceries online Walmart. But we want to introduce you to some online second hand stores that you may have forgotten or may not be acquainted with that you could check out first before heading straight to Amazon. What did you think of these options? We're not gonna go through all twenty no, no, yeah, but what do you think?
Jill so great article. I'd recommend you go online to this article to learn what all of them are because there's there were so many that I did not know of. But most of them are clothing sites, so just be aware of that. We will highlight the ones that aren't because I know that those can be harder to find. Lots of people out here selling clothing, which is great because we love buying clothing. We will love buying used, pre owned, gently gently worn clothing, so that's great. And the first one that stood out to me I did not know about is called Beyond Retro. It is a UK based online thrift store, but they specialize in everything retro vintage clothing, so that represents the sixties all the way up to the nineties, which is great for all of us because we all love nostalgia and all of those decades are back. Really, I mean, you can dress sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, and early two thousands and you are in which is you know, it's a great day to be alive. And if there's a particular decade that you really align with, you like wearing clothing from that time period, or you like clothing that looks like it's from that time period, you can actually get it and it be thrifted. It'd be kind of regiving it, giving it new life. So I like this one. I also like that they have a fourteen day return window. That's what always concerns me about through stores or consignment shops that can feel many do have policies that once you buy it, that's it. So I like that policy, especially when purchasing online, because we can never be quite sure is it going to work for me? Is it going to fit? So I thought that was a really nice return window if you don't end up liking it when it comes to your door.
Yeah, there's a lot of international options on here, so if you're Europe based or Canada based, this article has a lot for you as well. My first so it's a lot of clothing on here, so I'm going to pick as my first one shop Goodwill dot Com because they have obviously it's Goodwill, they have things other than clothing, so it's Goodwill like what you are familiar with. So I'm seeing jewelry, musical instruments, shoes, all kinds of things you can get collectibles, art, electronics, school things, games, and clothing. So if you are looking for something that is you would be happy to get at Goodwill, but you can't make a run to Goodwill. I would stop here first. Well, i'd stop your second. My next one is actually going to be my first pick, but.
Jill, yes, my next pick is Patagonia Worn where. I like this for multiple reasons. I do really like Patagonia. The only Patagonia I own is from the thrift store or hand me down from a friend. But I like the brand, and I like their efforts towards sustainability. Their products are really good and long lasting. But I also really like this one because I find that I will spend more on some of these staple pieces of clothing or before a trip. So Patagonia is outdoor gear, So this is where you're going to find your hiking, your cold weather attire, and that is often where I find I will spend the most. Usually I'm okay with that, but if I can reduce the cost and still get a level of quality. That's fantastic. And so even if you're from a warmer climate state and you're going on a trip and you need good hiking boots or a new winter coat or your first winter coat ever. I love this idea of thrifting it but still getting a really quality product. And so Patagonia Worn whar is gently worn, even refurbished specifically Patagonia brand products, and so it is run by Patagonia themselves. People will send back their old things, Patagonia will refurbish them and sell them at a steep discount. So if there is a particular outdoors the attire that you are in need of, love this option first and you can find some really great stuff. They also have a program where you can send in your old if you happen to already own Patagonia stuff and you kind of want to exchange it, you can send in Patagonia stuff, get credits to be able to spend at their store, or you can just shop Patagonia Warnwear and get the things that you need that have been gently used at a discount. So love this one.
Yeah, a lot of quality brands do this, and we always promote quality over quantity. If if you're spending more to buy something quality, you will spend less in the long term, but that high priced type can be a deterrent for a lot of people. So if there is something that you want, searching for something like Patagonia, Wormwaar or refurbished fill in the blank brand, you can usually find the brands like it's going to typically be a separate website than their main website because they don't really want to push their refurbished stuff as much. You may be able to find it at the bottom of a website in the foot or something, but search for the brand like Yetti. YETI does this with their coolers. You can get refurbished YETI coolers, all kinds of things, And it's that good in between of if you don't want to get it thrifted or used, but you also want to save a little bit of money off of brand new. This is that really good middle point. So I would say just kind of if you're thinking of a good quality brand, search that brand with maybe refurbished, and see if you can find that company's program like this one. The next one for me is not actually on the list. I am adding it to the list because I think it should be here, but it's eBay. You can get new and use stuff on eBay, and it is typically less expensive than Amazon and is just as reliable. eBay has been around for so long, and I always have good experiences. We have sold on eBay, purchased on eBay, and I try to stick to used items on eBay, but I've definitely gotten new things on there too. But I will always check eBay first. If there's something I know I want, I'll serve it. I'll find it on eBay first. If it's not exactly what I want, then I will go to Amazon. But more often than not, eBay will will have it, and you just have to double check to make sure that the shipping charge does not make it more expensive than Amazon. That's kind of the most common problem I have is that I'll see that it's cheaper on eBay, but with shipping it's a little it's the same price or whatever, so and then I just check the return policy.
So yeah, but I.
Always, I mean always have a really good experience buying on eBay.
Yeah, You've done really well with eBay. It has inspired me, not to the point of action, but it is in my mind more now to think, oh, well, I wonder if I could sell this on eBay or yeah, purchase on eBay. I know Eric has in the past. Well, people think about it, use it for like auto parts and boat like those types of things where it's not glamorous, it's not something sexy that you're looking for, but yet to buy it new is so expensive that there are people parting out appliances, parts of owners that eBay is really excellent for.
Yeah, and people think of getting scammed on eBay, But I have never been scammed on eBay knock on wood. But I was recently scammed on Amazon. I purchased Yeah, Big A was the main the Big A?
Did you dirty?
I mean it wasn't the Big A. It was a sub. Like eighty percent of retailers on Amazon are not Amazon. They're small you know, business owners right and or bots. And so this was a bot that that posted something that was tagged on a main listing.
So it was for a.
Baby carrier that had like thirty thousand reviews And I didn't really care about the color, so I just picked the least expensive one and it ended up being from this seller that was not real. So it said that it had shipped the baby carrier to me and that I should have received it, but I never did so, and I kept emailing with them being like, please resend it, please resend it.
It's not here.
And looked at their reviews finally and had like three reviews and they were all one star saying they did the same thing. So Amazon gave me my money back as a credit, which I did, you know, use to buy a baby carrier, the same one from an act from actually like a shipped by Amazon, so that I mean it's on Amazon too. So eBay and sellers on eBay have been around a lot longer and so it's much easier to identify good sellers on eBay than it is to identify bad sellers on Amazon.
Nothing safe, but that's that's a benefit though of this big online store, is that they will make it right.
Then.
Yes, sometimes you run into these smaller things, smaller shops, and it doesn't go well and there's no guarantee, so that's the there's trade offs. Yep, mm hmm, Okay. The last one I'm going to choose on here is another one I've not heard of before, but sounds interesting. They hooked me in the description. It's called Omnia it is, as this article describes a Brooklyn, New York based boutique, an online thrift store that has made a name for itself by hand picking modern romantic clothing specifically chosen for metropolitan women. Now I'm not entirely sure what a metropolitan woman is, but it intrigues me. And so they.
Like a shirt that says metropolitan woman.
Doesn't matter to stop that. Yeah, they us is to jumpsuits, jewelry, shoes, belts. They've got sales where you can find things for under fifty dollars, and then it sounds like they even will partition things out per category, maybe for the year. If you're trying to find something for a specific holiday to wear, there you go. There's also a ton of options on this list that I didn't highlight because it doesn't appeal to me. But if you are a person who loves luxury brands or name brands I don't know, like Prata is that one. There's tons of online retailers selling gently used luxury brand bags and clothing, so most of the ones on this list are that. So if that interests you, check out this article, which is linked in our show notes.
Yeah, and we are not really like luxury brand people, but we are quality brand people.
And sometimes they're not the same thing.
And no they are not. So I will give my last one is Poshmark. I love so Poshmark is kind of like eBay for fashion, but you can also find some other things there. I have when searching for types of like particular items, I will see that the item because it's so particular, is posted both in Poshmark and eBay, same seller, less expensive on eBay, so like even with shipping and everything, just because they know their market on Poshmark. Yeah, but that's not always the case. So I love Poshmark again because it's like user generated, it's not big box. You're usually like I feel like you're helping other people. It's like other you know, girlies doing a closet clean out and they want to make a few bucks, they want to declutter, and you are helping them with that. Obviously, don't buy something just to like help somebody you don't know.
In this case, it may not be this because sometimes they're just girlies out here flipping stuff that they found at a thread store and writing a job off of it, which is.
Totally fine but awesome. Yes, it's not just them bit cluttering right, right.
This is you're going for something specific, and yeah, I love Poshmark for that. It's going to be less expensive than like your thread ups or swap dot Com. But yeah, you can find those quality You can find the luxury too, those obviously are on there. But you're going to be able to find more of the quality brands that are not necessarily luxury on Poshmarks. So again, if you're looking, you know, like for a black dress for a date night, before you go straight to Amazon, try one of these other places real quick. Look at what they have spent ten minutes checking out alternatives before you go straight to the big A.
And you know what's a big B that is really unspecific but free. The bill of the week.
That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is Williams.
Maybe you've paid off your.
Mortgage, maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore.
That bill Buffalo bills, bill claim.
This is the bill of the week.
Hi John and Jail. My name is Elena. I live in Virginia, and my bill of the week actually covers next couple of decades to I closed on my first house. I moved to the States almost seven years ago, and four and a half years in I got divorced and walked out with tactically nothing. And here I am two and a half years later, buying my first home. And I'm so excited about that. Also, today's February twenty second. February twenty first, I turned twenty nine, and I think it's the best gift I could possibly give myself for the last year of my twenties.
All Right, thank you and Jill.
Thank you for your podcast and the energy you give us your listeners every day. And I'm looking forward to here the next episode. Thank you, bye bye.
Oh my goodness, Allen, I thank you. I am so proud of you girl, just two and a half years to go through that, and to be at your owning your own home, and to just still be in your twenties doing all of this.
Girl, Thank you, what big moves, how exciting You went through quite a big experience and transition and loss and overwhelm and then turned your situation around. I'm sure that wasn't easy easily accomplished. I'm sure it took lots of hard work. But what a feat to be closing on your own house, to know that you accomplished this on your own and you did it before turning thirty. I mean, who knows what's going to come in your thirties. Probably good things, that's what we're hoping for you. Thanks for sharing this amazing bill. We're celebrating with you. If you all listening have accomplished some really incredible things even in the midst of some diffent occulty and suffering. Or if you just are a person named Bill, we gotta have a bill.
If your name is Bill, we'll jump you to the front of the list like you see you obviously now know we are always six months behind on these bills. We play every single one of them. If your name is Bill, specifically Bill Curtis, we will.
Jump you to the front of Bill and I the Science Guy either Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash Bill. Leave us a bill, a big B. That's what we're looking for, A big B. And now it's time for the big L or everything's big today, it's huge.
I regret my decisions I don't made this morning.
It has turned into it's donner. I love it.
Okay, So most recent Amazon purchase, because just because we're trying to buy less on Amazon doesn't mean we don't shop on it. And again I did accidentally, I forgot to say the accident on that. I just said that I signed up for it. So the thing was is that I didn't actually need the thing. Travis told me I needed it, so I bought it, and then ten seconds later, as soon as I made the purchase, He's like, just kidding, that's the wrong thing, and so I canceled it, and now I still have the Amazon Prime.
Okay, well, so just don't forget to cancel that before it starts charging you.
Absolutely absolutely, all right, Jill, what's your most recent Amazon purchase?
A children's book? You know me, nobody is surprised. No one's surprised. For a friend's baby shower, we were giving books, like some of our favorite books, in lieu of a card, which is great for me because I don't like cards. I think they're pointless. I mean, i'll write you a note, but it's not going to be on a three dollars and forty nine cent card. I think that's ludicrous. I think it's the biggest cards. I just think it's cards. Yeah, so instead of doing that, which is all just going to get thrown away and all of them are just going to say congratulations, a you're going to be great parents, can't wait to watch you. Instead of that, it's children's book and then we write a little note to the child and that's that. So it was an out of state baby shower. So Amazon was convenient in that situation to be able to send the book to the location where the baby shower is going to happen because I had limited packing space to buy it from a bookstore and bring it with me. So that was the reason for going that route. But I don't shop on Amazon Munch to be honest, Eric does, but I don't.
Yeah, I definitely loved having Amazon for I like baby Registry. It was very convenient for that reason.
And yeah's and it is convenient in renovations. Like you've already mentioned, I think sometimes Amazon will have things that you can't even find at a Lowser home depot or the option that's for lighting and faucets and different things that you just can't find, especially depending on your location. Not all of us have lighting outlets and plumbing outlets within a ten mile radius, and so having these options available is really nice, usually at a pretty inexpensive price.
So yes, agreed. You Remember at my baby shower, I don't remember who it was you or someone else, was like, should I should I write down what everybody's given you, so like you can write thank you cards, and I'm like, I am about to have a child and I'm not going to have time to write thank you cards.
I loved that you said a boundary that was excellent and everyone accepted it. I mean, who cares whether or not they accepted it, but you spoke it out to the entire crowd and set your boundary, and I loved that.
That's not what I said to the entire crowd. What I said was I love you all, and I appreciate you just coming and I'm so blessed by your gifts, and that's my thank you to you. That's what I said, something to that extent, and we essentially insinuating.
Yeah, yeah, someone didn't writing it down. Someone didn't need to write it down so that they weren't present in the moment, being able to enjoy conversation. You weren't pressured with writing notes, and people weren't filled with anxiety waiting for your note to come in the mail. They all then knew.
Filled with anxiety, throwing it away, recycling it exactly because I that's what I do with cards is if I can recycle it, I recycle it. If I can't, I just throw it away.
Yeah. There are very.
Few cards that I keep, and they are from Travis's grandparents who are one hundred years old.
But to our mother's chagrin, we do not pay.
But yes, yeah, my mom, Okay, we'll tell you. We'll talk about this later the last So I'm not going to use this plumbing apparatus that I had to cancel ten seconds after I purchased, and that's not going to be mine. My most recent actual Amazon purchase was a dining bench. So we had our table that we got on Facebook marketplace that Travis loves and I tolerate, and we have four chairs, and we wanted to get a bench so that we'd have more seating because we're always pulling the office chair in whenever we have, you know, more than just four people. So finally got a dining bench essentially a dining bench because little butts can sit, you can sit more than two on it because they're children.
Not little little a's until they're little a's.
Oh wow, yeah, and so that's for them and then the adults can have the chairs. So yes, that was my last Amazon purchase. Wow, and I'm happy with it.
Well done. We're on the lookout for a dining bench too, but hoping to find it at a thrift store her on Facebook Marketplace. We're holding out. It's been six months we've been looking for a dining table, like just just a table just to eat that we don't have that. We sit on our couch and stools to sit at our island. We don't have any of that. We either stand or we sit on the couch.
But you know.
What's what I wanted to go Facebook Marketplace because typically I get all my furniture there because it is just leaps and bounds better than anything you can buy online nowadays. And I just couldn't. But this bench was a very sturdy, solid wood bench. It's just unfinished so I can stain at the same color as the table. Nice and it just happened to be on Amazon. I wasn't even looking for it on Amazon, but this is where it happened to be.
That's cool. Well, thanks everyone for listening. We hope you found some tips here to either interrupt your impulse spending or find alternative ways to get what you need. We really what we enjoy is reading all of your kinder views. We especially liked this one. This one comes from Merley Melsey, which is fun to say and it says love you guys. You've made topics I thought I could never understand accessible. You've made frugality, personal finance, and investing feel attainable. I enjoy you too so much. I love the banter and the thoughtfully given information. I can't say enough good things about this podcast. You have completely inspired me to take control of my finances dot dot dot dot dot and Jill's possessed voice saying learning around is a highlight for every episode. You got it twice in this episode. Thanks to early Melsie. Thank you for clearly pouring out so much love and care into this podcast. WHOA, that was a lot to read. My heart is so full. Thank you for that coming.
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Okay, did you want to say more about your mom? This is the same space.
Okay, what were we What were we talking about?
When I brought that up. I said, much to our mother's chagrin, that we don't keep cards.
Oh okay, here it is so and you were there at my baby shower. You hosted my baby shower, so you know this story. But my mom had Kai pick out a card for me for my baby shower, and she just let him pick up any cards he wanted. So I didn't know this. And I am opening cards and maybe this is a good time to get a greeting card in this story. I will tell the story forever. But I'm opening you know, happy baby shower, yay baby, Oh so cute. And then I come to I opened this one and says sorry for your loss.
I'm like what.
I don't know where I was for this part, or maybe it wasn't sorry for your loss, but it was like no, it was like a goodbye card.
Okay.
It had a cute puppy on it and it said like we'll miss you, that's what it was. I was like, they would they would not put a cute puppy on a sorry for your lost card. So there was a cute puppy and it was like we will miss you, and I'm like, what where am I going? And I open it up and Kai has written his name in it and it says something, you know, like oh, We're really gonna miss you with something like that, and I'm.
Like, what where?
Why is my son saying goodbye to me? I'm reading this card in front of everyone and I'm so confused, but I'm it was when it finally clicked and my mom was like, oh, yeah, he he would not get a baby shower card for you. This was the card he was going to get for you. So maybe that if you're forced to get a card for somebody, if they're going to read it in front of people, like a bridle shower or a baby shower, that's the time to get a card that just says something completely random and throws them completely off.
Because that was funny. That was our show. That was good. That was a good mom story. Mm hmmm, yes, good mom grandmom's story. I will also get if I do, because I do like writing no to people, and I will give thank you cards for various reasons. But thrift stores have cards and sometimes the best cards like the most random insane images on them. There are some of these vintage cards are like what is happening here? And you can not only send a thank you, but you can send some humor with it too, because who really cares? Again, it's going to end up in the bin, recycling bin, trash ban, some sort of bin. And if you can send something that is reused, inexpensive and brings joy from a thrift store, I love it.
Yes, even if that card has somebody else's name in it, like love Love Mom or love Miriam card a used card where you just like cross out their name and put yours.
Actually, oh, oh my gosh, that you're saying this. My grandmother used to do that. She would send me the same birthday card year over year. This was like when we lived close by to one another, and she would take back the card knowing that this is just gonna get thrown away otherwise, so she would take it back and keep writing the date in the upper left hand corner that she would send it to me. There's one birthday card that I got like four years in a row. I'm like, yeah, gosh, did I call her Gimba? Yeah, Gimba and you were up in the great depression. You know this is just a holder for the five dollars you're going to give me. So yes, I applauded it. I knew just what to do. She never lit the envelope so that she could reuse the envelope, put the card in there, and then I knew to give it right back to her and she'd write the date on it again, so I know that I got that card, like, oh my gosh.
God bless Gimba, God bless Gimba.
I love her. She is like savage and she's ready.
Let's yeah, let's normalize no cards or reusing cards that.
Other people have used, just to card from them, and God on to it for next year. I love that idea. Yes, okay, well so yeah