How to Get Your Life and Money Organized (Without Budget Apps)

Summary

Frugal Friends Podcast: How to Get Your Life and Money Organized (Without Budget Apps)

Hosts: Jen Smith & Jill Sirianni
Date: February 6, 2026

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Main Theme Overview

In this engaging and practical episode, Jen and Jill tackle the overwhelm of adulting—specifically, managing life and finances without the clutter of too many apps. They introduce their core system: using just three straightforward spreadsheets to organize your life and money. Through relatable stories and actionable tips, they demonstrate how intentional simplicity can ease anxiety, keep you on track financially, and free up mental space for what matters most—all with their signature warmth and humor.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Problem: Overwhelm and Scattered Information

• Adulting Can Be "Too Much": Many feel life management is a second job, not due to incompetence but the chaotic scattering of tasks, finances, and to-dos.
• Source of Anxiety: Jen notes, “The biggest source of anxiety for me in money and life is just having all of these things…writing them down…in a bunch of different to do lists, notes on my phone, scrap pieces of paper.” (03:13)

2. The Solution: Three Simple Spreadsheets

• Philosophy: You don’t need complicated tools—just a few clear, reusable systems.
• The Three Key Spreadsheets:
  1. Budget/Spending Plan
  2. Finance Planner
  3. Meal Planner

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I. Budget Spreadsheet/Spending Plan

• Purpose: Know what’s coming in and going out; reduce guilt and anxiety around spending.
• Keep it Simple:
  • Only need to track income (one line item) and four main expense categories: discretionary, recurring, debt, savings/investing.
  • Example: “For discretionary expenses, it is miscellaneous, food and gas. Like, that's it. I don't make it complicated.” – Jill (07:55)
  • Simplified approaches like the “50/30/20 budget” can be effective (needs, wants, savings/investing).
• Customization: Both hosts agree you can tailor it to your needs, from detailed breakdowns to keeping categories broad.
• Spreadsheet Features:
  • Annual Dashboard—track spending over the years, notice lifestyle inflation, compare recurring expenses.
  • Opportunity Cost Calculator—pause impulse buys, calculate long-term value of investing money instead:
    • “If something were to cost $250, in 10 years at just 6% interest, that could be $447.” – Jill (13:19)
  • Small/Medium/Big Activity Lists—replace spending triggers with frugal, fun alternatives.

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II. Finance Planner Spreadsheet

• Purpose: Centralized hub for all financial and life “admin” tasks—a calendar and checklist for what often gets overlooked.
• Track Work and Credit Card Benefits:
  • “If you don't take advantage of all of your insurance and your work benefits, you’re literally telling your employer…‘you can have some of it back. I don’t want all of it.’” – Jen (18:03)
  • Keep a running list of health benefits, wellness perks, cardholder rewards, and associated deadlines.
• Event & Savings Tracker:
  • Map out major (and small/free) events—vacations, annual festivals, free community activities.
  • “When you make a list of all the free things that happen in your community every year, then you're ready to go…and it feels like everything I want to do is free.” – Jen (20:24)
• Secondhand Shopping List:
  • Go-to database for sourcing secondhand before buying new (online and local).
  • “We forget a lot of times that it's not just clothing. Like, we can get used sporting equipment... tech or gadgets...” – Jill (23:22)
• Essential Info & Document Tracker:
  • Maintain a central log of passwords (with security caveats), account access, life insurance, estate planning, vital documents’ locations.
  • “Anybody in your family could access it and know…what are the important pieces I need to be aware of?” – Jill (24:09)
• Car Maintenance Tab:
  • Track all car maintenance tasks and intervals—no more memory stress for scheduled services.
  • “If you have a list of when you last did it, when you need to do it again, then you don’t have to remember that.” – Jen (25:52)
• Set Up Once, Save for Years:
  • “Once it's in there, life can start to feel like it's on autopilot.” – Jill (26:59)

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III. Meal Planner Spreadsheet

• Purpose: Reduce food costs (a top three expense) and dinner-time stress by streamlining meal planning and shopping.
• Strategy: Keep Meals Simple, Repeatable, and Enjoyable
  • Plan meals you’ll actually eat, overlap ingredients, keep recipes quick (<30min).
  • Jen’s system: “Eight breakfasts, eight chicken, eight other dishes...so if I don’t want what I planned, I just go back to my list.” (29:39 - 29:45)
• Features:
  • Master Recipe List: Catalog quick and loved recipes.
  • Inventory Tracker: Stay aware of what you have; use photos for visual aids.
  • Conversion Charts & Substitution Cheat Sheets:
    • “A lot of times, it doesn’t matter. You don’t have a specific type of vinegar…But there might be other things you have that could replace those…” – Jill (31:40)
    • "The creamiest mac and cheese—even if we had milk, we'd choose Greek yogurt." – Jill (32:13)
  • 1,000 Meal Ideas Database:
    • "A list of literally 250 poultry dinner recipes, 250 beef/pork recipes, 250 lunch/light dinner/vegetarian, and 250 breakfast—all with blog links." – Jen (33:39)
  • Free Resource Mention: “frugalfriendspodcast.com/meals” for a downloadable set of emergency recipes.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Simplicity:
  • "Three is a great number...not going to solve all your problems, but it will really cut down a ton on some of that life and money organization anxiety." – Jill (03:04)
• Budget Guilt:
  • "When I don’t have money allocated somewhere...even if I do have the money for it, I’m not 100% sure..." – Jen (05:27)
• On Benefits:
  • "If you don’t take advantage of all your insurance and your work benefits, you’re literally telling your employer, 'you can have some of it back. I don’t want all of it.'" – Jen (18:03)
• On Secondhand Shopping:
  • “We are not aware of 90% of the secondhand online store options… To have this particular tab within a spreadsheet… [by category]…” – Jill (42:18)
• Favorite Spreadsheet Tools:
  • “My favorite thing now is the opportunity cost calculators. I think that’s so cool…having tools in your spreadsheet to help stick to your budget is so essential.” – Jen (40:35)
• Meal Planning Epiphany:
  • “It’s not about following the plan perfectly. It’s about having it there so you have it to look back on.” – Jen (29:39)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:16] Opening: Modern Adulting Overwhelm
• [03:04] The Core Solution: Three Spreadsheet System
• [04:43] How to Create a Simple Budget Spreadsheet
• [12:14] Opportunity Cost Calculator & Tools for Budget Success
• [16:42] Spreadsheet #2: The Finance Planner (Annual/Multi-Category Organizer)
• [23:19] Secondhand Strategy Tab/Benefits of Pre-owned
• [25:52] Auto Maintenance & Essential Document Tracker
• [27:14] Spreadsheet #3: The Meal Planner
• [31:40] Meal Planner Features: Conversion Charts, Substitutions
• [33:39] 1,000 Meal Ideas List
• [40:25] Lightning Round: Jen & Jill's Favorite Spreadsheet Tools/Sections
• [44:48] Listener Review
• [46:20-48:05] Planning Fun—How Joy and Free Community Activities Fit In

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Listener Segment: “Bill of the Week” (35:41)

• Listener shares that she and her husband are re-allocating daycare funds to retirement saving now that their child is in kindergarten.
• She also teaches a consumer culture course in Latin America and plans to recommend Jen and Jill’s audiobook for its “solid, grounded advice.”
• Hosts are touched, proud their work is being used academically, and reiterate the impact of adopting these practical strategies.

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Lightning Round: Favorite Features

• Jen: Opportunity Cost Calculator, Travel Rewards/Credit Card Tracking
• Jill: Secondhand Strategy Tab/Database for Used Goods
• Stories: How such systems have helped them manage card rewards, find the right secondhand goods for specific needs (e.g., black work shoes), and keep life organized for both themselves and their families.

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Tone, Style, & Closing Advice

The hosts keep the conversation lively, candid, and filled with good-natured humor—never preachy, always approachable. They validate feelings of overwhelm and urge listeners to take small steps: keep systems simple, use what works for you, and don’t pressure yourself to be perfect.

Final Takeaway:
You don’t need fifteen apps and endless sticky notes—a few well-structured spreadsheets, honed for your life and goals, can bring clarity, reduce stress, and actually help you enjoy your money and your time. Whether you build your own or use the hosts’ templates, just start somewhere simple.

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Additional Resources Mentioned

• Spreadsheet templates: Links available with episode code “587” for a discount.
• Free Recipe Book: frugalfriendspodcast.com/meals for 15 emergency meals.
• Monarch App Discount: For listeners who prefer a digital app, code provided for 50% off.

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Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni.

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Planning for Fun!

• Unmentioned but valuable: maintaining a “Fun List” in your annual finance planner—track festivals, parades, family/kids’ events, seasonal runs, community movies, and toddler-friendly activities.
• “There are so many things to do—who can remember them all? But if it’s on the list, I’m like, oh! We should do something this weekend…I go to the list.” – Jen (46:33)

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Transcript

[Jen]

Lately, living inside the rhythms of everyday life, the routines, the relationships, the small moments has made me feel deeply grateful for how far we've come and the people we get to do life with.

[Jill]

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[Jen]

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[Jill]

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[Jen]

Life and money organized without budget apps.

[Podcast Intro Announcer]

Welcome to the Frugal Friends Podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and live a richer life. Here are your hosts, Jen and Jill.

[Jen]

Welcome Frugal Friends. I'm Jen. I'm Jill and everything feels like too much. Adulting is too much. Appointments are too much. Making the call can we talk about it? So many calls to make. None of them are made. It's a lot. It's overwhelming and we get it. And so we have devised a few systems. One system really, to help with one aspect of that.

[Jill]

Here's the thing. If managing your life and money feels like a second job, it is not because you're bad at it. It really most likely is because it's all scattered across too many places. And so what we've realized is that we really only need three spreadsheets. It's not a lot.

Three is a great number.

[Jen]

Not going to solve all your problems.

[Jill]

But it will really cut down a ton on some of that life and money organization anxiety.

[Jen]

Yeah. Because I find the biggest sour of anxiety for me in money and life is just having all of these things, writing them down, a to do list, bunch of different to do lists, like notes on my phone, scrap pieces of paper. And I don't. The biggest source of anxiety is not knowing if I've gotten everything done. Not knowing if I've gotten the most important things done. And so we are going to show you. We have made three different like spreadsheets for just our own use and we also sell them to our audience, but we want to show them to you so you can make your own. And if you don't want to make your own, then we will have links for you to get ours. But we want to ease some of this anxiety and overwhelm as much as we can as in regards to money. But like really everything that money touches as well. So we will have a discount code in the description. If you're listening to this, then you can use the link that's in the description on either platform and use episode 587. That is the discount code. Episode 587, which is this episode.

[Jill]

Okay.

[Jen]

You really gotta remember that episode.

[Jill]

That code will never expire too.

[Jen]

So it doesn't matter when you watch or listen to this. So let's get in to de stressing with our first spreadsheet. A budget.

[Jill]

Yeah, we are talking about budgeting, right? Because we're, you know what, we're the frugal friends and we love to talk about money. And this is really important. We also like to call it a spending plan. So if you want to call it a spending planner, that's great for us too. But we really do need to have an understandable plan for our money. And here's the thing, it doesn't need to be complicated. It can be really simple. And it doesn't need to be about deprivation. It just needs to be about knowing what's coming in and what's going out.

That's the basics of it.

Because otherwise things are going to feel all over the place. We're going to feel like we can't keep control of anything. We don't actually know how much we could spend on some things. We just feel guilty about spending Anything. And we need to reduce all that.

[Jen]

That's.

That's the big issue I have. When I don't have money allocated somewhere, then I spend money on something and I feel anxiety or guilt about it because I don't know, even if I do have the money for it, I'm not 100% sure I have the money for. So there's always. It's not like high anxiety, it's just this, this, like, lingering low level of like, okay, I don't know if I can do this, but I am going to do it regardless. And you can do that even when you have a budget. But then you have the confidence. You're like, I no longer have the money for this, but I can pull from another category. And so there's like a confidence and there's a plan that goes into it. So it doesn't matter how you budget. If you like budgeting apps, you can use that. I use Monarch. And we'll leave a code in the description for 50% off your first year if you want to try that. But if you're not an app girl like me, maybe you're a spreadsheet girl like Jill. Hey.

[Jill]

Oh, I love it. I feel like I get to tailor the spreadsheet to what I need. It feels really simple to me. I'm not getting a ton of notifications about it.

Right.

Like, I don't, I don't love spending time on my phone. And so this is another way where I don't have to do that. I could utilize the spreadsheet. And our budget spreadsheet is mobile optimized, so I could use it on my.

Phone, but I can also use it on the desktop.

But here's the basics of what you need in a budget that I think spreadsheets are really good at, helping you keep it simple. Four categories. You need to. Well, not. I mean, yes, you need income. You need to know what your income is. Honestly, that's not even like a whole column. That's just like one line item.

[Listener/Caller]

Yeah.

[Jill]

But as far as. Then the categories that you have discretionary expenses. So those are the things that month to month, you're making different decisions on. You've got recurring expenses. So. So those are your regular bills, your kind of fixed expenses, as well as debt, savings, investing. And some of that can fall under, like, the same type of category. So again, really simple. And you get to decide what are the subcategories. For me, when it comes to discretionary expenses, it is miscellaneous, food and gas. Like, that's it.

[Jen]

That's it.

[Jill]

I don't make it complicated. I am not parsing out what is hygiene products, what's paper products, what's cleaning product. It's all, it's miscellaneous.

[Jen]

I, I always tell this story. I was behind a lady in the grocery store once who paid in two separate transactions, her groceries separate from her home items because she wanted the transaction separated for her budget.

[Jill]

Okay, here's the thing. I do kind of understand that. Here's what I do. This is, I know you're, I know you're calling her out and here I will not make separate transactions, but I will have it go through the conveyor belt. Like I'll first do my groceries, then I'll do my home items so that when I look at the receipt, I can like parse that out. This, you don't have to be this nutty. This is how nutty I am. But a good portion of my grocery bill is actually miscellaneous. So I like to know like, what am I spending? So that is something that I will do.

[Jen]

Yeah. So you can be on, on any extreme that you want. Honestly, keep it simple at first. If you're getting back into budgeting or you're just starting budgeting, keep it so simple. Like this is where the 50, 30, 20 budget comes in and is really useful. Needs, wants and what is it? Needs, wants and bills. You know what I'm saying? So it can be as simple as that.

[Jill]

So these wants must haves.

I don't know.

Sorry, I'm still like stuck on it.

[Jen]

I think savings investing, like that is the third category and to me that's like a need and so it just confuses me. Yeah, so that is what you need in a budget. So our budget will, we'll show you a little walkthrough of it on the screen. But we, we love ours. We just recently redesigned it with like calmer colors so it could be like a more calming experience. So it has the spending plan, which has the discretionary, the recurring, the debt payment, and you can even go through and name your own categories. And then that will show up with a little graph at the top that kind of gives you a breakdown. And that's just for funsies if you want to, because we love a graph, um, but it's mobile optimized. So the first and only column you'll see on your phone is that discretionary expenses column. So it's really easy to add transactions and then you can copy that budget every single month. So your budget's kind of like pre planned and then you can just Delete the things you want and then at the end of every month you can come to the annual dashboard and you can keep track of, this is how much income I got this month, this is how I, how much I spent in discretionary recurring savings, debt, all that, so that you can be keeping track of that year over year. And once you're doing that for so long, you're going to have spreadsheets to look back on and so you can compare, okay, this is what I spent on recurring this month last year and this month the year before. So that you can kind of get a, hold a grasp on. All right, lifestyle inflation happens and that's a good thing. But like how much lifestyle inflation is happening and how is that aligning with my income? Am I bringing in more money, less money? Because those are things that if you don't pay attention to them, they get out from under you and then you're not earning more or getting any like inflation income raises. I know raises are hard to come by at all, but like, if we don't pay attention that we don't, then we don't know. And if we're not at least getting a raise to account for inflation, we are literally making less every year. And so it may not be a problem you can fix quickly, but once you're aware of it, it is a problem you can actively start taking steps to fix. But, but we can't fix things we don't know are happening. And so that's a real big like plus to that annual dashboard.

[Jill]

Some of my favorite things in our particular spending planner is the opportunity cost calculator. This is one of those interruptions to potential impulse spending that I think can be really helpful for people in that if you're planning to, if you're thinking about spending money on something and you've got the wherewithal to create a pause, you could hop into the opportunity cost calculator and see how much could that money be in a certain amount of years were you to have invested that money instead? Like, if you're saying, yeah, I've got this to spend on something that I don't necessarily need right now, what would happen if I were to invest that in the stock market? And an example that we just already have in here currently is like, if something were to cost $250 in 10 years at just 6% interest, that could be $447. Like, instead of having one thing that maybe you're going to forget that you even own or is going to break, you're going to end up throwing away instead. It could be nearly $500. So that's not nothing.

[Jen]

It's like one of those things. Well yes, you can make a budget and this isn't required for your budget. But the biggest thing with a budget is sticking to it. So if you can have a couple tools in your spreadsheet to help you stick to it, like the opportunity cost calculator. We also have like a small, medium, big list. So it's just a list of activities that you can do instead of activities that typically cause you to spend money. So like a small one would be I scrolling social media and then I get influenced to buy something. So then if that's happening a lot to me I go to my small list and then I when I'm instead of going to social media I pick something from the small list to do like play solitaire or if a friend wants to go get coffee and I'm trying not to, you know, spend money on coffee, I can go to the big list and see okay, what are maybe some something that we can do that's similar vein but doesn't cost money. And so like having these tiny, these little tools that you can have to help you stick to your budget are some things that we, we include in ours.

[Jill]

It is full of tools and I love that about it.

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[Jen]

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[Jill]

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[Jen]

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[Jen]

You know what nobody tells you about weeknight dinner? It's the thing that never goes away. Every single day around 5pm, there it is again for me.

It used to be panic, takeout, guilt.

And staring at the fridge wondering what.

I could throw together.

Then along came HelloFresh, reducing my decision fatigue and giving me my nights back.

[Jill]

The barrier to eating at home is.

So connected to the mental load of figuring it all out when you're already wiped. HelloFresh takes that off your plate literally. They provide pre portioned ingredients, step by step, recipe cards and most meals are done in 30 minutes. One of my favorites is the Miso Glazed Salmon. It's like a restaurant meal, but I didn't spend an hour sweating over it.

[Jen]

HelloFresh has over 100 recipes to choose from every week. Bigger portions so nobody's still hungry. Sustainably sourced seafood, antibiotic free chicken plus various options to suit your nutritional needs. It's high quality, easy and tasty.

[Jill]

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Okay, the second spreadsheet that we think is super helpful would be really great if we all had it. And that is a financial planner. This is different from a budget in that it is helping us to map out everything that might be related to money in our lives for an entire year. Because having like Jen was saying earlier, everything in 50 different places and some notes in our calendar and some sticky note here and something posted to the fridge there is what makes us so nutty and feel so kind of chaotic and all over the place. Whereas having it all in one place as a way to track when certain bills need to be paid, how and when to check on our benefits that might be offered by our employer when we need to be maintaining the vehicle, what should be maintained within the house when the filter needs to get replaced, and these are all the random things that can go through our mind and if they're not written down or compiled in one place then it can take up unnecessary mental space. And that anxiety as the thought goes through of oh, I needed to do that. We know it's written down in one.

[Jen]

Of our three spreadsheets Yeah, I think it's not difficult stuff. Right. But it is a mental load nonetheless. So in your finance planner, I think I want to, we'll refer to it as a finance planner versus a financial planner because a financial planner is a person and I, I will get confused in my head. Finance planner. So something that you really need is your work benefits. If you have any work benefits or health insurance benefits, any benefits that are provided to you that literally, if you don't take advantage of, you're literally telling your employer or whoever like, oh no, you don't need to compensate me fully, like the compensation we agreed upon, you can have some of it back. I don't want all of it. That's what you're saying. If you don't take advantage of all of your insurance and your work benefits, you need to have a place to list all those out, list how frequently you get you are eligible for them and so you can plan dates to take advantage of them or to call and make schedules so that you don't miss out on those date year to year. So I'm thinking especially specifically in health insurance about annual checkups. All the annual checkups you are eligible for and then also work benefits if there are, you get like a free class pass or something. Wellness benefits, making sure you list all the benefits that you get annually when you have to use them, by making the call if you don't know when you have to use them by and then putting those in the spreadsheet.

[Jill]

It's also helpful to keep track of the things that you want to do within the year, things that are going to take some time to save for. This is where you can track that. What are the vacations coming up in the summer? What are you hoping to do this upcoming year over the holidays? Are there any other weekend trips or even obligations? This is where you can see it all in one snapshot and know how much do I think that's gonna cost and be able to then make a plan coinciding with then your budget for how you're going to set that money aside to do that thing.

[Jen]

And it's not just things you wanna save for, it's free things too. So like in Gulfport there is every August they call it Gecko Fest. And it's, it's Gulfport's like time to shine. There are activities throughout the month, free and paid. And so I want to make sure that I know when the free activities are. So like the parade is the first Saturday of of August, then I want to put that in My like August list. So I know when all the free events are happening because it can feel if you're not paying attention to those things, you're like, if I want to do anything, I have to pay for it. You know, everything costs money. Well, when you make a list of all the free things that happen in your community every year, then you're ready to go and you can plan ahead to do those things. So then it feels like everything I want to do is free. Why would I pay to do something? Another thing I forgot to mention, with benefits, it's not just work benefits, but it's credit card benefits. So if you're a travel rewards credit card accumulator, then your credit cards typically will have benefits that you need to use every year. So I have a couple hotel co branded credit cards and I get a free night stay once a year at a certain level of hotels. And so I want to make sure that I have that someplace. I also want to make sure I know how many points I have off of that card, how many I've used, how many I've left to use. What are the benefits? Do I get a free Global Entry credit? You know, if I apply for Global Entry? These are all things that you can get with credit cards and you want to make sure that you're taking advantage of them every year, especially if you're paying an annual fee. Yes. For that credit card. I pay an annual fee for some credit cards. This year we had to re up our global entry, that's $120, but I paid $99 for 95 for an annual fee. So I saved money. Right. Because I got that Global entry for free. So those are just some of the things that you should have in your annual planner.

[Jill]

So all of these things that we've just mentioned are also in the one that we have created, the annual planner that we've got. And so in addition to even what we've talked about so far, some of our favorites is we've got a secondhand shopping list within it. So when we say we want to buy secondhand first, we don't have to just fall back on the two secondhand shops down the road that we're aware of. There's an entire list of ways to get what we want secondhand online. And so we personally have already compiled all of those things. You of course, could do your own research and compile your own list.

[Jen]

There's space for you to add to it.

[Jill]

Yes. But knowing and having that, that quick list for what specifically you can get Used pre owned, secondhand. Because I think we forget a lot of times that it's not just clothing. Like we can get used sporting equipment, equipment for the kids or for yourself if you've got a ski trip coming up, get it secondhand. If you have a tech or gadget need coming up, that too, you can get secondhand and refurbish. So having a whole list readily available is going to be really helpful.

[Jen]

And the list to keep track of what you need is mobile optimized. So when you open up the secondhand tab, you've got that list immediately to be like, oh, I saw this in Amazon, I really want it. Let me add it to my secondhand list so I can make sure I look for it secondhand first.

[Jill]

We also utilize this type of spreadsheet as a place to keep track of important things. You may or may not want to keep your passwords here. That's a whole other conversation about, you know, online safety. But as far as what is the website to go to for our life insurance policies and what, I mean, really, just all kinds of estate planning needs so that anybody in your family could access it and know what are the important pieces that I need to be aware of?

[Jen]

Yeah, where is the birth certificate in the house? What file is it? Where are the Social Security, like documents? Where's the will? So this is kind of like a thing where you can get in the list, you can check off did I do it? And then it's available for your loved ones or your partner to be like, okay, where are all of the documents for the house? Where's the title to the house? Okay, it's here. Or what's the website for the, for the ira? Like, I don't even know where we keep our ira. Here is, here's the website. So even if you don't keep the password in here, you know where to look for that.

[Jill]

I found something like this to be really helpful, especially in partnerships too, where, you know, for Eric and I, I am the one who kind of has made all of those phone calls. I have set up our life insurance, I've set up our Roth IRAs, I'm doing the budget. But stuff like this, he needs to know and be able to have access to. And so having it in a shared place can make the task just more shareable, more delegatable, if that's a word. But also then just gives them access whenever they might need it. So that's another reason.

[Jen]

Yeah, I really love the auto plan. Yeah, that's. So there's a tab that we have. And this is probably important for you to have in your, your sheet too. Probably should have mentioned that one. But you need to do auto maintenance on your car. If you watch our episode on, I think it was our last episode that we did on planned obsolescence, essentially, you know, we need to take care of our cars because new cars are not what they seem. We can't trust you can't trust it. So there is maintenance you need to take at every, you know, every month, every three to 5,000 miles, every six to 8,000 miles, every 12 to 15,000 miles. And who can remember all that? No, nobody. But if you have a list of when you last did it, when you need to do it again, then you don't have to remember that. And so we have all up to 100,000 miles, like things that need to be replaced or maintained or whatever so that you can keep your car.

[Jill]

This does take, you know, some time to set up, certainly if you're going to make your own spreadsheet extra time. But then once it's in there, then life can start to feel like it's on autopilot. You forget something, you know the exact place to come back to. It's all there.

[Jen]

Yes.

[Jill]

And our third and final spreadsheet that we think everyone needs and will make our lives far less stressful is, you guessed it, based around food. It's a meal planning spreadsheet. And so of course we've got one of these, but you can make your own. But here's the thing. This is one of the big three expenses that eats away the majority of our money month to month, year over year.

[Jen]

That's what I'm thinking. Oh, we eat so many times a day, every day. I think you always have to be thinking about food.

[Jill]

Yeah. And then, so then you buy food, but then you're too tired or the plans change, then you're eating out and we just need to listen. We're never going to become perfect with it because this is something we have to do every single day. But guess what? So many times, some weeks and some months can go really well, but only when we have a plan for it and when we've made that plan as simple as possible. And when we've made that plan something that we know we're going to enjoy, we're going to eat, we're going to do, we're going to engage in, because it's not complicated. And so this is something that can help us to eat at home more, cook at home, that is. That is the biggest key to saving money on food.

[Jen]

But you don't want to hear it.

[Jill]

Just about eating at home. It's about eating what you already have. It's about overlapping ingredients and it's about making sure that the meals are really simple. So they're gonna take you less than 30 minutes. It's about, again, just keeping it simple, keeping it tasty, keeping it doable. Keep utilizing that freezer. And that's only gonna go so well if we're just winging it when we actually have something written down and we're then able to build upon it and say, these are my favorite recipes. These are the recipes I was able to do in 20 minutes. And these are the recipes that froze.

[Jen]

Well.

[Jill]

Forget about the time and energy saved. Like, that's insane to just be like. And I know you've recently done this where you're making a list of eight in different categories. Eight different things. A sweet snack, a salty snack, a chicken dish and an other dish. And what are eight options in each of those categories? It can be as simple as that. But we do need it. We need it in a spreadsheet.

[Jen]

Yeah. And it's not about following the plan perfectly quickly. It's about having it there.

[Jill]

Yeah.

[Jen]

So that you have it to look back on. And that's why I pick eight. Eight breakfasts as well. That's why I just picked eight of each. So that I can go back if I don't know what I want to cook. Maybe I don't wanna cook something on my plan. That's totally fine. I just go back to my list of things and then I pick something. Cause I know I've planned. The list is short. I'm probably going to have those ingredients on hand because they overlap with other things. So it's just going to be much, much easier. And I eat a lot of chicken. I like chicken. So that's why I have like eight chicken and then eight other, like, literally, you know, vegetarian, pork, beef, all that turkey stuff. So I think the most important thing that you can have for your meal plan is like a list of recipes that you know you'll eat that are quick to make. You can also go to frugalfriendspodcast.com meals we have a book of 15 emergency meals. Free, totally free. 15 emergency meals. And you can start by adding some of those to your list. They're very frequently overlapped ingredients on hand. Easy, quick to make, easier than takeout. So having that list of meals that you can pull from and maybe you just commit to those for one quarter, we're not trying all kinds of new things. There's just like, these are my recipes that I'm gonna make for the next three months, and this is it. And if I think about something else, I add that to next quarter's list, and we try the stuff there. So that. And then also the inventory of the foods that you have in your fridge, freezer, and pantry. So you know what you're working with. This, honestly, can be as simple as taking pictures of them weekly. I know you take pictures and then at work, then you'll look through what you have. Yeah.

[Jill]

And so some of the cool things that our particular meal planner has, everything that Jen already mentioned. But also we've got some conversion charts. I will often find myself, you know, needing to Google again and again these different things. But if it's all in my. My spreadsheet that I'm already in, because it's where my recipes are linked, it's where everything already lives, then I can know, all right, if I'm doubling a recipe or trimming it down. What. What does that mean for me? How can I quickly kind of convert those things? We've also got a substitutions cheat sheet, which this is. This is the holy grail, honestly. Because one of. One of the ways that we save, too, when it comes to food is by limiting the amount of times that we go to the grocery store. Ideally, the aim is once a week, no more than once a week, because we're just going to be spending so many more impulse money on that. And so what. What can happen, though, is if we're not going all of the time, we forget something. It's inevitable. But here's the thing. A lot of times, it doesn't matter. You don't have a specific type of vinegar. You don't have a lemon, you don't have milk. But there might be other things you have that that could replace those. And the recipe tastes just fine or possibly even better. We actually. I rarely keep milk on hand, but Eric loves to make Mac and cheese, but I always have Greek yogurt. And so I'm. He's like, oh, how can I make the Mac and cheese? I'm like, try out the Greek yogurt. Loved it. It is the creamiest Mac and cheese. Even if we had milk, we would choose Greek yogurt because it made it so good. So you might even discover that there's something even better. So, substitutions cheat sheet. A thousand meal ideas, my friends, we did the work for you.

[Jen]

This was probably my piece De resistance stomp. Like I. It took me a long time. It's a list of literally 250 poultry dinner recipes, 250 beef pork recipes, 250 lunch light dinner vegetarian recipes, and then 250 breakfast recipes with links to food blogs that have them. Not like the exact link because those things can change. But yeah, this is just. And you don't have to cook all thousand of them. They're just like you don't know what to cook. You come to your list of a thousand meal ideas and I bet there's going to be something that kind of piques your interest.

[Jill]

So the three spreadsheets are a budget spreadsheet, a finance planner spreadsheet and a meal planning spreadsheet. Keep em simple, you can make em yourself. If you want it done for you, you wanna get ours again code episode 587 will get you 30% off. So we'd love to help a girl out.

[Jen]

Yeah, individual spreadsheets. But also we sell em as a bundle where you can save even more. And that code works on both.

[Jill]

On all of it?

[Jen]

Yeah, on all of it.

[Jill]

Oh, it's so beautiful. You know what also works every single time and also helps a girl out.

[Jen]

And has always been free? It doesn't. We don't at free. Done for you the bill of the Week.

[Podcast Intro Announcer]

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

[Listener/Caller]

Hi Jen and Jill. I'm a longtime listener, first time caller and I wanted to share with you my bill of the week, which is my husband and I, we have a daughter who is going to kindergarten this year which means that we can use now the money that we used to pay for daycare to put towers on retirement. So that's exactly what we did. We opened an account this week and we are using that money for that to add a little bit more to our savings. I also wanted to take the opportunity to let you know that I am a college professor and I teach a course in consumer culture in Latin America. And in that course, in addition to talking about the history of consumer culture in Latin America, we also discussed the ways in which we can minimize the negative impacts of our consumption. And I'm just finishing listening your audiobook. Listening to your audiobook and I'm going to recommend it to my students this semester because I think it has very solid, grounded advice and important questions for us to reflect on our habits when it comes to consumption. Thank you so much for the book and the podcast. The podcast. I look forward to what more you guys have in store for us. Bye.

[Jen]

Oh my goodness.

[Jill]

This is amazing. This is one of the top 10.

[Jen]

The book is being recommended in a college class. Take that in. And same thing. Once we're done with daycare, we too will put we're planning to put that money back into our rother. So like sames. Yeah. And thank you from the bottom of my heart.

[Jill]

This course that you're teaching sounds so riveting and I'm so thrilled that it exists and that you are teaching it and just well done training up the next generation and well done with your daughter going to kindergarten. Congratulations.

[Jen]

You did it.

[Jill]

You did it and you got money to spare now. We love that. If you all are listening, have a bill that you want to share. If it's about recomm our book at a university or anywhere. Or anywhere. Buying the book, not, you know, loving to spend money on purchasing the book. We'd love to hear about it. Or if your name is Bill, you know we want to hear from you. Frugalfriendspodcast.com Bill Quince is all about elevated.

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[Jen]

They really nail the staples. Think 100% organic cotton sweaters, premium denim with stretch that's comfortable all day, and cotton cashmere blends that work perfectly for changing seasons. These are the pieces you reach for.

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[Jill]

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[Jen]

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The start of the year always has me thinking about our goals, especially maxing out our Roth IRAs, building savings and planning for the long term stuff. But goals are just wishes if you don't have the right systems to support them. That's why I use Monarch. It's the budgeting app I use to actually implement those plans, not just track what already happened.

[Jill]

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[Jen]

What I love is that Monarch helps you move from tracking to actually achieving. I can see exactly where our money is going, project our savings, and map out what it takes to hit those milestones. It's helped us feel way more confident and intentional with our money.

[Jill]

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Now it's time for the lightning round.

[Jen]

Okay, what is your single favorite thing in all of our spreadsheets?

[Jill]

Oh, wow. Okay, you go first.

[Jen]

Okay. So I kind of have two. I will say my favorite thing now is the opportunity cost calculators. I think that's so cool. I think having tools within your spreadsheet to help you stick to your budget is so essential. Like, I can't believe that, you know, like I use Monarch, but I do come back to the opportunity cost calculators just in random life things. So, you know, I'm not saying use both, but since I have access to both, I do use both.

[Listener/Caller]

Yeah.

[Jen]

But I, I will say the reason that I wanted to make our annual finance planner is for the travel rewards credit cards. The all of the things that are offered with my credit cards. We are people who every couple months get a new credit card. I want to see when I signed up for that credit card so I know when to cancel it so I don't get charged the annual fee. I want to know backlog so I know when I'm annual for ready for that. That card again to get the welcome bonus again. It travel rewards card. Like not hacking but you know, optimizing takes some record keeping. And I just had that kind of in a notes doc on my phone and it was just getting too like, you know, confusing. And so the idea for the annual finance planner came from that. Like, what other things am I not taking full advantage of? Because I just don't have them all in one place to know about them 100%.

[Jill]

My favorite thing is actually coming back to the annual finance planner as well. And it is that secondhand strategy list. I just feel like we are not aware of 90% of the secondhand online store options. Like where's the lie? Try me. We don't know about 99% of them, but I'm going to be, you know, conservative about it. And so to be able to have this, this particular tab within a spreadsheet talking about what are the secondhand fashion and accessory.

Secondhand stores.

Furniture and home decor, Books, media and electronics, Kids and baby miscellaneous and general marketplace athletic and running shoes. Because we know, we know you runners.

[Jen]

I recommend. Okay, I'm a runner, but I did recommend. It's relaygoods.com I know exactly which one it is because I recommended it to Travis, my husband, last night because he wanted to get new black shoes to wear at the school he teaches at. And I was like. And he normally goes to Facebook Marketplace. That's the first place he goes. But he wanted to be specific. He needs all black shoes for work.

[Listener/Caller]

Yeah.

[Jen]

So it's a little harder when your specifications are that dialed in. So I was like, okay, don't go to Amazon or anything. Go to Relay Goods and see if they have black shoes there.

[Jill]

Yep.

[Jen]

And he found some.

[Jill]

Love it.

[Jen]

So it's Relay sells gray stock. So it's like shoes, running shoes that people have like returned like the 30 day window. So it's is slightly used but not like used used. So that's kind of like that middle section. And so much of the online secondhand stuff is that middle section. So like, yes, if you find it in the thrift store or Facebook marketplace, you're going to get, you know, less expensive. But if you have some more parameters and you don't want to go straight to Amazon or Walmart, then these websites are a good middle ground.

[Jill]

So much good stuff in these spreadsheets. We hope it's inspired you to just get everything in order and feel really good about it while keeping it simple. And you guys have given us good stuff in return. Like reading our book and giving us reviews on them. Like this one from B.

5 stars.

Balanced, practical and fun. This is not your basic finance book. It will not tell you to quit buying lattes or avocado toast to solve your financial woes. It's compassionate and fun. It will encourage you to look at your past spending, make a plan to move forward and adjust. It is well researched and helps identify the why behind your impulse spending as.

Well as identifying what we value and.

How to incorporate those values into what we buy.

[Jen]

Beautiful Bea. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for watching. Let us know in the comments if there's anything that helps you fight your money and life anxiety and overwhelm that is legal and we would love to have that be a resource for everyone to feel a little bit calmer and more in control. Or if you have any spreadsheets or tabs that really help you keep track, let us know that too. And we would love it if you would subscribe to the channel if you're not already Half of the people watching this do not subscribe and I would ver. I would dare to say 99% of the people listening to this on social media, Spotify or Apple are not subscribed on YouTube and it's a free way to support us, to help us grow and bring this message to more people. And we'll see you next time.

[Jill]

Thanks everyone.

[Jen]

Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni.

[Jill]

What's on your fun list this year?

That's another one that I didn't we.

Just didn't have time to mention. But is a fun part about an annual planner that I probably would imagine most people would overlook is how to plan for the fun we have.

[Jen]

So we have like three sheets that could be have that fun element. We have a seasonal calendar and then we have a family fun and an actual fun list. And so Gecko Fest is definitely on it. The holiday parades like anything that has to do with holiday stuff. Annual 5Ks that we like to do or runs St. Pete Running Company will do like holiday runs we see. Yeah, I would say like any we don't really go. We used to have on there like in May and October downtown there would be free movies. I don't even know if they do those anymore. But there's things we've had to take off the list because they're just not practical for us right now. But toddler one thing that we just did on our list very recently was that the trampoline park has a toddler time Saturday mornings. Whoa. It's discounted and it's only for five, like five, six and under. So we just did that. Yeah. And it also helps us get out of the house more. You know, there's so many things to do. Who can remember them all. But if it's on the list I'm like, oh, we should do something this weekend. We don't have anything going on. I go to the list.

[Jill]

Oh, it's so good. I love having fun. Pain.