B (2:23)

That's right. Your over consumption may not be your fault, despite everyone telling you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And that does not mean you don't have autonomy and responsibility over your actions. That's not what we're saying. But I know someone is going to come for us for that statement. So we're not saying you don't have responsibility, but it is also important to recognize that the system built around us was built around us and intentionally, not by happenstance. And we were not the ones who built it. It was built back. It started 100 years ago. And we're going to talk about one of the men in particular who started that. But first, you may be wondering, Jen, what are you wearing? That is a beautiful necklace. And I'm going to let you in on this, like, beautiful. What cost me this necklace? You'll see.

A (3:25)

Heavy.

B (3:26)

It's so heavy to touch it.

A (3:27)

I'm so dense for our listeners.

B (3:31)

So if you are listening and not watching, this is my medal. Oh. I know from the Disneyland Half Marathon that I ran this past weekend when this is coming out. It's like the end of February, but I ran it on February 1st. And it's a Small World themed. It's themed to It's a Small World. Yeah. And so, like, the little It's a Small World moves.

A (3:56)

It has a toggle on it. This one part of it moves and shifts. I think you'd have to wear this while running. This would have really slowed you down. This looks expensive.

B (4:09)

It was, I believe, over $200. So get out of here. Kendra, Scott, and all of you other designers with your necklaces, because I buy the real stuff.

A (4:22)

A wild metal. Well done. You did the Disneyland Half Marathon. For those who don't know, that's out in California. Did you already say that?

B (4:30)

Yeah, in Disneyland. In California. So this is my first time ever in Disneyland. And, like, why am I telling you this? Cause I'm proud of it. And it's, you know, half my podcast. And if. Who else is going to be proud of me? In fact, some of you literally were proud of me. And I used an app called Rally to get voice notes. I promise I'm wrapping this up very quickly to get voice notes at every mile marker. And I want to thank, like, some of our listeners for leaving me voice notes of encouragement. That was so sweet.

A (5:04)

Some of some listeners did it.

B (5:06)

Yeah. Yeah.

A (5:07)

Oh, that's awesome.

B (5:09)

So if that was you, thank you so much. It was so sweet and I appreciated it so much. So back to the people who are not so sweet. The man that we are talking about today is none other than Edward Bernays. You might have heard him before. We've talked about him several times. If you've read our book, buy what yout Love without Going Broke, you've definitely heard about him. If you haven't, buywhatyoulovebook.com, go read it. And if you listened to our episode about why everything is worse quality, I think we mentioned him in that one. But essentially, I have been obsessed with Edward Bernays since day one of hearing about him. I'm not sure why everyone doesn't know about him, he is taught about in marketing and advertising classes, but that's really it. And I think what we are missing as a whole is that the things that are taught in marketing and advertising classes aren't taught to us as a whole. So we don't know the psychology behind the marketing that we are taking in that we are consuming literally sometimes six hours a day. So this is super important. And Edward Bernays laid the groundwork for a lot of that psychology. And we'll talk about why and we'll talk about how the stuff that he set into place in the 1920s is still talked about and is used as a framework for marketing in the 2000 and twenties.

A (6:46)

So let's first talk about who he is. He is the author of the book on propaganda and that's literally the name of his 1928 book. We're showing you the COVID if you're watching us online or on YouTube. And everyone loved it.

B (7:03)

Isn't that weird? There was no negative feedback on a book called Propaganda.

A (7:10)

Yeah, yeah. He made psychological manipulation look fun, cool and interesting. Like it was good for people.

B (7:19)

Yeah, like it was good the way

A (7:20)

that he presented the material. And in a crazy turn of events that nobody saw coming, people with bad intentions used some of those principles on how to engineer consent. That's one of the things that he talks about a lot is engineering consent. Kind of post industrial revolution. We'll get into that more. But got a little out of hand. Resulted in World War II because some of those principles were put into use on engineering that consent. But not a problem for the, for the father of public relations because he gave propaganda a rebrand by calling using words instead of indoctrination, calling it education instead of propaganda public relations. You know, you could just put new words on it. It sounds better.

B (8:06)

Yeah, we'll talk more about those not so good people with those not so good intentions. Using his framework for not so good things later in the episode. But I also just learned in doing research for this episode, shocked that I didn't know everything about this band. But we just learned he's a doctor. But don't take our word for it. Hear it straight from the horse's mouth.

A (8:29)

Hi. Next guest is a truly fascinating gentleman. He happens to be 93 years old and he is the father of public relations in the course of his 70 year career.

B (8:37)

So some of his clients have been

A (8:39)

presidents Wilson, Hoover, Coolidge and Eisenhower, Thomas

B (8:41)

Edison, Eleanor Roosevelt and Enrico Caruso.

A (8:44)

It's a pleasure to welcome Dr. Edward Bernays. All right now, doctor, what? Tell me again. What the doctor is, what are we dealing with here?

B (8:52)

The father of public relations really is

A (8:55)

the concept that people will believe me more if you call me doctor.

B (9:01)

Oh, I see.

A (9:08)

It's a good idea. Actually I am Doctor because two universities gave me honorary degrees. Well, there you go, there you go.

B (9:18)

Just get an honorary degree. You can call yourself a doctor on Letterman. And so I think it's also important to note like this man is no longer with us, Bernays, not Letterman, but is young enough to be able to have been on the Letterman show. Like this isn't something that is back like in the Stone Ages. Right. Like this man has had an impact that has started in the 20s and like led through, you know, the 90s when he was alive. And so how, how did this guy get to where he is? Like how did anyone care about what this guy had to say? And mostly it's nepotism. He's the nephew of Sigmund Freud, you know, the guy who was like an early and frequent doctor adopter of like, you know, that stuff. He had questionable opinions on women's rights and thought that every son is attracted to their mom. So that's Sigmund Freud. And Bernays took the psychology of Sigmund Freud that he was very familiar with throughout, you know, his youth and he merged it with the power of mass communication that he learned as a journalist in adulthood. And that's how he came up with this like propaganda and public relations ideology that he put into place. And he used it to become extremely rich helping corporations convince us to spend money. And so he used it a lot with corporations, but he also used it with a lot of politicians. You heard David Letterman say he worked with a lot of presidents. He worked with politicians on both sides of the aisle.

A (11:23)

Yeah, which is wild, quite the influence that he had. And so now that we know who he is, I think it's worth exploring how has he become so embedded in the overconsumption that we see now a hundred years essentially post the publishing of that book, Propaganda. And so we have four examples for you.

B (11:44)

Yes. The first one is probably the most prolific and the one he is most known for and that you can still see today and that is his Torches of Freedom campaign. And this Torches of Freedom campaign essentially is what laid the groundwork for companies today using shopping as an identity that you can like buy your identity. And here's how we got there. So what the Torches of Freedom campaign was is in 1929, so very soon after the publishing of his propaganda book Smoking was Popular. But big cigarette companies saw this untapped market in women, women smoking in secret. But it was still taboo for women to smoke in public. And so they hired Bernays to solve that problem for them. They didn't know, they didn't tell him how to solve it. They were just like, we know we could make more money if women were smoking in public. Like, how do you do that? So here's what he did in the 20s, in that time, women had just gained the right to vote. And so he used a movement that was already popular, a social movement that was already popular, and he capitalized on that to embolden women to essentially, if equality is what you're seeking and you have hope for that equality because you just had a small victory, a large victory, then you can use smoking as a way to gain more equality with men. And that's how he positioned it. And so he did that by, he hired women to smoke in public in a New York City Easter parade. They were essentially a, you know, afloat in the parade, just smoking down the parade route.

A (13:47)

Beautiful women, mind you. Yes, slender, very posh looking women. Right. We had to make it look good, right?

B (13:56)

Aspirational. So he, he took, this is the aspiration. These are strong, independent women doing their own thing. And if you want to be like them, you too should smoke in public. And the campaign was called Torches of Freedom because they, they referred to the cigarettes as literal torches of freedom. Freedom from the oppression, freedom from all these things women had been experiencing and hope for a future that has nothing to do with cigarettes. But by tapping into this idea of hope and equality and things that are within us, that are truly good and desirable by associating it with that, cigarettes became a symbol of freedom. And so you can see it was not just the parade, but you can see that they had it in. Lucky Strike was the, was the company. And so you could see that they had like Lucky Strike ads that said women are free and ancient prejudice has been removed and it's women, you know, holding their, their cigarettes. So it is wild. Essentially the campaign made it clear that smoking equals feminism and that not smoking equals repression or outdated identity. And I think we are still moving towards that. We want to buy products that align themselves with feminism and we want to avoid products that align themselves with repression and outdated identity. And it is less about what feminism truly means and its ultimate goal, which is outside of capitalism, outside of consumerism. You cannot buy identity, which we have established in so many episodes before this. You cannot buy identity. You cannot buy your way To a cause or to solving a problem. But if you can attach it to the idea of hope in achieving that identity, the idea of hope in solving that problem. And that, I think is where the marketing is.

A (16:17)

Yeah. I mean, and Lucky Strike also released ads that promoted smoking as a way to stay skinny, which is also a little anti.

B (16:26)

Yeah, you can see it on the, on the screen now. Like they're, it's. It literally there are a ton of ads to choose from to show. But like essentially is. Instead of picking up a sweet, pick up a Lucky Strike. A Lucky Strike, a cigarette. Yeah, yeah.

A (16:41)

Suppress your appetite for food, which is

B (16:44)

how you stay alive, which is super anti feminist. So the company does not care about women or feminism making money. They care about making money. Yeah.

A (16:56)

So here's how it then impacts us today.

B (16:59)

Right.

A (16:59)

We had this experience in the late 1920s. Still, brands are attaching themselves to their products and enmeshing identity to it. And I think this is also prompted by how embedded everything is with one another. So brands are on social media, brands are within the movies and the TV that we watch. And there's this other undercurrent knowledge of what that brand believes in. And there's pressure even by us consumers to say, speak out on that. What is your stance on this? What do you think about that? And they can't just sell shoes. You've got to know what are all their political beliefs and what are they standing up for and what are they. They're not just allowed to like make a shoe and sell you a shoe. So it's partially demanded by us in some ways because we're expecting everybody to have strong opinions and extreme things.

B (18:02)

Well, brand identity is an important thing for companies. A company has to have a brand identity that people can latch onto. Yeah.

A (18:10)

And we also want the things that we do and wear to say something about who we are. If we're looking for places of belonging, they're going to latch onto that too and know that they can sell those things to us. You know, I'm thinking, I mean, I think Patagonia is a great brand, but that's an example. Like you wear a Patagonia vest and automatically you must be a hiker, a climber, a mountain biker. You know, there's, there's, you must enjoy environmentalism and.

B (18:40)

Right, right.

A (18:41)

It can be aspirational, but that's going to be what people begin to associate with you. And it's just a piece of clothing.

B (18:48)

It's. It truly, if you distill it down to that, it is anti. Probably whatever identity you're going for. Because if you were truly valuing environmentalism and truly valuing, like, being a hiker, then you would be on the mountains in the weekend, you would be doing the thing, or you would be buying thrift and consignment. Like, stuff. It's so. It is when you distill it. And I'm not saying, like, you can't buy something new from Patagonia and still have, you know, be those values. I'm not saying they're not exclusive. But when you distill it down to the base, marketing and marketers have gotten so good at making sure that you honestly, if you don't buy your identity, then you're kind of like a social pariah. Like, if you're by. If you accidentally happen to buy something from a company that is like, canceled or out of sorts right now, then people look down on you. And so you have to stay abreast to, like, what is happening.

A (19:54)

But, I mean, we're even in a time where, like, you could be virtue signaling by. By not buying the brand thing. You could be like, no, I never do that. I only buy, you know, the things that are homemade in my little small town. And that's great, too. But, like, no matter what, it's almost like there's no ma. There's no place we can go and not attach our identity to, like, the choices and decisions that we're making. And so it is worth being aware of the decisions that we're making and not just allowing marketers to influence that, but also it's worth exploring. Are there other ways to find my identity and express myself that doesn't attach it to whatever I've purchased?

B (20:34)

Yeah. And the spoiler alert is yes, like, we have to intentionally separate our identity from the things that we own and buy and wear. We will have to, because for the last hundred years, it has been drilled into us that that is where our identity is found. So it is going to take the next hundred years, probably more, because nobody is on this path right now, like, if you watch social media. But for us to do it as individuals apart from, like, the masses, we will have to intentionally pry these things away from our perceived identity and really get into drilling down, like, who am I apart from? It doesn't matter the water bottle I'm carrying, the color of my car or whatever. These things cannot define me. And that is going to be an intentional decision we're going to have to make on every purchase the rest of our lives. It's exhausting. I think it's worth it? Like we don't have to be perfect, but I think we have to try. Life comes at you fast. Maybe you're needing a home office or your teen needs their own room, or you're finally ready to downsize now that the nest is empty. When someday becomes now, you need the right tools for home shopping. Which is why we recommend realtor.com as

A (21:58)

someone who loves a good, intentional search, I appreciate that realtor.com is the Pro's most trusted app based on an August 2025 proprietary survey. During our search, we were dreaming about a place with space for recording natural light for plants and a yard big enough for a garden. And realtor.com makes searches like that so easy to filter and find exactly what you care about.

B (22:19)

Whether you're looking for a mid century vibe, a dedicated home office with a door that actually closes, or a smaller place closer to family, realtor.com helps you 0 in on what matters most.

A (22:30)

And with over 500,000 new listings every month based on average new for sale and rental listings from July 2024 to June 2025, there's always something new to explore. Find your next dream home. Start searching now. Download the realtor.com app today. Spring is always the season that inspires me to finally tackle the projects I've been putting off, like cleaning out the pantry or repotting my plants. And once I start checking things off, I realized there's another category that deserves that same protecting the life that we're building with smart financial and insurance decisions.

B (23:04)

Thinking about the future, your family and what would happen if something unexpected occurred is overwhelming, which is why we trust policygenius to help find the right, most affordable insurance, including life insurance. It makes financial planning feel manageable instead of stressful.

A (23:18)

Policygenius is an online insurance marketplace where you can compare quotes from top insurers side by side for free. Their license team works for you, not the insurance companies, so you get clear guidance based on your needs. Coverage, amounts, prices, terms, no guesswork.

B (23:34)

Protect the life you've built with Policygenius, you can see if you can find 20 year life insurance policies starting at just $276 a year for 1 million in coverage. Head to policygenius.com to compare life insurance quotes from top companies and see how much you could save. That's policygenius.com the second way that Edward

A (23:53)

Bernays has influenced our consumption as we know it today is in this shopping for leis or shopping when we're bored. So before World War I, before the Industrial Revolution and during the Great Depression, people like department stores were, were solely functional. Like people shopped when they needed something. Browsing without buying was socially discouraged. If you're going to go to the store or you're going to go to the market, you're going to go purchase something from somebody. It's, you know what you're going there for. You've, you've saved up the money for it. That's what you're buying. And after you're, after you've bought it, you're going to maintain it, you're going to fix hope. It's most likely quality because like synthetic material didn't even exist yet. Then you bring us to like post World War I, the Industrial Revolution. Now we've got mass production of things. And so supply wasn't a problem, demand was a problem. How do we make sure we can sell all of these things? And so that's where our boy Bernays, not really our boy, but you know, it's who we're talking about today, taught department stores and brands how to reposition themselves as a place to spend time. Just, just go there, be inundated with these things and eventually people are going to spend their money. And people didn't even really realize what was happening. So he organized shows at new department stores to promote clothes, not as protection against the elements. We are solely talking about fashion, statements of social class, remote shopping as a respectable leisure activity and primarily targeting women. There's so many of his campaigns are targeting these women.

B (25:37)

Don't worry, we'll include men eventually. Yeah, they're not immune.

A (25:41)

And so stores became community centers. Shopping became a marker of modern womanhood, social status. And I mean, yeah, that has carried on like when I was young, before phones were regularly out and in people's hands. Like you went to the mall, that is what you do. And then while you're there, of course you're just gonna browse and eventually you're gonna.

B (26:03)

Something. Yeah, he turned these places like these community centers, libraries, social clubs. He recreated that but at malls, at shopping centers. And so he started to reprogram our minds to think, okay, I want to do something with my friends. I want to take this desire for community that is good and natural and exists organically with this desire that does not exist organically, which is, well, which kind of exists organically to consume. It has a dopamine hit associated with it. But it's not as organic as our desire for community and spending time together, avoiding loneliness. So he took those good and natural desires and attached them to something that was quasi desirable, that created a dopamine hit, but that wasn't naturally desirable, which is to consume, consume, consume. And he made it a place to get that desired, to meet, fulfill that desired human need. It is on the hierarchy of needs. And he made it socially acceptable through this and the next point that we'll talk about, but he made it socially accepted because this was the time when frugality, like if there were influencers, they were frugal not showing all these hauls or they're like 300 pairs of pants. Like this is the time when we could have been influencers, Jill. Like we would have been so good at it.

A (27:41)

That's all right. I'd rather be an educator than an influencer.

B (27:44)

So true. Yeah.

A (27:45)

So now today it's retail therapy. It's Target runs just for fun. It's Amazon scrolling, but really just Instagram scrolling. Because again everything is an ad. So many people are buying from TikTok or Instagram people, you know, seeing these things that other people have and it ending up that now I'm clicking over to potentially buy that thing. And as you've already mentioned. Yeah. That the like haul culture of watching people look at everything that I just got, even if it's a thrift store haul, it's over consumption.

B (28:20)

We don't need trash bags full of

A (28:22)

clothing in our closet.

B (28:24)

No. Yeah.

A (28:26)

And Bernays even argued this is wild to me. This is crazy. That the public should not be aware of influence. That awareness could reduce effectiveness.

B (28:39)

Tell me what you think about that in the comments. That the public should not be aware of influence because awareness reduces effectiveness.

A (28:54)

Yeah.

B (28:54)

If there was ever a thing that does like that defined like why do you guys have a podcast? Like why do you do what you do? Because awareness reduces effectiveness. Yeah. Yeah.

A (29:07)

Why are you focusing on this dude from the 1920s? Why do you talk about the behind the scenes of marketing? Because awareness reduces effectiveness. I mean he was right on a lot of things.

B (29:19)

Obviously he is right.

A (29:21)

His methods work.

B (29:23)

He's insufferable. We just need to be. But he's right.

A (29:26)

Armed against it.

B (29:29)

Sorry. Okay, so here's where we kind of incorporate like the traditional male stereotypes into who Bernays is targeting. So we see it today in kind of like shopping to save the world. Shopping to save the economy. Essentially that buying is a patriotic or moral duty. So in addition to a leisure activity, Bernays also helped popularize the idea that mass consumption stabilized democracy. He did a lot of shady things combining capitalism and democracy. And we won't get into that today. But this one really helped, really targeted men so that they would shop and support their wives shopping and spending so much money at the department stores, like they could get the women to shop, but ultimately they needed the men to support their wives shopping so that they would keep doing it, you know, patriarchy. And so his idea of shopping as philanthropy really hit this. Like, men wanted to shop so that they could support the stock market because it had just been through the Great Depression. So they wanted to support the rebuilding of the economy, support the rebuilding of the country. And so this is, this was the gateway into that. And so we see buying things as supporting workers, supporting progress, supporting freedom. There was a lot of talk about, like, socialism and communism. And so when we had the freedom to shop, we could, you know, we could be anti communist or anti socialist or what have you. Yeah, and it really saw it positioned restraint as an economic threat, but he positioned it, Bernays, positioned it as an economic threat to the country. And what it really was is an economic threat to all of these companies that, who had just invested a lot of money in machinery, in the industrial revolution to create like, mass product. And so this is where guilt enters frugality. When we think, okay, I don't want to spend money at that small business because I don't have it. Well, then I'm not supporting small businesses. I'm not supporting Main Street. I don't like, want to tip the server 30% even though it is an option on the tablet. And I have not seen the server because then I'm not supporting people, I'm not supporting workers. We see this is where the guilt creeps in. Where there is like, like, yes, there is an area where when you don't spend in the right places, you are like, when you spend all your money at Amazon and none of your money at local, like, businesses, yes, that's a problem. There should be balance. But then you've got the other sides where, like, maybe you're not spending any money on Amazon, but you also can't afford to spend at small businesses. Like, there should not be guilt in that. So, so that's really where we've come to. And it's definitely like, we see it still. I mean, we saw it as recently as 2020, 2021.

A (32:57)

Where we stimulate the economy.

B (32:59)

Yeah, we need you to stimulate the economy. And so it's not just something we saw after the Great Depression where, like we are still. And we will see it again. We will continue, I think now more than ever to see this, like, not just Manipulative rhetoric of support small businesses, which we totally believe you should do if you can. But like the pressure to upgrade, the pressure to replace, the pressure to participate. I think we're seeing in AI like the pressure to participate. I know we've spoken about AI, but like there is a, there is a pressure with media coming out and saying like our, our economy could collapse if the AI bubble collapses. So hint, hint, nudge, nudge, get on in there. Right. So I think there's a balance. Right. I don't think we should like be 100% anti AI, but we're definitely not 100% like all in on it.

A (34:00)

There's a lot more sustainability measures that need to be enacted and implemented before we just like totally dive into the

B (34:08)

deep end of anything that the media says is to support any country politician like, cause not to be the, you know, the cynic in everything but to really, when it comes to spending your money, truly cynical.

A (34:35)

Yeah, yeah, right, yeah. What's best for the individual and the masses. Can we find the third option, the radical middle chair?

B (34:44)

Yes.

A (34:45)

Yeah. Okay. The fourth and final area that Bernays, well, there's probably many areas that he has influenced but this is what we

B (34:51)

are today,

A (34:54)

what you eat for breakfast.

B (34:57)

Okay.

A (34:57)

He even wanted to get his grinding little fingers there and, and it's bacon and eggs because experts say that that's what's safe was kind of how he was able to position this. So believe it or not, in the 1920s people had to be convinced to eat bacon for breakfast. People coming out of the Great Depression were used to eating lighter breakfast. This if at all. A lot of times people would kind of like wake up, start their day and then, and then eat as you get hungry is. It's very interesting to take a deep dive on like how humans have eaten over the years.

B (35:36)

Like that's the kind of breakfast I prefer, something very light and until I get hungry later in the day, like I think that is normal.

A (35:45)

Yeah. But of course, you know, the industrial revolution, like more factories and people are working long days and a lot of manual labor and so they needed something of more substance in the morning. So different reasons for kind of why it shifted. But as it relates to Bernays, he asked his agency's doctor, so his PR agency had a doctor on staff beyond just his doctorate that he got honorary doctorate.

B (36:14)

So he did consult a medical doctor

A (36:17)

if a larger meal in the morning would be better for people's health. And the doctor said yes, more energy at the start of the day.

B (36:23)

That's a Good thing.

A (36:25)

So then, then Bernays had the doctor write to 5,000 other doctors. I mean this, this dude, he was doing the most. Yeah. To see if they agreed. And, and more than 4,500 wrote back saying, yeah, they agreed. So Bernays pitched this story saying, 4,500 physicians urge Americans to eat heavy breakfast to improve their health. That was what the newspaper headline read. And many of them also referenced bacon and eggs as the perfect hearty breakfast. Bernays didn't specific doctors if bacon was good for you.

B (37:00)

Because he was hired by the bacon industry to get people to eat more bacon. Right. So that was why he did all this.

A (37:06)

He just asked if a larger meal was beneficial and then filled in the blanks on bacon. That's a larger meal.

B (37:11)

Here you go.

A (37:12)

Bacon and eggs. That's what you gotta do.

B (37:15)

Yeah. So it was essentially like, and you see this in marketing today when somebody is blatantly marketing something to you, you know, it's an ad and you're like, like checked out. But when you are like when there's a story, when there's a problem and then there's a solution, and the emphasis on the ad is the story, the, the problem and solution, and then the solution, whatever the solution was kind of secondary. It's just, you know, like there we remember that story more. But because the solution is attached to the story, the solution stays connected in our minds. So for this one, and this is extremely common in the health sector, the problem was fatigue or just not knowing what to eat in the morning. And so he constructed this study that was really just one question. And it didn't have any parameters like how many calories or what is health? Health, you know, healthiest in the morning is a, you know, can a breakfast be too big? Which we know for a fact that it can because when I have a big breakfast, I feel tired afterwards. So like he just asked this one vague question that he knew would get the answer he wanted that he was looking for. Because really if you were going to have a big breakfast at that time, it typically was going to be bacon and eggs. It was just not a common breakfast. And so bacon is what stuck with people from it. It's like, oh, I remember the story. What's that solution? Bacon and eggs. And so that's what we see today is that this, I mean, solutions backed by 4,500 experts. But we don't know the questions that they were asked or not asked in order to give those suggestions. And we don't even know how many people gave that suggestion because it was just an article with a few quotes from people who included bacon in it. It could have been two people out of 5,000. Right. But we don't know the history backing what the experts say and we still don't whether we're looking at, you know, supplements, foods, drinks, whatever. Companies have used this manipulative kind of like, like say like study marketing to make you feel safe about buying their product or trusting their marketing. So health studies for medications, drinks, food, even life insurance supplements, they have all come under scrutiny for these false claims that they've made. They made of just being healthier than they actually are. And we're still seeing it today. We cannot necessarily trust a study or the results of a study if we don't know the full scope of the

A (40:27)

study and who did it. To me it's so.

B (40:30)

And who hired them to do it.

A (40:32)

It's so problematic to me when a study is done by the brand where the outcome benefits them.

B (40:41)

That is red flags and they, and that's how. So like I don't know and I can't say all statistics are made up, but I say 90% of them are like that.

A (40:51)

It's a tricky one because research needs to be funded. And who has funding? Big corporations. But big corporations want, have something to win or lose by the results of the study. And so there can be pressure to make sure that the study turns out a certain way. And yeah, I don't know.

B (41:11)

So it's like not enough to just look at a graph or a chart that you see from an influencer on social media and be like, look at this correlation causation and be like, oh, I mean everybody is sick because they're, you know, they don't have enough greens, clearly. So I'm going to buy this greens powder that this person says that they take.

A (41:35)

The supplement industry is like a billion dollar, maybe multi billion dollar industry. And like if there's only one thing I think to be because it can be hard, how do I know where do I go for the research? How do I know who to trust, where to trust, what to trust. I feel like at the end of the day just be very wary of supplements. Which is one of the reasons that is one of our no's for are the types of companies that we won't rep. Yeah, we're not gonna, we're just not gonna tell you about supplements because most of that time like you just need to drink water.

B (42:08)

You're not gonna hear us drink regular water. Reading an ad for a greens powder or anything like that so sorry they

A (42:14)

wanna give us so much money, but we just won't do it.

B (42:17)

Yeah. So I wanna leave you with this final thought. This is a direct quote from the book Propaganda and I really think it is something that we should all take with us. When we are thinking about things to buy and why we want to buy them and when we're making an impulse purchase and it's. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested largely by men we have never heard of. And Edward Bernays is one of those mens that are influencing the way our minds are molded. Tastes form, ideas embedded.

A (43:03)

He said this a hundred years ago,

B (43:05)

even the way we are governed. And he's not the only one. So if you want another episode on, maybe like another guy I have in mind, let me know.

A (43:17)

Tell me about more of these men, please.

B (43:20)

Yeah. Or if you have a suggestion, maybe you have the same idea that having. Let me know if you're having the same idea and we can do another episode like this. Yeah.

A (43:31)

Well, you know what? Here's to forming our own tastes and our own ideas by these women. I mean it doesn't have to be us, just yourself even.

B (43:42)

Yeah.

A (43:43)

Form your own tastes and opinions.

B (43:45)

Exactly. Become aware. So the effect of influence is. Is less effective. Love it. Yeah. Yeah. And.

A (43:55)

But also be influenced by this.

B (43:59)

Yeah.

A (43:59)

The best time of the week.

B (44:01)

Specifically this time of the week. The bill of the week.

A (44:17)

That's right.

B (44:18)

It's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William.

A (44:24)

Maybe you paid off your mortgage, maybe

B (44:27)

your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore.

A (44:30)

Duck bills, Buffalo Bills, Bill Clinton.

B (44:33)

This is the bill of the week. Hey, Jen and Jill, this is Hailey from McKinney, Texas. I wanted to tell you about my bill of the week. That was actually the opposite of a bill. It was a paycheck. This month marks one year that my husband and I decided we would start living on one income even while we still had two. In preparation for me to be able to stay home after having another baby, we calculated out how much we were gonna pull from my paycheck to cover childcare and everything else went into savings or covering a very expensive pregnancy. We received two more paychecks from my job than we expected. You know how I'm calculating out FMLA and all of that goes sometimes. And it was such a great blessing that we were able to just put it in SA savings. Love your podcast. Love living frugally. Love being on A budget. And yeah, thanks for all you do. Bye. Yes, girl. Living on one income. Getting time with your babies and it not being stressful. Getting close to pain.

A (45:43)

Yeah.

B (45:44)

Hitting Spotify near you. I'm just kidding. We're already on Spotify. But that you could only catch that song in the episode.

A (45:52)

Like and subscribe for more of that

B (45:56)

or like and subscribe and just leave a comment and say, please less.

A (46:00)

This is awesome. You planned, you saw ahead. How can we do this? How can we titrate ourselves down so that when you get extra money, it's just great for savings?

B (46:16)

Yeah.

A (46:17)

Not. Okay, awesome. Because we didn't know how we were gonna pay to keep a roof over our head this month. That's amazing. Well done. We received somebody else recently in our DMs on Instagram saying that our podcast has been helpful for them as they've been trying to go down to one income. And, you know, that may not be for the rest of life, but we go through seasons like that. Whether there's illness happening or a growing family or job loss, there's many reasons that we can find ourselves needing to really kind of tighten the belt a little bit, but still live a good life. And we're here for you. We're so glad that. That this has been useful for you and that you're putting it into practice. If you all are listening, have a bill that you want to submit. If it has to do with receiving extra money you weren't expecting, or your name is Bill, or there's Bill that you don't mind paying you. You know what we want. Give it to us. Frugalfriendspodcast.com bill and now it's time for the lightning round.

B (47:24)

Okay, who's responsible? Who is the man or woman responsible for why you're building wealth now? And this is, like, obviously not, like, in full, but just, like, one person that you could maybe name that's had an impact on a positive part of your financial journey.

A (47:44)

Yeah, you. 100%. I've told you this before.

B (47:52)

I know. Yeah.

A (47:54)

I would not have been. I was always, like, decent with money and that I didn't have a lot. And so I just learned how to, like, do as much as I could with a little. But that was it. It was nowhere near connected to investing, understanding retirement, looking for ways that I can increase income, learn how to grow what I have, and even some of that, like, encouragement to do that. It just wasn't there. It was more so how can I live on as little as possible? And I think through my friendship with you and building this business together, it has grown for me. This knowledge and understanding of this other thing is accessible for me even at this level of income, even with this type of career. I just, you know, I was paying down debt, but all this other stuff was nowhere near on my radar. I have just like, through osmosis, this absorbed so much from you, and I'm so grateful.

B (49:01)

Oh, thank you. Yeah, we do need friends, frugal friends. And it's a snowball. You get one and then other people just start kind of like falling into place organically. And you are opened up to things you didn't know, like growing up. And I've experienced that as well.

A (49:22)

Yeah. Yeah. Who for you? What would you say?

B (49:25)

So I. My first thought that came to my mind was. Was Joe Salsihai from Stacking Benjamin's podcast. He has been a really good friend and mentor of mine for many years.

A (49:39)

Yeah, he's great.

B (49:40)

But before we were good friends, I listened. I was about to sign on with a financial advisor that wanted, like, assets under management, 12b1 fee fees, front load fees, back end fees. And if you don't know what those are, listen to our baby steps episode that we did a few weeks ago. You hear me go off. And I. I just didn't feel like it was right. I didn't have. I didn't see a lot of investment options. I was like, something about this doesn't feel right. And so I went and searched online to kind of see if I was right or wrong. And I found a clip. I think it was on YouTube from Joe, and he was talking with Paula Pant from Afford anything about index funds and how accessible they were and how to get them. And that was my first understanding that, oh, my gosh, I can do this myself. I always assumed that when I was ready to invest, I needed someone to do it for me because that's what I had been told. And that was the first time I realized I didn't need to. And then that snowballed into listening to Choose a Fi. Brad Barrett from that show. Also now a good friend, but at the time I did not know him. And just hearing the accessibility part, which is why I think we try to make everything we talk about. About. We only try to talk about accessible things. Yeah. Here.

A (51:18)

Yeah.

B (51:20)

Relatable, because we're talking to ourselves from 10 years ago and. And these things now to, like, experts. It's like, of course you can buy an index fund. Like, what do you mean you can invest on your own? I didn't know that.

A (51:34)

Yeah.

B (51:35)

Ten years ago.

A (51:36)

Yeah.

B (51:36)

I assumed somebody had to do it for you because there was a time, time 30, 40 years ago where that was true. And it takes a longer time for financial information to trickle down to women than it does to men historically, statistically. So, yeah. Those were two people who did and now still have an impact on what I believe is possible.

A (52:08)

Yeah.

B (52:10)

And they're just like really wonderful humans.

A (52:15)

Yeah.

B (52:15)

And so I. Yeah, yeah, those are mine.

A (52:21)

I love the accessibility of knowledge and information that we are in currently that you can find a podcast that makes sense to you, that feels relatable. You can find information from people that you can build like a trust with. Like I collectively after hearing them talk like that makes sense to me. I love that we have that ability and it's not just, you know, the one channel on TV where you get all your info from.

B (52:50)

Yeah. It's not just Rich Dad, Poor dad, that book who somebody recommended to me in eighth grade. It's not just that anymore.

A (52:58)

Yeah.

B (52:59)

And we've got more lessons.

A (53:00)

We are like our books is an option if you're liking to hear how we say what we say and what we're saying and you want a little bit more of it. You want to sink your teeth into it. You want to understand how to manage your money better buy what you love without going broke is a book that we wrote a year ago published into the world and she is thriving and people are reading it and having such great responses and leaving us reviews like this one from KMCC 5 stars. Who says not not your typical finance read. This is not a typical dry book about finance. The author's deep dive into behaviors and made me reflect on what I value and why I spend the way I do. The content is relatable and actually applicable to many stages of my own financial journey. None of it is shame or guilt based. So if you want to be scolded, this is not your book. Read it to better understand yourself and your relationship with money. That's a great, that's a great synopsis of it and I think you know, we've talked about with Edward Bernays today of awareness reduces your susceptibility to influence. This book does a lot of that. Not just awareness of all the techniques and tactics around you, but awareness of self just to make such informed, confident decisions. Our hope is to set you up for a lifetime of really great beneficial money management. Not just the this one time. Oh, that was really exciting. I was just like motivated for three months to have a budget that's not it. We are really helping, hoping even to lay just a solid foundation for great financial practices and habits for the long term. So if that's what you need, buywhat you love book.com and then please review us if you have read it. That helps us a lot.

B (54:49)

Yeah. And please, if you're watching this on YouTube or even if you're not on YouTube, come on over. Please subscribe to the channel. It helps us spread this message and this awareness further and wider so influence can become less effective for more people. Because when we collectively reject over consumption, that's when things start to change, not sooner. And so we want this message to get out to as many people as possible. So please subscribe, like share, comment, whatever you can do, whatever you have time for, for we always greatly appreciate it and we enjoy you guys and are so thankful for you. We'll see in the next episode.

A (55:32)

Bye.

B (55:34)

Frugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni. Should I post pictures from my rain race in the Friend letter? Yes, maybe I will do that.

A (55:57)

It's something to be proud of.

B (55:59)

I am. Especially because I was raised for a whole year. Oh, almost a year. And then I fly in and I have a cold.

A (56:05)

Yeah, that is something miserable we've been talking about. Okay, so. Okay, let's talk about this. And it is related. There are a lot of people who listen to this, this part of the episode, like, who stick around to the very, very end. They're the true ones.

B (56:24)

You, you, the real ones.

A (56:25)

We love you guys. Because we had so many people comment on a YouTube video, potatoes. Because that was something that we were talking about after one of the episodes. So people came over from the podcast and they were commenting on the YouTube video and somebody else who was just watching the YouTube was like, I must have missed something about potatoes because it was Nowhere in the YouTube episode is only, you know, the. The nugget for these audio only friends. But all that to say people are listening. So that's great. What I would love to know. And feel free to come over to the YouTube channel because that's the only place you can really comment to let us know this.

B (57:06)

You can comment on Spotify, but we don't read them. Oh, on Spotify.

A (57:10)

I forget that that's not.

B (57:11)

I forget that they're there. Yeah.

A (57:13)

Yeah. Well, okay. One of the things you and I were just talking about this morning is posting more personal things. Things in the friend letter. Like not really wanting to do that on social media. I just both hate social media so much.

B (57:26)

Yeah.

A (57:26)

But I will respond to your dms. It might be like two or three days late, but, like, we'll get to it.

B (57:32)

I'm not going to respond to anything,

A (57:33)

but it's better to make comments on YouTube, honestly, because we do. Look at that.

B (57:37)

Yeah.

A (57:39)

Anyways, I'd be curious if, if people would want that in the friendline.

B (57:44)

Let us know what you want to see from our personal lives. Because when I am into a podcast, so I recently got into Smosh, which is a comedy YouTube channel. And it's the People. It's a comedy troupe, kind of like snl. They play themselves. And I just got interested in their personal lives because I saw them so much like in their comedy sketches. And then I'm like, well, this is weird. Like, I don't know this person. Why should I care about them? Why am I looking them up on Wikipedia? What am I doing? And I was like, if I'm doing that, other people are doing that on, on us. Like, they are looking us up maybe. And I, and I don't put personal stuff on, like really, maybe like once a year.

A (58:28)

But our friends, like the ones who are getting our friend letters that I would. They deserve to know what they want to know to a degree. I still have boundaries, but I am curious, like, would that be valuable to people in the friend letter? We're going to try it.

B (58:43)

But you may not deserve to know everything you want to know about me. But, like, I'll show you some behind the scenes. Like, I'll, I'll show a pic with my makeup off. Maybe.

A (58:53)

Whoa. Maybe whoa. I mean, you look the same. Neither one of us wear a ton of makeup, but. But for you too. We do put some lipstick on.

B (59:04)

Oh, yeah. That is always the thing. You don't know who be judging you don't know who be out there. Beauty. Beauty talk. They all out there. Yeah. If you're the purchasing manager at a manufacturing plant, you know having a trusted partner makes all the difference. That's why, hands down, you count on Grainger for auto reordering. With on time restocks, your team will

A (59:27)

have the cut resistant gloves they need

B (59:29)

at the start of their shift. And you can end your day knowing they've got safety well in hand.

A (59:35)

Call 1-800-granger.

B (59:36)

Click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.

A (59:44)

I'm here on the job site with Dale, who's a framing contractor. Hey, good morning. Dale traded up to Geico Commercial Auto Insurance for all his business vehicles. We're here where he needs us most. Yep, they sure are. We make it easy for him to save on all his insurance needs, all

B (59:57)

in one place with coverage that fits

A (59:59)

his business and bottom line. Oh, I shouldn't have looked down. It's all right. We're so far up here. Look at me.

B (60:06)

Take a deep breath.

A (60:07)

I'm good. So good.

B (60:09)

Get a commercial auto insurance quote today@geico.com

A (60:11)

and see how much you could save.

B (60:12)

It feels good.

A (60:13)

To Geico.