660: How to Stop Spending Money

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Side Hustle Show - Episode 660: How to Stop Spending Money

Introduction

In Episode 660 of The Side Hustle Show, host Nick Loper and guest Jen Smith delve into effective strategies for curbing unnecessary expenditures. Jen, a seasoned side hustler and co-host of the Frugal Friends podcast, shares actionable insights from her experiences and her newly released book, Buy What You Love Without Going Broke. This episode is a treasure trove for listeners looking to optimize their personal finances by addressing the often-overlooked expense side of money management.

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1. Understanding the Expense Side of Personal Finance

Jen Smith emphasizes the importance of viewing personal finances holistically, akin to managing a business's revenue and expenses. While increasing income is a common focus, managing expenses can yield quicker and more substantial financial benefits.

• Tracking Past Expenses: Jen advises starting with a retrospective analysis of the last 90 days of spending to identify patterns and habits. This foundational step equips individuals to recognize areas prone to overspending.

  "You have to know what you're doing. You have to track your expenses for this." — Jen Smith [02:08]

• Analyzing Spending Habits: By categorizing expenses using tools like credit card statements or budgeting apps (e.g., YNAB, Monarch, Copilot), individuals can pinpoint recurring unnecessary expenditures, such as repeated grocery store trips due to poor list adherence.

  "Maybe I'm not going to the same place over and over, but I'm doing different take out over and over." — Jen Smith [03:29]

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2. Building an Effective Spending Plan

Transitioning from tracking to planning involves creating a flexible spending plan tailored to individual lifestyles.

• Spending Plan vs. Strict Budget: Jen suggests that instead of a rigid budget, a spending plan offers more flexibility, allowing for discretionary spending without guilt.

  "I create fewer categories; it actually gave me more freedom to not spend on things and to spend without guilt." — Jen Smith [07:09]

• Zero-Based Budgeting: This method assigns every dollar a specific role, ensuring intentional allocation towards financial goals, such as saving for a side hustle or paying off debt.

  "You have a job for every dollar. So that dollar's job could just be a miscellaneous fund." — Jen Smith [09:40]

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3. Practical Money-Saving Hacks

Jen and Ben discuss several tactical approaches to reduce spending without sacrificing quality of life.

• No-Spend Challenges: Implementing short-term no-spend periods (e.g., 30 days) can reset spending habits and highlight unnecessary expenditures.

  "A no spend challenge can help you figure out, okay, what are the things that I am constantly thinking about that I really truly miss." — Jen Smith [28:27]

• Substitution Game: Replace current expenses with more cost-effective alternatives. For instance, switching to affordable cell phone plans like Mint Mobile or renegotiating car insurance can lead to significant savings.

  "Have you considered this better, cheaper alternative? It's a natural affiliate recommendation to make that switch." — Ben [24:43]

• Cash vs. Credit: While credit cards offer rewards, they can lead to increased spending due to their intangible nature. Using cash can provide a tangible sense of expenditure, promoting mindful spending.

  "It's the sound of your marketing working." — Ben on credit card promotions [36:02]

• Deal-Finding Tools: Utilize browser extensions and websites like Benny and Unroll Me to find secondhand deals and manage marketing emails effectively, reducing the temptation of impulse buys.

  "I use Benny... it saves me way more than like any rebate app because I'm saving 50% on things that are even new with tags." — Jen Smith [41:03]

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4. Behavioral Strategies for Sustainable Saving

Addressing the psychological aspects of spending is crucial for long-term financial health.

• Accountability Partners: Having someone to support and hold you accountable can significantly increase the likelihood of adhering to spending plans.

  "You got to have somebody else who can support you and say, no, no, no, we're in this together." — Ben [49:54]

• Celebrating Small Wins: Acknowledging and celebrating minor financial achievements fosters motivation and reinforces positive habits.

  "Celebrate small wins. Reflecting on the journey so that the next time you're trying to accomplish something and you're not sure if you can do it, you can actually look back and be encouraged." — Jen Smith [51:21]

• Managing Lifestyle Inflation: As income grows, it's natural to increase spending. Jen advises ensuring that lifestyle upgrades are proportionate to income increases and aligned with personal values.

  "Lifestyle inflation is not bad as long as it's proportionate to your income inflation and it aligns with what you truly value and what your goals are." — Jen Smith [56:55]

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5. Tools and Resources Mentioned

• Budgeting Apps: YNAB, Monarch, Copilot
• Deal-Finding Extensions: Benny, GM Gem Search
• Email Management: Unroll Me
• Financial Literature: Dopamine Nation by Ann Lemke
• Books: Buy What You Love Without Going Broke by Jen Smith

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6. Conclusion and Final Tips

The episode wraps up with a reinforcement of the discussed strategies, encouraging listeners to implement these money-saving tactics to achieve financial freedom and support their side hustle endeavors. Jen highlights the significance of community and support systems in sustaining financial goals.

"Work with your brain, not against it. Put up the guardrails so that path doesn't derail you from your financial goals." — Jen Smith [46:13]

Nick and Ben commend Jen for her valuable insights and promote her various projects, including her upcoming YouTube endeavors and the Frugal Friends podcast. They also remind listeners to explore additional resources and tools to enhance their financial strategies.

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Key Takeaways

1. Track and Analyze: Begin with a thorough review of past expenses to understand spending behaviors.
2. Flexible Planning: Create a spending plan that allows for discretionary spending without feeling restricted.
3. Implement Hacks: Utilize no-spend challenges, substitution game, and reputable deal-finding tools to reduce costs.
4. Behavioral Adjustments: Leverage accountability partners and celebrate achievements to maintain motivation.
5. Mindful Upgrading: Ensure that lifestyle enhancements are intentional, proportionate, and aligned with personal values.

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By integrating these strategies, listeners can effectively minimize unnecessary expenditures, thereby maximizing their financial resources for side hustles and long-term financial stability.

Transcript

[Nick Loper]

We just got back from this family trip, and it's always great to unplug and spark some creativity by getting outside of your normal routines. But there's a part of me that doesn't love the house just sitting empty while we're gone. Like, here's an asset that could be making us money, maybe even offsetting the cost to the trip. This is where Airbnb's co host network comes in. Whether you're working remotely or you're constantly on the road for your 9 to 5, or you're splitting time between homes, your house doesn't have to sit empty. Instead of letting it drain your wallet, you're still paying for it. Let it fill your wallet with a little help from a professional local co host. Extra income without the extra stress. That's the side Hustle dream, right? The key is finding the right support to help make it happen. Airbnb co hosts handle everything from creating a standout listing to managing reservations to communicating with guests, even helping you style the space.

[Ben]

They take care of the details so.

[Nick Loper]

You don't have to be on call all the time. If you're ready to make your space work for you, take the next step and find a great co host for your property. Just head over to Airbnb.com host and now onto the show. One of the fastest ways to make.

[Ben]

Extra money, to stop spending as much.

[Nick Loper]

It goes straight to your bottom line. Hey, and you didn't even have to.

[Ben]

Come up with a new business idea. Today we're talking tactical and creative money saving hacks with a longtime listener, a serial side hustler. She's the co host of the Frugal Friends podcast and co author of the.

[Nick Loper]

New book buy what you love without going broke.

[Ben]

Jen Smith, welcome to the side Hustle Show.

[Jen Smith]

Nick, thanks so much for having me. This is for sure a full circle moment for me.

[Ben]

Well, it's been a long time coming. Appreciate you joining me today. I think we both are in agreement that it's important to take a holistic view of personal finance, thinking of yourself as the CEO or the CFO of.

[Nick Loper]

Your own life, and really taking charge.

[Ben]

Of your personal profitability, which of course includes the revenue side, which we've got hundreds and hundreds of episodes about increasing your income. But it also includes the expense side, which we typically don't talk a lot about. And with that, I want to tee it up to you for suggestion number.

[Nick Loper]

One on how to spend less money.

[Ben]

Start saving more, or maybe a foundation that you need to lay on this mission to get the Spending in check.

[Jen Smith]

Yeah, I love side hustling, but you're right. When you focus on the expense side, that's the lowest barrier to entry. And you can start seeing more margin between your income and expenses faster when you stop spending money than if you're just focused on side hustle. So what we tell everyone to do is, yes, first track every expense, but not just your current expenses and your future expenses. First, you want to start with your past expenses, too. So first look back at your last 90 days of spending and figure out what are the patterns, what are the habits, what am I already spending on? So that way you're better prepared as you go through life and you're spending money. You have a little bit more knowledge and a little bit more preparation on the things you're more prone to spend on the situations where you're more prone to impulse spend or to overspend. So we look back before we look forward. But that first tip is the same, is that you have to know what you're doing. You have to track your expenses for this.

[Ben]

Are you just pulling up the past three months of credit card statements and trying to figure out, well, where to really go? Trying to categorize this spending into different buckets?

[Jen Smith]

Yeah, you can really easily do it with whatever you're using for your credit card or your debit card, wherever your transactions are, or if you're using a budgeting app like Ynab, Monarch Copilot, any of those, they do it automatically for you. And it's really easy to sort by the dates that you made. So maybe you went on vacation. You want to see maybe what you're more prone to overspending on. On vacation you can sort by category. So maybe you're not going to the same place over and over, but you're doing different take out over and over, just at different places. Or maybe you do sort alphabetically so that you can see your expenses at each place. Like maybe I'm grocery shopping on Sunday, but I'm always heading back to the grocery store Wednesday or Thursday because I just didn't make enough of a list or I didn't stick to the list enough. So I'm always heading back for that one thing and getting more while I'm there.

[Ben]

Yeah, this is something that Bren and I did a few months ago. We used Monarch, which there's some level of irony in it being a paid tool to help you spend less.

[Jen Smith]

I use Monarch too. Yeah, I pay for it as well.

[Ben]

You know, they probably have some like, new customer discount. Well, I'll look that up, I'll link it up in the show notes for you. But what we did because we, we kind of had this sense of, well, here's our, you know, bare bones budget or like kind of the big ticket mortgage and utilities and food. We kind of had a general sense of what it cost to sustain our lifestyle. But then like every month when the credit card statement would come be like, oh, that seems a little bit high. What did we buy? It was like, oh, well, we had plane tickets or we had a car repair or we had, you know, something else broke. It's like every month it's like, well, it wasn't a one off thing. It's like a very consistent thing. So we use Monarch to look at the last 12 months and be like, well, what do we actually spend? And it was kind of our hunches became true and the outflow was quite a bit higher than we had mentally envisioned in our, in our heads.

[Jen Smith]

Yeah, it's, it's always more nerve wracking before you actually look. That's why so many people just don't want to look back. We just want to start fresh slate, go forward looking at expenses. But you will be more effective faster if you're trying to lower your spending by knowing where you're starting from. And it's always scarier not knowing than when you actually look into it.

[Ben]

Okay, now let's say you've got this itemized list of spending. What do you, what do you do next? Cause this is kind of still a backwards look and now we've got to apply it going forward. Are you looking for those impulse buys trying to categorize things as impulse purchase? Well, that was a one off thing. I don't need to make that again or what, what goes, what happens next?

[Jen Smith]

So once you look back, then you can start looking forward. So then you would start to make a budget. But I would say everybody's budgeting style is different and everybody thrives with a different level of either being very strict or being very loose. Like for me, I hated the strict budget, but I thought that's what I had to do to be in control of my spending. And what I found was when I gave myself more flexibility in the categories, like created fewer categories, it actually gave me more freedom to not spend on things and to spend without guilt. And it made it more sustainable for me. So. But the next point is to make a spending plan for the future. You can call it spending plan, budget, whatever makes you feel good.

[Ben]

Spending plan sounds better than budget for sure.

[Jen Smith]

Right. So like the beautiful thing about language is that there's so many synonyms for the same thing. Right. So if one, one word gives you like the growth, that gross feeling like budget sometimes can you can call it something else.

[Ben]

Yeah. So it feels like very restrictive.

[Jen Smith]

Yeah, right. Right. So making some kind of spending plan for what I want to do. And we recommend a zero based budget, but not just to have every dollar tied up into whatever's most efficient, but so that you know that you have enough to put towards your financial goals and whatever you're planning to do. So if you need a little extra capital to start a side hustle, or you're trying to pay off a debt before you can so you can work less, you have more time for your side hustle, you want to make sure those things are covered first and on the timeline you want to cover them. And then with the rest, that's where we figure out our discretionary purchases. Obviously paying bills, you know, first and foremost, but that's kind of what you want to do. And you can make a budget or spending plan that you will stick to better because you already know what you're spending on other things. You're not just taking a shot in the dark on what you're spending on takeout or coffee or whatever. You actually know how much you've been spending over the past three months. So maybe you spend the same or maybe you shave it a little bit, but you're not going to cut it by 90% because it's an arbitrary thing that you think, quote unquote, you're supposed to be spending that much.

[Ben]

Okay, maybe akin to a New Year's resolution. It's I'm gonna lose 50 pounds. It's like, well, why don't we start by losing five baby steps here. My understanding of zero based budgeting is maybe a cousin to like the profit first methodology in business accounting, where it's like I'm gonna allocate whatever percentage of the income like straight to the bottom line first. And maybe in a personal sense that's like straight to savings or that's straight to 401k contributions, like kind of out of sight, out of mind. And what my mother in law would always do. And maybe this is similar. You could tell me if like I'm getting zero based budgeting wrong, but she would like from her paycheck, direct deposit, just what was needed for her, you know, monthly expenses, you know, I got to pay the mortgage, I got to buy groceries, I got to do utilities and everything else was like out of sight, out of mind, into savings, into investments. And it was a really effective system for her. Is that what I'm understanding?

[Jen Smith]

Yeah, that can be it. And I think it's, it's not so much where the money goes that zero based budgeting is, but it's having a job for every dollar. So that dollar's job could just be a miscellaneous fund and you have a larger miscellaneous fund because you don't want to have a coffee budget, a takeout budget, a grocery budget, a non food grocery budget, which I have seen, like people have two checkouts at the grocery store because they want to categorize food and non food differently. Like if that's you and you love that, do you? That's not me. So I would rather have bigger categories and more flexibility within them. And it can still be zero based.

[Ben]

Yeah. Okay. I like that call to make sure every dollar has a job putting it to work. When I first started working, I get the direct deposit. It's like, okay, whatever they say, allocate 10% to 401k or up to whatever the company match was. And then everything else just went into checking. And I didn't necessarily need, like I probably could have accelerated my saving or investment journey. You know, kind of was a natural saver to begin with, but didn't do a great job of investing that in compounding assets. It just kind of sat there in a lot of cases.

[Jen Smith]

Yeah, when you are intentional about what you do with your money, when you get it, it just, it works better. And when you take care of the bigger things, you don't have to stress so much about the smaller things. And so that's like the 8020 rule in saving money. So when we look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics on what Americans spend on most, the biggest things are housing, transportation and food. Those make up about 60%, those three things. 60% of our monthly budget. So if we can focus on those three things first, mainly housing and transportation, where we make decisions about that maybe every 5, 10, 15 years. But if we focus on those really intentionally, then the $6 latte or the $20 takeout makes a lot less of an impact. So for me, that was when I got my last car. I didn't pay cash for it, I got a loan for it. And that's okay with me. Like, I'm not against like car loan debt, but what saved me $4,000 in one sitting was that after hours of negotiating for one car, which was virtually identical to another one on the website, they were the same price But I was sitting there waiting to get this one car that after all the fees, and I have no idea how it inflated to $4,000 more than the other car. And I had this feeling like this sunk cost feeling. I'd already spent so much time, negotiated. I've negotiated down a lot. I've invested a lot into the salesperson that I've never met before and will never see again in my life. So I was sitting there and I was about to buy the car to just bite the bullet until I realized, is this worth $4,000, like what I'm sitting here for and worrying more about myself versus the time and the other people around me. And I was like, no. So I got up, left and went and got the other car and in that one moment, which was very uncomfortable, and I did not like saved me $4,000. So it's making decisions like that that are what's going to help us like really, really cut our spending.

[Ben]

Yeah, that makes sense. It's not so much the coffees here or there. I mean, maybe it adds up to a lot and there's.

[Nick Loper]

Oh, but if you save that $4.

[Ben]

Latte and you compound it over, you know, it's like, well, but if it brings you joy in life, you know, come on. But no, totally like on the housing, on the transportation, if you find some creative ways to stretch your food budget a little farther, like these are the big, big levers that you can pull to make a bigger impact.

[Nick Loper]

More money saving hacks with Jen in just a moment, including my favorite non.

[Ben]

Confrontational negotiation tactic and four questions to ask before you make a purchase right after this.

[Nick Loper]

On the side Hustle show, we spend a lot of time on generating ideas and the marketing tactics that drive traffic and make sales. And intentionally less time on the behind the scenes mechanics of how those sales actually happen. And the reason for that is for tons of side Hustle show guests like Randall Pulfer, Mike Ettenberg, Becky Beach, Lou Rice and more. The business behind the business is all the same. It's Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify, and that's why it's the number one checkout on the planet. Plus, when you use Shopify, you'll be giving your customers access to shop pay, which boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning a lot less abandoned carts and a whole lot more sales going. Shopify is the commerce platform that helps you sell wherever your customers are scrolling or online, in person, in their feed, and everywhere in between. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout used by dozens of successful side Hustle show guests. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.comsidehustle all lowercase go to shopify.comsidehustleen to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.comsidehustle years ago I was sitting in a conference in Santa Barbara and the presenter asked this question, are you working on your business or are you working in your business? And at that point I'd already quit my job.

[Ben]

I saw myself as a full time.

[Nick Loper]

Entrepreneur, but it was this moment of clarity that no, I'm still very much working in the business. So when I got back home, that's when I made my first full time hire. It was the first in a long series of steps of learning to truly take control by being okay, of letting go of certain tasks.

[Ben]

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[Nick Loper]

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[Ben]

I will share on the car buying experience. I will share my most underrated negotiation tactic and it's just called silence. It's just sitting there awkwardly for what feels like an uncomfortable amount of time. And I've seen this over and over again. We were kind of taught this when I was painting houses. Like once you name your price and you present the estimate, just sit there, wait for a reaction. Like, don't talk yourself out of a deal. I remember going in, taking my car in for an emissions test and there was a place nearby in California where they had some advertised deal on the window. So I take it in and they say, well, because yours is an suv, it's going to cost more. And I was like, well first of all, calling my two wheel drive, four cylinder Ford Escape and SUV is being very generous. But putting that aside, I remember just sitting there for what was probably just 10 or 15 seconds. But like in the moment, it felt super awkward. And the guy was like, okay, fine, we'll just honor that price. I was like, oh, I didn't have to do anything for that. The other one was we were legitimately off the grid up in the mountains. Turns out, like, on Friday, our landlord had sent a note. Hey, we're going to have to raise your rate to this. You know, maybe it was a 300 increase or something. Didn't get the email because we were not checking email. Come back on Monday night and we see like three future messages. Hey, just making sure you saw this. And then last one was like, well, how about if we meet in the middle? It's like, hey, dang, I just saved a thousand bucks by not responding to this. It works online too, if you're not in a hurry. Like, if you have something in your shopping cart on some site, just leave it. Leave it for a day. Leave it for a couple days. Because a lot of e commerce stores have like the abandoned cart sequence. So you might see a follow up email where it's like, hey, did you.

[Nick Loper]

Did you forget something?

[Ben]

How about 10% off if you, if you check out now? And so that's my underrated negotiation tactic of just waiting. Silence.

[Jen Smith]

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Definitely. Anytime I want to buy clothes on Poshmark, I just like it. I don't put it in the cart. I just like it. And then like nine times out of 10, I get a special offer on the piece.

[Ben]

Oh, nice.

[Jen Smith]

Yeah, it's always, you just show a little bit of interest, but don't give them anything else. Like you can walk away.

[Ben]

Well, I'm glad you mentioned Poshmark because this is something we're trying to normalize with our kids, and that's buying secondhand, buying used. We have a store near us called Value Village, which is actually like a for profit thrift store. It's kind of a unique business where they, I think the owners are actually very, very wealthy. Because if people donate stuff for free and then they sell it, it's like, well, that's, that's a great business. But, you know, we find like Nerf guns and football jerseys and sporting equipment. Like, it's really like, they like it from like the treasure hunt aspect. And I like it because it's kind of setting that mindset. Well, not everything that you buy has to be brand new.

[Jen Smith]

Yeah, I try to buy as much as possible secondhand. Not just because it saves money, but also because we have so much stuff on our planet that we have. I think the estimate is we have enough clothing already made to clothe the next six generations of people. And so if we can stop that flow, we not only are saving money, we are. And these things are more negotiable than something that you would buy in Target or Walmart. Right. But we're also cutting down on like landfill waste clutter in our earth.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Jen Smith]

So it's just like, there's no reason to just not think secondhand first. It doesn't mean everything you buy has to be secondhand. But if we would just shift the mindset to being like, before I buy anything, I use these four questions. How can I get it for free? So like a buy nothing group or free on Facebook Marketplace, or from a friend, either trading or borrowing. If I can't get it for free, how can I get it for low cost? And so that's where secondhand comes in. How can I get it on Poshmark, ebay? Thredup? Can I buy it from Facebook Marketplace Thrift store if I can't get that? And I don't spend a ton of time searching for these, I'm, you know, depending on how fast I need something, I'm not searching for years. Right, Right. I'm just, I'm looking, I'm trying to get creative before I just first go out and buy it new. If I can't get it low cost, I ask, how can I get a deal on it? Like, how soon is the next sales cycle coming up? Because they always come back around. And then if I really need it and I can't wait for a sale, how can I buy full price and not feel guilty about it? So is there a way I can buy locally or sustainably? Something like that. So those are the four questions that I asked before I buy something in order to save money.

[Ben]

Yeah, I know that's, that's a good filter to put a new purchase decision through. And I will add another layer of filtering which I just call the waiting period. Maybe it's 24 hours, maybe it's 30 days. And this is something that I used to do quite a bit more saying I just put a 30 day waiting period on it. And you'll find in a lot of cases that you obviously can't do this with food and other essentials, but it's like for, you know, something else where it's like, oh, that's nice to have. You probably find that you lived a perfectly happy existence for the 30 days in between. And you're like, you just set a calendar reminder, hey, buy the thing. And you Might find, like, yeah, I don't really need it anymore, or I don't really want it anymore. And if you find that you still do want it, then by all means, like, okay, go for it. Knock yourself out.

[Jen Smith]

Yeah. There's so much money to be made in fintech with like frictionless payment and getting us to impulse buy. Like, all an advertiser needs to do is show up in your social media feed. You have a pattern, right? You're just scrolling. They just need to interrupt that pattern. It's literally called a pattern interrupt. They just need to interrupt it for 30 seconds to get your attention within. If they can get you to make a purchase in 30 seconds, then they've got you, you know, any more than 30 seconds, then we check back in with ourselves and we're asking ourselves that question.

[Ben]

Right? Right. Do I really need this in my life?

[Jen Smith]

Right.

[Ben]

And it's not necessarily out to scam anybody. It's just like, hey, this is a novelty product. Most of the time our episodes are on that pattern interrupt side where it's like, how do, how do I get people to buy my stuff?

[Jen Smith]

They just know that's how your brains work. I know if you're in any kind of marketing with a side business, you are uniquely equipped to avoid impulse spending even more. I find that the longer I run a business, the better I get at resisting marketing, at least for things that I don't need. Like, I truly love marketing for introducing me to things that really do improve my life. But I also know when it's something that they're trying to create a problem or create a solution that I didn't need or have before. Like, it's. They are creating it. So I buy something.

[Ben]

Yeah, I've had enough sales training that you start to recognize it when other people are using that stuff on you. And not. It's not necessarily a turn off, but you just like, okay, I see, I see what you're doing here.

[Jen Smith]

Yeah, it makes sense for us because we're in it. But there's so many people who don't know what's going on and it's really not their fault. That's why we love talking about it on Frugal Friends is so that everybody can know what we already know as business owners.

[Ben]

The next money saving hack that I want to introduce is what I call the Substitution game. This is where you're finding better, faster, cheaper, all lower cost alternatives to the stuff you're already spending money on. This is kind of borrowed from Rosemarie Groener from Busy budgeter years ago, I was like, well, you're targeting people who don't have any money, or you're targeting, like, people who are trying to be really frugal with their spending. That didn't seem like a great audience. And she was like, well, it's a great audience because if you can show them, hey, you're already spending money on this. Have you considered this better, cheaper alternative? It's, you know, a natural affiliate recommendation to make that switch. I was like, oh, okay. You know, so one example would be like, Mint Mobile in our house. Like, oh, save money on your cell phone bill. But looking at the things that you're already spending money, like, if it's been a while since you've shopped for car insurance, like your. You keep paying the same rate, but your cars have depreciated since you last renegotiated that. So, like, different things that you can kind of look at and try and get the same service for lower cost.

[Jen Smith]

Yeah, I did that recently with insurance, and actually our insurance is coming up again, so it is time to do it again. But it's things that you're already buying and need. I think it's always good to, like, rethink if you actually need it. And I do this a lot with our streaming services to say, like, okay, is this actually something I need? Because sometimes when you take a break and you come back in, then you get like a new subscriber discount. So sometimes just, like, canceling for six months can save you even money. More money again.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Jen Smith]

If you can't negotiate it down.

[Ben]

I saw this recently in relation to Costco. It's kind of like letting those memberships lapse because maybe it'll be two months before we go back. Or it might be before, like, it's the zoo or the science center with the kids. Like, well, it doesn't need to be on auto renew because we're not going to go on that day. It's like, okay, maybe that equates to 10%, 20% savings. And then to your point, oftentimes, because we've done factor, we've done hellofresh and stuff like this too, for like, meal planning. Make it easy. You know, when you cancel, all of a sudden they're like, you know, it's easier to reacquire a customer that you used to have than get somebody completely cold. So they're like, hey, come back. You know, have a half off your next order. And so you see that quite often where it's like, okay, just let it. Let it lapse. It's easy to just check the auto renew, but maybe there's some benefit in taking a pause. The psychology around the streaming services is really interesting because they're all kind of between that, you know, 8 to $20 range where it's like intentionally designed to be a very, very small sliver of, of your budget. And so it's like, well, it's almost more friction to cancel it than it is to just let it ride. But you're like, well, you know, did we watch how much Netflix did we watch last month? Or how much Disney did we really use? There's some interesting psychology around why people don't cancel that. It's too small to even make a dent.

[Jen Smith]

Yeah, I think. And we also, we believe that any change we have to make is permanent. And truly nothing is permanent. So my co host, Jill, when before they owned a home, they lived in an RV for a couple years and they never intended for that to be a permanent lifestyle. Like they were not RV YouTubers who, you know, built a brand around being digital nomads. Right. They literally did it to save money on their living expenses for two years. And that's how we ended up meeting them because they just took advantage of living in an RV to take a road trip down to Florida. So so many of the things we think of, or maybe it's not having a car, a second car or a car at all. Maybe you skip out for six months or nine months and just take an E bike or you're a one family car. Nothing that you do to save money has to be permanent. But if it's worth the money you will save for however long you do it, that could make a big dent in your future goals.

[Ben]

Yeah, we have strongly considered becoming a one car household in this interim period where the kids are pre driver's license age because it's like the insurance carrying cost sits at the driveway most of the time not getting used. And sometimes now we got to jumpstart the battery and stuff, but you kind of have to do that math. Well, how much would you spend on Uber or Lyft, like on those very few occasions where you really did need two cars, like, and does that outweigh the cost? So there's kind of questioning to your point, some of the bigger ticket items in your life.

[Jen Smith]

Yeah, definitely. So I think my next recommendation, and it's one that I've been talking about for years and have been delighted to be talking more about in 2025 because it is a hot topic, is no spend, challenges So I know like stopping spending money is extreme. Right. So I don't, I don't necessarily recommend it, but it is, it's a gateway drug to saving sustainably. So if you're interested in it, it's not bad. But I love talking about no spend challenges which is, you know, extreme. But it's extreme for a short amount of time.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Jen Smith]

And it's not extreme just for the sake of being extreme. But so like when we were talking at the top of the episode about looking at what you spent in the past and making a plan for what you will spend in a future spending plan or budget, there is this real time period between that and that's where a no spend challenge can really help you get a handle on your expenses. It goes beyond like the subscriptions and the automations and all that and gives you a really big insight into what are my spending habits, what am I spending on without thinking, what am I taking for granted that I have to spend on to meet a need when I could really get creative and meet that need for free or lower cost. So I like to recommend doing at least one 30 day no spend challenge. Maybe you're starting out, getting a hold of your expenses, maybe you're kind of recommitting yourself doing 30 days is enough. Like yes, there are books written about people doing no spend challenges for a year, like no buy low buy years. That's, that's fine if you want to write a book about your experience.

[Ben]

Okay.

[Jen Smith]

But if you want to just get a handle on your spending and start to retrain some of your dopamine receptors to go towards other dopamine producing habits versus automatically going to scrolling the Amazon app or going to Target or any of these shopping induced dopamine receptor things. 30 days really is enough. So I read while we were writing buy what you love without going broke, I was reading Dopamine Nation by Ann Lemke. And she was, she worked with people with all kinds of addictions and the first thing she would do is put them on a quote unquote dopamine fast. And they're not really fasting dopamine. You need dopamine. But the thing is, is that you can, if you abstain from what is creating these dopamine inducing actions, these quote unquote addictions. If you abstain for four weeks, one month, 30 days, whatever, the first two weeks are very hard. The first week actually is the easiest, the second week is the hardest. But after two weeks you start to see a difference in where you're getting your dopamine hits and how you're getting them. And after four weeks, you can truly see a change to where if I'm stressed, I can go towards something that will actually treat the root cause of the stress instead of stress shopping, which is just a habit. So that's what I love about the no Spend challenge is for that right there to start paying attention to spending habits and starting to change them versus just how much money you'll save of not spending for four weeks.

[Ben]

Yeah, we had some friends recently go through this. We, we did not participate for full disclosure, they were allowed to buy, you know, produce and stuff, but otherwise it was like trying to eat out of the pantry, eat out of the freezer. And it's interesting that you mentioned week two is the hardest because this really aligns with the New Year's resolution data that, like, what is it? January 12th is Quit Day. It's like, that's, you know, the first week, like, motivation is really strong. Okay, I got this. And then week two, it starts to wane a little bit. And then by the end of week two, it's like, yeah, forget it. I'll just go back to my old habits. And it's like, that's really interesting here. And my guess is because I've done like 24 or 36 hour fasts, but not much longer than that. And it makes you kind of notice what, it makes you notice what you're missing. It makes you really grateful that you're not doing that most of the time. But it's kind of trying to figure out those little emotional points where, oh, I normally would have bought this, or I normally would have eaten this, or I normally would have spent that. And I think that's a, that's really interesting. A little bit extreme, but maybe it kickstarts or builds some awareness around where your money's going.

[Jen Smith]

Yeah. So we talk about finding the radical middle because everybody loves to live in extremes because they're really easy to market and talk about. They go viral. But where true sustainability lies is in the radical middle. And we can find our radical middle by visiting extremes and learning about them, but we don't want to live in them. And that's kind of what a no spend challenge is, right? Like, it's extreme. It helps you realize, okay, what's the thing that I can't stop thinking about wanting to spend on? Because you're right, I've done 24 hour fasts too, and I think about food way more than I would if I was not like on a fast. And so people, when they think about cutting out costs, they think about the most important things to them and be and like, oh, but I don't want to give up this. And usually that's the last thing you should give up. And a no spend challenge can help you figure out, okay, what are the things that I am constantly thinking about that I really truly miss? And then you check back with that transaction inventory and you're like, oh, I didn't even think about this yet. I'm always spending on it. So I don't I can just draw a line in the sand now and say I'm not going to spend on this anymore. So I really love it for that aspect.

[Nick Loper]

More money saving hacks with Jen in.

[Ben]

Just a moment, including cash versus credit.

[Nick Loper]

Cards, some helpful browser extensions, and how to take control and stop playing defense.

[Ben]

With willpower all day long right after this.

[Nick Loper]

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[Ben]

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[Nick Loper]

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[Ben]

That's the sound of your marketing working.

[Nick Loper]

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[Ben]

One of my favorite features is their.

[Nick Loper]

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[Ben]

What do you think about this one? Because I have been very pro credit card rewards. We have banked thousands of dollars worth of cash back and free flights around the world. Like it has been, you know, almost a part of our identity to, you know, take advantage of these credit card bonuses. But there's some pretty compelling data that says people spend more and consistently more and significantly more when they're using credit cards instead of cash.

[Jen Smith]

If you have a spending plan, you can use credit cards really responsibly and take advantage of all the benefits that they have to offer. I love credit cards for the safety they afford you when you're making transactions for all of the flight and hotel benefits. I love them. But you have to be working on a plan because sometimes, Ben, I've done this before. When you're consumed about getting to those like, like minimum spends to get the bonus or whatever, you can just throw something else on the credit card because you're like, oh, I'll make it up with the points I get, which really isn't. And then your points just sit there like in perpetuity because you have so many and you can't, you know, can't take off time for work to travel for six months with all your points.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Jen Smith]

So being very intentional with a spending plan can help you really get the most out of credit card usage. And put into perspective, okay, what is enough, like what vacations am I trying to take? How many points do I need to get there? And do I have to hoard points just because I can?

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah. You can't take them with you and they keep getting devalued year after year. So use them up. We do think cash is important for the kids, especially a younger one, to see that physical transaction, the money leaving his Hands. For me it's almost the opposite where it's like it feels like, it feels like it's free because I know it's not going to hit the account. I'm not going to see it on my statement. It's just like oh, here's 20 bucks. Sure. But there's some interesting psychology around cash versus cards.

[Jen Smith]

Yeah, I definitely think it's wise when you're starting out and if you believe you do have a pro like a real problem with overspending, just lock the credit cards for a few months and just use cash. It does. It's not a long term solution but it is a good short term exercise.

[Ben]

On the shopping side, going back to getting the best deal. I like the site Cashback Monitor. I like Rakuten. Do you have any other tools, tips, you know for deal finding or cash back here?

[Jen Smith]

Yeah, I've been into CNET shopping lately. It's one of those like price trackers so you can see if something is less expensive on another site. I use Benny B E N I. So that is a site that helps. Well it's a browser extension and so like if I'm on, if I see somebody wearing a cute Lululemon sweatshirt I can look it up on the Lululemon website and then the Benny browser extension I click that and I can find the sweatshirt on secondhand sites like Poshmark, Thredup, eBay, RealReal, all of those resale sites. It will look at that particular new item and find it all over the Internet secondhand. And so I actually love that. It saves me way more than like any rebate app because I'm saving 50% on things that are even new with tags.

[Ben]

Okay, cool.

[Nick Loper]

Benny ad.

[Ben]

That's a new one to me. Well we can link that up in the show notes Gem.

[Jen Smith]

It does a similar thing with if you're more into like vintage and higher end stuff. It's similar to Benny but for more like vintage clothing. That's GM gem search I think I'm not 100% sure. I am not super fashion forward so I just use Benny.

[Ben]

Got it. Cool.

[Nick Loper]

Nor am I.

[Ben]

So yeah just buy clothes from and then just well that that fit well. So buy another pair of those or buy another one of those in a different color or something.

[Jen Smith]

I will, I will go to like stores and try on jeans and if I find the brand and size I like then I will then go and buy them online secondhand and I'll just keep buying the ones that I know fit me.

[Ben]

Yeah, that's exactly it's hard to find something that fits. I will say I have transitioned to spending more upfront for hopefully better quality stuff than rather wearing out the pair of Old Navy shorts in six months or something. So what's like the Buy it for Life or these brands that hopefully a little more durable or longer lasting. So sometimes it's. What do they call it? It's like a, you know, Pennywise pound foolish or something like, you know, single ply you end up using more. It's kind of like a. There's some certain ones where you're just, yeah, it looks cheaper on the surface because it's not going to last.

[Jen Smith]

Yeah, that's one of the problems with having a Frugal Living podcast is that people will come up to Jill and I and brag about how cheap they got their clothing or how cheap they got something. And then I'm like, yeah, but did you need it and is it going to last? Like, I think those things. I obviously do not say them out loud, but that is always what I think. It's always people bragging about what they got, what they could consume, instead of like bragging about, I didn't consume this or I didn't buy anything on Amazon for, you know, six months or stuff like that. That is what I would love to hear our listeners brag about. And anybody. I would love to hear that from anybody.

[Ben]

Yeah, and you got to value your time, too, and some friends who were very proficient Facebook marketplace, Craigslist shoppers. But sometimes it'd be, you know, driving two hours each way to go pick up this thing. It's like, well, how much did you really save there? You know, I don't know. It's like you just spent a lot of time negotiating this deal. And I hope it was a big enough transaction. And for big transactions, it makes sense, but for little stuff, it's like, sometimes it is just better, faster, easier just to click the Amazon button and have it show up at your door.

[Jen Smith]

Yeah, it is a balance. Frugality for us isn't just about stewarding your. Your money well, but it's being a good steward of all of your resources. And that includes time, your physical space. So not like, yeah, cluttering up your space with a bunch of free stuff or cheap stuff from Craigslist. It's about your mental energy and natural resources too. So it's about stewarding all these limited resources.

[Ben]

Well, that makes sense. One limited resource is attention. You like that transition? The hack that I want to share is to either not sign up for marketing Emails from different stores or brands in the first place. Or you can unsubscribe from them if it is becoming a problem. But what I tend to do from the stores that I actually shop from, like REI and some of these other ones, even like pizza, like Papa Murphy's and stuff like goes into this special folder that I don't really see. But when it's time to order or when I'm in the market for something, I can go through and see if they sent me any deals recently. It's like out of sight, out of mind, but I'm still in control. Rather than like, oh, there's a sale going on or oh, it's like, well, I don't need to see that because I wasn't going to buy it. That's the game that they want to play. It's like how to create more purchase activity. But it's like I want to do that on my own terms.

[Jen Smith]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And so I just have a bunch of filters set up in Gmail to throw those into like a marketing deals or something folder.

[Jen Smith]

Yeah. And if you don't know how to do that in Gmail, you can use Unroll Me and it sends you a daily roll up of all your marketing emails and you can unsubscribe from within or you can choose to look at the email or not look at the email. It has all of them in just in one list. And it has an app. I've been using that for easily 10 years. And yeah, I get to be in control. I get to save when I want to and unsubscribe when I'm done.

[Ben]

Yeah, absolutely. I look at my wife's inbox and it's like thousands and thousands of messages. It's like, can I help clean this up for you? But she generally does okay with the impulse buys. But it's like it's somewhat exhausting to be playing defense with willpower all day long. And we've seen this with food or with, you know, the bombardment of different marketing messages. And so you kind of have to build these little guardrails around yourself.

[Jen Smith]

Yeah, you definitely have to remove the temptation you have. It's so much easier to not have it in front of you than it is to decide to make a good decision. Like we always say, work with your brain, not against it. Your brain wants to take the path of least resistance, so let it. But you have to put up the guardrails so that path doesn't like derail you from your financial goals. So we use atomic habits. James Clear's like habit triggers the cues. And so like, is it the person I'm with or is it the place that I'm heading to or coming from? Is it the time of day? So we look at these cues and we're like, okay, can I change anything about these to remove the temptation? And that works so much better than trying to rely on yourself to make the good decision every time. Because by, by 3pm it's, you're, it's over, you're just done. That's. And, and no amount. Like, you don't need to be stronger. Like, I think we can feel guilty for our lack of, you know, quote unquote, self discipline or discernment or whatever, but our body's literally designed to, to do this for our brain. So work with your brain, not against it.

[Ben]

Yeah, remove the temptation. And some of the things it might be ordering delivery, like a grocery delivery, it saves you from making impulse buys in the store. Like, we started doing a lot of Target pickup, which for me it's like.

[Nick Loper]

It'S gonna, it's only a few things.

[Ben]

Like, let me just go in. It's gonna be faster than sitting here waiting on somebody to bring out this stuff. Like, it feels silly, like I'll just go pick it up. But the mentality is like, we'll probably save money by not going into the store and seeing, oh, what else is in here that we need? That jumps into the cart.

[Jen Smith]

Absolutely. I was thinking, I'm like, why do I do this? And I think part of it is like, if I'm going to Target for one thing, I'm already there. So it would be an inefficient use of my time to not walk around to see if there's anything else I need because then I would have to go back and I don't wanna go back. So then I look around and then that's where I end up impulse buying something instead of if I had just walked in to get the one thing and walked out. So part of it, I think, is an efficiency thing for me. And so, yeah, I've been doing Walmart grocery pickup for years, since I had my first son and he was just impossible to go grocery shopping with.

[Ben]

All right, the next one on my list is to get an accountability partner. I think if you're trying to cut back spending and all your friends don't know about this or they're going to think you're all of a sudden this wet blanket who doesn't want to do anything anymore. I think it's helpful to have somebody else in your corner who's on the same journey, who's rooting for you. I remember years ago, Tiffany the budget Nista, she said this was like day one of her 30 day live richer challenge. Day one, get yourself an accountability partner. And from the business and growth and marketing standpoint, I was like, well, this is fantastic. You just doubled the size of your audience, you know, on day one. This is great. But from the personal, like stick with it ness factor. You got to have somebody else who can support you and say, no, no, no, we're in this together. I remember even on the, the health and fitness side, like we would come home from, from work early in our careers and be like, well, we said we were going to go, go for a run but you know, it would be easier if, you know, if one person's like, nah, I don't really want to go like, no, no, no, we're going to back each other up. We're going to go do this.

[Jen Smith]

Yeah, you have to. It takes a village. And we've gotten so far away from, from that ideology, it's hard to find a village. Now if you want to succeed in anything financially, business, health, you do have to surround yourself with people who have the same goals. So they don't necessarily have to be on the same path, but they at least have to be genuinely supportive of the path that you're on. And I had to stop hanging out or talking to some people when I was paying off debt and I hang out with them now. It's not like I cut them off totally from my life because they were toxic or something. They just weren't good for me in that period of time. And so really honoring your season and whatever you're trying to accomplish and really making it a point to create community around you to support that is truly going to make or break, I don't think. I know I would not have paid off my student loans if I hadn't had my husband there. Like when we were working together on it, like, I just, I was not interested in it.

[Ben]

Do you have any recommendations for maybe one partner in a relationship is the spender and the other is the saver. Like how do you kind of bridge that gap and get buy in from a spouse or partner first?

[Jen Smith]

I think the spender and saver, like personality types are a myth. I think everybody spends and everybody would save if they had enough incentive. Like if you were gonna die tomorrow unless you made $5,000, like you'd find a way to make that money right? So everybody can do it right, theoretically. But not everybody has the same values and wants the same things. So it might look like. And people don't think that they are sometimes capable or deserve the things that they truly want in life. Like we think we deserve small things. And so we'll go after small things. And those are the things that are typically marketed to us. But big things like retiring in your 50s or even in your 60s or starting like going full time in a business or stuff like that, sometimes we don't think that we can get that because that would take so much of our time and so much effort. So we sacrifice these bigger things that we actually want to just take the smaller things. And when we recognize what our partner actually wants in life and we start to have those big higher level conversations, that's when we can start to honor what this person would actually save for. What would give my partner incentive to save. What is the thing that they really do want in life and would save for that? Because that was what happened with me. I didn't want to pay off our debt, but I did want to eventually foster. And that involves a lot of time, a lot of time investment. And it's easier to invest that time if work is optional for me and if I have a $700 debt payment every month, work is not optional for me. So that became the catalyst for why I wanted to pay off the debt. Him just being a good idea or something I'm quote unquote supposed to do or something that my spouse wanted me to do was not enough for me. I had to connect it to what I really wanted. And so you have to find the thing that your partner really wants. Enough to stop spending on the small things, to focus on the big things.

[Ben]

Yeah, getting on the same page in alignment with that big picture goal. What do you envision for our life? Having that. And the goal posts may move, but having some sort of destination in mind rather than just saving for the sake of saving. I think that can be. That can be really important. Or maybe that's something that we found helpful early on in our journey and recognizing it's a team sport. We gotta have some buy in here. But having that big picture, why it's.

[Nick Loper]

Important on the saving side, it's important on the side hustle side too because.

[Ben]

It'S like the going is going to get tough, you're going to want to quit. So it's like what's that driving motivation behind it? And it's the different side of the same coin. It's like, well, yeah, everybody Says they want a side hustle to make extra money. But why, like, what does that afford you? Like, going three or four layers deep. And if you have a spouse or partner in the picture, like, then that can be really be important too.

[Jen Smith]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Anything else on your list? I think we've done pretty good here.

[Jen Smith]

Yeah. I would say the last thing for me is to celebrate small wins. I think that we, at least for me, and I think this might be for a lot of personal finance nerds. We are so quick to move the goalpost. We hit one goal and then we just, you know, move back and we're already on to the next without recognizing what we've done and celebrating that. So really taking time after we achieve a goal, like, what did I struggle through so that I don't forget that? And then what was really easy for me that I thought wasn't going to be easy? And so all of these things reflecting on the journey so that the next time you're trying to accomplish something and you're not sure if you can do it, you can actually look back at what you did the last time and be encouraged. And these successes and pushing through setbacks, they all compound on themselves. So the goals that you reach can be bigger and bigger.

[Ben]

That's right. Keep leveling up. That's the name of the game. And I do want to add a point here that, like, as your income increases, as your side hustle starts to grow, as you level up in your career, like some level of lifestyle creep, lifestyle inflation is, you know, is recommended.

[Nick Loper]

That's kind of the point, right?

[Ben]

Like, reward yourself, you know, make things easier on yourself. Enjoy the fruits of your labor. Tim Ferriss has this line about, well, how can I waste money to improve my quality of life? And I think that waistline is really important because it allows you to acknowledge that it's not necessary. Yes, it's an upgrade. Yes, it seems frivolous based on my years of frugal habits. So I'm going to acknowledge that it's a waste, but. But it's worth it because it's going to make life better or easier in some way.

[Jen Smith]

Yeah, lifestyle inflation is not bad as long as it's proportionate to your income inflation and it aligns with what you truly value and what your goals are.

[Ben]

Very good, Jen. This has been awesome. Congrats on the book launch again. Buy what you love without going broke. Buy what you love book. Com. Make sure to grab a copy. Make sure to check out the Frugal Friends podcast. Now you've got Other side Hustles, Other.

[Nick Loper]

Projects, Self publishing, Print On Demand.

[Ben]

What. What are you working on this year?

[Jen Smith]

Oh, this year is all about YouTube. We are definitely diving more into video. It's that one thing that I think will make other things easier or unnecessary in the future, so.

[Ben]

Ooh, I like that line.

[Jen Smith]

Yeah. We are starting a couple different YouTube segments for the podcast and I'm even starting to post more on my personal YouTube channel. Well, it's called Modern Frugality. So it's not like personal personal, but there are just some things where I'm like, I'm just, I'm gonna post more on YouTube. I'm gonna get over my fear of not being. Not feeling camera ready, not feeling camera worthy and just, just try it.

[Ben]

Very good. Modern Frugality. We'll link that up as well, along with Frugal Friends and the book Buy what yout Love Without Growing Broke. What's that one thing that will make things easier or unnecessary? I love that line. Now, we've been talking about saving money in this episode, but as you know, there's only so much you can cut. But your earning power on the other side is limitless, which is why We've got over 650 episodes dedicated to that topic. If you're not sure where to start, I want to invite you to grab your personalized Side Hustle show playlist.

[Nick Loper]

All you got to do is go.

[Ben]

To Hustle show, answer a few short multiple choice questions, and it'll recommend eight to 10 episodes to start with based on your answers. Again, that's at Hustle Show.

[Nick Loper]

Big thanks to Jen for sharing her insight. Big thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free for everyone. You can hit up Sidehustlenation.com deals for.

[Ben]

All the latest offers from our sponsors in one place. That is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in.

[Nick Loper]

Until next time, let's go out there.

[Ben]

And make something happen and I'll catch you in the next edition of the Side Hustle Show. Hustle on.