Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - The Cost of Scrolling—Free Yourself From Impulse Spending This Holiday Season

00:00:00.000 Hey, y'all. Joe here and you are listening to Under the Influenced.

00:00:14.280 Tis the season, my friends. Tis the season for sweater weather and pumpkin lattes and Halloween

00:00:20.900 decorations and all of the things. In some neighborhoods in Philly, there are already

00:00:25.900 Christmas decorations up. Who are those people? Who are they? I don't think I want to be friends

00:00:32.580 with them. I just, I think, I think that might be one of my lines, one of my lines in the sand that

00:00:37.740 I'm just not going to cross. It is also the season of mass conspicuous consumption and impulse

00:00:45.300 spending. Yes, it is the season where every time that we pick up our phones and start scrolling

00:00:52.420 social media, we are served more and more things to buy. And there's a reason for that. Advertisers

00:00:59.480 spend the bulk of their advertising dollars on this time of year. Yes, you are being targeted,

00:01:06.600 my friend. You are being targeted every single time that you scroll. And that's what we're going

00:01:12.140 to talk about today. Our guest is Jen Smith. She's one half of the Frugal Friends podcast 0.95

00:01:17.160 and the co-author of Buy What You Love Without Going Broke.

00:01:22.340 Jen has done a deep dive into how the history of marketing gets us to part with our money.

00:01:28.340 And she has some great tips on how to avoid going broke this time of year.

00:01:32.100 Because none of us are immune to it, okay?

00:01:34.100 I was scrolling one of my favorite newsletters yesterday,

00:01:37.340 and I bought like $100 worth of stuff that I definitely don't need.

00:01:44.020 This is the time of year when we're very susceptible to it.

00:01:47.160 and think a little mindfulness can actually go a long way so here's jen to help us figure out

00:01:55.040 our anti-impulse spending holiday strategy hi jen hey joe i think that what you do on socials

00:02:05.260 is so interesting because a lot of influencing is about over consumption just intense intense

00:02:12.020 hence overconsumption. And so I like anything that says, I want to help you get the things

00:02:18.000 that you want and that you like, but you also don't need all of the things all of the time.

00:02:25.040 Definitely. It's a fine line to say like marketing isn't bad. Obviously, a lot of the times

00:02:32.840 we go on podcasts or on social media to market something really good. But there is this fine

00:02:38.700 line between telling people about something that really works that you're really passionate about

00:02:43.560 and trying to convince people that they have problems or desires that aren't real. They're

00:02:50.700 manufactured or fabricated. Exactly, exactly. And that's something that you talk about so,

00:02:56.640 so much. Do you think that a lot of influencers are convincing people, particularly when I say

00:03:03.080 people, I just mean women, convincing women that they have problems that can only be solved 0.85

00:03:08.160 by buying things. Absolutely. It starts all the way back from the 1920s when this guy named Edward 1.00

00:03:17.900 Bernays, who is the nephew of Sigmund Freud, he started using his... Of course, because everyone's

00:03:26.080 related. Everyone. Right. All the powerful men are definitely related in some way. But he started

00:03:33.260 using Freud's psychology findings to help companies market their products better. Because

00:03:40.700 after the Industrial Revolution, they were finding a problem that it was much cheaper to manufacture

00:03:44.960 goods, but people didn't need all the goods they were manufacturing. So Bernays helps in a way that

00:03:53.640 he kind of starts this manufactured desire and problem idea. And he starts with cigarettes,

00:04:01.520 actually uh house you know the household tried and true cigarette where cigarettes were not

00:04:07.640 commonly smoked by women so what he did was he capitalized on the suffrage movement women had

00:04:14.100 just gained the right to vote and he repositioned cigarettes as this is literally what he called

00:04:20.440 rebranded them as torches of freedom and said that smoking these will bring you closer to equality

00:04:26.640 with men. And it worked. Women started smoking, not just privately, but in public too. Women

00:04:36.240 thought about cigarettes as a way to be more equal. And they were already emboldened by the 1.00

00:04:43.640 right to vote. And what it did was it didn't help women. It helped the men that owned the cigarette 1.00

00:04:49.660 companies because women started smoking more and more publicly. And that's where we've come today 0.94

00:04:56.200 with marketing is you have to ask yourself, is this solving a problem that really exists

00:05:01.320 or one that's being made up to make companies more profitable?

00:05:07.900 I mean, I just I love this story so much.

00:05:11.120 Because I love I love all stories about early cigarette marketing.

00:05:16.840 I do.

00:05:17.780 I do.

00:05:18.100 So specific.

00:05:19.220 So super, super specific.

00:05:20.620 I think it's because I'm a weird madman stan.

00:05:24.040 And it just makes me think of Don Draper in the premiere, in the pilot episode all the time.

00:05:28.800 But also because I think about how cigarettes were marketed to people in terms of how social media is marketed to people these days.

00:05:37.740 And Jonathan Haidt just had a great opinion piece in The Times where he said that social media is so closely related to cigarettes in that so many people say they wish they could quit, that they wish they'd never started, but that they now feel that it's impossible now that they've gone down this road.

00:05:55.140 And so I just I see so many parallels there that stories like that just, you know, they tickle.

00:06:00.000 They tickle something inside my soul.

00:06:02.080 Yeah, he also did eggs, too.

00:06:04.820 What did he do with eggs?

00:06:06.720 He normalized eggs. He was hired by Big Egg to make eggs, right? Historically, eggs had only been

00:06:15.580 used like in baking, but he made eggs. He marketed them, created a campaign to position them as a

00:06:21.980 breakfast food as well. That's why you'll go to other countries and they don't eat eggs for

00:06:26.140 breakfast like we do. That was normalized through a marketing campaign paid for by, I guess it would

00:06:33.120 be chicken farmers specifically not egg farmers yeah yeah yeah big big egg big egg totally um

00:06:40.460 that is fascinating because yeah in other countries they don't eat eggs for business

00:06:43.640 no at all at all they don't really eat eggs period i mean i could think you know you've got

00:06:50.020 you've got the croaks the croaks in paris uh croak sandwiches uh but other than that like there's no

00:06:56.100 So yeah, yeah, egg is such an American thing. So talk to me a little bit, but one of the things I

00:07:04.540 want to dig into today is because we're very close to holiday season, like it or not, my friends,

00:07:12.540 it is essentially already upon us. There are Halloween decorations up in my neighborhood

00:07:17.460 right now. I even started holiday shopping for my kids last week. I mean, mostly because we were

00:07:23.120 on vacation and I'm of the mind of see it now, get it now so that there's never a crunch

00:07:29.600 later on. But it is a time for impulse spending. And it is a time also where companies are going

00:07:38.400 to companies and influencers will be targeting you a lot. And I want to talk a little bit to

00:07:44.700 get started. What is the root cause of impulse spending? There are several root causes of

00:07:52.680 impulse spending there. And it's fascinating because it's not not every impulse spend is

00:07:56.960 created equal. Yet we feel the same after most of our impulse spends. We feel guilty and maybe

00:08:04.960 self-judgmental. But impulse spending really isn't the enemy. You you're never going to be

00:08:11.460 able to plan every purchase. And some impulse purchases are truly beneficial. And I think

00:08:17.700 those ones maybe cloud our judgment over all the other ones that we make that really just end up as

00:08:24.120 clutter and unused stuff. But there are several roots. So the most common ones are emotional.

00:08:32.860 So we can feel this really either positive or negative. And the emotions just, the holidays

00:08:39.800 just heighten these emotions, right? So we can feel very positive emotions around the holidays

00:08:46.080 to where we just want to participate and we want to like celebrate by shopping right or we could

00:08:54.220 also feel really negative like the holidays stress us out or they make us feel sad because

00:08:59.340 maybe the holidays have historically not been a great time for us or we've lost someone recently

00:09:04.520 so instead of really dealing with these emotions we put it off by shopping by scrolling and doing

00:09:13.560 all of that. And while yes, getting to the root cause will definitely help, will definitely be

00:09:20.940 the solution. If you're not there yet, we can just create better coping mechanisms instead of using

00:09:27.860 shopping as a coping mechanism. So two of the ones that we say that are kind of most obvious to start

00:09:36.000 with, not applicable in every situation, but stick with me, are meditating and exercising because

00:09:42.700 they kind of release some of the same endorphins we get as the act of emotional shopping.

00:09:51.200 Oh, yeah, totally.

00:09:52.440 Yeah.

00:09:52.780 So if you can, like, take a walk, it's, you know, in Florida, where I live, it's the time

00:09:59.720 to be outside.

00:10:00.720 We hibernate over the summer and we go outside during the winter.

00:10:03.720 If that's not where you live, maybe trying just something indoors for a little while.

00:10:09.880 So that's one option.

00:10:11.180 And also meditating has been shown to help with feelings of stress, cortisol release, all of that.

00:10:18.940 But then you also have to think of size.

00:10:22.580 So, like, sometimes we will impulse spend just as an activity.

00:10:27.560 And sometimes it's small, like I have a little bit of downtime, so I'm scrolling Amazon or TikTok shop.

00:10:35.660 Or it's big, like I'm going to spend time with friends at the farmer's market.

00:10:39.580 or I'm going to the mall because I want to check out what like late 90s, you know, nostalgia feels

00:10:46.540 like. So I do love it. I do. I do weirdly like a mall now, I think, because it does. It does

00:10:53.380 remind me of my childhood. Right. It all comes back. Right. So wherever you are on the spectrum,

00:10:59.820 thinking of activities you can do to just set that barrier and so that you don't choose shopping as

00:11:07.400 the activity. So if it's small, like you've got five minutes of downtime, maybe just like playing

00:11:12.240 an online game, like solitaire or something. That's my game of choice. If it is big, then you

00:11:17.780 can choose something like exercising or maybe it's going to a park, just choosing something of the

00:11:23.360 same size that doesn't cost as much or ideally doesn't cost anything at all. And so I think

00:11:31.920 those are the ones the emotional and just shopping as tradition as an activity is something that we

00:11:39.320 we find most often around the holidays yes yes yes yes one of the things that I do is I will do

00:11:47.440 I'll try to do a house like improvement thing like a project like a little project

00:11:53.620 but the one that doesn't cost money so I mean something as simple as I like bought well this

00:11:58.840 I mean, this costs like $8. I bought new Mr. Clean magic erasers and I magic erasered the

00:12:04.420 shit out of the hallway where my kids put their disgusting fingers. And it looked so good and like 0.99

00:12:09.740 so fresh and white that I felt like I was living in a new house. Yeah. That's another, that's kind

00:12:14.760 of like a medium size. Like I can get up off the couch, but I can't leave the house. So I can't

00:12:21.500 leave the house. Exactly. Or I'll like organize a junk drawer or part of my closet. And you always

00:12:27.460 find something it's like shopping in your closet right you always find something that you didn't

00:12:31.340 know that you had um but i like this i like i like thinking about little things to like just

00:12:36.340 kind of slow that impulse all right we are gonna take a quick quick break uh and when when we get

00:12:43.760 back i just want to talk a little bit more about what we're going to be seeing over the next few

00:12:49.440 months um on social media and and how to protect ourselves from it

00:12:53.780 okay we're back like i said now is the time now is the time that companies are spending

00:13:08.400 big on on influencers they are i mean there there are entire planning meetings that happened

00:13:14.920 at this time last year where companies figured out their influencer spend to target you

00:13:21.100 right now. Nothing that is happening online is accidental. You are being sold to all of the

00:13:27.920 time and it's only going to get worse until December. So what should we be doing to kind

00:13:33.240 of protect ourselves right now? The sad thing is it's not even just influencers being paid

00:13:40.160 by companies. It's influencers almost doing this for free in hopes of making affiliate commissions

00:13:46.520 on products they might sell. So it's everyone that hopes to make money off of this holiday season.

00:13:54.640 And I think the first thing is just to realize that, whether it is somebody who doesn't even

00:14:02.340 have a shopping-focused account, maybe their health and wellness, everyone is going to have

00:14:09.620 some kind of angle for the holiday season to increase their income there is that this is where

00:14:17.540 the bulk of people's money is made for the year i know on our podcast even though we so we're on

00:14:23.820 the iheart network and even though we talk about uh intentional consumption yeah of course of our

00:14:30.780 advertising income comes from q4 right so it doesn't matter what you talk about

00:14:37.740 there's everyone and even if it's out of your control to an extent there will be people

00:14:44.000 capitalizing on it so that's the first thing to realize that even if you don't think you're being

00:14:50.520 sold to there's always going to be a you know an ltk or an amazon like affiliate link somewhere

00:14:58.260 that you can comment to receive a link for um the next is that there there is an illusion of perfect

00:15:06.220 and I know this is talked about all the time

00:15:08.720 but I think it bears repeating

00:15:11.600 especially around the holidays

00:15:12.880 because this is when most people are showing

00:15:15.580 parts of their lives and parts of their homes

00:15:18.380 and we think from what we see on social media

00:15:22.180 because we're seeing so many curated homes

00:15:25.540 we think that everybody's homes are like that

00:15:28.860 but if we would actually go into real people's homes

00:15:32.380 that are really in our community around us

00:15:36.220 we would see that that's not true. And there's just a disconnect because we're not going into

00:15:41.980 each other's homes enough. We're not spending enough time together, you know, in each other's

00:15:48.220 cars or around each other's kids to see that what we may see repetitively on social is not

00:15:56.540 what is reality. And so you'll see this. And I get it. Like if I was a kitchen influencer or

00:16:02.420 a cooking influencer, I'd have a really nice kitchen because that's my job. So it's not

00:16:06.480 inherently bad. Or you wouldn't. So I'm going to blow people's fucking minds right now.

00:16:12.500 I mean, one of the things that I've learned that influencers do is you can rent a kitchen 0.99

00:16:19.260 by the hour. There's entire houses all over the country right now that have been turned into

00:16:27.480 airbnbs but for influencers to rent by the hour like a scuzzy motel in order to do all of their

00:16:34.660 reels and take all their pictures and they're not their houses they're not they're not but they're

00:16:40.120 there they're essentially sets they're just sets okay and so as i i discovered this recently and

00:16:47.480 i actually included it in in my new trashy trad wife murder mystery because i was just blown away

00:16:54.900 by it, blown away. And so we should all, when we look at these things, think about them as

00:17:00.540 production sets, as photo shoots sets. Yeah, truly, truly. And even the ones that you know

00:17:07.620 are using their kitchen. Yeah, but they're using like one corner of their kitchen that doesn't

00:17:11.940 look like shit. And in front of that camera is all their clutter that they just moved 0.97

00:17:17.700 like behind the camera, just like you and me. It's all back there. It's just out of frame.

00:17:24.140 And so I think we I think the solution is going into more people or regular people kitchens, more of our friends, kitchens, friends, kitchens, more of our friends and houses.

00:17:34.520 OK, yes.

00:17:35.100 Do you know how do you know how delighted I am when I show up at a friend's messy house?

00:17:40.020 And, you know, also, we're always apologizing.

00:17:41.900 We're like, oh, my gosh, it's so messy.

00:17:43.220 It's so cluttered.

00:17:43.580 And I'm like, no, you live here.

00:17:45.960 It's so nice to see spaces where people live.

00:17:49.580 Right.

00:17:49.940 and then it creates less pressure for me and I have permission to invite people into my house

00:17:56.020 even if it's messy like sure I'm going to clean the bathroom like I'm my five-year-old you know

00:18:01.180 sprays everywhere I'm gonna do you a service right but I don't feel pressured to have the

00:18:07.620 baseboards wiped down and so that's the pressure we all feel looking at these perfect baked goods

00:18:13.960 with these perfect kitchen aids and these perfect quartz countertops that are not reality and really

00:18:20.500 just put more of that stress on us that causes us to stress spend. And I think it's time we release

00:18:27.920 it. It is. It is time we release it. You know, another thing that I love doing is shopping my

00:18:34.180 friends' closets because my friends have such good clothes and, you know, that they're done with,

00:18:39.260 that they're over at this point um and so i just adore like doing clothing swaps one of the

00:18:45.860 activities i've been doing with my girlfriends lately is um i'll like just hang out with you

00:18:50.300 and i'll i'll drink while you clean out your closet yeah so i'm encouraging you i'm encouraging

00:18:56.060 you to organize your world uh and i'll tell you what to keep and what to throw away or donate and

00:19:01.240 what to give to me uh but it's just a nice time to like lay on your friend's bed right like i want

00:19:07.540 to lay on your bed and help you like do something that might be annoying for you and also go home

00:19:12.520 with new clothes absolutely yes i've been to several clothing swaps and you can even theme

00:19:17.340 them like around the holidays if you want to throw maybe a dress swap so you can find your next your

00:19:22.720 holiday party dress for the season you don't have to buy it i'm sure your friend already owns it

00:19:27.880 and you can swap you can swap dresses even if it's just borrowing like we don't intend to keep the

00:19:33.900 dresses, but we're just borrowing so that we feel like we have something new. There's so many

00:19:38.720 options to get creative, but when our head's in the sand and we think like, oh, these fashion

00:19:44.460 influencers are buying new clothes and new dresses for every season, so should I. It's not reality,

00:19:51.260 or it doesn't have to be. You can create a new reality or a different reality or a real reality.

00:19:57.100 Or a real reality. Well, they're also getting stuff for free, okay? So many influencers don't

00:20:03.660 get paid but they do get a ton of free shit and so again when we're looking at them we're like 0.94

00:20:08.540 they have a different outfit on every day they're not Kate Middleton like people are sending them 0.99

00:20:13.780 stuff and they're also usually getting sent stuff that's fast fashion crap yes yeah that's another

00:20:20.200 thing it's you have to think about your every purchase you make ends up in a landfill this

00:20:26.800 is something that's really motivating to me I don't know if it'll be motivating to other people

00:20:30.180 but everything ends up in a landfill, whether it's compostable, recyclable, or makes a pit

00:20:37.620 stop at a thrift store. Such a small percentage of stuff is recycled. Everything ends up in that

00:20:43.180 pile. Do I want this bad enough to be responsible for doing that for this item? That's a big wake

00:20:54.200 up call when you're like real time deciding if I'm going to impulse spend this new planner or

00:20:59.600 this shirt that's on sale that I didn't plan to buy today. Yeah, I think the landfill gets me

00:21:06.960 a lot now as I don't know why. I don't know when the switch flipped. But yes, every time I look at

00:21:14.320 something or think about throwing something away, I'm like, oh, yeah, landfill. Do I care enough for

00:21:19.680 this to go in the landfill um and it's true most most stuff does like we can we can you know fool

00:21:26.020 ourselves about recycling but the majority of things in the world don't get recycled yeah

00:21:30.460 actually owning a landfill is more profit like more profitable than like being in the stock market

00:21:36.040 right now if if you're looking for a place to invest i'm not an advisor i can't give investment

00:21:41.120 advice but from the research i've done for the book uh the the rate of growth for landfills is

00:21:48.980 crazy. Maybe I should be investing in landfills. I mean, I'm not going to tell you what to do.

00:21:55.680 Don't tell me what to do. I mean, I'm not, I'm just, I'm not just, I'm not Google. I'm not,

00:21:59.340 not Googling landfills, landfill investment trusts right now. All right, let's, let's take

00:22:06.360 a quick break. And when we get back, I want to talk a little bit about

00:22:09.300 non-traditional living and how you can actually downsize your life.

00:22:18.980 Hungry now.

00:22:22.200 Now.

00:22:24.360 What about now?

00:22:26.740 Whenever it hits you, wherever you are,

00:22:29.580 grab an O'Henry bar to satisfy your hunger.

00:22:33.380 With its delicious combination of big, crunchy, salty peanuts

00:22:37.060 covered in creamy caramel and chewy fudge with a chocolatey coating.

00:22:41.940 Swing by a gas station and get an O'Henry today.

00:22:44.580 Oh, hungry, O'Henry.

00:22:48.980 okay and we're back you you guys talk a lot and you write a lot in your book about

00:22:57.560 non-traditional living if you know choosing choosing ways to live outside of the traditional

00:23:03.740 mcmansion in the suburbs if you will talk to me a little bit about that yeah so we're unique as

00:23:14.060 My co-host Jill and I don't believe that frugality, even though we host the Frugal Friends podcast, we don't believe that it's a race to the bottom in spending.

00:23:24.940 And I think some people think frugality is just living in a shack, spending as little as possible.

00:23:31.780 And we really think you should be able to spend on whatever you want as long as it's what you truly value and not what somebody else is telling you to value.

00:23:40.380 So that causes us, when we're thinking about saving money, we like to think about the heavy

00:23:46.860 hitters. And it kind of draws back to the 80-20 rule. What's the 20% decisions that get me 80%

00:23:55.000 of results? And according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, American families spend the most in

00:24:01.240 housing, transportation, and food. And so those are really the three areas we like to talk about

00:24:06.520 when we talk about saving. Like for me, I talk a lot about my last car purchase. I took out a loan

00:24:13.220 on that. And so in personal finance, that's sometimes frowned upon, but I did it. But I did

00:24:19.720 save around $4,000 just by making a choice on where to purchase my vehicle. And there's no

00:24:28.860 amount of lattes I could give up that would save me $4,000. So really choosing the one or two

00:24:38.400 things you can do that make the biggest impact. Housing is our traditionally biggest impact,

00:24:47.420 but there's so little creativity when it comes to how we save money there.

00:24:53.540 and something i really love about jill my co-host is that instead of living in an apartment to to

00:25:01.520 live before they were homeowners they actually chose to live in an rv and so they owned it

00:25:06.500 outright they fixed it up so they essentially just paid two hundred dollars a month for rent

00:25:13.340 instead of an apartment which would have been seven or eight hundred so just doing just thinking

00:25:19.080 outside of the box they didn't do it long term they did it for about a year and then they bought

00:25:23.380 another one did the same thing, did that for a year. But if you can just get creative a little

00:25:28.860 bit, then one decision can make a big impact with your finances. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And

00:25:37.140 I mean, I kind of hate the things that are like, skip the avocado toast, skip the latte. I'm like,

00:25:42.600 that's not going to change anything. It's not. It's not. But yes, like decisions about housing.

00:25:50.100 I mean, sadly, the bulk of my money isn't housing at this point.

00:25:54.580 It's child care.

00:25:57.900 Yeah, yeah.

00:25:58.980 That's like a similar, I think child care is more expensive for us than food.

00:26:04.880 Child care is more expensive for us.

00:26:06.540 It is our number one line item.

00:26:08.560 It's probably triple our housing cost and way more than food.

00:26:12.740 It's insane.

00:26:13.400 And we moved to Philadelphia specifically to make it cheaper for us.

00:26:19.240 So, you know, we moved here because my mom is here because we could afford a much bigger house.

00:26:24.500 So we have an au pair who lives with us, but we also have two kids in private preschool right now.

00:26:30.940 Not by choice, not because we're poncy bougie people, but because there's not public preschool.

00:26:37.380 Yeah, it's hard, but like something.

00:26:41.840 I actually got an email from a listener who was lamenting that like her child care costs were so much.

00:26:47.420 And I think there's some to be said for how you can lower that cost, but also child care workers deserve to get paid for watching your child well, right?

00:26:58.760 Yes, they do.

00:26:59.060 And so there's a part of honoring your season that this is a few years long season where this expense will be there and it will inhibit other goals, but it's not forever.

00:27:13.500 so maybe we make some other decisions here so that we can invest there because there's you

00:27:20.260 know everybody has their opinion you could you know work at home with your children if you're

00:27:24.960 a masochist or you can i don't know there's so many things you could say i'm just like evilly 0.97

00:27:30.320 laughing i'm like i'm not i can't i can't get shit right when my kids are around okay so yeah 0.95

00:27:36.920 there's ways to get creative if that's where you want to get creative in there are also ways to

00:27:42.980 get creative in other places if that is a place you choose not to get creative in so like in

00:27:49.600 transportation i that was a place that i chose to get creative in i had this car that i like really

00:27:57.440 wanted it really is a not maybe not the best word it was a minivan and so i had a i had one that i

00:28:05.780 wanted more than another and because i had leather seats and adaptive cruise control and i had the

00:28:12.280 opportunity to buy it. But then there was also the same minivan that just had the cloth seats

00:28:16.600 and the regular cruise control. And after doing the math and negotiating for what felt like hours

00:28:22.900 and to the point where I said, I literally cannot not buy this car because I've negotiated it for

00:28:28.640 so long and I've gotten so much off, but it was still going to be $4,000 more than the other van.

00:28:34.060 And I had to say, am I paying $4,000 more for my lost time and adaptive cruise control?

00:28:43.500 And I looked it up. I was like, I could add it for $2,000 if I really want it that bad.

00:28:48.080 So I had to grit my teeth and pick myself up and walk out so I could save $4,000 at the other dealership.

00:28:58.220 And so those are the kind of decisions that make a big impact.

00:29:03.700 And obviously, you know, that doesn't even cover child care for, you know, half the year.

00:29:09.720 But it does make an impact.

00:29:11.980 It's a big chunk of change.

00:29:13.180 And I love that you said that because, you know, we also, you know, cut transportation expenses.

00:29:18.360 We live in the city.

00:29:19.780 We share one car, which we rarely drive.

00:29:22.880 We bike the kids around on an electric bike.

00:29:26.020 And so, yes, we have 100% saved money there.

00:29:29.380 we don't spend money on gas because we don't really drive when we're home. And so, yeah,

00:29:34.900 like there's all of these things. There's all of these trade-offs. And, you know, during certain

00:29:39.820 seasons, we're just going to spend more on certain things. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, you know,

00:29:46.400 prioritizing potty training your three-year-old so they can enter VPK3 and you can start saving

00:29:51.260 money and just force them to use the potty. I'm just so excited once public school starts

00:29:58.900 for all three of them and just i've got one in one in and i know i have one in two i can't wait

00:30:05.040 i can't wait so well and you know we also moved somewhere where they could go to public school

00:30:09.760 that was another thing right like we when thinking about what does the next um 18 years look like

00:30:17.060 we're like all right we are moving to a school district the house is slightly more expensive

00:30:21.580 but to a school district where they can go to at least eighth grade at this point and that is going

00:30:26.760 to save hundreds of thousands of dollars at this point yeah so that's thinking long term another

00:30:33.320 thing when people are trying to like save money is we think short term we we follow all these

00:30:39.140 influencers that have deals and like freebies and hacks and they're very short-sighted but not a lot

00:30:47.360 do we hear from people with long terms like saving strategies because they're just not as sexy

00:30:53.940 like saving saving saving is not sexy on on social media no especially like long-term

00:31:02.040 anything that's slow like save money slowly is absolutely not a genre and that's no no save

00:31:09.820 money fast is you know what else is apparently not sexy on on social media um landfill investing

00:31:16.780 because i'm not seeing it anywhere that okay well maybe i will maybe i'll start creating content

00:31:22.920 about that. There might be a niche. There might be a niche for you. Maybe satirical rage-baity

00:31:26.860 landfill investing. Yes, rage-baity landfill investing. I loved, loved this chat. I want

00:31:33.880 everyone just to, I just, I think that we should talk about this going into the holiday season.

00:31:37.820 Also, you know, you really get bombarded with all of like the Amazon Prime Day deals and Black 0.96

00:31:44.140 Friday and all of it's bullshit. It's all, you know, you're not saving, necessarily saving that 0.92

00:31:49.860 much money. I'm just talking about it. I think, you know, makes us examine our habits and be a

00:31:56.700 little bit more mindful. Yeah, I think you can plan ahead. Like if there's something you've

00:32:02.000 been wanting for a while and you're close enough to, gosh, Prime Day 2.0 in October or Black Friday

00:32:08.440 in November, all these sales seem to come around so often. It's such a mystery. But if you can hold

00:32:15.560 out for the next sale on something you already know that you want, try it out. But also I know

00:32:21.260 very often that these people are raising the prices right before to lower them during these

00:32:26.000 sales. And I think everybody kind of gets that now too. So we're just not falling prey to it anymore

00:32:31.960 because sales are a marketing tactic. And if they didn't make the company more money,

00:32:37.320 they wouldn't do it to be altruistic. But it makes more money because people impulse buy more.

00:32:43.220 yes yes yes and yes all right tell everyone where they can find you

00:32:47.820 uh i jen am at modern frugality on social but more than that buy what you love book.com

00:32:56.780 if you want to reset your spending after this holiday spending and kind of just learn how to

00:33:04.240 buy what you love save money not feel deprived and make spending changes that are sustainable

00:33:12.020 not extreme buy what you love book.com and then in the meantime frugal friends podcast

00:33:18.480 wherever you're listening to this yay thank you so much for coming on today thanks for having me joe

00:33:25.260 and that is all we have for today make sure to listen to the frugal friends podcast it's a lot

00:33:32.480 of fun and i'm going to be dropping one in our feed for a sunday nice things so that you guys

00:33:37.540 can get just like a little taste of it. And if you love this podcast, this one, UTI, share it with a

00:33:44.460 friend, leave a review in all the review places. They do actually help. Now go do something nice

00:33:50.880 for yourself. Have a wonderful, wonderful day, my friends. Try not to spend too much money. I adore you.

00:34:07.540 Thank you.

00:34:37.540 You

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - October 15, 2024

The Cost of Scrolling—Free Yourself From Impulse Spending This Holiday Season

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