Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
Spotify
StitcherEvery day, we make countless decisions that drain our willpower—leaving us too burnt out to make the best money choices. But there’s always a radical middle in everything. In this episode, Jen and Jill break down how psychology, money habits, and willpower connect—and how understanding yourself can help you save smarter.
Your budget tells you what you could be doing. Tracking your spending tells you what you are doing.
Sponsors:
- The back row. It’s the coolest spot on the bus and in the classroom. It says we don’t care and we love a bumpy ride that allows us to harass (I mean wave at) all the cars behind us. If you too love the back row and wanna sit there with us – join The Street Team! It’s for all you cool cats who want to tell your friends about our book. If you’re a real fan this ones for you and only requires you to leave us an honest review of the book on Jan. 7th. This means you will get an advanced copy of the book AND other goodies – good you know the kids in the backseat of the bus always had the best goodies 🙂
Willpower, Finances, and Spending
In this article, American Psychological Association (APA) talks about willpower and self-control while highlighting its relation to certain strategies on saving and spending money.
What Jen + Jill have to say:
Jill agrees on APA’s article claiming how in every financial decision, it requires willpower which can then become exhausted. It also claims that people who frequently overcome difficult financial decisions (those who are less financially stable) are most likely to deplete their willpower. Jen empathizes with this claim as she quotes, ‘Every spending decision you make is a tough decision’.
There are a lot of things that can be done to prevent exhausting our willpower, Jill says to space out financial decisions one at a time, save money automatically using software or mobile applications, and find a community to support you. While Jen advises to jot down our spending and avoid temptations at all costs!
Big Wins The Simple Way
By now, you probably have heard or have been using the 80/20 rule. It is a widely used principle for saving with less effort. In an article written by Matthew, he shares how the said principle will help us focus on the vital few instead of the trivial many.
What Jen + Jill have to say:
The article mentions that for most people, the most important things to get right are housing, transportation, and food (someone’s expenditures are not going to be the same for everyone). Jill recommends doing a ‘pareto analysis’ on your spending which can be done by creating an annual list of spending in different categories and lists.
Jen shares how you can do fun and simple challenges on each of these important things such as the challenge they did with the Frugal Friends Club called ‘House Savings Hunters Challenge’. As Jen & Jill focuses a lot on building healthy financial habits for us to make better decisions while also recognizing that everyone is dynamic.
Our Best 80/20 Savings Tip
House hacking for Jen and applying the 80/20 concept to each category. But y’all know saving on housing is her fav, right?!
Bill of The Week
Thank you Jen for sharing your bill about Christmas eve and joining a local buy nothing group and getting a free TV for your kids!
Thanks so Much for Listening!
Thanks so much for listening. We love love love reading your kind reviews and we especially loved this one from:
✰✰✰✰✰
Inspirational and fun
I have listened to this podcast for years and I feel it’s really one of the best personal finance podcasts for “normal people” who are interested in controlling their finances and growing financially. The personal stories especially are relatable and interesting to listen to, but really I can recommend all the episodes!
If you want to check out our monthly challenge community head to frugalfriendspodcast.com/club to see what challenge we have coming up next.
Keep leaving us reviews on iTunes or Stitcher, and sending the screenshot to reviews@frugalfriendspodcast.com. And don’t forget to share your favorite quote from the episode by using the hashtag #FrugalFriendsNote. 😉
