Pod Insights The Personal Finance Podcast The Best and Worst Frugal Habits (Ranked!) About this episode Most people think being frugal means cutting every expense. The truth is, some frugal habits build wealth while others actually keep you poor.
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What You'll Learn in This Episode
The difference between being frugal and simply being cheap
Which everyday habits actually move the needle on your net worth
Why your time is often worth more than saving a few dollars
The highest ROI frugal habits that can save you thousands every year
How to spend more on the things you truly value while cutting back elsewhere
Which "money-saving" habits are secretly wasting your time and energy
Andrew's S-Tier, A-Tier, B-Tier, C-Tier, D-Tier, and F-Tier rankings for 27 popular frugal habits
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Book/s Mentioned
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Episode/s Mentioned
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Question for you:
Which frugal habit has made the biggest difference in your finances and which one do you think is a complete waste of time?
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Andrew Giancola? When I started the Personal Finance Podcast, I had no idea how big it could become. I just knew I had something I wanted to share, so I started putting it online. And looking back, I definitely wish I would have started a decade earlier. One of the horror parts about building something online, though, is making it look professional. A website used to mean hiring a developer, figuring out design, and potentially spending thousands of dollars. In fact, on my website, I spent tens of thousands of dollars. That's what impressed me when playing around with Hostinger's AI Website Builder. I told it what kind of website I wanted, and I built the first version in minutes. No coding, no designer, or developer needed. And Hostinger doesn't stop at launch.
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1:29 Andrew Giancola? or piece of content that we record. And that's one of the things that I love about Wayfair. You can shop thousands of products across different styles and budgets, use customer photos and reviews to see how things actually look in real homes, and find something that fits your space. They also have Wayfair Verified Products that are hand-vetted by product specialists using a 10-point quality inspection. And with more than 20 million verified 5-star reviews, you can feel a lot more confident about what you're ordering. I've used Wayfair for this studio and our home, and I absolutely recommend them for your space. So transform your space with pieces that hold up to real life. Join Wayfair Rewards today and get 5% back on every single purchase.
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2:28 Andrew Giancola? On this episode of the personal finance podcast, the best and worst frugal habits rent.
2:42 Andrew Giancola? What's up everybody and welcome to the personal finance podcast. I'm your host, Andrew, founder of mastermoney.co. And today on the personal finance podcast, we're going to be diving into the worst and the best frugal habits. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join the master money newsletter by going to mastermoney.co/newsletter and don't forget to follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or whatever your favorite podcast player is. If you want to help out the show, consider leaving a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. I cannot thank you guys enough for leaving those five star ratings and reviews.
3:26 Andrew Giancola? So today we're going to be diving into the best and worst frugal habits. And in this episode, we're going to be ranking these frugal habits from S tier, A tier, B, C, D, and F tier, where there are a number of different frugal habits. I think some of them can be very positive and some of them are negative. Now, some of you may be listening right now and saying to yourself, well, frugal, is that the same thing as being cheap? No, frugal and cheap are two very different things. In fact, I wanted to find the difference between frugal and cheap so that you have an understanding of how we are thinking about some of this stuff. So frugal people are willing to spend money. In fact, many frugal people are willing to spend a lot of money, but they want to spend those dollars on things that they actually value.
4:08 Andrew Giancola? So an example of this would be, let's say that you really value going to a nice gym. You really value going to somewhere like Lifetime Fitness. Now, if you've never heard of Lifetime Fitness, this is a gym that is basically also a mini fitness country club where they have really nice indoor pickleball courts. They usually have a rooftop bar with a pool. They have a place that you can drop your kids off and you can leave them there for four hours and it's a super nice place for your kids to go and play and enjoy themselves while you go work out, you enjoy some time in the sun. Or the spa, or that hot tub, or whatever else you want to do. There's a lot of really high end stuff at a lifetime fitness. But it's going to cost you about $300 per month and $1,000 initiation fee.
4:50 Andrew Giancola? So it's like a mini fitness country club that also has some additional options as well. So it's got some really, really nice stuff that you can get in there. So let's say you really enjoy that and you want to spend more time at Lifetime Fitness, but you need to find a way to cut back in certain areas. So maybe you feel as though you and your family are spending way too much on groceries right now. And so you decide, okay, I'm spending $2,000 per month on groceries. I think we could spend $1,500 per month on groceries. And so I want to cut back $500 because in reality, I'm just grabbing stuff, throwing it in the cart willy nilly. I'm taking random trips to the store and I'm not really thinking through how I'm actually spending my money or budgeting this out.
5:30 Andrew Giancola? Well, a frugal person would make that trade off so that they could afford going to something like Lifetime Fitness that they truly value. And so what they're really doing is they're playing the long game. They understand that you can afford anything, but you can't afford everything. As my friend Paula Pitt says, and so when we think about this, we're really trying to navigate, what is a frugal person versus a cheap person? A frugal person is also can also be generous. A frugal person is just making those trade offs to make sure that they are responsible with their money. And I think the word frugal has gotten a really poor rap over the course of the last couple of years. Now, cheap is a whole different thing. A cheap person is never willing to spend money for others. They're never willing to help other people. A cheap person buys the worst possible quality because it's the lowest price.
6:14 Andrew Giancola? A cheap person is really not going to make the best overall financial decisions. And for the most part, price is what matters to them most. For example, if they go to a restaurant and they really, really want to order the chicken sandwich, but the tacos are $4 cheaper, they'll just order the tacos because they feel as though that is the best possible move for them. And so in reality, there are some psychology things that come up when it comes to frugal versus cheap. And so we want to make Sure that they're not sitting on a fine line, which we will talk about in this episode. But I want to just talk about the relationship between the two. The original definition of cheap, if you think of someone who is really cheap or not willing to spend money whatsoever, and they are not willing to spend money, even if it improves their life, that's a person that would be more likely cheap.
6:55 Andrew Giancola? Someone who is frugal would be willing to spend more money if it improves their life or if it gives them value. And that is the biggest difference there, but they are also conscious about where their dollars are going. A budgeter is someone who's usually frugal. Someone who is cheap is usually just trying to scrimp and save every single dime and nickel. And a lot of times, cheap people don't get ahead because they don't think in an abundance mindset. They think they just need to continue to cut back and cut back and cut back endlessly. And that is the wrong way to think about finance. I want you to have that balance. I want you to have the ability to enjoy your life and also be able to build wealth. And if you find that balance, that is going to be the best place to be with your finances. And we're going to talk about some of these habits today. So I'm really pumped for this episode, so without further ado, let's rank the worst and best frugal habits.
7:42 Andrew Giancola? All right, so I've got 27 frugal habits that we're going to be going through today. And I want you to follow along. If you guys agree or disagree with any of these, I want to hear from you in the comments down below. Let's start a conversation down below in the comments on Spotify, YouTube, or whatever your favorite podcast player is. So number one that we have today that we've all put together as a team here is driving across town to save five cents on gas. Now, this is one of my pet peeves. When people say, oh, I'm going to drive across town five miles to go save five cents on gas. Now, there are times that, hey, I know times are tough right now when it comes to gas. Gas prices are high, and there may be reasons for you to drive across town to save on gas. But in most instances, this is a waste of time.
8:26 Andrew Giancola? Even if you decide, I want to drive across the street so I can save five cents on gas. Well, maybe that could be part of your time, but your time is way too valuable. And especially if you're a person who is busy or you're a person who is making decent money, then your time is way too valuable to drive across the street to just save a few pennies per gallon. Now, this is coming from someone who drives big cars. I have a 2018 F-150 and I have a Suburban. My wife drives a Suburban. I know that even with bigger cars nowadays, you can save a few bucks, but is it? Worth your time, energy and effort. That's the question you always need to be asking yourself when you were thinking about saving and scrimping money.
9:06 Andrew Giancola? For me, there is way too much mental load to trying to figure out which gas station is cheapest and where to go and yada, yada, yada. And if you like that stuff, if you enjoy saving money, that is completely fine. But in reality, there are only a few instances when I would do this. For example, 7-Eleven just had a recent deal where they were going to give you 50 cents per gallon off of gas. And so on those days, I decided, okay, well then I will do this. I'll go out and I'll go fill up my car when it's 50 cents off. Why? Because my gas tanks are like 40 gallons. So that's a $20 savings per car if I fill the tanks all the way up. Well, that's going to be worth my time and energy for me because I'm going to be getting gas anyways. But if I'm going to be saving five cents, it's just not worth the time and energy to save a few bucks.
9:48 Andrew Giancola? And so for me, I'm going to put this as D tier because I know people who do this all the time and they waste so much time and energy. And sure, there's great apps that help you and tell you which gas station has the cheapest gas. But in reality, this is something I've seen a lot of boomers do and a lot of boomers talk about doing this kind of stuff. And I think it's just a waste of time. Now, number two is eating out less on purpose to fund vacations. Now, this is one that is frugality done right. Why is this frugality done right? And why is this something that you should also consider? This is not deprivation. This is not you cutting back on eating out and you're never going to be able to eat out again. This is one of those areas of most people's budgets where eating out is the leakiest. And I want you to think through this for a second.
10:32 Andrew Giancola? What if you could eat out one to two times less, but you could take your family on an extravagant vacation? Or you could spend more on a vacation that you actually enjoy. Now, for some of you, you'd rather eat out. You'd rather eat out every single day because you enjoy that. It's a little moment in life that you truly enjoy. But for some of you out there, this may be something that you could care less about eating out. And instead, you want to make sure that you go on a couple of vacations a year. You value those experiences. You value the time that you get to spend with your family or with your friends on vacation. And so this is figuring out what your values are. This is figuring out what trade offs are. And so this is exactly what frugality is. It's understanding, okay, I value some of certain things.
11:14 Andrew Giancola? And then other things I don't value much at all, and you need to decide what those are for you. And so if you're struggling with this, I would say, hey, let's pull out a list and put on one side, things that I value, that I spend money on, and on the other side, put a list of things that you really don't value that you spend money on. And go through that list with your family as well, and try to make sure that you are working on both of your values at the same time. This is going to be a great exercise for most of you, if you have never done this, because it's eye opening on where you want to allocate your dollars. But the last thing I want you to do is cut out your daily lunches, if you, if you really care about those. But we're figuring out, hey, we want to eat out less because we value vacations. This is a tier for sure, something that a lot of you should be thinking through
11:56 Andrew Giancola? on how you can reduce spending in some areas that you don't care about, so you can spend lavishly in areas that you do care about. Number three is calculating the hours of work before a big purchase. So this is a powerful mental tool. I have been doing this for years, and let me give an example of this. When I was in college, I used to make $7 per hour. That was what the minimum wage was when I was in college. And during that timeframe, I used to do this exercise all the time. I would say, okay, well, if I go to the grocery store and I want to buy certain things, well, this would take me, you know, a half hour of work for me to be able to buy this. And so I would do this exercise over and over and over again. But let's say, for example, you want to buy a $1,500 couch and you make $35 an hour.
12:41 Andrew Giancola? That is 40 plus hours of your life that you would have to spend getting up, going to work and saving enough money in order to pay for this couch. And so you would have to work an entire week in order to have this couch in your house. I love doing this calculation because it reframes money as time. And money, in reality, that's what it is. It's how much is your time worth versus how much time it would take. I did the same thing for calculating, you know, how many hours I would need to work in order to hire someone else to do something for me. So when I do a calculation of, okay, should I have somebody come to my house to weed? All of my different garden beds. Well, if that's the case, how much are they charging per hour?
13:21 Andrew Giancola? And how much am I making per hour? And for me specifically, I usually, if I am making more per hour than the person I'm hiring out to do something, I am pretty willing to do it, especially if it's something I don't want to do at all, like weeding. So let's say, for example, that the weeder comes and says, okay, I want you to pay me $50 per hour, but you make $60 per hour. Well, in that case, I think I would rather sit in my office and do some work than go out and, you know, weed all of my garden beds around the house. Now, some of you may enjoy weeding, so this comes to trade offs and what you value most. But this is something where I calculate hours of work before a big purchase all the time. So this is for sure a tier. I absolutely love doing this exercise. And if you've never thought of money that way, where you calculate how many hours it's going to take for you to purchase that item, it's a great way to do this. You could do this
14:04 Andrew Giancola? everything from buying a laptop or an iPhone. All of those are really, really going to matter long term. And so I would definitely recommend making sure you do that mental model. Number four is buying in bulk. So buying in bulk is great in theory. It's something that many people should consider if you have a big family or you have a lot of mouths to feed. But it can get out of hand and can be a sneaky leak pretty quickly if you only are one person or you are someone who buys something in bulk and you don't really love it. So if you're buying a 48 pack of something that is perishable and you only use, you know, 12, 24 of them, well, then you just bought 24 other pieces of perishable items that are now not something that is worth it anymore. I've seen this happen to a lot of different people who are just used to buying in bulk.
14:50 Andrew Giancola? And then in reality, maybe they become empty nesters or they just don't have as many folks in the household anymore. And then all of a sudden, this becomes a little bit of a trap. So it depends on your situation. It depends on your family and how you want to think about this. So one thing to consider is does the cost per unit go down when you buy in bulk? Well, if it does, sure, that's a fantastic thing to do, especially if you use an item a lot. So let's say, for example, you drink a lot of Coke Zero. If you drink a lot of Coke Zero and you decide, okay, well, it's 10 cents less per can if I buy it in bulk than if I just buy, you know, a 12 pack at the regular supermarket. Well, then sure, that's a something. That you can do, don't go out of your way to go do it. But that's something you can do if you want to save a little bit of change or a little bit of coin.
15:32 Andrew Giancola? Otherwise, just be prepared to to buy the normal amount and and kind of move forward. Again, folks with big families, great thing to do. But I'm going to put this as a B tier because there's a lot of ways you can save money when buying in bulk. But it wouldn't be one of my optimal things to do when I'm thinking about frugal habits. Number five is bringing a lunch to work. This is a classic ROI frugal habit. This is something I did throughout my entire twenties and I still bring a lunch to my office. I got a little kitchen right over here in my studio that I have my lunch that I brought to work today. And I typically do this because A, it's pretty expensive to eat out now. If you haven't noticed, I went to Chipotle yesterday, got a double chicken bowl. It was sixteen fifty and I looked back at that cashier and I said, wow.
16:15 Andrew Giancola? I could play a round of golf in the summer in the middle of Florida for sixteen fifty and I'm buying a Chipotle bowl for sixteen fifty. And so this is something that I think for a lot of folks, we need to kind of run those calculations and kind of think through some of the trade offs. And so I really, really feel as though if you are living paycheck to paycheck or you are on a fine line. Bringing your lunch to work is one of the first things you should always, always, always be doing. Because you are going to be able to save a lot more by doing this. One way that I do this, if you want to make this easy, is we will cook bigger meals at dinner. So that every single day, the next day, we have leftovers that we can date to work. Or number two is you can meal prep. Now meal prepping takes a few hours. So for me, I found it was much easier to just make a bigger meal the night before at dinner.
17:01 Andrew Giancola? But if you want to meal prep, you can do this, you know, every Sunday, a lot of folks do. I used to do every single Sunday and it was a little bit of a grind for me because I don't love cooking. And so what I would do is kind of just cook the same thing, put it in five different containers and have it ready to go. And it is a great way to save money long term. It is a great way to really, even though this is a Smaller purchase. This is a smaller thing that you were doing. You're gonna save yourself about 10 bucks a day. Well, 10 bucks a day, five days a week is 50 bucks a week. 50 bucks a week per month is gonna end up being 200 bucks per month. Well, that could compound to a real number. If you do that. So I really love this habit. It's one of my favorite things that I did in my twenties to make a big difference. I was watching people bring in lunch every single day and I'm like, you're telling me you have money problems and you're bringing lunch to work or you're buying lunch every single day at work.
17:45 Andrew Giancola? This can get even higher if you do like Uber Eats or DoorDash. If you're doing that, this is that. That is one of the worst things that you can do, to be honest. Uh, so I would put this as S tier. I really, really love bringing your lunch every day uh to work. Number six is freaking out over splitting the bill instead of just paying for your meal. Now, this is a classic example of it depends. For some people out there, if you go to a dinner, I think that usually you should know who the crowd around you is. And if they are the splitting type and you feel as though every single time you go to dinner with these people and they decide they want to split the bill evenly, then maybe you should just stop going to dinner with it because you have one of two things happening here.
18:29 Andrew Giancola? One, you have a reputation and a reputation for someone is really, really valuable. And I'll talk about reputation a lot in this episode because sometimes spending the extra money and not making a huge deal about something is worth preserving your reputation. People don't really like cheap people. In fact, they talk behind your back when you are cheap. And so even if you're trying to be frugal by saying, I just ordered myself a turkey club and a water and everybody else got drinks and appetizers and everything else. I didn't know we were splitting the bill. How am I supposed to handle this? Well, in reality, that's a messed up thing. Obviously, it's not something that you want to do, something none of us want to do. We also got to think about the reputation. And you cannot freak out when the bill is not split. I've seen people get into fights about this, like literal arguments where they've lost friendships about this.
19:14 Andrew Giancola? That is not worth your time. Your peace is so incredibly valuable and you cannot put a price on your peace. So what I would say to you is cough up the money and then just don't go out with those friends anymore for dinner. You know, meet them after for drinks, meet them after to hang out to do other things. But just don't go with them to dinner anymore if you don't want to pay that amount. Or if you're living paycheck to paycheck and on a fine line, just maybe avoiding out and do something else instead with those friends. So I would put this as F tier because if you are rifted relationships with people you care about or people that you love about, because they're splitting the bill, that is going to be something I would not want you to do whatsoever. Now, you could do this in a different manner after you get out of conversation with them. But again, you want to protect that reputation long term. I've been in this scenario a million times. I know, especially when you're living paycheck to paycheck or you're on a finer line.
19:59 Andrew Giancola? It is painful when this happens. It is not something that you really want to happen. And sure, you can be open and honest, but you just want to make sure you're cautious about this. So freaking out over splitting the bill, that's going to be F tier. Number seven, saving to go napkins and sauces. So this is definitely one of those things that is a cheap person move. I'm not saying I haven't done it before. Your boy has stuffed a couple of Chipotle napkins and maybe caught on to a couple of extra forks and knives when he doesn't want to do dishes in certain scenarios, maybe back in the day. But this is one of those things that is a classic cheap move. If you want to just grab, you know, a few extra napkins or whatever else, that's completely fine. But if you're the person that grabs the entire stack and just stuffs it in your bag, hey, more power to you, I guess.
20:42 Andrew Giancola? And it's probably somewhat harmless, but it's not moving your net worth up a dollar at all. So that's why I'm calling it a cheap move because it's not really moving the needle for your net worth. It's just more of a, a small thing that you really should not be considering. So I'm going to put this as a D tier for sure. Number eight is buying generic brands. I love buying generic brands. I think this is something that is one of the best habits on the list, especially when you're thinking about certain items. There are certain items like aluminum foil, for example, or there are certain items like that really don't matter as much to me specifically. Maybe they matter to you, but they don't matter as much to me when it comes to buying the name brand or buying the cheaper brand. Things like garbage bags. It's literally going in your garbage can. Like as long as it's strong, as strong as the other brands, not a big deal at all.
21:25 Andrew Giancola? In fact, many of the same manufacturers of the name brands are actually making the generic brands as well. I know there's a lot of them for Walmart and Targets and some of the grocery stores out there. But let's say, for example, you love Windex. Well, if you love Windex, then Knockoff is also being made by Windex as well. And so this is something that I'm going to put as a B tier, especially depending on what you value. I think buying generic brands is absolutely great. There are some things you want to buy the name brand because the name brand just is better. Like an example of this for me would be I like to drink Coke Zero. I drink about one a day usually and AKA my fridge cigarette. And so what I do is if I've gotten a couple of name brands and they're completely fine, but Coke Zero is the one that I really, really like. Or if I'm going to buy, I like Dr. Pepper Zero a lot as well.
22:10 Andrew Giancola? And so I've had some knockoff brands and it's just not the same as, as Dr. Pepper. So things like that, I'll buy the name brand. But if it's something you don't value that much, like paper plates or something along those lines, then I would just buy the generic brand. So it's B tier for sure. Washing and reusing Ziploc bags in aluminum foil. F tier, right off the bat, not something I'm interested in whatsoever. In fact, the effort to savings ratio is absolutely ridiculous. And it costs you pennies for each one of those plastic bags. It costs you what 25 cents for each time you rip off a thing on aluminum foil, probably even less than that. You are saving pennies with all this extra effort. Listen, you can only put so much effort into things each and every single day. And if you're putting all your effort and energy into these miniscule tasks,
22:53 Andrew Giancola? you are wasting your time and you have money backwards and you have saving money backwards. You need to reframe the way that you think about money. If this is something that you do, I know people who do this or I talk to people who do this. Like for example, there's a guy who writes a blog and I think he wrote a book called Early Retirement Extreme. Really interesting to read and I actually used to enjoy it a lot. But he would do stuff like this and he retired really early, but he lived on like $8,000 per year. It was just the whole crazy scenario. I would never want to live like that. This is F tier for sure. Number 10, auditing and canceling unused subscriptions. I like this one. This is one of the highest returns habits that exists. Many of you right now listening, in fact, probably all of you right now listening, have subscriptions that you most likely need to cancel.
23:36 Andrew Giancola? And this is going to eat away into your budget every single month if you don't cancel those subscriptions. So I tell people, especially at Master Money Academy, this is one of the steps we have people kind of go through is once a quarter, go Through all your subscriptions and see which ones you're not using. Sometimes this can happen in the form of something like streaming services. So maybe you're watching a show like Landman on Paramount Plus. And then all of a sudden the show ends and you are now on to Apple TV or Netflix, watching a couple of other shows. And you keep Paramount Plus around for the next three, four or six months. Well, at the price a lot of these streaming services are at now, they're 20 bucks a month for the most part. And so when that's happening, you are losing out on about a hundred bucks.
24:17 Andrew Giancola? And so this is something where if you audit these subscriptions, it can save you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars every single year. So do this quarterly, just put this as the recurring thing that you do once a quarter. So you can save money on this. So this is S tier for sure. This is a frugal habit, not a cheap habit. Number 11 is driving a paid off car into the ground. So everybody here who has been at the personal finance podcast for a long time and been listening for a long time. You know, I love driving paid off cars and I love driving them as long as I possibly can. The older I get, the less likely I am willing to take on any debt whatsoever. And debt for depreciating asset like a vehicle, an asset that goes down in value year over year. It's not worth my time and energy typically for me.
25:00 Andrew Giancola? And so right now I drive a 2018 Ford F-150. My goal is to get my seven year old that 2018 Ford F-150 when he turns age 16. So I'm going to drive that thing as long as I possibly can until my wife prides me out of that thing. It's got cloth seats. It's got a backup camera that's about the size. It's smaller than my iPhone and I'm not joking. It literally is. It's got little zero features whatsoever. It's got stains on the seats in the back from the kids. There's some things in there. I probably need to at least get some leather on those seats because my kids just wreck them all the time. But she's still running just fine. And so over a hundred thousand miles on that thing. I'm going to drive it as long as I possibly can. I'm going to keep fixing it over and over again. And this is just a habit that I, I believe in. Now, if you value cars, more power to you. I don't have a problem with that.
25:44 Andrew Giancola? If you want to continue to drive cars, if you know the trade off. But I don't value cars as much as that. I would rather invest more money. Where I'd rather put more dollars towards vacations or things that I actually value. And so this is an area where, hey, I'd rather drive this paid off F-150 as long as I possibly can and buy. Or something else that would be of interest that could be something that would be fun for my family and I so there's a trade off there for sure and I think driving a paid off car is the elite move that's how you win with cars and if you feel as though you're like just renewing your car every couple of years or getting a new lease or whatever else you are going backwards financially when it comes to vehicles and so you need to make sure you really value that if that is what you're doing so that is S tier for sure number 12 negotiating your recurring bills so I did a couple of videos recently
26:28 Andrew Giancola? on social media talking about negotiating your bills and some of the top bills to negotiate in fact we did a ranking video all about this that we can link down below in the show notes and we were talking about this and people were like you can negotiate your bills I'm like man you gotta catch on and listen to this podcast because this podcast we talk about negotiating bills all the time we just recently had an episode talking about negotiating your bills we had an episode with Nicole Lapin who hosts the show Money Rehab about negotiating your bills we've had an entire episode on how to negotiate your rent and we will link all of those down below in the show notes as well so that you can check this out this is an underrated high leverage S tier move this is for sure an S tier move you need to be negotiating your bills you need to be negotiating your car insurance you need to be negotiating your medical bills
27:10 Andrew Giancola? you need to be negotiating your rent you need to be negotiating every single bill you can to reduce the overall cost of that bill in fact even if you're a business owner negotiate all your recurring subscriptions negotiate with all the companies that are you know time usage or your cell phone bill or all these different things needs to happen on a yearly basis and again when you start to audit maybe those subscriptions every single quarter start negotiating some bills as well have a list of bills that you want to negotiate you can knock both of them out really quickly in less than an hour and save yourself thousands of dollars the car insurance one alone which we have a link where you can compare and shop car insurance I will link that up down below in the show notes as well we're gonna have a lot of links in these show notes so that you can check that out to make sure you are getting the best price on car insurance because
27:56 Andrew Giancola? I really believe that people who don't negotiate their car insurance are just falling further and further behind they're losing out on hundreds and hundreds of dollars so that's definitely a big one so the latte factor is the next one that we have here as a team versus making your own coffee at home so the latte factor is one of if not the most famous frugal habits it's skipping the daily coffee so that you can save five dollars per day now it used to be five dollars per day now a daily latte is about eight dollars if you go to Starbucks I usually Get a black coffee at Starbucks, by the way, my wife always gets something fancy. And every single time it's like seven or eight dollars, which is something that does matter. Now, I have said this time and time again, I have been a hater of the latte factor for a long time. Why? Because I want you to focus on the million dollar money decisions that matter.
28:39 Andrew Giancola? But there are scenarios where the latte factor should matter. If you're going out and getting a seven or eight dollar coffee every single day and you are in credit card debt. Well, we've got a bigger problem at hand here because seven or eight dollars per day. Over the course of a month, you're going to end up spending, you know, 300 bucks around that on these coffees. Instead of putting it towards your debt or instead of putting it towards something that will actually help you and improve your financial life. And so if this is something you absolutely enjoy, you love your daily coffee. I don't want to take that away from you, but just find somewhere else that you want to cut out. That'll make a lot of sense. And so this is something I might could talk for a very long time on, I won't do it in this episode. But I think this is one that I'm going to put it as a B tier. If you are living paycheck to paycheck, I think you should cut out your daily latte.
29:21 Andrew Giancola? If you are someone who is making decent money or you have a surplus, then nothing wrong with it whatsoever. It just depends on your situation. So it's B tier for sure. 14 is buy it for life and paying more once for quality. So if you don't know what buy it for life is, this is where you buy something once and hope that it lasts about 30 years. So an example of this, let's say you are someone who is interested in buying a new pair of boots. Or a new pair of dress shoes or a new pair of high heels. Well, that's the case and you want these to last a really long time. You're going to buy something that's probably real leather that you're going to replace the sole with, that you can repair. So that this will last for a long time. And so typically, when you are buying quality with something like that, you have to pay more.
30:03 Andrew Giancola? Someone who wants to buy the $50 dress shoe at Nordstrom Rack is going to note that those dress shoes may last them a year or two. Depending on how much they're using them. Maybe if you're only using them for weddings and special events, maybe they'll last you up to five years. But outside of that, at some point in time, the wear and tear is going to break down. The cheap leather is going to break down, the sole is going to break down and it's not really replaceable. And you're just going to recycle and buy a new pair. Nothing wrong with that because if you look at $50 over that timeframe, you know, you can recycle shoes a couple of different times. And have the ability to be able to. You know, maybe brave close to even, but somebody else who wants to buy a dress shoe that can last a lifetime. And there are plenty of those out there that you can do this with. You can repair the leather, can repair the soles, those types of things, or maybe a pair of high heels that can last a lifetime.
30:47 Andrew Giancola? Those are going to be things we're going to have to pay up for. Maybe it's $400 for a pair of shoes instead of a 50. And so making sure you think about this is a big one. Another great example of this is mixed like kitchen items or appliances. I know people that buy toasters as buy it for life. I know people like a KitchenAid mixer is a great example of this where those things last, what 60, 80, 100 years before they go bad. People try to do this with all sorts of different things in their life, from gym equipment I've seen. It's kind of hard to do with tech, but everything else you can pretty much do this with. So things that you use in your daily life that are quality that you want to do. So I really enjoy this. I think this is a great thing to do and something that, you know, if you're buying tools or you're buying a mattress or you're buying boots, you want to buy something that will last as long as you possibly can. So you don't need to keep thinking about this. And there is a mental load to having to buy some of these items again.
31:32 Andrew Giancola? And so if you don't want to think about it or you don't have to buy them again, I really like this. This is A tier for sure. I know a lot of really wealthy people who do stuff like this, so they don't have to buy things again and have that mental load. Again, sometimes some of these moves are to just remove some of the stress and the mental load on your brain. Number 15 is tap water and skipping drinks and apps at restaurants. It depends. I grew up in a family that this is what we did. We would get water and we would skip drinks and apps at restaurants. My wife grew up in a family where they would order and still do every single appetizer on the menu. They get drinks the entire time and they were restaurant order. So they really, really enjoy that experience. If you enjoy the experience and you are depriving yourself of that enjoyment and you are doing okay financially,
32:15 Andrew Giancola? where you have a surplus of money that you can actually spend on this kind of stuff, then I would put this as something that you should not be doing. But if you are someone who was on a fine line and you're going out to eat just to spend some time with friends and build relationships, and you just want to go for the relationship building and not for the food really, well, then that's a great thing to do. So it just depends on your situation. I'm going to put this as a C because it depends. And it's one of those things that could be either or. I don't want you depriving yourself. I really did not like, you know, ordering. Water and and no apps when when I would go out to eat as a young kid. So now I probably overcompensate on that where we order usually apps and like either a soda or you know beer or something like that, depending on what we're doing. So usually that is going to be the the route that I take. Uh, so I'm going to put that as a C tier.
32:59 Andrew Giancola? Extreme couponing and chasing every single deal. So extreme couponing is one of those things where I remember growing up. My mom would cut out coupons from the newspaper every single uh week on Sunday. Usually the coupons came in on Sunday. She would cut up all the coupons and then she would have this little book that she would organize all the coupons in. And the coupons are coupons. How do you say it? Let me know it in the comments below. Uh, and this would be one of those things that she would do every single week. And it was very time consuming to go through that entire process. I remember her sitting at the table, spending an hour or two, just kind of cutting up these coupons and putting in the same space. If you've ever seen that show Extreme Couponing, those people spend eight to 10 hours just getting the coupons ready, making sure they're tactically ready to go to the store the next day.
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38:36 Andrew Giancola? information is automatically redacted and never leaves your firewall. To see optimization action, head describe.how/pfp and mention PFP for a 30-day risk-free trial. That's S C R I B E dot H O W slash P F P. Beep beep and they're not spending any money whatsoever. Then all of a sudden they're sliding the coupons across and that balance just continues to go down. Well, this is going to be something that I think just takes way too much time unless you've got a lot of time on your hand and you just love doing it. So I'm going to put this as a D tier for sure. Not worth the time and energy for the return that you are getting. Number 17 is credit card points and cash back optimization. Boy, oh, boy, do I love this.
39:19 Andrew Giancola? This is something that I love for people to do. And I think that most people should consider credit card points and cash back optimization. Why? Now, if you've had trouble with credit cards in the past, probably should not be doing this. But if you haven't never had issues with credit cards in the past, putting all your bills on a credit card, paying it off in full every single month and reaping the rewards and points is a great thing to do. In fact, that is what a lot of very good, frugal people I know do. Let me give you an example of this. Chris Hutchins, who is the host of the All the Hacks Podcast, who's been on this podcast a couple of times, is probably the biggest optimizer of this that you will ever see. When he will, he's been to like 30 plus countries now completely for free on just points and miles from doing this exact strategy.
40:04 Andrew Giancola? And so for you specifically, this can be a great thing to do. Now you could take this way too far, which is why this is going to come down on my tier ranking a little bit. Because you could spend way too much time doing this stuff where you could be much better and well suited to spend more time thinking about other options when it comes to this. So I'm going to put this as a B tier because I know people who do this wrong and they spend their 40 hours per week on this stuff. I don't want you doing that, but what I do want you to do is just put your bills on a credit card, pay it off in full every single month and allow and reap the benefits of that. By the way, we have our favorite credit cards. We will link them up down below in the show notes, but you can check those out as well. I always forget to talk about that, but we do have a page.
40:45 Andrew Giancola? And if you go to the personal finance podcast.com, there's also a little menu item up top there. That's my favorite credit card. So definitely check that out if you haven't already. My daily driver right now is the AMX Platinum, but it is pretty expensive. I think I might even downgrade to the AMX Gold because I think that that would give me more value for what I'm doing currently. So. Uh, for anybody else, let me know what your daily driveway is down below in the comments. Would love to hear more about that because this is an area for a lot of you. We can share some of the things that we're doing. By the way, the Chase Sapphire has some pretty good deals right now, too. If you're looking to open a car, so check out our link. It has some, some cool stuff there. Number 18 is lowering or caring about the thermostat all the time. This is something that used to matter a lot more than it does today.
41:26 Andrew Giancola? And for me specifically, I have noticed I can freak out about the thermostat all I want. And my electric bill is still going to be moving in the wrong direction typically. And it depends on the time of year. In Florida, we can't escape the fact here where I live that it is extremely hot. And in the wintertime, if you live up north, you can't escape the fact that it is extremely cold. And trying to stress out and worry about a thermostat, or if you had parents growing up, who were just telling you, hey, don't mess with the thermostat. It's gotta be on 73 all the time. Uh, this is something I don't worry about at all anymore. In fact, I think you're saving pennies and a lot of times it seems as though no matter what you do, really doesn't make sense to make your family miserable in order to make sure you try to save a few bucks. So for me, I would rather you focus on efficiencies in the house than trying to save a few bucks on the thermostat.
42:11 Andrew Giancola? So making sure your windows are sealed, making sure you have the right, you know, insulation in the home. Those are going to be the types of things I would rather you care about than doing stuff like trying to just adjust the thermostat. Cause those are going to matter a lot more. You don't want air escaping and then your bill is going to crank up way, way more if that's the case. So just thinking about that kind of stuff is really important. Number 19, okay, this is a good one. DIYing everything, including things like repairs or oil changes or haircuts. Well, haircuts, I would not DIY whatsoever. Uh, oil changes too cheap to, to, to try to DIY, in my opinion. Repairs could be something you could DIY. So it depends on the person and because it depends, I think you can save some good money by DIY. I wish I had the skill of being able to fix things.
42:54 Andrew Giancola? I don't have that skill, but I do now with uh, Gemini. So a lot of times I will take a picture of the thing that I am trying to fix. And Gemini tells me what to do next and I just go through that over and over, step by step. And I've been able to fix a lot of different things and save myself hundreds of bucks. For example, just had a toilet that kept making the uh, flushing sound over and over and over again. It was constantly running, so I took out Gemini. Took off the back of the toilet and I took a picture of the back of the toilet. I said, what the heck's going on here? My toilet is continuing to run over and over and over again. Jim and I told me a couple of fixes to try. The first one didn't work. The second one I tried and I said, okay, I need to go to Lowe's to go pick up this item. Where should I go get it? It gave me the exact aisle to go find it. Went to Lowe's, picked up this little O-ring. It was the smallest thing in the world, cost me two bucks.
43:38 Andrew Giancola? Came back, installed the O-ring exactly where it told me to and boom, it was fixed. I would have called a plumber out for $250 to fix that issue. Or I could have just got the $2 O-ring and fixed it. So I saved myself $248 by doing this. So I would say try that first. I think this is a great thing to do. You could save yourself good money, especially on stuff like that. That is fairly simple, even if you're not handy. Use some of these AI tools to help you fix some of this. It's very, very helpful. So I'm gonna put that as a B tier. I like it. I think you could take it too far. I think oil changes is too far. I think haircuts are too far. But if you're, you know, fixing things around the house or if you're, you know, putting in your own garden beds or you're working on things that you know how to do, I think it's a great thing to do. Number 20, this is a good one, drifting and buying second hand. So I think this is a great frugal habit.
44:24 Andrew Giancola? I have done this on eBay before where, for example, I wanted to test out a brand. Like there's a brand called Mizzen and Maine. It's supposed to be like these really stretchy dress shirts that you could wear and it looked super comfortable. And so what I said to myself was I could spend $140 on a Mizzen and Maine dress shirt or I could see if I like it first and buy one second hand. So I went on eBay and bought a couple of Mizzen and Maine dress shirts for $35. And so instead of spending $250 on those, I spent $35 for two. They came in completely clean. I washed them as well when they came in. And they were a great option for me and I actually, they looked brand new when they came in. And they've been a great option for me. And in fact, I would do it again for sure if I was gonna buy that brand again because it's so expensive.
45:08 Andrew Giancola? And so I think this is a great thing to do. If it's something, you know, like, or if you like sweaters or jackets or coats, those are also great things to buy second hand. And I used to do this all the time. And when I was in college, I went to a thrift store, found a three-piece pinstripe suit. Cause I had to go to a Wang, a three-piece pinstripe suit and tried It fit me literally perfectly. It was like the best fit I've all time. And so there's cool things like that that you can do. And I bought that suit for $4. So thrift stores also have some great finds. If you are looking for anything along those lines, they have great books, stuff like that too is a great place to look at that stuff. So I'm gonna put that as a B tier. People take that also too far, but as a B tier, I think that's great. Number 21 is buying off season and waiting for sales.
45:49 Andrew Giancola? Listen, one of my favorite things to say is buy your straw hats in winter and buy your winter coats in summer. This is a great way to save money is buying the off season things in the time where you're not needing them most. So I love to do this here in Florida because our season is pretty much always the same. It's always just hot. And so I can buy things like shorts at Little Lemon, for example. I'll buy shorts at Little Lemon in the winter all the time because it's less demand. And so they put up on there, we made too much section. And so I buy that all the time. Or if it's something like golf apparel, because I like to golf, not good at all. I shoot in the 90s. Sometimes I shoot in the hundreds. One time I shot an 88. So that gives you an example of how good I am. And if any of you out there are golf coaches online, by the way, hit me up.
46:35 Andrew Giancola? But if I'm gonna buy golf stuff, I usually do it in the winter, in the off season, because that's when the prices usually will go down on some of this stuff. And so I think waiting for sales is a great thing to do and waiting for the timeframe when they are in less demand. So this is a B tier for sure. I do it a lot. In fact, for me specifically, I'd put it as an S tier, but it's a B tier for for most people out there because you can, again, take it too far. Using the library instead of buying books. Love this. So my mom built this frugal habit into me. She always, always, always uses the library. She takes my kids to the library still. She was a teacher and a principal for 30 years, and so she just loves the library. And I think it's a great thing you can do. I did it forever when I wasn't making a lot of money. Now I buy books. One of my rules is I will buy, if I think I can learn one thing in a book, I'll just buy it.
47:17 Andrew Giancola? I don't even think twice about it. And sure, that is something that is a little bit more of a privilege to be able to do. But it is also something that is my my rule for for life. And then I go through that book, see if I like it. If I get through the first 40 pages and I don't like it, I will toss it out and go to the next one. And I think that's what most people should consider doing is either using the library to do this and or just finding cheap ways to do it. Another cheap way to find books is thriftbooks.com. If you've never checked them out. Really great. And a lot of times if you buy, you know, a couple from them, they give you extra discounts. So that's another great website. In fact, I bought a book at thriftbooks.com, which was Think and Grow Rich. And it had a signed copy by Napoleon Hill. I don't know if the person just didn't know who Napoleon Hill was, but he had, he actually
48:00 Andrew Giancola? signed the copy in the book, unless it's a fake signature, which I guess it could be. So that's a great one. I'm gonna put that as B tier as well. So the last three are been B tier. So let's see what we got next. Regifting and reusing gift bags and wrapping paper. Okay, so for gift bags, I do this all the time at like kids birthday parties when my kids have birthday parties, we get these gift bags and I'll just save them if they haven't been used yet. Wrapping paper, no, not doing that at all. That is just stupid. I mean, regifting is completely fine if it's thoughtful. Again, we do this with kids toys. Sometimes my kids just get way too many toys. They'll even open up some of them. And so I'll save a couple of them, throw them in the closet and then re-gift them to someone who I think would like it. Or if we go to a kid's birthday party and we forgot to get a gift, something like that, we kind of keep an arsenal of gifts in the closet. So that's something we do all the time and all my parents out there
48:45 Andrew Giancola? probably do the same thing. Not a big deal, but I put this as C because it depends. If you're taking that too far, your gift looks ridiculous because, because you wrapped it with, you know, extremely wrinkled wrapping paper, just placed, you know, mismatching wrap paper on top, probably doesn't make a ton of sense, but I guess honestly probably really doesn't matter. But I'm gonna put it as a C tier for sure. Reusing the same razor or watered down products forever. This is where frugal is gonna curdle to cheap. You are degrading your own daily experience to safe sense and you are sometimes putting your body at harm. If you have a cheap razor, could be cutting yourself up. So definitely do not do this. This is F tier for sure. Pretty hard to defend this too, if you are doing this. I don't see why you would ever want to do this. Number 25
49:30 Andrew Giancola? is not tipping. Okay, this is gonna be a fun one. Not tipping when it comes to, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put this as not tipping at a restaurant, okay? Because there's a lot of different nuances when it comes to tipping. If you want not tipping at all at a restaurant, I am gonna put this as F. Because for most people, if you are gonna go out to eat, then go out to a fast casual place Don't have to tip if you're going to go out to eat and you don't want to tip. If you're going to go out to a sit down restaurant where the server's job is to serve you and the way they get paid is from your tips, then you need to tip. I know the tipping culture is out of hand. I know it's out of control. It is one of the most ridiculous things that we have to deal with right now. I went to Dunkin' Donuts the other day
50:12 Andrew Giancola? and ordered a black coffee, drove through the drive through and they turned around the iPad and asked me to tip them $3. I'm driving and you want me to tip you $3? If I'm standing up face to face to you, we're belly to belly and I make an order and you hand me my order. Do you think I need to tip? No. Do I do it anyway? Yes, because sometimes I just feel guilty. I don't know why. It's probably a money psychology thing for me. I, when the Dunkin' Donuts person turned around, I tipped it. I can't stop pushing that tip number. And for me specifically, I think that generosity is a big portion of why I want to build wealth. So that's part of the reason why I do this, but also I gotta, you know, in some of these scenarios, I gotta stop doing it. I gotta stop clicking tip and I, most people wouldn't tip in those scenarios. I get it.
50:57 Andrew Giancola? So it's probably a me problem more than anything else, but when it comes to like sit down restaurants, you gotta tip. And I tip over 20% every time usually, even if it's bad service. Generosity again is a big thing for me and so that's why I do that. You don't have to do that, but it's a, you know, it's your call on what you want to do and what you feel comfortable with. But for me, that's how I do it. So it's F tier if you don't tip at a sit down restaurant for sure. Skipping a gym membership to work out at home. Well, if you're gonna work out at home, completely fine. Great thing to do if you want to do that, but if you're skipping a gym membership and not working out because you don't want to pay 20, 40, 60 dollars per month, there's plenty of cheap gym memberships out there now in the massive scale of gyms. So, but if you're doing it to work out at home to save money, sure, that's a V tier for sure, especially if you have equipment.
51:38 Andrew Giancola? You could also add equipment slowly over time. I built out a really great home gym during COVID. One of my best things I've ever done. I still use it every single day to this day. Was in it right before I started recording this episode a couple of hours ago when I was at my house. So it is the thing that I use the most that I have ever purchased. I think I ended up spending, I spent a lot. Uh, I think I ended up spending seven to $10,000 on my home gym. I have a squat rack. I have dumbbells, a full set, all the way up to 75. I need to get up to 100. Uh, I have a Cable machine and between all of these different things. I have really, really, really enjoyed having that. I have a leg curl and leg extension. I had a rower, I sold it. I have a spin bike.
52:23 Andrew Giancola? I'm looking to get a treadmill too, because it's pretty hot right now to run. And so between all of these things, I absolutely love every single piece that I buy. And if I don't love it, I sell it. So worth every penny for me. So I'm going to put this as B tier, but you got to make sure that you are thinking through what you're going to do. And do not skip your workouts just because you want to save money. Health is an assessing to me. This is a baseline expense in my opinion. Do not skip out on working out just because you want to save money. Bringing your own snacks into the movie theater. Oh, okay. All right. Bringing your own snacks to the movie theater. I've got a little dilemma with this, okay? Because there's two sides of this coin. I have done it forever. And forever, I would just, hey, tell my mom, let's bring some snacks in the movie theater.
53:08 Andrew Giancola? I'd stuff it into my wife's purse and say, let's bring some snacks in. But as of late, and once I had kids, for some reason, and you guys tell me if I'm just being crazy right now. Okay. So now we're having a conversation, okay? But for some reason, I started to feel guilty. I'm asking myself, okay, well, I'm doing this. I'm bringing snacks in the movie theater. I'm trying to sneak them in. I'm trying to hide them as I come into the movie theater. But is this something that is a moral dilemma a little bit? Am I stealing from the movie theater by bringing snacks in? They don't want them in there. So is this an actual problem? Even though I know the prices are jacked up, I know it's crazy. Every time I take my family in there and I actually, you know, we buy all of the stuff. It's ends up being like another $60 in snacks because
53:51 Andrew Giancola? you get that the kids, the little trays, and then my wife and I get a popcorn. Then we get two drinks and it's like $60 just for that. Plus some candy, you know, your boys got to have a Sour Patch Kids. And so I get a couple, I get a couple of bags of candy, not just one usually. So between all of that stuff, I say to myself, well, I could have spent $5 on bringing this in myself. But I do like the popcorn, so I always get popcorn. But it's just, it's just one of those things that I have a little bit of a moral dilemma. Is this stealing? Is it? Or is it just a frugal thing? I feel as though because the rules are don't bring it in. I feel as though maybe I'm, I don't know. I'm gonna put this as a C tier because I am indifferent morally on that. Okay, uh, number 28 is stiffing on the group gift. Now, this is one of those things where if you can, you know, establish boundaries upfront,
54:36 Andrew Giancola? you know, early on that you do not want to contribute to coworker gifts whatsoever. It's just not something you want to do. So you could say, hey, I'm just working on some financial goals right now. I don't want to do this. Fine. But if you are stiffing group gifts without having any conversation with anyone, then I would put this as a D tier as like a cheap thing. Just have, you know, woman up or man up and have the conversation with the group. Uh, and tell them you just don't want to do this going forward and say, I don't want gifts for me. And I just don't want to get caught up in this wave of, of gifting. But you know, if you're going to be the type of person who just like tries to stiff it, everybody knows you're stiffing it. Then it's a reputation issue again. And I don't want you to damage your reputation over money when it's something that you can afford. And if you can't afford it, that's another thing.
55:16 Andrew Giancola? But if you can't afford it, or you can afford just to put the five bucks in or whatever else, then just do it and move on with your day. I know it's not fun to go to work and then feel as though you're losing $5 when you're working for $25 an hour. And all of a sudden you're like, well, I just worked 15 minutes to pay for Nancy's gift over here because she's having a baby. But, uh, it's still a, it's still one of those things that you gotta have a conversation if you're going to stiff on it. But if you're just stiffing the group and not contributing whatsoever and they notice, uh, that could be a reputation thing, especially at a workplace. So again, I don't feel as though you should be obligated to give a gift. Just make sure you are open about that a little bit. So that would be D tier for me on that one. Well, listen, this is my ranking of frugal habits online. I'm, I'm sure some of you are going to disagree with me on this.
56:00 Andrew Giancola? And some of you may say, Andrew, bring some snacks in the movie theater. Get your Sour Patch for $2 at the grocery store, bring it in the movie theater. But I don't know, you know, I'm just indifferent on that. I don't know what I'm going to do next. Uh, but I truly appreciate each and every single one of you being here. If you guys are looking to take your finances to that level, I would love to invite you to join Master Money Academy. We have a seven day free trial that I'll link down below for podcast listeners. Uh, where you can join Master Money Academy, check out some of our courses, come to the live coaching call with me. See if this is for you. If it's not a good fit, no worries whatsoever. Uh, you can always, always, always opt out, uh, after the seven day free trial. So would love to. Have you inside Master Money Academy is the community where we help you transform your finances.
56:43 Andrew Giancola? Can I thank you guys enough for being here and we will see you on the next episode.
Previous She Hit Rock Bottom and Still Built a Six-Figure Life. Here's How. (With Rebecca Whitman) Next Should I Chase a Higher Savings Rate? Can We Semi-Retire in Our 40s? How Do We Rebuild After Bankruptcy? (Money Q&A) Page updated October 29, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated