We Tried a No Spend Challenge. Here's How it Went

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Here it is what we do here on the Fugal Friends podcast, but doing a no-spend challenge this strictly did bring up a lot of stuff that we didn't totally expect. And today we're going to break down where we nailed it, where we failed it, and what we are taking away from this challenge in hopes that it helps you. Yes, but first, I have Fugal Friends merch that I am decluttering from my office, including this mug, this says Fugal AF, Fugal and Fun, Fugal as I feel, Fugal and Fun. Family, Fugal and Fiffel Ampsuous. Whatever you want to say it is, I'm giving them away for free because they are cluttering my house. And I'm going to give them away five per month through May. So all you have to do to win one is go to frugalfriendspodcast.com slash mug. That's MUG. And you have to be subscribed to the YouTube channel. So you're going to give us your YouTube username if you don't know what that is. Leave a comment on this video and your username is what comes up under your comment or above your comment. And that's how we will check to make sure you are subscribed and we will pick five winners in March, five in April and five in May. And if you register now, our first drawing is March 13th. But if you don't win March 13th, you're going to stay in for the April and May drawings as well. So the earlier you register, the better your chances to win a frugal mug. So it is unfortunately for US subscribers only. I'm so sorry to all of our international listeners. So yeah, we can't wait to get those things out of my house. All right. So why did we do a nose bend challenge, Jill? I don't know, Jen. Why do we do what we do? Okay. Here's the thing about it. Okay. It's not the most fun. You can make it fun. Yes. But truly, we do know spend challenges to for multiple reasons, including getting ourselves back on track. It's one of the reasons we love a January nose bend is it's after the holidays. And most of us have built habits of buying, of spending more money than we are accustomed to. And that doesn't just go away because we flip the calendar over. We've got to kind of retrain ourselves to get back into a new normal. And also, there are so many other benefits to doing a nose bend challenge beyond just the financial. A lot of times it is a good reset for finances and understanding how you're spending. But we learn so much about ourselves through the process of what are the decisions that we make? How do we respond to stress? How do we respond to celebration? How do we respond to boredom? How creative are we in coming up with fun things to do without spending any money? And so, however, we kind of come to it, there's a reason to do it. It certainly is an extreme. If you've listened to us for a long time, you know, we don't like to live in extremes of one direction of just yolo spend all your money or the other direction of hoard everything, never spend money. Neither one is great. However, visiting an extreme for say a month can help us to find our own radical middle and maybe where we might have been too far to the other direction. So it's really quite a tethering that is not meant to be more of a 30 days, but can reveal a lot and help us financially. Yeah, we love the extremes. We love the no spend year, the low by year, all of that. But we really think that if you're going to do a no spend, 30 days is ideal because it's supposed to teach you about your spending habits. And then you put those lessons into practice in the next month. And so we found, we talked to some of our listeners last night who are doing a debt-free challenge with us and finding that some people found no buy to be overwhelming. So knowing that you can do a no spend challenge as you define it. So if you're having an issue with just Amazon or just grocery impulse buys or like just buying coffee or eating out, you can do a no spend challenge in a certain category and ignore everything else. You can work on one thing at a time. So no spend can have different rules. So what we're going to do is we're going to go over the rules that we put in place individually because they were different. And then how it went and what our actual numbers came out to. So Jill, what were your rules for your no spend January? I primarily wanted to focus on eating at home and only spending like only going out once a week for a grocery trip, once a week grocery trip. And then really essentials only. I did kind of want to see, I knew I wasn't going to spend nothing but wanted to reduce as much as possible. Try and engage as many of my frugal tips and tools that I knew about. But it was, it was a horror. I'm doing this. Okay, well, let's see how it went for you. Yeah, we did. Well, week one of the no spend challenge went pretty great actually. And that is mostly because I was sick the whole time. Yeah. Enjoy lucky me. 2026. Here we go. Got the sniffles. Nothing's going to keep you from spending quite like just needing to sleep all day and go through piles and piles of tissues. Week two, no spend challenge. Win and fail. We'll start with failure. So I'm in a wedding to this month. I'm the middle owner. Got a dress. There she is. I feel real great about it. That was fun. But all the extra expenses the dress and shoes are purchased. And then I realized that I don't have a bra that fits underneath this dress and isn't visible. So I got to buy that. But the win is I'm going to do my own hair and makeup. That's right. We're not hiring professionals. I'm going to do it myself. So we'll save money there. Week three of no spend challenge. And it's honestly starting to feel a little bit like playing the game of life. And I just spun. It's your husband's birthday. Spend $8 on a birthday gift for him. Major win for this month. We just got reimbursed about $630 on travel costs because of a canceled trip back in December. And this month, I took the time because I had it to submit travel costs incurred because of the flight cancelation. This is because of the credit card that we have. We have travel insurance. A lot of travel credit cards will come with this. So I've never used it before, but tried it, submitted the hotel, of the food, the gas, the rental car that we ended up needing to get because of the canceled flight. And they reimbursed everything. And we got money back for the flight. So huge win for us. And this feels like time well spent submitting that claim. So in hindsight, I don't know that January was my best month to try and be doing a no spend challenge on Mr. Goodness. I think we found, I think we learned a lot about January after both of us doing a no spend January. I think someone needs to tell me next time. Probably you. It's probably going to have to beat you or maybe a listener. If I try and do a January no spend challenge next year, no, Joe, you're not doing it. I think February is much better. It's the shortest month of the year. Shortest month, I think it is the best month for a no spend challenge. I have said that before. But everybody wants to do a no spend January. And it just feels right. Right. I get it. But for me, specifically Eric's birthday always does just bring stuff up. Usually people are visiting in town or maybe we're we we're going to see family or something. But yeah, I mean to have a new nephew born, my husband's birthday. And I'm the native honor in a wedding. That was a real hard. But it was a lot of challenges that you could get creative with. So tell us a little bit more about each week. Like what was a like what was a win and a loss you had maybe from each week? So I will say my food spending was less than it had been in November and December. Not by ton, but still less. So I think having an awareness of what I'm spending on was really helpful. And I did only go to the grocery store once a week. So that's a big win. We also ended up like like I said, we ended up going north for travel or to see my nephew. So we did travel. And I did by tickets. Because of that travel reimbursement, staying with friends and family while we were there, putting the rental car on points, really brought all of our travel down to $63.16. So that was great. It wasn't nothing, but it should have been closer to like $600 that we spent. But because of all of those things coming together that really decreased and pretty much allowed us to go there, we went to both Pennsylvania to see my new nephew and then drove over to Ohio. We were gone for 10 days. So to have only spent $63 on travel to be gone for 10 days, that's a win. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Some failures, although I can't even say I would have done anything too much differently, is gifts. So between Eric's birthday, the birth of my new nephew and my friend, who's in this wedding, we also had a very tragic death in the family. And so wanting to be there to provide meals and some gift cards was really important. So this was our biggest spending category in January. We spend about $760 on gifts. That's wild. To be fair, I do have a sinking fund for this. So, yeah, I mean, life still happens in the midst of a no-spend challenge. And so I think the fact that I had prepared a had a time by having a sinking fund allowed me to be able to do some of these things guilt-free. The majority of that money did go to the family who had just lost a child. That's the reason for it being as high as it is, but that's where that money came from. And then the wedding, I did tally this up, which was, it was very illuminating. I was, I was partially curious. There's a part of me that just like didn't want to know what I ended up spending being a part of this wedding. It was less than I thought it was going to be though. So I spent $519.75 to be made of honor. So that includes, no, it's not. And I, I mean, you know me, I'm very aware and I'm reducing costs as much as possible, but between accessories, building out a wedding day survival kit. And then I did, and I know I did not have to do this, but it's the season of life that I'm in where I felt comfortable to do this. I bought all the food for three of the events that the bridesmaids did over the weekend, like the day that we got ready, I ordered food. When we were arranging flowers, I had ordered food. And so, yeah, I kind of covered the cost of a lot of that for the bridesmaids. So given that reality, yeah, it's $519.00 to feed many people did you do anything different or more creatively because you were on the no spend challenge that you still ended up spending, but you maybe spent less because you were inspired by the challenge. Definitely when it came to creating that survival kit. So for them, for the wedding day, I wanted to have a whole thing of what might we need as the day progresses and just to have it all on hand. And so that was things like a sewing kit and bobby pins and hairspray and mints and snacks and all these things. And so I was really challenging myself to curate it all from what I already have. And I did that 90% of the way. Then I did buy a couple of things that I'm like, we really might need this, like a tied pen and fashion tape, that kind of stuff. However, I didn't open those things. We ended up not using them and I returned to them. So that did feel like a win. I feel like if I if it wouldn't have been top of mine, I might have opened all the stuff and put them in the kit so that it just like looked prettier. But I'm like, I'm not that worried about it. This tied pens $5.00. And if we don't use it, I don't use stuff like that in my normal life. Like I want to be able to return it. Yeah. I think that and I and again, I think the food being top of mind that when I am grocery shopping, I only want to do one trip. I think I was just bummed about how active the month was in that I there was eating out. I couldn't not eat. I just couldn't eat every meal at home. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's that's do you feel like you like have was something harder than expected or easier than expected throughout the month that you remember? I think the reducing travel costs was far easier than expected. I was really like, okay, we're just pulling from our travel sinking fund and then to realize, whoa, if I can fill out this travel insurance reimbursement, if I can just take the time and it and it took time. Like I had to pull all the receipts. They wanted 10 different pieces of documentation. So I had to put in a lot of time and energy. But but in some ways that was easier than I thought. I thought that it was going to be a fight back and forth with them. And just to reduce costs that way, like I said by staying with friends, oh, we also ended up because we were gone for so long. We ended up looking at the difference between paying a driver to take us to the airport versus parking at the airport. And we saved about $30 by paying a driver versus parking at the airport. Nice. Honestly, maybe even more than that. Yeah. So that typically wouldn't be the case if we were only going for like two or three nights, but because it was 10, it was yeah. Yeah. So I think just having my mind on some of those pieces of how do I make it as low by as possible helped me to kind of lock in there. Nice. The start of the year always has me thinking about our goals, especially maxing out our raw Thierry's building savings and planning for the long term stuff. But goals are just wishes if you don't have the right systems to support them. That's why I use monarch. It's the budgeting app I use to actually implement those plans, not just track what already happened. Set yourself up for financial success this year with monarch, the all in one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. It brings your entire financial life budgeting accounts and investments net worth and future planning together in one dashboard on your phone or laptop. So you can feel aware and in control of your finances this year and get 50% off your monarch subscription with code frugal. What I love is that monarch helps you move from tracking to actually achieving. 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The ingredients are wholesome too, like sustainably sour seafood and 100% antibiotic and hormone-free chicken. The quality is so noticeable. There's now three times the seafood with no upcharge and you can get grass fed steak or rib eyes. Plus seasonal produce like pears, apples and asparagus. We've used HelloFresh and think everyone should give it a try, especially those who struggle to eat at home more. Go to hellofresh.com slash frugal 10 FM to get 10 free meals plus a freeze-willing knife. $144.99 value on your third box. Offer valid wall supplies last pre-mails applied as discount on first box. New subscribers only varies by plan. All right, Jen. Your turn. What were your rules? So I really wanted to do a like I just wanted to see how January went because we have a lot of things had a lot of things planned for January. So really my only rule was that I get to have one coffee out per week. That was that was my thing. I'm already only doing like one grocery trip per week and one Costco run per month. So I wanted to stick with that and yeah and do just like my meal planning meal prepping all of that. But January did throw me some curve balls that I wasn't expecting unfortunately. So yeah, it was probably the worst no-spin challenge. I literally wrote a book called the no-spin challenge guide and I kind of like I drew on all of that and did take some stuff away for like February. So yeah, that's those are replants. Yeah, well let's see how you did. No, spend challenge week one. I prepped some spaghetti bowls, a bunch of like protein packed muffins like for a savory option for breakfast and then some like yogurt parfaits for a sweet option. And I am excited to get started. I'm excited for what the month will hold. All right, no-spin challenge. We are going to the park and I am very hungry because I have been out for most of the day and I would like to stop at McDonald's and get Kai, a cheeseburger and get myself a hamburger. But they're going to be snacks at the park and so I'm not going to stop and get food. I'm going to eat park snacks. Stay tuned. Don't mind me. I'm just going through the car wash because I got a free car wash. So definitely look at all the car washes in your area and see if any of them offer a free car wash for your first time. A lot of them do and I hope the audio is coming out. You too. You too are sick. I love the first week. The hack right there. Yeah, it's so sick. Get sick, especially if you have a stomach flu and then you don't want to eat for a week. So great, great life hack. Horrible execution. But yeah, man, I was out of it. So yeah, the first week went well and then on the fourth, I got a stomach bug. I some of my spending was better and some of it was not. We were out of town the last week of December. So my December, so my December grocery spending was actually a little lower. I'm doing like a thousand dollars a month between Walmart and Costco. And in January, I was kind of like stocking up again and I did a $1,000.25. So like very average. I did 967 in December. So a little lower than normal. But in November, I had done a little more. So it kind of still averages out. I was honestly kind of shocked. I thought and my groceries had been closer to 800. So I don't know if part of it is like just like inflation. Surely I can't blame all of it on inflation. But yeah, groceries, groceries states the same. But I wasn't trying to lower my groceries. So I wasn't really paying attention to groceries. Restaurant eating was lower. We ate out. We did $273 at restaurants. So that's quick service. And sit down in December. And only 138. Not really. So literally for family of four, we spent $138 the entire month on eating out. That's insane. Which is great. Yeah. Like I remember many people that of family of four, that'd be how much to go out once. Right. So I was proud of that. That was. But in November, I only spent 130. So I would say around 200 is what we're happy with. And eating out was not something I was necessarily trying to cut down on either. Coffee shops. What? So I gave myself permission to do one coffee per week. And I don't know what happened. But I spent $40 at coffee shops. And in December, I spent 26 and November, I spent 18. So I don't know how I spent so much more in January getting coffee. Sometimes the awareness and the constant thinking about, I'm not going to do this. Can we do doing it? Yeah. Backfucker. But no, I should not be 26 is like the goal number. Like if I'm doing a seven, I'd give myself some phrase, like $7 a week, that's $28 a month. So yeah, I don't know what happened there. Did you go out more than that or did a certain coffee just cost you more? I think that I think I just went out more. Sometimes it'd be like that. I love how this episode on doing a nose bend challenge is us having done a low-spend challenge. And not crashing it. So you can know we're not perfect. Yeah. So that was the one, and it was the one thing I gave myself permission on. So my plan in February, we'll talk about our plans moving forward in a second. But that's in my plans for February. And I'm doing much better so far. And then my other struggle was Amazon. And I bought two gifts. And the gifts were not like, the gifts are good. I value like buying those. But I did buy a shirt for Travis for Super Nintendo World. We went the third week of January. And I bought a hat for my race at the end of January. And I did not need to buy those two things. I've been wanting a third hat because sometimes I'll do three runs in a week. But my running season's over. So I didn't need the third hat. I wanted the third hat. And I treated myself because it was for Disneyland. So I have no excuse on that honestly. I didn't need it. And the shirt for Travis, I also, he did not need it. But it was cute. Like I wanted him and him and Kai to have shirts, Kai already had a shirt. Atlas did not. And neither did I. And I was thinking about getting us shirts as well. And I said no. Oh wow. That was my compromise. Only Travis gets a shirt. Only Travis got a shirt. So that was, yeah, that was my, because he's super into Mario as well. Yeah. Atlas and I could care less. So that was my way that I got creative, where I still spent money. But I spent less than I would have. And I'm not like a buy matching pajamas for Christmas, girl or get go all out with family costumes for Halloween. But like that was something like because Mario was so important to Kai. That was something that I was like thinking about doing. And ended up saying like, okay, I'm going to compromise on this. Yeah. So yeah, I was, I was proud of that. And then we went to a trampoline park and we spent $38 because they made us all buy their branded socks. I bought socks for, I brought socks for everyone to this trampoline park. I'm like, no, they have to be our brand. And I was like, middle finger. Money grab. Yeah, that's a money grab. So what I did was I was like, well, I'm not going to go then. I'm going to let my family jump. And I'm going to say the $4 for by me not jumping. And the manager actually came over and just like handed me some socks. And he's like, go jump into your family. And so I did get to participate. Yeah. Sit now $4. The principal was the principal. This surely was the principal, because this was going to be such an affordable outing, because I had the socks already. And when they, when I got there and realized like it was the cash grab, I was so pissed. Could you, were the socks then yours? Can you hold on to them if you ever do go back? So now I can go back and it will be an affordable outing. And they've got me, but out of principal, I almost don't want to, but I will go back because I already have the socks and it's cheaper than any other trampoline park in the area. So those were the, those were the two ways that I kind of tried to get creative. Yeah. What were you, where were you proud of yourself in this challenge? I was definitely proud of my eating at home and the meal prepping, how to walk to do with that. I just did a lot of meal prepping and then I ate it all and it caused me like when I did go out, it was like we did tacos one night and it was actually really great. The new Mercado West near our house. Okay. Fantastic. Fun. So we had a very fun night out with the boys. I had a spicy margarita and it felt worth it. And then the rest was kind of just like some McDonald's purchases because the kids like McDonald's and sometimes will like bribe, kind to go to Tecquendo by saying, oh you can go to the McDonald's play place afterwards. So that was the rest of it. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, like I am proud of where kind of how that went. Groceries, I'm not as proud of. I think I really need to reevaluate. I know I eat at home a lot so that makes my grocery budget bigger and I'm not like mad about that but I do want to see if I can get it to 800. Do you think that's realistic? I don't know but I want to try. That's what this month has kind of inspired me to do. If I could save $200 somewhere, I'd like to see if I could do it in groceries because I think that's the one place right now looking at my budget that I could optimize. Yeah. I had done because somebody reached out to us on Instagram, DMed us about trying to lower their grocery budget as a family of four and they're just like, I can't seem to get it below a thousand. And in looking it up, that is what the internet says is the more like frugal amount. Yeah. It would be a thousand dollars for a family of four. So a thousand feels reasonable but at least is a two-year-old. And so he's still not eating like enough for a full person. So I feel like now is the time where I could get it to 800. Do you know what you would do? Like what are the specific shifts you would make? Being a person who meal plans, preps, and does a pickup grocery or something. I think it wouldn't be a long-term shift. I think it would, I need to eat through more of my pantry. Okay. I think if I could, I think I could do that for at least one month, have it at 800. If I did a pantry challenge. Okay. So that's kind of what I'm thinking. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I'll stay tuned for that one. Because in December, we were at 9.67 and yes, we were gone for a week. Yeah. But yeah. Okay. So that's part of your plan for February. What else are you going to do? You want to see if you can get groceries at 800? Yeah. I'd like to see if we could do a month of a hundred dollars on restaurants. Would that be this month? Would that be February? I don't know. Okay. Actually, I haven't looked at my, we're 10 days into February and I haven't, I haven't looked at our restaurant spending. Yeah. We have gone out like we, we went out after I got back from, from California. And I did not include my, our Epic universe or my Disneyland spending in this because those were two things where it's like, I'm going to spend. I'm never going to Epic Universe again and I'm probably never going back to Disneyland. So I am going to spend, but spoiler, I was sick at Disneyland. So I actually didn't spend as much money as I wanted. I don't like, I want to let loose. I wanted to spend a lot more money than I did in California. And I was sick. So I didn't spend as much. But we did, we did spend money at Epic Universe. But we didn't buy, we didn't buy, well, we bought one of those $45 like wristbands that I'm going to try to resell on Facebook Marketplace. What, what is the $45 wristband? What do you mean? There's a $45 wristband from the Super Nintendo world where you can like hit things and get points. And it was a fun little like, we had to do three different challenges. And once you did the three challenges and you got to go through like Bowser's Castle and play a different game. So it was great. And it's something we knew we wanted to do with Kai. I tried to find one on Facebook Marketplace, but I couldn't find one in time. So what I am going to do is sell the one that we have. Well, nice to recoup some of the cost. So yeah, that is, and then no clothes. I didn't buy any clothes in January besides the hat. And I'm not going to buy any more in February. So that's something we'll keep doing. Yeah. But I really think I'm not mad at how it went even though I did spend more on coffee shops than I anticipated. Do you have a financial goal that is propelling some of these hopes like to reduce your grocery spending by 200 from what it typically is to not buy clothing or reduce restaurant spending like what's that attached to? We are truly honestly in a season of treading water. Honestly, we don't have a goal right now. I would like to pay off my car. But it's not something I'm trying to do quickly. Like if we do have extra money, I am putting it towards investing. So we're putting a lot of our eggs in the basket of getting our CFP. Right. Like so in full transparency, we're kind of just floating along in this season until we can get our CFP and kind of add that to our repertoire. So yeah, no goal right now. But my next goal when we are out of this season, which things change a lot in July. Like daycare ends and we're going to public school pre-K. We take our CFP exam and hopefully we both pass prayers. And so that changes things and yeah, and then I have to pay for summer camp for Kaitu. But that ends the end of summer. So a lot of things change in July. But in the season through now, to July is very much like we're just we're treading. We're just going. So anything we can save, we are actually just saving up versus putting it into retirement. Just in case we have any like home repairs that need to happen. In December, it was one of the reasons our eating out was up in December was we had to fully renovate the bathroom in our rental property because our tenants like were you know displeased with something which just led to an entire like renovation and like $1,300 of spending on that house that I wasn't planning. So like we're kind of just hoarding money right now for stuff like that that comes out. And we're punishing too. Right, we are in a state of replenishing as well. Yeah. For me and February, I really want to keep. And this is a long term, like something I want to stick with that I think is sustainable. But the the one grocery trip a week, like I don't want to be going constantly. I would love to also reduce our eating out to like one to two times a week. We do great through the week. And then the weekend is just bonkers. We're hardly home. And so we're just eating out a ton. So I really want to hone that in. Although it might be better for me now that I'm saying this out loud. Here we go. We're workshopping this together to more so put a monetary amount to it than a number of times because we could go out three times in a weekend for probably less than $100. It's just I'm sometimes spending more than that. That's probably what I'm going to say is a monetary amount. Oh, I also don't want to do any coffee shops in February. Oh, okay. Yeah. How are you going to do that? Just make all my coffee at home. Which were 10 days in and I have not been to a coffee shop. So beautiful. I am succeeding on that. I'm probably doing better on no spend coffee, February, then January. Yeah. Yeah. So beautiful. So I think the takeaway from maybe our journeys in no spend January is that again, and we will say it till we are blue in the face and nobody will listen. But you will listen. You right now will listen is that the success of a no spend challenge is not in how little you spend or how few transactions you can make in the month. The success of a no spend challenge is how many things you learn about your spending that you can take with you into subsequent months. How many things you will actually act on in the month's following? Because that is what will create long-term change and much more savings than just the one no spend month alone. Because we just focus on the month, we can do like a pendulum swing where it's no spending to all of this like makeup spending. And that's not what we want. When you focus just on the spending, you get that yo-yo diet. But when you focus on the lessons, that's when you get long-term habit change. And that is what we are truly going for. And I do feel like I am going to improve some of my habits in February like the coffee runs, like the intentionality on the groceries. I think those are my two biggest habit changes that I'm taking forward. And it should only be one or two. Because we can't change 10 habits at a time, right? That's why I said in going in, you could just do a no spend in one category. And you focus on that category. And that's what you're really looking to change. So bringing out that one to two habit change going into the next month from whatever your no spend month is, I think is the most impactful way to do it. Yeah. Just the awareness, the exercise and creativity, the looking for alternatives to see if they exist. They may not. But if you can find an alternative and it works, then you're just learning new things and being able to implement better habits. And this would have been a much shorter episode if we just got down here and be like, oh yeah, I didn't spend anything. And there's going to be somebody in the comments being like, this mood, I don't know how to do it. No, spend your own just spend so much money. And maybe was born and somebody passed away. Marriage happened. Wedding occurred. Yeah. And it was happening to you too. Yes. Like it's none of us live in a vacuum. So that's what I hope you take away from this review of our quote unquote failed no spend challenges. Still worth doing though, because I learned so much and is renewing me to, okay, now I know the two things I want to focus on for February. Same. Do you know what I also want to focus on in every single episode every week? And honestly, such a success every little week. The bill of the week. That's right. It's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you paid off your mortgage. Maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that bill anymore. Duck bills, buffalo bills, Bill Clinton. This is the bill of the week. Hey, Jen and Jill. So I have deemed 2025 my year of expensive lessons because I've spent a lot of money and learned a lot from it and from your show. So thank you for that. My bill of the week is that I really messed up my 2024 tax return and needed to get it refiled this year. I started having a rental property in 2024 and really did not know what I was doing. So I asked a friend for her recommendation and just decided to go with a guy that she told me about I didn't shop around and I really should have. And I thought that their fee would be around $450, which was a lot, but I wanted it done by professionals. So I went ahead and said yes. And then when they actually charged to me, it was more like $750, which is a lot more than I was expecting. So I very politely asked why it was so much more expensive. And if they could do anything about it and they did give me a $300 credit to use for future expenses. Unfortunately, it was not refundable. So I probably won't be going back to their firm now that I know how expensive it is, but I am still proud of myself for having asked. And yeah, definitely learned from that lesson and experience as well. So thanks for your show. I really enjoy it. And that's my bill of the week. Man, rental property to the worst. That's what made it the worst. But it is interesting to realize that different decisions beyond just being a W2 employee bring on more tax complications that if you're not aware of, can be really overwhelming, can cause you to spend a lot more money than you were planning to. And even the meeting now then hires somebody because now you're in a more complicated tax situation. So just something to think about when you not saying don't do it, but as part of the process of considering starting your own business, having rental income, selling your house, making major life decisions, that's a time when you seek a CFP. That is CFP certified financial planers help you with tax planning and accountants help you do your taxes from the last tax year. But like, it's already done. You can't do anything about it, but you can see advice from a CFP. You don't necessarily have to, if you're not in an income or net worth level, where you need to get a full holistic financial plan. But it is worth if you have tax questions in the current tax year to what you can be doing or should be doing to seek out an advice only, CFP, where you can ask them one question about taxes. And that should be around like $250 to $300. I think a tick away here too is to shop around. I think there are times like we pay an accountant to do our taxes. Yes, we are starting to be CFPs, but that does not make us accountants. It makes us better at tax planning, but not tax prepping. And so yeah, and because we own a business and because it's a partnership, like there's more complications to it. So it's worth it to us to pay somebody. But you have found a very affordable accountant for us that we've now used for the past few years. And so I think asking around to your friends, how much do you pay for tax preparation? Who do you use? What kind of reviews do they receive? Because there is a wide range of what people charge to do that service. And yes, $750 is a lot of money if you... But it is not the most. Yeah, not the most I've heard. But 400 sounded more accurate. And so what a shame that you didn't have all that information. But yes, like celebrating with you with the learnings that you're taking from these mistakes, thank you so much for your willingness to share that with us because we all learn together. If you have a bill that you want to share if it has to do with learning from your mistakes or not caring about the mistakes that you've made or your name is Bill, we want to hear about it. Rigglefriendspodcast.com slash bill. Leave it for us. 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Don't keep settling for clothes that don't last go to q-u-i-n-c-e.com slash frugal for free shipping and 365 days return. Quints.com slash frugal. We cannot stand bank fees. Overdraft fees, monthly fees, minimum balance fees. It's like getting punished for using your own money. That's why chime is such a game changer. It's fee-free, smarter banking built for you. The new chime card lets you build credit with your own money and earn rewards while doing it. No strings attached. With qualifying direct deposits, you get 1.5% cash back on eligible purchases. This is the card my younger self would have needed and loved. It's banking upgraded. Chime is not just smarter banking. It's the most rewarding way to bank. Join the millions who are already banking fee-free today. It just takes a few minutes to sign up. Head to chime.com slash frugal. That's chime.com slash frugal. Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services, a secured chime visa credit card, and my pay line of credit provided by the bank or bank NA or stride bank NA. My pay eligibility requirements apply and credit limit ranges $20 to $500. Optional services and products may have fees or charges. See chime.com slash fees info. Advertise annual percentage yield with chime plus status only. Otherwise 1.00% APY applies. No main balance required. Chime card on time payment history may have a positive impact on your credit score. Results may vary. See chime.com for details and applicable terms. And now it's time for. Oh my God. How beautiful. All right. What's your go-to rationalization for spending? What do you think for you? For me? Yeah. I don't spend a lot. So I can afford this or I can do this. That's what I say. I was like, I don't go out much. So I'm do that. I actually did spend a lot of money on a brunch on Sunday. And my rational because friends invited me out and I was like, it was so expensive. Like I gougingly expensive. And I was like, this is why I don't have a lot of friends. So my rationalization is this is what money is for. It is spending. I planned for this. I mean, truly. Yeah. Even when I do spend a lot, I'm like, that's in my plan. I don't go over it. Rarely go over it. And I don't like it. If I do, I just suggest that's so true. It's your plan. You are not beholden to the plan. The plan is beholden to you. But you're both beholden to the money that you have in your account. So remember that. I budgeted for this. That's what we say. Thanks so much. All of you for saying things about our book, like this review left by cat five stars, good intro to personal finance book. I thought this book was a great intro to personal finance and a motivating way to start off the new year. Unlike other personal finance books, I've read in the past, the tips in this book felt very approachable, very doable. Some of the tips were pretty standard like having a budget. But I liked how the book also covered the psychology of spending money. So I could dig deeper into some of the money habits that I have. Overall, I'd recommend if you are new to personal finance and aren't sure how to start managing your money. Well, thank you so much, Cat. And thank you for listening. If you haven't subscribed, please subscribe on our YouTube channel. Every single person helps get this message out to more people. And we will see you next time. If you haven't gotten our book by welovebook.com and leave a review on Amazon if you can. We're so appreciative of all of you. Bye. Google Friends is produced by Eric Seriani. Um, okay, I have talked about this before. Uh-huh. I think on the podcast or at least to you, but this deserves another moment. Oh, okay. The the travel rewards credit card that I use that comes with travel insurance. Again, this was my first time using it. Yes. Canceled flight couldn't get on a flight for another three days. So we just decided to drive home. We're like, that's ludicrous. Let's we need to get home. We got to work. And who's to say that, you know, the flight in three days is going to happen. So we run to the car and had to get a hotel overnight and all this stuff. And I'm thinking they're probably not going to cover it because we did get reimbursed for the flight. Like the airline did pay us back for the flight. And our travel was different. I'm like, is that is that going to matter? That we didn't take a flight. We ended up driving. What are they going to do about that? But whatever, I took the time to submit all of these receipts and everything. And I got like $600. Yeah. And you said that. I was so pleased for you. It's so insane. Just because of the credit card that we have. Like it is worth looking up the perks that come with a credit card. Well, that's why we have in our annual finance planner, frugalfriendspodcast.com slash planner. I think yeah. A travel rewards credit cards tab. Yep. So that you can put in all of your cards and the rewards that come with them. So that you don't forget about them. Because some come with like an Instacart plus membership or a door dash annual membership or all these different things. You know what I say? I never use the insurance. And that's not true because side bar two, you save money because I'm not purchasing insurance when I rent a car. I'm not purchasing travel insurance when, you know, I'm booking travel. So I'm not spending that money, but I'm still getting that benefit through the credit card. And in the past, they've always come through for me too mainly with rental cars. There was a time that I got a wrench through the tire of a rental car just driving down the road needed to get the tire replaced. The chase travel rewards paid for that another time. And I told this in an after show. I got all the tires popped on traffic teeth at its side of the road park in Washington state. They did that. There was another issue that I've had with a rental car too. I can't even remember. Well, I look forward to renting a car this weekend. And you know what? Thank you. Now that if you book it with a travel rewards credit card that offers car and car rental insurance, you can say no at the counter. Well, I'll make sure that I do that. Well, okay, can't wait for you. Bye.