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StitcherUnlocking the key to smart ways of handling your finances begins with understanding the power of habits and their impact on your life. Habits are not easy to bend and break, and there’s always continuous effort to change certain aspects to replace them with something better. Join us in this episode as we identify the causes of why we overspend, acknowledge these mistakes, and break and replace them.
Motivation can't be the thing that we're waiting on to just happen.
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- The Summa Slowdown. Summer has graced us with its presence and with it comes a slew of free activities put on by your city, church, school, parents, and more. Summer is a time to stress less and while that’s easier said than done we want to put our action where our mouth is. So for June and July we’ll be releasing one episode per week. Will it cut our income in half for 2 months? Yes. Will it give us more time to enjoy this season? Absolutely. This is why we save and spend intentionally so we can afford to rest. We will be back to two per week in August but we encourage you to rest with us this summer and embrace, the Summa Slowdown.
Check out some relevant episodes
3 Habits That Actually Cause You to Spend More Money, According to a Behavioral Researcher
This article by CNBC cites findings about the habits and behavioral research that identifies the causes for one to spend money.
What Jen + Jill have to say:
According to Mariel Beasly, 3 habits lead us to spend more money. Firstly, we rely on our willpower to restrict spending. Jill has said before that motivation ebbs and flows, and it isn’t something you wait to befall us. Willpower may wear down over time and isn’t always effective. Keeping up with whoever you follow “successfully” on Instagram can also heavily influence your spending habits.
When our willpower is depleted, it makes it even harder to focus on the long-term benefit of what we may be doing to achieve our goals. Jen reminds us that it isn’t bad to focus on immediate satisfaction, but not do it for every decision we make. These three reasons are important to assess because we only have finite willpower, so we want our habits to be intentional and opt for growth, not limit you.
How to Break a Bad Habit and Replace It With a Good One
Jen LOVES this article by James Clear that describes a ‘bad habit,’ identifies its causes, and shares how to break or replace them in a better one.
What Jen + Jill have to say:
Habits are difficult to eliminate, so replace them instead of completely removing them. There could be plenty of causes for our bad habits, one of which is boredom–in the sense of not being intentional. Jen describes this when our minds always take fewer obstacles instead of leaping. Try cutting out as many triggers as possible by ignoring them as much as possible and choosing a substitute for them. If you are surrounded by people who encourage you to reframe your mindset to a better angle, then it will affect your decisions positively.
You can always join forces with someone, says Jill. Sharing your goals and challenges with someone can be a powerful motivator to stay on track with your goals. Visualizing yourself succeeding and not needing to become someone else are stepping stones to interrupting the negativity you may be surrounding yourself with. Not succeeding in a way you thought you wouldn’t succeed is not failure; whatever habit you’re working on, you’ll work on it for at least 3-6 months. Plan not to be perfect; do not succeed in the way you think you should be.
What's a recent habit you had to replace and how did you do it?
Jill replaced her end-of-workday drink habit with fun teas and refreshing lemon water, incorporating walks she finds refreshing and a treat for herself.
Meanwhile, Jen broke her habit of eating waffles for breakfast every morning for six weeks and replaced them with egg cups and breakfast burritos, positively changing her morning routine.
Bill of The Week
Thank you Katie for sharing your bill about eggs! AND negotiating your egg purchase to $1.49!
Thanks so Much for Listening!
Thanks so much for listening! Many of you know we have a private community where we do monthly money challenges and offer accountability groups. We want to congratulate one of our members for a big win:
Big win! Teaching the next generations!
I was asked to teach cooking classes for our junior high students at my school(🥳) so I asked my principal if I could add a financial component to it and she said “Absolutely! They need to develop these skills!”
At the end of the class, I made them look through flyers and they had to pick 10 products that their family uses and that they considered “on sale”. They kept asking “But how are we going to know?” and I’d answer “Well, that’s the thing, the first time you do it, you don’t know, but I’m hoping that by June you are masters at recognizing what’s a good price is! (They’re keeping a logbook).
Anyway! I felt so full after that class!! I loved sharing those tricks with them and I can see that they see the value in them! I even told them, if your parents/you save money on grocery, that means more money for things you like! (Value-based budgeting!!🥳) I even got to bring back some food that would have got wasted at home after! (Apparently nobody likes mushrooms 🤪)
Congrats! Thanks for listening and if you want to check out our monthly challenge community head to frugalfriendspodcast.com/club to see what challenge we have coming up next.
Keep leaving us reviews on iTunes or Stitcher, and sending the screenshot to reviews@frugalfriendspodcast.com. And don’t forget to share your favorite quote from the episode by using the hashtag #FrugalFriendsNote. 😉