Work Lean

There is Nothing Wrong With Your House.

7 Ways to Save Money on Home Improvements and Free Up Your Time.

One of the hassles of owning a home, especially a home that’s more than 20 years old, is the steady flow of things to do. Not just general upkeep or lawn care, there are repairs to make, appliances to replace, projects to plan.

Should I do my own home improvements? Maybe ask my wife to help me? Or have a few friends over and trade beers for some labor?

There sure are a lot of YouTube videos out there showing you how easy it all is. More resources than ever before to help you get these jobs done easily.

As you get older, get married, maybe have kids, start a business, you really start to look at your time closely and wonder if you are spending it wisely. So, even though I’ve done some minor repairs and home improvements in the past, now I often look at them and find that my time is better spent elsewhere. Time with my family, time outdoors, or even an equal amount of time that I could spend doing work that I enjoy such as writing, photography or creating digital campaigns.

Another way to justify outsourcing home-improvements is to compare what you may earn spending that time creating. In my case, the time is better spent doing some work that could generate income long-term and comes easier to me than home improvements. In my case, I tend to be more handy with the laptop than with the hammer.

Outsourcing

So, for me, it’s decided. I’m outsourcing home improvements and repairs, even the simpler ones like painting and landscaping. For years, every frugal bone in my body told me this was not the best way to go about it. Then I decided to view this from a different angle.

There is nothing wrong with my house.

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Making Deposits In the Bank of Experience

02/19 by The Frug Leave a Comment

By Brad Beckstrom

For those times when you wonder what you’re getting out of practice and training:

“For 42 years, I’ve been making small, regular deposits in this bank of experience, education, and training. On January 15, the balance was sufficient so that I could make a very large withdrawal.”

– Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, pilot US Airways Flight 1549.

About the Bank

One of the first personal improvement books I read was The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People By Stephen Covey. The book had a big impact on how I worked. Covey spends time in the book diving into work and personal relationships. One of the concepts Covey espoused is the importance of making deposits in the emotional bank accounts of others. Basically, every time you build up trust or goodwill with another person, you’re making a deposit in their emotional bank account as well as yours.

Being a saver, the bank account analogy made a lot of sense to me. You build up deposits of trust and respect over time and occasionally you can make a withdrawal, possibly a favor or tapping into another’s expertise.

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Become the Master of Your Domain

02/19 by The Frug 1 Comment

Using your name to create a personal domain and homepage.

By Brad Beckstrom

In the wide world of apps, social media, and online profiles people may ask what’s the purpose of a personal domain name? Over the years, I’ve created profiles on just about every popular social media site including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, Medium, 500px, Pinterest, Nextdoor, Quora, WordPress, Yelp, Adobe, About.me, Flavors.me, Clarity.fm….. the list goes on.

In addition to this, I write and work with partners, media companies or events that post my profile here and there. If you’re active online, do a Google search for your name and you’ll see many of these profiles appear. Many are out of date, put up quickly, or lack complete information.

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It’s Screen Time. Making the most of your smartphone addiction.

01/19 by The Frug 2 Comments

By Brad Beckstrom

I’ve been playing with the screen time tracker on my iPhone. Apple recently introduced screen time tracking in response to legitimate public concern about rampant addiction to looking at our iPhones.

Apple hid this app in the settings section so if you look for it on your home screen or search bar you won’t see it. You need to go to settings and search for it. I really don’t feel there’s enough data in there for me to decide if I have a smartphone problem but I should keep an eye on it. Actually, I already know I have a smartphone problem. I really don’t need another app to tell me about this. I just want to manage it.

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Why you should stop checking your stocks every day.

11/18 by The Frug 1 Comment

By Brad Beckstrom

I purchased my first mutual fund about 6 months before Black Monday in 1987. We didn’t have the internet or online investing. Not even email! That was so sweet. Imagine going through your workday largely uninterrupted. When I was a field employee in my first real job, pretty much everything came through the US mail. Our 401(k) statements came quarterly. Savings Bonds were in a drawer, and mutual fund statements came monthly, but only after I had consolidated a few of them into a brokerage account.

Then everything changed.

First came 24/7 cable news with tickers, then in the 90s things really took off with the introduction of websites like Yahoo Finance. In the late 90s everyone was talking about or buying some sort of tech stock. Then they would watch the stocks along with their company stocks or mutual funds in online portfolio trackers. Most didn’t actually link to your investment account yet, but you could manually enter your shares and ticker symbols. [Read more…] about Why you should stop checking your stocks every day.

Creating a Freedom Plan

10/18 by The Frug 2 Comments

Image. Fog Rolls In. Brad Beckstrom

By Brad Beckstrom

“The message here is that people need a freedom plan, not a retirement plan. The traditional work until you’re 65 to cross some imaginary finish line is going away fast”

It’s never too late to start, but start now.

My knees burned as I climbed up the hill. It was 103° and I was hiking up a steep trail in a jungle north of Chiang Mai, Thailand. Lightheaded again, need more water. What if I just keeled over right here on this trail? How long would it be till someone found me? I have a family at home, I have responsibilities.

As I slowly got my stride back, it hit me. It’s not unusual for my knees to burn, or to feel lightheaded in hot weather. Hell, this happens when I’m walking our dog on a trail at home. But it happens more than it used to.

The Question

This is where I came face-to-face with the question…. what if I waited too long to do this? I mean, not just this trip or this hike. How late is too late to set out on that big audacious quest?

What’s a big audacious quest? That thing in your head that you’ve always wanted to do. Most likely It’s been lingering back there since high school. Not some short trip or vacation but a quest. Something that may take years and requires focus and dedication. Something you don’t want to wait too long to start. [Read more…] about Creating a Freedom Plan