The Frug: Live Lean. Work Lean. Travel Lean.

The New Frugality

Does frugality still work? If so has it changed?

I learned a lot from my grandmothers. One ran a business with my grandfather and the other invested in dividend stocks. They were both ahead of their time in the 60s and 70s. I remember my grandmother showing me her stock certificates and explaining how dividends worked. She explained how she used dividends to support herself after my grandfather Tom passed away at the age of 58. I remember the railroad and utility stock certificates with their elaborate etchings and visiting her stockbroker to execute a trade well before computers arrived.

I didn’t get to really meet either of my grandfathers since they both died young. I did spend quite a bit of time with both grandmothers, either staying overnight or while visiting cousins nearby. By the time I was a young man, they both had lived through two world wars, the depression, Vietnam, the Womens and Civil Rights movements, the Kennedy assassination, 1973 and 1974 energy crisis, inflation, cold wars, and multiple recessions. As savers and investors they had seen some setbacks.

The Old Frugality

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Building a Financial Bridge Over Stormy Seas

07/19 by The Frug Leave a Comment

As I’m writing this the S&P 500 just passed the 3000 mark. It only took five years for the index to reach this new high from the 2000 point milestone in 2014. In contrast, the rise from 1000 to 2000 required more than 16 years.

I like to think of myself as an optimist. So, I’m always confident that the market will go up over time. I just get a bit concerned when I see politicians taking credit for market gains and large companies using federal tax giveaways to buy back shares, propping up share prices.

All this while the US deficit is moving up in hockey stick fashion. Trade wars also pushed market volatility to new highs in 2018. It’s always easy to find bad news from good sources if you’re looking for it.

The case for optimism

On the other hand, experts have been predicting the next market crash since about 2012. Currently, we are 10 years into a record long bull run in the US stock markets. The point here is that no one can predict the direction of the markets. As much as governments may try, they even have trouble disrupting forward progress. Time marches on, things do eventually get better over time. Stay optimistic. When the next bear market or correction comes along, hang on tight and tell yourself this too shall pass.

Expect the best, plan for the worst

Optimism definitely has its place. For those of us that retired early, are financially independent, nearing retirement, or just hanging out on a beach somewhere, now is the perfect time to be a bit of a pessimist. Over the past two years, as this bull current bull market has gotten a bit long in the tooth, I’ve found myself looking at how specific investments performed during the 2001 and 2008 bear markets and recessions.

If we were to have another major bear market, how would my portfolio perform and what should my asset allocation be before it comes? I look at this as sort of conducting your own financial stress test, similar to what the Fed asks banks to do.

If you’re retired or financially independent and source part of your income from dividends and capital gains, ask this question: What could you do now that would enable you to get through the next recession and bull market without having to sell dividend producing stocks or stock market index funds while prices are dropping?

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The Art of Living Dangerously. Using Risk as a Tool to Improve.

06/19 by The Frug Leave a Comment

By Brad Beckstrom

I hadn’t heard this quote in years, but when I heard it repeated in a recent interview, it stopped me in my tracks. I quickly scribbled down the first and the last part of the quote. A few weeks later, when I was looking back at my notes, I’d written. “Security is mostly a superstition. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”

Over the years I’ve read hundreds of quotes about risk, but this one was epic. Just the first or last sentence could stand alone as memorable with anyone who takes risks. Not just the skydiving over volcanoes type of risk, but all kinds of risk. Risk to your reputation, risk to your retirement account, risk of rejection, major downsides, and business failures.

If you’re doing work with no downside, no risk, working just to reach an imaginary finish line that may be the most dangerous work of all. Whatever your vocation, whatever brings you fulfillment, it can be enhanced with risk. Risk requires that we act. When we take action on any endeavor, we learn more.

Eat, Walk and Think.

06/19 by The Frug 2 Comments

What an ancient proverb taught me about walking and thinking after every meal.

By Brad Beckstrom

There is an ancient Chinese proverb that goes: “take 100 steps after every meal and live to 100.” That’s not an exact translation but it just flows better. There’s also an ancient Indian term Shatapawali. The word is a compound from shata meaning “hundred” and paaul which means “step”, this refers to an age-old Indian custom of taking a stroll after a meal. It’s interesting that, like the Chinese proverb, they also mention 100 steps.

I’d like to think that 100 steps is a good starting point because most people could do that in about 1 minute. The key idea here is that once you take 100 steps there is a very good chance you’ll keep going. You’re creating a habit and a trigger to make it a permanent habit.

Just like an old roommate used to say “my goal for today is to walk to the stop sign at the end of the street and back.” You need to start somewhere. He was in his 20s at the time. I’m hoping that he kept up with the habit and maybe started walking a little further.

Further

I’ve always been one of those people who vanished around lunchtime. It’s not that I was antisocial, it’s that I wanted to spend at least 30 minutes walking after I finished eating. When I worked in an office, I’d often accomplish this by picking a restaurant that was at least a 15 to 20 minute walk. Then I’d usually take the long way back. The meal would be usually the shortest part of the whole process, generally I was gone for about an hour.

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The Allure of the Obscure.

05/19 by The Frug Leave a Comment

See more for less by traveling off the beaten path.

The Real Grand Budapest Hotel. Palace Bristol Hotel in Karlovy

By Brad Beckstrom

Knowing little about your destination is half the adventure.

Years ago, before online travel booking, I had a roommate that used to walk into a travel agent, or up to a ticket counter, and ask for the least expensive plane ticket available to anywhere. He would gather up the information and try to talk friends into joining him at this random, often obscure, location for a weekend. It was the late 80s and discount airlines were starting to crop up with all kinds of $39 specials to destinations that they wanted to build traffic to. There was one airline, People Express, that would even collect payment for the tickets once you got on the plane, sort of like a city bus.

His rule was it had to be the absolute cheapest ticket available, not something close to cheapest. The destination would be a secret to anyone who went along until they got to the airport.

750 Words will get you writing.

04/19 by The Frug Leave a Comment

A daily mind clearing exercise that’s a productive alternative for those who struggle with meditation.

I just discovered a note I saved in Evernote in 2013. I was doing a quick search about writing habits and boom, three or four great articles I had previously saved showed up in my search. Including the site 750 words.

It wasn’t exactly what I was looking for but I decided to give the 750 Words tool a shot. This is really a tool for people who would like to improve their writing but don’t want to constantly try to publish things on social media or writing sites like Medium.com.

750 words will help you create a healthy writing habit by tracking your daily word count and writing habits. The cool thing is that it’s really a great way to simply clear your mind in the morning by writing any random stuff that’s in your head down on paper. I also think it’s a nice alternative to meditation especially for people that have lots of voices and ideas floating around their heads especially when they’re sitting still with their eyes closed. Here is my first example in the raw. Speech to text flow of consciousness grammatical errors included.

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