frug apps

Should I have another?

The best way to track your alcohol intake without carrying around a breathalyzer or having someone offer you one.

By Brad Beckstrom

So one friend says to me “I shouldn’t have a beer, I’m driving.” Another friend says “Let’s have another round.” And he may have already had 5. Even though I frequently use UBER or Lyft to get around, I still think it’s a good idea to keep track of what you’re drinking. I’ve been trying to cut back on the amount of alcohol I consume to lose a few pounds and live a healthier lifestyle.

I found a subtle trick you can use to limit your drinking and stay well within legal limits. You’ll be able to your enjoy yourself whether it’s with the 1 beer friend, 5 beer friend, or no beer friend. Here’s how it works:

The past couple of years I’ve been using a smartphone app called IntelliDrink. The app uses an algorithm based on information you put in to set up your profile. Your profile includes things like height weight, and gender but also allows you to put in your favorite drinks, including type, size, and alcohol content in advance. So, when you have a beverage, all you need to do is click on the drink button. You can even adjust the time you started, as well as whether you have recently eaten, or are drinking on an empty stomach. Just make sure you’re sober when you complete your profile and put in the drink information. You only need to do this once.

The most important feature on the app is the blood alcohol content (BAC) graph. What many people don’t realize is that your blood-alcohol level continues to rise after you stop drinking, especially if you’ve had several drinks over a short period of time. This app does a great job of tracking and predicting blood alcohol content based on your profile and the types, time, and number of drinks you’ve entered by hitting the drink button. [Read more…] about Should I have another?

Multitasking with Your Left foot and Your Right Brain.

04/15 by The Frug Leave a Comment

The secret was in my feet.

By Brad Beckstrom

Many people think they they can multitask effectively. Companies put it in job descriptions, people put on their resumes, and talk about it in interviews. Neuroscientists say that we’re not actually multitasking but quickly switching from one task to another. Even if we believe we’re getting more done, multitasking makes us less effective.

But, what if we were to combine a single focused mental task with a simple physical one? A single physical task like walking. This way we’re able to do the physical task almost from muscle memory and focus on the mental one with minimal interruption. We can also minimize interruptions by being in motion instead of sitting in an office, for example. [Read more…] about Multitasking with Your Left foot and Your Right Brain.

Why you’ll soon be paying zero dollars per month for high tech home security.

11/14 by The Frug Leave a Comment

Home Alarm Disruption — Scary Times for Established Players with Fees

By Brad Beckstrom

What is disruption? It’s when an established industry like eyeglasses, taxicabs, music is completely turned on its head by a new technology or a new way of doing things.

Usually this is very good for Frugs. Eyeglasses and prescription sunglasses drop from hundreds of dollars down to $75. A taxicab ride into town drops from $20 to $10 and comes with a tidy receipt, including a map of your journey sent to your phone from UberX. Music sounds better and, is unlimited, for a fraction of what we used to pay.

Whenever I see an industry about to be disrupted, I see opportunity to flex some frug muscles and get the word out. The next industry being disrupted…..

Home security.

The home security business is a 5+ billion dollar industry. The industry includes established players like ADT, FrontPoint, Brinks. Also, other major communications players have jumped into the game including Google, AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and others.

The monthly monitoring fees are the bread-and-butter profits for these companies. Much like the cable or mobile phone industry, they are willing to install a high-tech home system, for a low price, but you’ll be on the hook paying anywhere from $30 to $200 a month or more, depending on the number of entries, windows, sensors, and keypads etc. in your home.

Cable companies and mobile carriers are jumping into this market because it’s a perfect fit for their model. They are very good at setting contracts up, raising prices while charging early termination fees for those who want out after their monthly monitoring gets too pricey.

The good news is this industry is about to be completely disrupted.

The Trail That Saved My Life.

06/14 by The Frug Leave a Comment

By Brad Beckstrom

180/90

That was my blood pressure reading. My doctor came in to check it again. She came up with something higher. She said “You’re not going anywhere. We need you to lie down while we bring in a EKG machine.”

I had gotten some friendly warnings about my blood pressure before, but I was the proper weight (range) for my age and believed I was living a healthy lifestyle. But this blood pressure reading was off the charts for me, well, for anyone.

Trouble

I was in the process of being unceremoniously bought out of a company I’d co-founded 10 years earlier. The stress of been building up for over a year and was showing up in all the usual places, poor sleep, weight gain, high blood pressure. At that point, I was lifting weights 2 to 3 times a week but I’d given up running years earlier due to some knee issues. I enjoyed mountain biking but rarely found the time to do it.

If you’ve ever lived through a major lawsuit or been forced out of something that you spent over a decade building, whether it be a marriage, a company, a career, or something that feels like all three, then you begin to discover a whole new level of stress. It’s different than work-related stress when you’re part of a team dealing with a difficult situation. In my case, it was personal and it was prolonged – 3 ½ years by the time it was all over.

Personal and Prolonged

It was the personal and the prolonged part that really impacted my health. The blood pressure warnings were in the early stages. I needed to do something immediately. In addition, who was going to provide life insurance for a guy with blood pressure like that? In what my former business partner later called a “strategic move,” all of my insurance had been canceled.

I needed a solution very quickly. It was a chilly fall day and I needed to just get outside and breathe. I walked down to the bike trail and just kept going. I only walked 2 miles but it was the most important walk I’d ever take. [Read more…] about The Trail That Saved My Life.

The Death of Chucklehead DJs and Bad Talk Radio Hosts.

05/14 by The Frug 2 Comments

By Brad Beckstrom

Here’s why you should dump satellite radio and chucklehead talk radio shows and start streaming podcasts.

Podcast-a-palooza

I remember when podcasting first got hot. It was around 2006 and people were discovering podcasts via iTunes, listening on their iPods. Podcasting had another growth spurt when the iPhone came out, soon to be followed by Android phones, and lots of options for listening to podcasts on all types of devices. But by 2011, listening to podcasts started to seem dated and there was less buzz about new podcasts.

At the same time, there were lots of new options like streaming radio apps, tunein and iheartradio as well as video blogs. People were busy looking at their phones instead of listening to them. Podcasts didn’t go away, but they stopped growing.

The Resurgence

About a year ago, things started to change. [Read more…] about The Death of Chucklehead DJs and Bad Talk Radio Hosts.

Simplicity is the whole secret of well being.

01/14 by The Frug 2 Comments

I said more cowbell, not more cowbells.

The holidays are hard for the Frug. Christmas shopping gives everyone a fantastic excuse for buying more stuff. You know the whole gifts and holiday traditions thing going on. Our friends, family, and our extended family fully embrace the holidays. Multiple family get-togethers and other holiday parties take their toll on the wallet. There are also 9 plastic tubs of holiday stuff that emerge from the deepest corners of the storage room shortly after Thanksgiving. Lots of festive pinecones, cowbells, singing Santas, ornaments and knickknacks.

I said more cowbell, not more cowbells!

I can just feel the surge of stuff rolling into the house from all directions. Just thinking about my required half day of frantic holiday shopping also gives me hives.

This holiday season we made an effort as a family to see more stuff instead of buy more stuff.

So here’s the idea. SuperK and I hatched a plan in June to join some other family members on a trip to Mexico for Christmas. This would require some saving, airfare hacks, and creative scheduling as far as the traditional holiday get-togethers are concerned. We also had a goal of scaling back on gifts and having a more traditional utilitarian (I love that word) Christmas celebration.

We would make this holiday season all about family experiences versus stuff. Sure the kids would be disappointed but to be honest they are generally disappointed with most gifts. You can see SuperK’s thoughts on this here. Plus, it would be hard for them to complain while sitting on a beach in Mexico hearing about the icy temperatures at home. So, instead of making the trip a surprise we let them in on it early on. We built excitement with countdown calendars, savings thermometers and photos. We also talked about some of the adventures we would have in Mexico with friends and family.

I am also always playing up the idea that less stuff equals more. Less stuff to shop for, put together, store, repair get rid of, equals more time for adventure. In a year, I’d like to say we are traveling light not just on our adventures but at home, lightening the load that excess stuff puts on you.

Okay so this was a big experiment. Did it work? Here is some of the stuff we saw this holiday season in Mexico.

Family and friends from Baltimore MD, Amherst MA, Minneapolis MN, Los Angeles CA, Brooklyn NY.
A school of gray whales about 30 yards from a boat that was significantly smaller than each of the whales.
Went to Spanish Christmas Mass in a small neighborhood church in Puerto Vallarta.
The Greatest Mariachi Band in the World, as touted by family and friends that had seen them before. I must agree.
Several beach towns including Yelapa Mexico, only accessible by boat.
A taste of some small village life in Mexico by hiking up a trail of crumbling rocks and ancient steps.
Peluchelandia.
Six fantastic sunsets.
A dose of reality for the boys, seeing many kids working selling trinkets on Christmas Day
The famous pie ladies of Yelapa, and some coconut pecan pie on the beach, why not.
Some of the best food Mexico has to offer including a great Fish and Chips place Joe Jacks

So here are a few tips for lightening the load so you can see more stuff next holiday season.

Use the stuff in, stuff out formula. For every new item that comes in the house two items need to leave. This can include toys your kids no longer play with, clothing they’ve outgrown (or I’ve outgrown), items you no longer use, knickknacks you’re just tired of looking at.
Start planning your adventures now. To make this happen, it really does require some thinking in February once you’ve recovered from your holiday $ hangover.
Add up everything you spent this holiday season and take a hard look at what you can move out of the category labeled stuff.
Give things away, It’s easier to part with anything when you believe someone may get some use out of it. We keep a large donation box in the hallway to always remind us of this. Last year we filled about 20 of these.
Keep a record of what you give away, Goodwill, Purple Heart receipts etc. you may be able to write off $500 or more on your taxes.
Make sure you’re using a credit card that produces from 2 to 5 points for each dollar spent. Check out the Chase Sapphire Preferred or the Fidelity American Express that include 2% cash back or points on every purchase.

I’ll be working on the stuff out formula and who knows we may end up in Mexico again next Christmas.