Frug Hacks

The Man in Seat 61. Jump on a Train and Go.

By Brad Beckstrom

I’ve always enjoyed train travel. I figured out years ago that it’s often faster than traveling by air when you factor in getting to and from the airport and ever intensifying security. This is especially true in the Northeast, traveling between Washington DC and New York City. If I’m going downtown, I can step off the train at Penn Station in Manhattan versus cabbing to and from the airports, dealing with lines and weather delays. Sure, trains get delayed occasionally but at least you’re in a large comfortable seat with power outlets and can read a book or get some work done. As a bonus, no bag fees and up to 70% less CO2 versus a plane.

I really caught the train bug while traveling in Europe. There are some fantastic trains like the 186 MPH double decker TGV in France or the Frecciarossa ETR500 in Italy, also clocking in at about 186 MPH. Like Formula One, they are very serious about trains in the EU and UK. You can take a comfortable high-speed overnight train, have dinner in Munich, and breakfast in Rome. In addition to some great sunsets and scenery, you’ll be saving money you’d otherwise be spending on a hotel room.

Trains create stories

Pocket Change The World.

02/15 by The Frug Leave a Comment

Automatic Transaction Roundup Giving is Here.

By Brad Beckstrom

Remember pocket change?

I used to have a ton of it. As an urban payer of tolls, connoisseur of food carts, dive bars and large beverages in convenience stores, there was never any shortage of it. It would spill out of my khakis and accumulate between the seats of my car or in the ashtray. I would also fill jars of it at home. I purchased my first mountain bike with a bucket of change that amounted to just over $500.

I chose my bank at the time because they had a free service where you could drop off your loose change and they would run it through a machine and then deposit a check into your account. Just picture The Frug walking into a hundred-year-old marble and mahogany bank on Capitol Hill with his mop bucket of change. If I didn’t have a business account with them they probably would’ve laughed me out of there.

Panhandlers

The other element of living in DC was that there was always someone to give your change to. Our nation’s capital is home to a large homeless population. So I was the guy to talk to if you had a cardboard sign and you were looking for spare change. One roommate told me that giving money to panhandlers just fueled their addictions and that I should give in different ways. I thought sure, it would be nice if I could give out apples or muffins, but the change was there and a person who needed it was there. So why not? This was something extra.

Years later, things have changed. I am amazed by how little change or small bills I have. Nearly everyone takes credit cards now, swipe, tap, waive. It gets easier and easier. Faster and faster, no signature required. If you have a credit card that gives 2% cash back rewards, it makes sense to use it, as long as you pay off your bill in full every month.

In a few years, the actual card itself will be gone and we’ll simply be waving or tapping our phones to complete touchless purchases. Apps and services like Apple Pay have the potential to be a bad thing (spenders) but potentially a fantastic thing (savers and givers) Here’s why.

Your Money or Your Life. The Frug’s Advice for College Students and Recent Grads.

01/15 by The Frug 2 Comments

By Brad Beckstrom

Photo credit: morguefile.com

My nephew wants to live lean. He’s twenty-something and still in college. He’s moving to a new town and asked me for advice. First, I’ll tell him be careful what you ask for, you’ll often get it.

So, here goes. My advice, not in any particular order.

Get some roommates.

New in town? Get a roommate. If you’re in college, I recommend you avoid expensive campus housing and meal plans and opt for a near campus rental. When I was in college and working my first job, I opted for two roommates. While this is often not ideal, it allows you to rent a small townhouse or slightly larger apartment and save money at the same time.

With three people chipping in for the bills, everything becomes a bit more affordable. If you’re lucky, you may meet some friends for life, as I did on several occasions. Good roommates are sometimes hard to find but it’s easier now to explore options with Craigslist and social media. I found the best roommates are often someone I’ve already met, possibly someone I worked with at a restaurant, or met at school.

At first, avoid year long leases, if you can. Try to find an existing two roommate set up that’s looking for a third. This way if things don’t work out on your first try you’re not locked into any long-term situation.

I stuck with the roommate set up for years, even after I started my own company and had purchased other homes. I kept the first home as a rental, replacing myself with another roommate when I moved on. I had a roommate until I got married.

Roommates can be a pain, so you have to really work at it until you find a great setup. Once you find it, volunteer to help out with the bills and track things using Mint.com or apps like Splitwise. A simple shared Google docs spreadsheet is great if you have multiple folks adding items to the document.

Work in High School and College.

My grades were just below a 3.0 at a midsize state college, but I was offered the first three corporate jobs I interviewed for. I was hired and put to work for a boss who was Princeton grad, and coworkers who went to Dartmouth, Duke, and Notre Dame. My point of difference was not the name of my university or my GPA, it was my work experience in college and high school. Interviewers were impressed with my proven work ethic. Very few of those Ivy League types had worked two jobs in college and started a travel business. [Read more…] about Your Money or Your Life. The Frug’s Advice for College Students and Recent Grads.

Your next home may come out of a 3-D printer and cost about 1/3 of what you’d pay today.

01/15 by The Frug Leave a Comment

By Brad Beckstrom

By now you’ve probably read all the buzz surrounding 3-D printing. Designers and engineers are creating 3-D printed inventions like body parts, prosthetics, and custom surgical kits adapted to the patient.

I toured the factory of a potential client who makes kits used by surgeons for spinal surgery. They showed me prototypes for surgical kits that sell for five figures each. In the near future, these will be custom designed and printed for the patient and the type of surgery.

I knew 3D printing had arrived even before I stumbled into a 3-D print shop at the mall. If you read this blog you know malls give me hives, so it’s very rare I step into one. But there I was, on my way to a restaurant, when I saw shop windows full of 3-D printers in action. Printing out all kinds of prototypes for new products and dreams which users had paid hundreds of dollars to rent the machine to print out their invention.

So I’d seen my share of small 3-D printers printing small things but then I stumbled upon the 3-D printed house. There is a lot of innovation going on in jumbo scale 3-D printing. This factory in China can print out 10 houses a day out of poured concrete mortar.

Winsun 3-D Printed Home $5000

The finished product is the bit rough around the edges, literally. It’s a bit like that old concrete block garage out behind your grandfather’s house. When you have housing demands like China does, this may be a solid, affordable solution at about $5000 US .

The next generation of these is already in the works. Students at the University of South Carolina are working on a portable jobsite printer capable of creating buildings on site. Because the buildings are 3-D printed, the insides of the concrete walls can be hollow or custom configured with spaces for windows, electrical, and plumbing.

University of South Carolina contour printer.

I think it safe to say that this is still a few years off and the early job site versions of it will most likely be expensive.

3D Houses Here and Now [Read more…] about Your next home may come out of a 3-D printer and cost about 1/3 of what you’d pay today.

How to take a hatchet to your spending with a hit list.

11/14 by The Frug Leave a Comment

Stop budgeting and start using a hit list.

I hate budgets.They are a pain in the ass to put together and, once you do, they just sort of sit there. They’re like a line in the dirt you just can’t cross, but often do. It feels like you’re trapped between the lines. It may remind you of work since it involves spreadsheets! That’s probably the reason most people don’t put together a personal budget and hold themselves to it.

I’ve experimented with different budgeting tools like Quicken, Mint, and various sad spreadsheets, created with good intentions and never updated or opened again. I tend to do much better with actuals. As in, what did I actually spend and what can I do about it. I’m calling this “action-based budgeting.”

I want it to be simple, something that can be done in an hour on a piece of paper and pay benefits all year. Less = More.

What is a hit list?

Is your wallet hurting your health?

10/14 by The Frug Leave a Comment

“The best way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it in your back pocket”

– Will Rogers

This is excellent advice. However, my wallet is sitting out in front of me on my desk because my chiropractor told me it’s throwing my back out. Here’s what’s happening: Sitting on my not-so thick wallet is not only twisting my spine but it’s also compressing a large nerve that extends through the buttock and down my left leg. Ouch!

You see, my not-so thick wallet has gotten too thick with membership cards, business cards, healthcare cards, credit cards, debit cards, access cards, and even some cash once a while. I clean it out every week but it’s still too thick.

At the chiropractor, I open my wallet looking for my healthcare membership card and my HSA (Health savings account) debit card to pay my chiropractor to solve the problem. They also need to make a photocopy of each of said cards and my driver’s license – for the third time.

There are quite a few problems with men’s and women’s wallets.

The wallets are designed to hold a lot of stuff, inefficiently, making them thick and bulky. (see some new options below)
For men, we spend too much time sitting on them throwing out our backs and compressing large nerves.
For women, (based on a lifetime of observation in retail checkout lines lines and also being married) Women spend too much time rooting for their wallet through large purses with entirely too much stuff in them. Once the wallets are found in the large purse, the rooting begins again in the large wallet.
This problem increases for both sexes with age. Most young guys and gals tend to travel lighter. Mature adults and professionals of some sort seem to accumulate all kinds of crap in their wallets.
Old men and old ladies are off the charts keeping entire decades of information in their wallets. For a while, my mom had my birth certificate in her wallet, 20 years after I was living on my own.
If you lose said monster wallet, your whole month is pretty much messed up. Credit could be damaged, shit goes wrong. Yep, you forgot about that folded up check you had in there.
Speaking of losing wallets, if you travel frequently you will eventually be pickpocketed if you keep your wallet in your back pocket or in a purse. Best to carry something in your front pocket. In parts of Europe and South America pickpocketing has been elevated to an art.