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Stop Getting Shaved on Razors

10/13 by The Frug Leave a Comment

Razors

What in the hell goes on with the cost of razors? I mean, before I truly embraced my Frug muscles, SuperK and I would get our razors, like many people do, at the grocery store or maybe Target.  I was buying various Gillette razors like Fusion Pro Glide and Kelly was buying a variety of individual high-end disposable razors. Just the Gillette Fusion refills run $26 for an 8 Pack!

The women’s Venus disposable razors my lovely wife SuperK was buying were equally as bad $22 for a six pack – with with the added insult of filling landfills with a perfectly usable plastic handle each time you were done with said disposable razor.

It’s one of those small purchases that a lot of people don’t think about. It just gets chucked in the cart with the rest of the groceries or shampoo. Then I saw this video about the Dollar Shave Club along with the 12 million other people who watched it. The video was great and it really helped expose how ridiculously overpriced razors are.  Once you get to the site, you’ll find that the decent razors are actually six or nine dollars per month, per member. That’s a big savings over drugstore or even Amazon prices. However, it’s a “club.”  Basically, a club that requires monthly payments.

This was a problem. The Frug Hates Clubs, especially any club that requires a monthly fee. In my opinion, the only type of recurring revenue people should have in their life is incoming recurring revenue, not outgoing. All of these clubs really start to add up. Think about it, Microsoft Xbox $9.99 a month, shave club, satellite radio club, all billing you every month forever, regardless of whether you use up the services or not.

So, I was not joining another club. I did a little research and found the the company that supplies most of the Dollar Shave Club’s razors.  The company is DorcoUSA.  I know, pretty weak name but fantastic razors for men and women, and even better prices.

I just loaded up with a six months supply of razors for myself, my wife and my teenage son for $33.35.  This year, I’ll spend about $90 to keep the family in razors. For the three of us to join a club for a year, it would be over $215 for the medium priced blades at Dollar Shave Club and over $390 at a box store like Target.

The great news is that these are better quality shavers and a lot of the specials even include the occasional new razor with cartridge refills.  Check out our latest order and compare this to what you’re paying.

The Frug Shaving Solution

SuperK even found that the men’s quad razors work better for her than the women’s version.  Here is a link for 15% off your order.  If this offer stops working, let me know in the comments below.

 

Filed Under: Live Lean, The Frug Recommends Tagged With: family of four spending, Frug Hacks, Frugal, saving money, The Frug recommends

The Dead Zone

09/13 by The Frug Leave a Comment

the dead zoneIn the advertising business, agencies like to avoid pitching after 3 PM. 3 PM is known as the beginning of the “dead zone.” However, if you worked in an office on the client side or were attending a presentation, 3 PM was the ideal time. That’s generally a low-energy point in the day for many people. You could just come in sit back and listen, pretend to take a few notes, be polite and enjoy a few snacks.

One thing I’ve learned is that many people have different dead zones, for instance, for my wife SuperK it’s from 7 AM to 11:59 AM. The key is knowing exactly when you’re dead zone is and planning your best work outside of it.  By “best work,”  I mean things that will require the most focus and brainpower.  Knowing your zones is equally important if you work at home and need to stay self-motivated, or if you work in an office where people are clogging up your calendar with useless meeting invites.

Over the years, I’ve attended all kinds of time management seminars, they generally revolve around making long list of things to do and prioritizing them.

I have come up a simple process that basically divides the day up into  three parts:  Prime Time, The Dead Zone and Home. You can call them what you want, the key is to identify your zones.

  1. Prime time- when you are at your best, ready to roll.

  2. The Dead Zone -when you hit the wall.

  3. Home- winding down the day attending to life so you don’t go to bed worrying.

Before we start filling in a day, let’s talk about “the list.”  l’ve seen all kinds of crazy time management and prioritization schemes just for making lists. Some of them are in 300 page books that leave you with “managing the list” as your biggest chore of the day.

The best to do lists are simple.  Apps and smart phones got some very creative people rethinking how we make lists. The key component in any list is simply remembering stuff you need to do.  The list should be thought of as a giant catchall of things you need to do as you remember you need to do them.  The best solutions automatically sync your smartphone with your desktop app and/or tablet. Basically, one list available in many places.

I use Apple Reminders on my iPhone and that automatically syncs with the app on my desktop and in iCloud.  Prior to that, I used gTasks which syncs nicely with Google tasks in the browser as well as on Android phones, iPhones and other devices.

The key here is not to look at your whole to do list at one time. You want to use the list and pull off the most important items of the day and things you are passionate about and put those into Prime Time. Try not to load your Prime Time up with too many items or any long meetings. Most office meetings should be pushed into the Dead Zone or avoided if possible.

Make sure you block out a chunk of your Prime Time on the calendar so you can avoid someone scheduling a meeting during that period.

The third zone on my list is “Home.” Home is in the evening is when some people get their second wind.  These are the things that we look forward to, dinner with family and friends, catching up on reading, attending to hobbies and around the house projects.  Generally, I enjoy doing a lot of these things so the energy comes more naturally to get them done.

Okay, here’s what mine looks like. Keep in mind your Dead Zone may be at an entirely different time of the day. I plugged in a few examples of to do’s and types of to do items.

Screen Shot 2013-09-12 at 4.29.02 PM

One item that works well for me in the Dead Zone is 20 minutes of exercise. This can be as simple as a walk or high-intensity training, it’s up to you. The key is that it happens daily.  A quick workout or walk is also a great way to bust through the wall of fatigue that often hits people in the afternoon. Even better is a power nap or, as many older wiser cultures practice, a siesta. Or in my case, both.

 A note about commuting; If you spend more than 40 minutes a day traveling to and from work you may think of your commute as a Dead Zone. Unfortunately, this coincides with many peoples Prime Time, especially if you are a morning person. There are fantastic tools available to recapture this time including free podcast subscriptions on any topic, audiobooks from companies like Audible.com. You can get a Bluetooth adapter for most cars that lets you listen to this over your car’s speakers. Please don’t be the person that drives around with headsets or earbuds in.

Try not to waste this time with morning DJs or talk radio. The only thing worse than listening to the news (with a humorous or politically biased twist) on your radio is having to listen to the people who call in with their various rants and opinions on what we should do about taxes, the Middle East or the price of gas.  If you have an interest in the news, that’s fine, there are a lot more efficient ways to get caught up during your “Dead Zone”. Don’t waste your Prime Time on news or talk radio.

I use a Moleskin notebook to pull for five- seven important  items off my digital to do list and prioritize them. Then, I plan my top priority items for Prime Time. Simpler, or low priority items can go in the Dead Zone.  For example, I usually plan my next day at the end of my Dead Zone, as pulling items from my list is a pretty easy activity. I also clean out emails, and check industry blogs in the afternoon. These two items work well together as cleaning out my email usually generates a few to do items for the next day.  It’s a good idea to batch similar types of activities (blogs,email,to do’s) together as you’ll find it helps you get into a daily flow especially as you need to push through your Dead Zone.

So, at the end of the day, my schedule for the next day looks something like this, The items on the right,  I pulled off of my catchall to do list, and then simply batched them into my Prime Time, Dead Zone and At Home categories.

frug planner

Well, that’s it, my entire time management system to get stuff done in less than 300 pages. I’d love to hear if anyone else has come across something similar or wants to share what works for them.

Filed Under: Work Lean Tagged With: Frugal, Saving time, The Frug recommends

Wine Hacking with the Frug (plus an App for Finding 4 Star Wines at 5 dollars a Bottle!)

08/13 by The Frug Leave a Comment

the frug wine hacksMany of us enjoy a great bottle of wine. If you enjoy a couple of glasses of red wine every few days like I do, the habit can get expensive. I used to visit some of the big box stores like Total Wine. I always came out of there spending too much money and a bit overwhelmed by all the choices. I could never remember if that $24 bottle of wine was better than $7.99 bottle of wine or which vintage was the best for that particular brand.

I needed a more curated selection of wine and more brands that were reasonably priced. I found my wine mecca at Trader Joe’s. Trader Joe’s has always specialized in inexpensive wines that taste great and are a good value. Their first store in California was famous for its selection of local wines. I’ve picked up some great bottles of wine there, including their house brand Napa River Merlot for under $6.00.

Still, not every wine in TJs will meet my taste and frugal budget. I experimented and put a limit of $7 for any bottle of wine I purchase at Trader Joe’s. Not a problem since they have plenty of French and Italian wines, as well as great California reds and whites, many of them in the $5 to $6 price range.

So, I narrowed my choices from thousands of bottles of wine at Total Wine to maybe 50 or so at Trader Joe’s. Still too many. I needed something to narrow that selection down and help me find the very best of these cellar dwellers.

To assist in my experiment, I found a great app, Vivino. At first, I just thought I needed something that would allow me to look up different wines and save them in the app. Then I came across Vivino. I could literally scan any wine label and instantly pull up the products reviews, global ranking, country ranking, even ranking among that particular winery. For example, I scanned a fancy looking bottle of French wine called “Badet Clement Pontificis 2008.” Instantly I saw that this bottle had a 3.6 of 4 rating in the app, but more importantly, had a high rank in France, had a high rank in it’s region of France, and was the seventh highest ranked bottle from this winery. Lots of glowing reviews from wine snobs who would take the time to write this kind of stuff up. Best of all, it was at a “drop it in your cart and go” price of $5.99.

I don’t get too hung up on the reviews, I just like to see a decent sized sample of four-star reviews. I look at a few of them to see what other wine lovers are saying about the oak or raspberry finish or other clues they may leave behind about the type of wine, such as “great with lasagna.”

The other interesting thing about this app is that it’s calling on a total database of 693,000 wines so there’s plenty of information to back up a high rating.

Once I get home and taste the wine, I make sure that I drop in my own quick star rating so if it’s a dog, I don’t buy it again. Trader Joe’s is pretty loyal to some of these brands so once you find a couple of great ones it’s easy to quickly go in and stock up.

Another trick I found to make a $5.99 bottle of red wine taste like a more sought-after vintage is to properly aerate before drinking. There are lots of quick easy ways to do this.
Here are a few of my favorites:

Rabbit Swish Wine Aerator

Vinturi Essential Wine Aerator

You can also check out the mad scientist Tim Ferriss’ method for hyper decanting wine here.

So, open up that great bottle of cheap wine, aerate it, and sit back and enjoy the fruits of your search for the perfect bottle of cheap wine. No Trader Joe’s in your area? Use the app to sniff out some decent buys at your local supermarket.

My current wine selections at Trader Joe’s.

Headline for Some great cheap wines at Trader Joe's
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Brad Beckstrom Brad Beckstrom
Owner
7 items   5 followers   5 votes   4.88k views

Some great cheap wines at Trader Joe's

Listly by Brad Beckstrom

Trader Joe's has some great deals on wine. Here are a few I found that are an excellent value. All under $7.00 US

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La Granja 360 2009 Spain

Aug 23, 2013
La Granja 360 2009 Spain
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Grifone Primitivo 2008

Aug 23, 2013
Grifone Primitivo 2008
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Bogle Old Vine Zinfandel 2010

Aug 23, 2013
Bogle Old Vine Zinfandel 2010
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Contadino Pinot Grigio 2012

Aug 23, 2013
Contadino Pinot Grigio 2012
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Napa River Merlot 2008

Aug 23, 2013
Napa River Merlot 2008
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Epicuro Primitivo Red 2008

Aug 23, 2013
Epicuro Primitivo Red 2008
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Trader Joe's block red

Feb 17, 2014
Trader Joe's block red

Excellent value

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Filed Under: Live Lean, The Frug Recommends Tagged With: apps, Frugal, saving money, The Frug recommends

Origin of the Frug

07/13 by The Frug Leave a Comment

Frug=less

Origin of The Frug
by Brad Beckstrom

I was given the nickname “The Frug” by my beautiful wife Kelly. She has a blog, kellysuperficial.com from here on out “SuperK” as that’s how lazy of a typist I am. She writes about celebrities, makeup, and fashion. Sometimes she uses her blog to complain about me and my frugal ways! (when I am merely trying to dissuade her from spending our kids’ college education funds at Target, Nordstrom,and Sephora!)

I think she’s got at least 100 blog posts that mention “The Frug.” Anyway, I thought, “why do I deserve this nickname?” By all appearances, we are certainly not that frugal. In fact, I believe we spend more than most families on what I call “family T&E” or as SuperK calls it “Family Fun Time.” (I think she is being sarcastic, but what do I know?) It’s our biggest budget item. This blog is mostly about our journey from spending on “stuff” to spending on adventures.

Regardless, the name stuck so I decided to really start living it. A few years ago, I registered the domain name “thefrug.com” but never got around to starting the blog as I was too busy dealing with, you guessed it, “stuff.” I think when most people hear the word frugal they think of a penny-pinching coupon clipping recluse. I’d like to redefine the term.

Let’s start with the Wikipedia definition of frugality:

Frugality is the quality of being frugal, sparing, thrifty, prudent or economical in the use of consumable resources such as food, time or money, and avoiding waste, lavishness or extravagance.

I like to think of it this way Frugality = Less and Less = More. So this blog is really about enjoying life more by consuming less. Especially less stuff.

The formula is pretty simple, by consuming less we free up time and money to spend on life’s experiences, instead of stuff. And if we can develop lean spending habits for travel, for work, and for life in general, everyone benefits. I’ve been working on this for years and I want to encourage people to join me in the War on Stuff . I also want to share everything I’ve learned in my long journey towards a lean lifestyle.

So, what am I going to be talking about? Mostly, this blog will be about improving your personal economy and enjoyment of life through living lean, working lean and traveling lean. Many personal finance blogs spend a lot of time focused on the economy, the stock market and the general insanity of the day-to-day world of finance. That’s not for us. We know we have no control over that and most of the advice is contradictory or flat out wrong.

My goal is to guide you towards financial independence so you can be free from worrying about the news, the market and your 401K balance.

Let’s get started.

Filed Under: Live Lean, Start Here Tagged With: financial independence, Frugal, less equals more

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