live lean

Simplicity is the whole secret of well being.

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.

Foil Speedcams, Avoid Traffic Jams, and Save $0.30 per gallon on gas with the updated WAZE app

12/13 by The Frug Leave a Comment

My wife and I are not speeders. Unless you call driving 8 to 10 miles per hour above the posted speed limit, just to keep up with traffic, – speeding. In the DC Metro area driving at the speed limit can be dangerous. We have both also been “unfairly” nailed by speed cams in DC.

To solve this problem, we recently installed the WAZE app. Wayz in addition to being a solid GPS app also allows users to share speedcam, speed trap and driving hazard info. These alerts then show up as icons with warnings. This also comes in real handy for avoiding accidents and bad road conditions. You can look at traffic reports along your specific route which makes spotting and avoiding bad traffic a lot easier.

After you’ve been using WAZE for a bit you can create your own icon which shows up on the map. The icons are a lot of fun, but in busy metro areas like ours the screen can get a bit crowded. These can easily be turned off in settings.

One additional feature I’ve recently discovered It is the gas option. To be honest, I don’t look at gas prices very often because I don’t drive very much. Playing with this app I’ve been amazed at the difference in gas prices, just on one main drag near our home. It’s not uncommon to find .30. .40 and even $.50 variances per gallon nearby. It’s like getting a free lunch with every fill up. Just don’t buy any of that gas station sushi.

If you’re planning a trip you can take a quick look at the live map in your browser before you head out. https://www.waze.com/livemap

Waze was recently bought by Google for just over $1 billion dollars, so I think they may be onto something. Google paid 1 billion but you can get it for free here

Do you suffer from click tangents? How to get on a high quality, low information diet.

12/13 by The Frug Leave a Comment

“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”

Herbert Simon

The first time I read about a low information diet was in one of my favorite books The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris. Tim talks about cultivating selective ignorance by ignoring news in general. It took me a while to adopt this philosophy, but living just outside of Washington DC, it’s become enjoyable ignoring the news, with a US Congress that has basically become a circus of bought and paid for fools, on both sides of the aisle.

I’m sure many may push back on this idea saying that they need to keep up on business news for their job or for the concern that they may come off as uninformed on current world affairs.

So, instead of ignoring all news, I am going to share my strategy for ignoring 24/7 world news outlets and, at the same time, improve the quality of information that’s relevant, and most importantly, enjoyable for you.

1. Ignore the major news outlets. All of them. Everywhere.

If this is a diet, then most major news sites are potato chips. Little distractions and pieces of news that you click on and 30 minutes later you forgot what you were doing. These include those little feature articles at the bottom of news sites with fascinating tidbits of information that you just have to click on. As an ad guy, I can tell you many of those articles are bought and paid for and really don’t have any useful information that cannot be found elsewhere from a better quality source.

Even with my efforts to ignore them, these types of stories occasionally still find me, primarily through cookies in my browser. Next thing you know I’m clicking through 10 slides about some useless tidbit of information that has nothing to do with what I’m working on or any entertainment value.

I still find myself occasionally wandering off on what I call “click tangents.” .Take a look at my browsing record and you can even see that the link I clicked on regarding inexpensive places to live was a paid link. If you start at the bottom you can see I was reading an article about Apple’s deal with China Mobile and was distracted by one of those boxes with eight pieces of fun and interesting news tailored specifically to my browsing history aka cookies. Then I continue to click through 10 consecutive slides that also were on pages with ads tailored to my browsing history.

While this may be effective for clients promoting products it’s certainly not effective for getting anything done personally.

2. Quality Content Curation

Recently I shared my rant on cutting your cable bill using content curation for TV viewing. The same strategy can be applied to the entire web, including what you listen to in the car or on your phone. This can all be accomplished with two simple tools RSS feeds (reading) and podcasts (listening).

Get an RSS feed reader. RSS now stands for really simple syndication. In a nutshell it allows you to follow a distraction free list of the most knowledgeable sources on any topic. I’m going to just recommend one feed reader here (Feedly) but there are many out there. Once your feed reader is set up you can search for top bloggers authors and writers on nearly any topic.

I like Feedly as it allows you to easily group and filter the blogs and writers you follow. They also have smartphone apps and apps that work right in your browser for Google Chrome, Safari and others. They also make it easy to un-follow or quickly add feeds directly from websites. Once your feed reader is installed, just type in the feed or topic you’re looking for and click subscribe.

You can organize feeds into simple groups.

personal finance
comedy
photography
technology
cooking
fitness

Now you’ve created high-quality curated news that’s designed just for you. You can completely skip over reading about Congress, the latest budget battles or Middle Eastern oil negotiations. Major news outlets just shovel the stuff out and are trying to deliver lots of content surrounded by distractions.

If you’re just starting out, go slow. Just follow a few of your favorite bloggers or writers. Avoid the major news outlets and other (firehose style) feeds that dump five or six articles per day into your feed. These will get old fast and you’ll be right back where you started with too much content and not enough quality. Search for quality content from writers who post maybe one or two well thought out articles per week.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Tim Ferriss

Mr. Money Mustache

AJ Leon The Pursuit of Everything

The Minimalists

If you do most of your reading on a tablet or smartphone, I would recommend the app Flipboard. You can search and follow the same writers there. The app uses a fantastic touch interface that is perfect for these devices.

3. Quality mobile curation for your listening pleasure

Once you dump the news outlets, it’s time to get rid of their radio broadcast counterparts including all the chucklehead DJs deep diving into completely useless topics. If you like to get your newly curated content on the go, walking or in your car and don’t want to be one of those people stepping off curves or worse because they’re looking at twitter on their phone then it’s time to rediscover podcasts. Podcasts used to be a pain in the ass. You would have to download them or transfer them to your iPod then try to sync the whole mess and go back in and delete stuff.

This has all changed with smartphones. Just search for a highly rated podcast app in your phone’s app store. You’ll be amazed at all of the high quality content on virtually any topic delivered commercial free largely with the exception of a few sponsor mentions. You’ll never hear another law firm or next day loan ad again. I’ve been using the new podcast app in iOS7 and I will never listen to the radio in the same way. Here are a few podcasts I’ve discovered and I’m just getting started:

Ted talks audio – Ideas worth spreading

Blogcast FM with Srinivas Rao

The Nerdist podcast

This American Life Podcast

Once you download the podcast app, you can search under any topic or try out a few that interest you from the popular by genre list. I recommend downloading a few recent episodes while on Wi-Fi so when you want to go for a run or a long drive they’ll be loaded up and ready to go and won’t run up your wireless bill.

Good god, I ramble on, time to wrap this up.

Simplify your life and avoid click tangents by putting some heavy-duty quality filters on any information that comes into your world.

Avoid the major news outlets. They profit from sensationalizing bad news that has little effect on your day-to-day life.
Curate what you do read with a high quality RSS Feed Reader.
Stop listening to chuckleheads and news on the radio. Subscribe to a few high quality podcasts.
Avoid similar distractions on Facebook and Twitter by using RSS feeds and podcasts.

Keep living lean….The Frug

Crush your ADD tendencies using a Pomodoro.

11/13 by The Frug Leave a Comment

Crush your ADD tendencies using a Pomodoro.

ADD. Attention Deficit Disorder. You hear this term so often now “She’s so ADD” or “Oops, that’s my ADD kicking in again.” Seems like many people have just self diagnosed. I believe most are just suffering from ADD tendencies created by our time crunched, multi screen lifestyles. The constant stream of Facebook updates, Twitter streams, and 24/7 streaming video, news, weather, celebrity updates. It’s difficult even for the most focused of us to get stuff done. There are a lot of “get stuff done” systems out there. Sure!!!! Just add one more checklist or website I need to go to to get stuff done, right? No thanks.

The High Intensity Answer

I’ve stumbled upon what I believe is an excellent solution for those with ADD tendencies. The answer lies in high-intensity training methods. Recently, I switched from traditional workouts, maybe two or three times a week to daily workouts, incorporating high-intensity training for short 20 minute periods.

This has been very effective for several reasons. When you know you can get something done in 20 minutes, there’s less dread involved in the task. Using high-intensity training, my workouts are so quick that they’re over before they feel like they’ve gotten started. The big advantage here is that I can always find 20 minutes to squeeze one of these in daily. This versus the two or three days a week I was trying to fit in a 60 minute workout which was significantly more difficult.

This worked well for me, so I began thinking about how the theory behind high intensity training could be applied to other everyday tasks. In my search, I came across the Pomodoro technique.

Are you ready, because it kicks ass.

The Pomodoro technique was named after a popular kitchen timer called the Pomodoro. This is a basic 25 minute kitchen timer. The Pomodoro technique involves focusing on single tasks in 25 minute intervals. The technique is designed to block and manage distractions during these intervals. (Don’t worry, you don’t need to set a kitchen timer on your desk. You can use any timer, or your smartphone, to time your intervals)

The technique works by training you to block distractions during, and completely focus on, the single task at hand during each 25 minute period or “Pomodoro.” Once you start a Pomodoro, you’ve committed to avoiding any distraction until the 25 minute period of focus is completed. It’s fine to mentally acknowledge a distraction and then train yourself intentionally avoid it. See – just now I acknowledged a distraction to search for the Molly Cyrus Wrecking Ball video I heard someone talking about. By the time I finish typing this, that distraction may be forgotten. If not I can just get to it after this interval.

Over time you learn to use these Pomodoros effectively, assigning one or more to each project you need to get done during the day. You’ll learn to quickly estimate how many Pomodoros certain tasks will take. For instance, this blog post may take two Pomodoros with a break in between.

Eliminate Burnout

Just like in interval training, the breaks are important. Essential to the Pomodoro method is the notion that taking short scheduled breaks while working helps eliminate task burnout and keep you focused.

Conclusion

The endgame is you get more done and take more breaks. You’ll find that the 25 minutes of focus makes it a lot easier to ignore phone calls, tweets and other distractions while that timer is running. It also helps you identify the distractions. When I first started using it, I had to set my phone, with the timer running, in clear view so if I had the urge to check something online or pick up my phone, I quickly saw I had X number of minutes left in that interval.

The more you do this, the better you’ll get. Check out the video and read the book on becoming a Pomodoro Master. Clearly something you’ll be able to brag to your friends about. “Wow, who would’ve thought Brad would ever become a Pomodoro Master.”

“One Man’s Trash” My 5 year experiment with Craigslist

11/13 by The Frug Leave a Comment

And 10 Tips on selling stuff from an adman.

Starting with $60 for a grill I couldn’t give away.

My first experience with Craigslist was about 5 years ago. We had an old Weber Genesis 1100 grill. This thing was about 15 years old and we had it for about 10 of those years. A neighbor had given it to me in fair condition. We put it to good use, and it showed. The bottom was rusted out and various other parts had started to give way. Ours was actually in worse shape than the photo above.

Curb Alerts

I’d heard about other people listing old couches and other various items on craigslist as a curb alert. Curb alerts are for things generally not suitable for sale or donation to charity. Our grease covered rotted out grill was definitely in this category.

To my surprise, in searching craigslist, it turned out that this grill was a “classic” and there was an active market of people who purchase these, paying from $40-$80 then use the parts or completely restore them. Here is an “after” photo I found of one of these restored grills on craigslist.

Restored grill for sale as seen on Craigslist.

As they say, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” and this sure beats a trip to the dump. Also, call me a Frug, but I feel bad just chucking something that may have a few more years of useful service in it. So I took the leap and created my first post on craigslist, included two photos, grill info, and listed it for $60, a price well beyond its scrap value. My thinking was maybe someone would want to restore it like the one above.

Craigslist a powerful tool in my war on stuff.

I was a bit concerned about getting mocked, spammed, or receiving offers for escort services in response to my ridiculous first attempt at a craigslist ad for a rusty grill. But, based on the immediate responses, my inner ad-man had come through and created a successful post. By that afternoon, not only did someone reply, but actually arrived at my home to pick up the grill with no negotiation. Just three crisp 20s and a thank you!

Craigslist has become a powerful tool in my war on stuff. Here are a few tips to make getting rid of stuff on craigslist easy:

Always use multiple photos. Just like any other customer, craigslist shoppers want to see what they’re getting, even if you are giving it away for free.
Try to get a good photo by placing the item outdoors, or in a well lit area, without distractions or “other junk” in the background.
For quick posts. use a craigslist app. Once your account is set up it’s easy to just snap a photo with the app then add a headline and a good description.
Good headlines work, something like “Vintage Peugeot French Road Racing Bike.” I used this description to sell my 12 speed bike from 10th grade that was still in my garage until about a year ago! Another “classic vintage” item that had retained all of its value 30+ years later.
For more expensive products, it’s always good to paste in a quick description from the manufacturer. Just do a quick search including the model number and you’ll get a bunch of options. These more detailed descriptions will also make your item easier to find for searching shoppers.
Avoid using photos from the manufacturer’s website unless what you’re selling is brand-new. People will be disappointed if your sale item differs from the photograph.
There is no need to include your email, phone or home address in the post. Just use your craigslist mail ID which forwards to your email box. This helps you avoid spammers.
If someone asks you to deliver the item, just say no, unless you know them. The time involved in this negates any benefit you get from using craigslist. Think of this more as a garage sale. People should just take things home and leave you with the cash.
When you come up with your price give yourself about 10% to 15% negotiation room. People who purchase on craigslist generally like to ask for some small discount from your list price.
If you are getting rid of stuff that is in really bad shape just do a quick curb alert, Craigslist has some good mapping tools so you can just drop a pin on the curb location and it will be gone in no time.

Zach Galifianakis presents Craigslist Joe

Once you start playing around with craigslist, you’ll find there’s a whole hidden economy involved. It goes way beyond stuff, and includes fantastic vacation rentals, computer repair services, handyman services, on and on. Check out the film Craigslist Joe about the guy who travels the country relying solely on the support of the craigslist community.

Unloaded anything crazy on Craigslist. I’d love to hear about it.

The_Frug

Make the journey more enjoyable with a better destination.

11/13 by The Frug Leave a Comment

What’s the point of being frugal if there’s no goal, no destination? After all, saving money is difficult. Over the years, I’ve figured out a way to enjoy it. The secret is not to save for rainy days but to save for something great. It can be a new business, retirement by age 40, long term travel or a home. It’s important to have multiple destinations or goals instead of just saving for age 65 or the next disaster. Don’t get me wrong, the rainy days will definitely come along, but don’t think of them as disasters, just think of them as a slight delay on the way to your excellent destinations. I say “destinations” because, instead of just saving for retirement, you save early and save often for the many destinations along the way.

Start Simple

Around the Frug household, you may occasionally find a cost savings thermometer stuck to the refrigerator. At the top of the thermometer is a travel adventure that the entire family has bought into. The simple idea here is you can make any journey (eg. Saving Money) more enjoyable if you have a destination or a goal.

I am generally the one who uses the thermometer, but SuperK and the boys occasionally come up with some savings surprises. For example, just this week, we’re skipping one honor roll dinner out by combining two of them. We are switching to a cheaper dog food and that will save us $25 a month. Props to Otis our black lab for getting soft-serve poop from the fancy-pants organic dog food he was eating and agreeing to switch to a brand with fewer ingredients.

The Little Things

Let’s use this dog food example. Our 110 Pound Lab Otis has maybe 10 years left in him. To calculate the true value of any ongoing monthly savings, invested at 7% return compounded over 10 years, you multiply the expense by 173. Formula explained here. So, if Otis can stick with his new food, we can save an additional $4325.00 over 10 years. If you start applying this formula to many other monthly expenses, you can start to see how flexing your frug muscles can really pay off.

Why do this?

If you’re a Frug, you’ve probably already saved for that rainy day, so why not save for some sunny ones. In our case, this is not for something years from now. It’s usually more like six months away. Gives it more a sense of urgency and serves as a reminder of what all the frugality is about.

The Next Step

Taking this to the next level. How much would you need to save in order to earn enough return on your investment to travel several months a year, forever? At this point, it becomes about using the return on your investments to actually pay for the travel instead of using cost savings to pay for individual trips. This is a bigger goal, but it has bigger payoffs. I believe if you find enough monthly expenses to cut, including the big ones like automotive expenses, goals like this are realistic.

For tackling these bigger goals, there are some great tools available. Start by downloading this calculator from the MMM software department they have links to some kick ass calculators for finding the true compounded value of monthly recurring expenses you can ax. Go ahead and type in your satellite radio fee, your daily latte at Starbucks, condo fees, deluxe supersonic quadruple play cable package, anything.

Once you develop your goals and fantastic destinations, you can set up some automated tracking for the larger goals. I really like Mint.com for this. You can actually link specific brokerage accounts like 529 college savings plans to the total amount you’d like to save for college educations. When the savings grow, it adds the compounded interest and investment returns to your total so you can see your progress towards any goal.

Your turn. I always like to hear about other monthly or weekly expenses that you have given a major haircut.