saving money

The Freedom of Limited Options

By Brad Beckstrom

I’ve been busy lately, limiting my options. Nope, not talking about stock options. I’m pursuing a simpler lifestyle built around fewer possessions and more time to enjoy what I already have.

The idea is simple, stop spending time and money accumulating, storing, and caring for stuff. Give it away, starting with the small stuff, knickknacks, unused toys and clothing. Later move on to larger items, eventually cars and houses. With each box of things we get rid of, each closet we empty out, there’s a sense of lightness. With each thing we wear out, then don’t replace, there is a feeling of freedom.

The closer you move to this limited lifestyle, the more things improve. If you limit your wardrobe, you’ll spend less time picking out what to wear every day, less time in the store replacing cheap sweaters and shoes. If you limit your diet to exclude crap foods and monster menu items, the payoffs include your finances and your health. Those “vintage” clothes will fit better.

Even the best restaurants serve crap food. If they don’t get you with the heavy-handed ingredients, they will get you with the portions. I do miss my weekly visits to the local BBQ joint with 100 different sauces. Now, when I stop in, maybe every few months, it’s more of an event, something I look forward to. My gut has not missed the weekly three meat platter at all.

Limiting options does not just apply to clothing, diet, or the number of cars you own. It’s something you can apply to any part of your life with benefits. I’ve learned to master investing by knowing less about stocks, bonds, and mutual funds and more about simplified lean index investing.

I’ve gone on a high quality, low information diet by using tools like Feedly and Flipboard to follow the best and most trusted writers I can find. Anytime I add a new source I see if there is one I can prune.

Time

The New Frugality

08/19 by The Frug 1 Comment

Does frugality still work? If so has it changed?

By Brad Beckstrom

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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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.

8 ways to hack UBER, ditch your car, and save money in the on-demand economy.

02/19 by The Frug Leave a Comment

By Brad Beckstrom

In the middle of a crowded Irish pub, my friend stood up and shouted “Brad will be taking Uber home tonight!” and ordered another round to cheers and jeers. Late that evening, a shiny Jeep showed up and drove my wife and me home in the freshly falling snow. The total cost of the ride $6.28. My friend didn’t know that I use UberX about once a week and whenever I’m traveling

Having a shiny sedan show up at your home with a driver may not seem very frugal until you consider parking costs $6-$10 for a night out in the city and the occasional $50-$100 parking ticket. I got $200 worth the year before I started using UBER. The hundred dollar parking ticket was due to an expired Virginia inspection decal. I was a bit peeved until I saw that this parking ticket actually said “ticket and tow” and I’d gotten to my car before the tow truck had arrived. My Virginia inspection decal was two days expired and I was parked in Washington DC! That city will do anything for a buck as long as it’s a pain in the ass.

A few years ago when Virginia tried to ban Uber, I wrote to my Congressman and told him that he was putting drinkers back on the road if he supported banning services like Uber and Lyft. I didn’t use the word drunks because many folks who get a DUI think they’re fine until it’s too late. The average cost of a DUI can range anywhere from $7000 to $25,000 depending on the area and fines. The younger the driver, the more invincible they believe they are and more likely to have others in the car with them, not to mention the other drivers and pedestrians they endanger when driving impaired. If you’re going to be out celebrating, use it tell your family and friends to use it. I’ll give you some Uber hacks below to eliminate any excuses. [Read more…] about 8 ways to hack UBER, ditch your car, and save money in the on-demand economy.

Super Airfare Travel Hacks for Families and Groups

12/18 by The Frug 4 Comments

By Brad Beckstrom

There are a ton of great travel hacking tools and adventure travel blogs out there. The blogs include lots of great tips like maximizing use of frequent flyer miles, credit card point programs, traveling during off-peak periods to less popular destinations and top 10 lists of great online tools and apps to use.

Despite the abundance of advice out there, one area that’s rarely mentioned is travel hacking for a family of four (or a small group of friends.) Planning for four or more people takes travel hacking to a whole new level. Keep reading if you’re traveling solo since these tools can also work when traveling alone or as a couple.

When planning for four people, you’re often not only dealing with the worst time of year to travel, like spring break or the holidays, but you’re also trying to use up some of your frequent flyer mileage. This goes against the grain of what most travel hackers recommend, including efficient use of frequent flyer miles and traveling at off-peak periods. [Read more…] about Super Airfare Travel Hacks for Families and Groups

How to protect your credit and get free 24/7 identity theft monitoring.

11/18 by The Frug Leave a Comment

By Brad Beckstrom

If you’ve ever used a credit card, online accounts, applied for loans or online offers, you’ve most likely already had parts of your identity stolen. Somewhere someone is keeping a file on you and that includes your Social Security number, addresses, recent passwords, and other information like your mother’s maiden name.

About once every year or so we get a new credit card number when fraud is detected on one of our two credit card accounts. This is a pain especially if you use online bill pay or financial tracking tools like Quicken or Personal Capital. (Everything needs to be updated, again.)

However, it’s relatively minor and common compared to full-on identity theft. Identity theft can come in many forms. Over the years we’ve experienced people successfully changing our address and getting a new credit card sent to them. Another fraudster created an actual credit card replica that was successfully used at Nordstrom and several other brick-and-mortar retailers. We’re also part of several data breaches per year including big ones like recent Target and Experian breaches as well as smaller ones most people never hear about. [Read more…] about How to protect your credit and get free 24/7 identity theft monitoring.