Live Lean

Dedicate each day to someone who never got a shot.

By Brad Beckstrom

Regardless of where you are in your life right now, there’s a very good chance that if you’re reading this, someone would die to be in your shoes. In fact, there’s a good chance that someone did die to be in your shoes.

Meaning that they sacrificed their life for freedom, or they left this earth too early with so much more to do. An image in the 3/29/15 Washington Post displayed a Syrian flag made up of 220,000 individual dots, each one representing a life lost since the pro-democracy protests in Syria began nearly four years ago. How many of them were children, or people just beginning their adult lives? People who never got their shot, never got a chance to shine.

It seems like some of these tragically sad stories quickly enter our consciousness and then depart, whether it be a devastating Asian tsunami, a suicide airline crash, or the latest school shooting. Few of us like to dwell on bad news. There is often little we can do to prevent or remedy these tragedies happening half a world away.

When I see or hear something like this, I think about just one of these people, just one person in that war, just one person on that plane, or in that classroom who never got their shot. Someone who probably had something amazing to share.

Each day I think of someone new. It could be someone in a photo or someone who lived many years ago. I dedicate my day to them. It helps me think about how valuable each day we have here is and how we have the opportunity to waste it, or spend it doing something great.

The Frug

The Costco Date. Declaring War on your Grocery Bill.

03/15 by The Frug Leave a Comment

Jumbo Dog and Refillable 20oz Pepsi. $1.50

My wife Kelly and I have started a new tradition. The Costco Date. Kelly actually coined the term and I jumped on it. I was recently complaining about our grocery bill that two growing teenage boys have something to do with. We had bailed on Costco a few years back primarily because the times we usually went, weekends, it was usually a zoo. I have better things to do with my time than visit a big-box store on a weekend. We also started ending up with oversize stuff we didn’t need like giant jars of olives and other questionable clothing and gadget purchases.

We’d started using Amazon Prime for paper products, pet food, and lots of other items so we decided not to renew our Costco membership. That was before I decided to declare war on our grocery bill. [Read more…] about The Costco Date. Declaring War on your Grocery Bill.

Curated for your viewing pleasure. Finding great films to watch without losing your mind.

03/15 by The Frug Leave a Comment

By Brad Beckstrom

Stop spending so much time in front of the boob tube and go outside. The boob tube was what my mom liked to call the TV. She was giving me some good advice and, getting me out of her hair all at the same time. I guess that advice stuck. I’d still rather be out doing something, anything than sitting in front of the TV.

If you live in the eastern half of the US, you know this winter has been brutal. Thunder snow, sideway ice storms, endless school closings, all around crap weather. Sometimes a great movie is just the ticket on an ice covered evening.

If I’m going to spend some time in front of the TV I’d rather not waste it on a bad movie. Problem is there are plenty of bad movies out there, you see them popping up on iTunes, Netflix and Amazon. Hey! New releases! Highly recommended for you! $ $3.99 special.All just sitting there waiting to suck.

On top of the general suckiness, there are literally thousands of these films in each genre for you to wade through, hoping that because something is popular that you’ll like it as well. If you add to that all of the movies available via different and separate providers like iTunes, your cable company, Netflix, Amazon etc. you could spend more time searching, than actually watching the film.

Even more annoying is that many of the services are pay-per-view. If I already have Netflix and Amazon Prime, I certainly don’t want to spend more money with iTunes, the cable company, or additional monthly subscriptions like HBO.

Flixter.com had a decent search setup for a while, but now through their efforts to monetize it, they have turned it into some type of overpriced online movie rental service and removed the most useful features like sorting by provider. Now I only recommend it for finding new releases in your local movie theater.

A new free solution has arrived. [Read more…] about Curated for your viewing pleasure. Finding great films to watch without losing your mind.

Decision fatigue. How too many daily choices can wear you down.

02/15 by The Frug Leave a Comment

By Brad Beckstrom

In modern life, we often face a paradox of choice. You’d think this would be fantastic. Our ancestors and those living in third world poverty would marvel at the amount of choices we have for everything, from snack foods to clothing to luxury automobiles. A cornucopia of choices delivered at a click of a mouse or a walk down the aisle of any big-box store.

From the moment you wake up in the morning, you’re bombarded with small choices, that when added up can exhaust you by the end of the day. This is called decision fatigue and we can reduce it through the science of simplicity.

For example, let’s look at one of the first decisions we make each day. What to wear? A quick count of the number of items in my closet including shirts, pants, shoes, and belts. Combined there’s about 140 items. Without getting into combinations and permutation formulas, I have well over 1.5 million possible combinations of shirts, shoes, pants, and belts. Let’s see how I stack up against some smart guys who got this right. Remember a lower number is better. [Read more…] about Decision fatigue. How too many daily choices can wear you down.

Live Immediately. Understanding The Real Value of Time.

02/15 by The Frug Leave a Comment

By Brad Beckstrom

“It is inevitable that life will be not just very short but very miserable for those who acquire by great toil what they must keep by greater toil. They achieve what they want laboriously; they possess what they have achieved anxiously; and meanwhile they take no account of time that will never more return”. Seneca

This quote is over 2000 years old but it could’ve been written yesterday. The more we acquire, the more we need to work to keep it. The word “toil” suggests that this is not work that we have chosen, but work for someone else. Work to further another man’s dreams.

More important is the comment about “time that will never return.” Many, myself included, can be very frugal when it comes to acquiring and maintaining stuff, but often lose sight of the one thing that we can’t buy more of, and that is time. There are 24 hours in a day and you can’t purchase any more. None of us know how many of those days we have left. [Read more…] about Live Immediately. Understanding The Real Value of Time.

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.