family of four spending

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

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?

Why you’ll soon be paying zero dollars per month for high tech home security.

11/14 by The Frug Leave a Comment

Home Alarm Disruption — Scary Times for Established Players with Fees

By Brad Beckstrom

What is disruption? It’s when an established industry like eyeglasses, taxicabs, music is completely turned on its head by a new technology or a new way of doing things.

Usually this is very good for Frugs. Eyeglasses and prescription sunglasses drop from hundreds of dollars down to $75. A taxicab ride into town drops from $20 to $10 and comes with a tidy receipt, including a map of your journey sent to your phone from UberX. Music sounds better and, is unlimited, for a fraction of what we used to pay.

Whenever I see an industry about to be disrupted, I see opportunity to flex some frug muscles and get the word out. The next industry being disrupted…..

Home security.

The home security business is a 5+ billion dollar industry. The industry includes established players like ADT, FrontPoint, Brinks. Also, other major communications players have jumped into the game including Google, AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and others.

The monthly monitoring fees are the bread-and-butter profits for these companies. Much like the cable or mobile phone industry, they are willing to install a high-tech home system, for a low price, but you’ll be on the hook paying anywhere from $30 to $200 a month or more, depending on the number of entries, windows, sensors, and keypads etc. in your home.

Cable companies and mobile carriers are jumping into this market because it’s a perfect fit for their model. They are very good at setting contracts up, raising prices while charging early termination fees for those who want out after their monthly monitoring gets too pricey.

The good news is this industry is about to be completely disrupted.

B.Y.O.P. Bring Your Own Phone.

09/14 by The Frug Leave a Comment

How to Take Advantage of the Mobile Carrier Price War.

I’m going to keep this short because I can’t stand mobile phone plans. Mobile carriers have always thrived on complexity. The arrival of smartphones and data plans over the years has only added to the bizarre mobile pricing schemes already out there.

Smartphones have become money machines for the carriers, racking up all kinds of data charges, upgrade fees, smartphone accessory sales. It’s time for things to change. I’ll be the first to say that the smartphone a useful appliance. See 21 Things my iPhone replaced.

But if you’re not careful your mobile phone bills will be higher than your utilities. If you’re single, they probably already are.

About a year ago, things did start to change. T-Mobile touched off a price war with some aggressively priced data plans. Especially for families of four which seem to be the holy grail for carriers. T-Mobile is trying to grow market share with some heavily discounted plans and even offered to buy out your old contracts. To our benefit this infuriated competitors in bringing us to some of the better values out there today. [Read more…] about B.Y.O.P. Bring Your Own Phone.

Holiday Escape Plan.

09/14 by The Frug Leave a Comment

Your guide to skipping the insanity this year.

I was driving the other day and I saw a pumpkin patch sign up. It’s freaking Labor Day weekend! I know what that means. Halloween will quickly turn into Thanksgiving and the insanity of the spendy holiday season will begin instantly.

Have you ever thought about escaping the holidays? No last-minute trips to malls, hiding gifts in the trunk, wrapping oversized packages. Completely ignoring the news stories about people getting trampled on Black Friday. There’s really a reason it’s called Black Friday.

Choose Adventure over Stuff

What would happen if you could get the whole family to buy in on your secret holiday escape plan? Choosing adventure over stuff this holiday season. I know this is next to impossible if you have kids under 12 years old, but it’s never too early to start planting the seed. Our kids got a taste of it last year. We had a get together with family and friends in Mexico. We saw whales, visited small villages, took boat rides, sat on the beach.

The holiday escape plan is pretty simple. Instead of the traditional gift giving bonanza of material goods that are soon forgotten, we will put all of that money towards a family adventure. Last year we did a little of both which, looking back on it, is cheating. We also spent a bit too much once we got to Mexico.

I needed complete buy in on the plan this year. Our gifts to each other would be adventure and time with family and friends. To my surprise, I got very little pushback. Our youngest commented “Why wouldn’t we choose that?” Another comment was “I always have a hard time coming up with stuff to ask for anyway.” I’ll let you know how all this turns out after Christmas morning, at least they’ll be waking up at the beach.

Paying for your adventure

Now the hard part starts, but just think how much time you’re saving by skipping all those trips to the store and wrapping presents. The first thing I did was look back over the last couple years at what we spent on Christmas gifts, local travel, and all the other holiday related “stuff”. [Read more…] about Holiday Escape Plan.

Mo Stuff = Mo Problems

05/14 by The Frug Leave a Comment

Separate happiness from owning stuff

by Brad Beckstrom

You would think someone who writes about living lean and minimalism would not have a stuff problem. Think again.

It’s the start of a holiday weekend and I just spent a over an hour on the phone with Apple support. Turns out I have too much stuff on one of my two computers. I have too many extensions on my Chrome browser. One of these extensions, or other apps, are creating issues, causing the browser then the computer, to hangup.

Apple was nice enough to help me with my out of warranty iMac. I’d imagine there’s some reason for this. Maybe they looked at my support file and got a glimpse of how many Powerbooks, Macs, iPhones and iPads I’ve purchased over the years. I’m embarrassed by this number. When you add in my wife SuperK, my two kids, and various ventures I’ve purchased Macs for, I am very embarrassed by this number.

Mo Stuff = Mo Problems

See the problem is not really the Mac, it’s the number of Macs and the number of apps. Mo Stuff = Mo Problems. Rapper Notorious B.I.G. famously said Mo Money = Mo Problems and things did not end well for him. Shot dead, likely due to some money problems with other rappers. [Read more…] about Mo Stuff = Mo Problems

Find Your Treehouse. My one year experiment using Airbnb.

04/14 by The Frug 2 Comments

Find Your Treehouse

When I was in third grade, my dad helped me build a treehouse. I should say, I helped him. It was a great treehouse, larger than most with a solid deck, walls, and a gable roof. It was built in a huge tree that could easily support its weight. We had windows with large screens and even ran power via a long extension cord. I could run a fan, a radio, and even a small tv.

My stock value went way up for coolness of sleepovers among my friends. I miss that treehouse. It was a great place. For me, it was my “other” place. There was home, school, and the treehouse.

I think Airbnb, the travel app juggernaut, had people like me in mind when they started featuring photos of all kinds of lodging alternatives including: Yurts, Houseboats, Airstream Trailers, exotic treehouses and even old trains. It’s now the most popular page on their website. You can find it on their website homepage just by clicking “popular.”

I mean, who wouldn’t want to sleep on a boat or on a train or in a rainforest treehouse. These are the type of places where people can really get a good night’s sleep. And you get to skip buying the boat or vacation house part. Oddly enough, I started experimenting with Airbnb a few years back for business travel, not personal. I was headed to New York and sick and tired of business hotels that charge over $300 a night with nothing much more than free WiFi. And don’t forget about the 15-23% lodging and misc. taxes most cities add on. I found something much better on Airbnb for $130 a night in the East Village.

One of my best finds was a one-bedroom apartment in the center of the old city in Barcelona for $70 a night. Yes, you read that correctly — $70 per night. Prime location with balconies that opened out to one of the nicest parts of the city. It had WiFi, full kitchen and a living room. In a pre-war building with 15 ft high doors. A comparable room in a hotel would be close to $300 a night. [Read more…] about Find Your Treehouse. My one year experiment using Airbnb.