In today’s Friday Roundup we discuss our key takeaways from Episode 29: The Reluctant Frugalist vs. the Aspiring Minimalist, plus feedback from the audience as well as two of our in-house experts.
Podcast Episode Summary
- Friday Roundup after Episode 29 where we discussed the Reluctant Frugalist mindset versus the aspiring minimalist
- How Jonathan used travel rewards points to book two round-trip flights to South Africa to visit his wife’s family. Only 128,000 points!
- How to think through a travel rewards redemption and where to start
- The essential nature of the psychology when considering financial independence
- How to approach your spouse/significant other about FI and what to avoid – namely the word “retirement”
- What is Brad willing to spend significant money on?
- Email from Bo about a new term: A ‘Valuist’ and how this applies to Brad
- Feedback from our Facebook group from Christopher about a ‘false dichotomy’
- Feedback from Jessica – there are no rules of being a minimalist, it’s a journey and a mindset
- Voicemail from Geoffrey about reducing stuff and choice with a cool challenge with your clothes
- How the KonMari method tidying has transformed lives
- How to have a conversation with friends and coworkers about FI when they know nothing about it
- The difficulties of talking about FI at work and how to navigate that
- Know your audience when discussing FI and figure out an approach that will resonate with people
- Update from in-house experts:
- Millionaire Educator released his 2017 Free Money tables
- Big Ern responds to Mark’s question on the pluses and minuses of ETFs and mutual funds and how to choose between the two
- New in-house expert: Noah from Money Metagame who will share life hacks
- Voicemail from Noah about how to save on purchases
- Voicemail from Marilyn challenging the ‘sacred cow’ of always buying used cars and how it can be a smarter decision to buy a less expensive new car that you plan to keep for a long time
Related Post: Why You Should Never Buy A New Car
- Can a car loan make sense if you have a lower interest rate?
- How to negotiate on purchases by mass emailing multiple competitors and Brad’s challenge to the audience
- Frugal wins of the week from our private Facebook group
- Book giveaway and iTunes review
Links from the show:
- Decision Fatigue article at Wikipedia
- Headspace
- Mad Money Monster: Early Retirement Resistance – When Friends Push Back
- 1500 Days
- ESI Money
- Mr. Money Mustache
- Millionaire Educator’s 2017 Free Money! Tax tables
- Early Retirement Now
- Money Metagame
- Gift Card Wiki
Books Mentioned in the Show:
- The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up
