0:09 All right, everybody, thanks for joining us. My brother Charles and I'm Jack, and this is Everson Frank, ready to do a podcast on Let Me Explain. So my brother and I were talking about like cutting back, like things go bad. So the first thing that comes to mind is you lose your job.0:34 What's the first, you know, there's so many things. And you could do it today. There's so many things you can come back on. So I've been thinking about this dude for days, literally. But I haven't been thinking about what I was going to say. But the format we're going to go with. Was I going to talk about some things that I would do? And then you talk about things you would do. So I think I want to do it like this.01:04 There are different aspects in our life that we're going to cut back. There's food. There's entertainment. There's utilities. The top three. Okay? So I probably will let you go first. But we'll start with food. We'll go to you and me. Then we'll go to utilities. I'm not doing food. What? I'm not doing food. I'm not cutting back on food. That's the last thing I have to cut out. No, no, no, no. If you're a person that eats regular...01:31 I don't, it still doesn't matter. I still wouldn't do it. Food's important. Television isn't. Watching it. Wait, would you still go out to eat? No, I don't go out to eat now. I don't go out to eat now. No, I'm not talking, this isn't about you. This is about people in general. Well, everyone, in my opinion, should not go out to eat anyway. Sorry. Okay, let's go a little further. We learn from mom being poor.02:01 To cut up your own chicken. Stupid things like that. You can't find a whole chicken anymore. Yeah, you can. Where? In the chicken section. They're called fryers.02:13 Okay, I'm telling you, they're not in California. No, no, they're now five bucks instead of a dollar. Yeah, they used to be a dollar. I remember that, dude. Right? Yeah. Well, think about it. Did mom teach you how to cut it? It's a dollar when we were kids, and gas was a dollar or under, a dollar. Now gas is, at least here in stupid-ass California, it's $5, and a chicken is $5, so that makes sense.02:40 That's kind of weird. I never thought of that. Bread, bread. When we were kids, bread was like on sale, 25 cents a loaf. And it was real. Remember when bread was real? And hold on. And gas, when it was on sale, was 25 to 27 cents a gallon.02:59 Now I remember it was when I still bought bread, it was like $3. And so it was gas. And so I realized the same time I went, Hey, bread kind of follows gas. And you know, it's interesting. I don't know if a bread's $5 a loaf. I don't think so. I have no idea, dude. I don't buy bread. I haven't bought bread in years, dude. Yeah. I don't either. I don't either. I'm not a clue. Did mom teach you how to cut up a chicken? Yeah.03:27 Okay. Of course. So we all were taught how to do that. I think Jim was too. Yeah. She was like, I'm not paying for them to cut it up. That's what I'm talking about. No, no. She's like, I'm not going to pay. I'm going to teach my children slaves to cut it up. So I don't have to do that either. Laundry. She taught us laundry, cooking, everything. Cleaning.03:51 yeah so she wouldn't have to do it let's be real stop no please please we grew up our house was a mess dude it was dirty all the time there was shit everywhere wait no she didn't clean her house on the walls what it dripped nicotine nicotine in the bathroom04:12 It was so gross. And you'd have these long streaks of nicotine that would just drip down the walls. Yeah, that's how you'd be frugal. No. Okay, let's get back to frugal. Let's go back to the topic. So food. There's a lot of things food-wise you can do. Well, first of all, out to eat is over.04:31 Okay, that's number one. Number one. That costs you the most. Number one, people do. That costs you so much money. And people are like, oh, I have to cook. Yeah, you have to cook. Same with coffee. You ain't working. You lost your job. You got all day to cook.04:46 Yeah. Make your own coffee. When you ain't looking for work, you're going and cooking. Right. The other thing is, like you said, coffee and all that other bullshit, that's just a massive waste of money. Oh, my goodness. Huge waste of money. And you don't have a job, so you don't have to be awake. You're good. Let's see. What else? I've been out of work so many times, it's not even funny. You're kidding me.05:13 Let's see. I don't drink coffee either, but never have. Not since college, but it is a huge waste of money, especially if you go out. If you want coffee so fucking badly, make it yourself. And none of those bullshit K-cup things. No, make it like we used to. You get a fucking percolator. Wait, wait, I'm so frugal. I ran water twice through them. I know, right? It's like you got the same tea bag from last Tuesday. You're still dipping in the hot water.05:42 When it tastes like water, you throw it out. Right. When it tastes more like water than tea, it's time. That's right. So there's a lot. Like, for example, if you eat cereal, don't go name brands. Go with the plain wrap. I mean, literally. Now, don't eat cereal. You know what you're getting for your money? Nothing. Nothing.06:08 Think about it. I could sit down and eat half a box of cereal. No problem. Half a box. Right, right. Me too. It's like $5 a box. That's $2.50. So how about you take that $2.50 and you spend it on eggs? So what's a dozen eggs cost today? $10? No. $12. Yeah.06:34 Okay, I don't buy the cheapy shit ones. I buy the pasture-raised. Yeah, because they're better. But anyway, let's just say, okay, say six bucks. Okay, 50 cents an egg. For the $2.50 you spent on half that box of cereal that you ate, okay, that's five eggs. When was the last time you could eat five eggs? Now, I can, but most people don't eat five eggs. So for the same fucking price...07:04 As crappy-ass cereal, you can get high nutrition, hold your appetite for much longer, $2, you know, 50-cent egg per egg. So you can do two, maybe three eggs. Then people are like, oh, I can't eat that many eggs. Okay, if you can't eat that many eggs, then you should stop. You should stop at two then. Right. Right? And then toast, no. No toast. Remember when Mom used to buy day-old bread?07:33 Yeah, she would go to the Wonder Bread store. I never tasted the difference. No. She'd buy the day-old, yeah. What? It was a day-old at our house. Well, it was called day-old, but it wasn't. It was much older. Right. And then she would take it and freeze it right away. Right. The minute she'd bring it home, she would freeze it. They tell you, oh, this is the bread industry trying to keep your money flowing. Okay? Don't ever freeze bread.08:00 And I'm like, we froze it like our whole life. Our whole lives. It worked fine. What's wrong with your bread now? Well, bread's different. Bread's different now than when we were kids. Oh, yeah. Have you seen like where they squeeze it and it goes back to form? It's so weird. Oh, my God. It's like a yoga mat.08:20 Yeah, bread isn't bread. Bread isn't food. Anyway, so another thing, another thing is buy on sale. Okay, so yesterday I went to the store because I forgot to take meat out of the freezer. I'm like, God damn it. I'm an idiot.08:36 So I'm like, I got to run to the store and get some food. So I thought, I'll just run to the store and get some meat because I got to shop anyway. So I ran to the store. Nothing was on sale. It was late in the day. It was like 5.30 Saturday. It was late in the day. I went, well, I'll just get something for tonight. So I picked up something for tonight, barbecued it up. And today, right before we recorded this,09:00 um i went to the store oh they had shit on sale dude i saved literally at the end it printed out i saved a hundred dollars nice a hundred dollars now right tip oh yeah now i yeah i that hundred dollars is not going to um change my lifestyle any09:20 But it was a win, right? But if I was out of work, that $100 would be a huge win. That's $100 I don't have to pull out of savings while I'm trying to look for work. Or if I'm trying to save money and save up for a trip or save up to purchase something or just try to have some extra spending cash to do things,09:42 And I'm like, okay, where can I cut? I didn't cut in the quality of the product I bought. I got the same meat I'd always get. But I wait. And I bought, I don't know how many, what, eight tri-tips. There's no way I'm eating eight tri-tips in a week. I mean, there just isn't. Tri-tip is like usually two meals, unless it's a small one. Now, was it on sale, like a manager special sale?10:06 No, not a manager's special. Fuck that. Never buy the manager's special. Because the minute you get it home, it goes bad. You open the package, it's bad. It's that fast. No, you literally, if I buy a manager's special, I bring it home and cook it immediately. And then I can freeze it. No, the only way I'm going to buy a manager's special is if I can cook it yesterday. That's the only way. Because it's just nasty. I'm not doing that. I did it once. Once, dude. That was the end.10:35 Never, never again. All right, so there's that. Buy on sale when you can. Don't buy pre-processed, don't buy ultra processed or any processed food if you can help it. Anything that's like individually wrapped or has a big old box, right? The more of a box you have, the less of value of food you're gonna get. Right, you said to me before, a bag, a box, or a can.11:04 A bag, a box, or a... What is it? If you're eating out of a bag or a box, you're doing it wrong. It could be can also, right? Yeah, I don't remember if it was can. I don't feel like... Cans are kind of hit and miss. Right. Cans can be okay. Like soups. Okay, you can... Soups aren't bad out of a... I mean, if you're going to eat soup, right? Yeah. So you can also get like tuna...11:27 in in cans so that's good um yeah so you want to look for you want to look for how can i save money where can i go and save money on food mom would go to multiple stores when we were kids right we had we paid with food stamps and back in the day it was real stamps it was like the you know disneyland tickets11:48 huh they were like disneyland tickets i was gonna just say that dude they reminded me of large versions of like e-tickets and shit like that from disneyland so yeah she would pay with that and so the way she would stretch the money she would get money in the beginning of the month and then we would drive all over fucking town buying all the food we would need for the whole month she'd completely plan out the menu12:11 right a whole month she would do a menu a whole month yeah all for the month we she would force us to eat the school lunches because we got them for free so um that helped they were nasty dude dude they were the worst they were back then they were nasty12:29 Fuck them school lunch. They were awful. They were awful. They smelled bad, remember? You would get, oh, it's spaghetti. I was so happy. Ooh, spaghetti day. Right? And you peel off the top, the aluminum foil top. And literally, dude, I'll never forget this one day. All sauce, like one strand of spaghetti, like that long.12:55 and onions everywhere in there. I'm like, this isn't spaghetti. Today, if I wasn't a stupid kid, I would have gone back to the fucking lunch lady and thrown it on the counter and been like, I want spaghetti.13:12 Remember the burnt hamburger buns? Always burnt on top. I'm like, who's making this dog food? It was so bad. It always smelled like non-food. It is the same company who supplies schools with food, supplies prisons.13:30 Which makes sense because school's just prison for kids, right? Okay. Yeah, I agree. So anyway, she would run around town looking for all the sales. You can do coupons today. She didn't clip coupons. It wasn't as big then, but you can certainly... I have this app on my phone called Flip, F-L-I-P-P. Oh, yeah, I have that too.13:55 Yeah, and you can find sales. Like if you're looking for sales for stuff, that's a good thing. You can say just me. You're going to spend a little bit more money in gas driving around town, but not that much. If you save $5, you're not going to burn up a whole gallon of gas. So it's worth your effort and time. So what you're doing is you're trading time for money when you want to be more frugal. And...14:21 What do you do with your time that's so fucking important anyway, honestly? What do most people do? They doom scroll or they just veg out in front of the TV. You got time. You have time. You have way more time to do all the things you say. You don't have time to do cooking and preparing and extra shopping and all that shit. You can do it. What store do you go to?14:45 What? What store for your meat? I just go to the local Albertsons. Okay, Albertsons. I like to use names so people can go, okay, he's finding sales. Oh, absolutely. I know what, like Tri-Tip, $4.99 today. Oh, bought them all. Bought them all, dude. Well, not all of them. I kind of feel bad taking them all. There's a bunch of people around. So I like I left a couple. I left a few. I left a couple. You can't cook it anyway.15:15 And then Chuck was $5.99 a pound. Right. And I already had so much Tri-Tip, I only bought one of those. But normally Chuck is $9.99 a pound and Tri-Tip is $8.99 a pound. Dude, I paid five in change for Chuck. Dude, I'm in fucking California, okay? Shut up.15:39 So anyway, you're getting ripped off, dude. I know. I know. I tell my wife so we can move out of this fucked up place. So anyway, I, I know what the current prices are. Okay. And so when I, I, first thing I do is where are the sales? What's on sale? Buy it, freeze it, store it in your freezer. That's another way.16:01 Tell me your process because I know there's a process for you. Here's the thing. Buy your meat when it's on sale. It's way, way cheaper to feed a family on a tri-tip at $4.99 a pound than it would be to go to any restaurant, even a drive-thru.16:20 Oh, no, that's not true. I can get... You're not going to get the quality food. See, it isn't just about putting food in your children's stomachs or your own. It's putting quality food in their stomachs. Mom was all about filling our bellies. She wasn't about quality food because she didn't know any better. Right? It was about her... And we didn't either. No, of course. Fuck, how were we supposed to? We were fucking kids. That was on her. But...16:49 She didn't know any better. So she just wanted to fill our stomachs. How did she do that? She did it very cheaply, right? She did it with pastas, which are dirt cheap. Even today, they're still dirt cheap. She would do it with tomato sauce, right? So she would do with that. She would, however, put meat in the sauce. So there was still something of value there.17:13 But what really filled our bellies was always, not always, but mostly was non-meat. We got more meat as we got older, but the quality of what we ate was pretty poor. Like tomato sandwiches, that would be a dinner.17:33 Well, what do you got? A tomato, a white bread, or maybe wheat at that time, and mayo. Like, honestly, that...17:44 Those were awesome, dude. They were fucking delicious. I'm like, don't knock it, man. I can go for one right now. They were fucking delicious. Salt and pepper, baby. It's not healthy. That's like food. It's not food in my mind. So anyway, there are ways you can stretch your food budget, but it's going to take effort on your part. It depends on how important being frugal is.18:12 to you like at some some people well i just don't want to okay sorry you're fucking princess you're fucking spoiled you're like i don't know like okay when they don't fucking complain you don't need money or everything's so fucking expensive they're watching this video in the starbucks drive-thru right the fucking starbucks exactly a bunch of fucking whiny babies like they have no idea on their iphone that costs a thousand dollars18:37 Okay, hold on. All right, we kind of covered food. Yeah, we've beaten food to death. Let's move over to utilities. If you're trying to cut back on gas. No, electricity. Or gas or electric. Yeah, so it's going to cost you, but in the long run, it'll get a return on your investment. Make sure every light in your house is LED. Everyone. Everyone.19:05 Now, is every one of your lights LED? No. Oh, no, they are. That's right. No, they're not. Because when we build, they are. No. All the, no, listen. No. All the inlets. I'm telling you, I'm looking at a light right now that is an LED. Oh, the ring light, dude? No, that's LED. Every light. Keep looking. Keep looking.19:34 Behind you, on the shelf. Oh, you mean the lava lamp. Dude, I haven't turned that on in like three months.19:43 They can't be LED because they don't get hot enough. It has to be incandescent. For a lot of them, yes. Right. Anyway, so yes, I have a few places where I still have the old style because I don't turn them on very often. Right. And so I turn them on for like a minute and turn them off, and then I'll go two weeks without turning them on again. Every time I buy LED, they die right away. What? What?20:11 Serious. Then you're buying shit. I'm Home Depot, dude.20:15 I don't buy at Home Depot. LED bulbs at Home Depot. I don't buy at Home Depot, dude. Where do you buy it? I buy at goodbulbs.com. I buy... Oh, no. I go to badbulbs.com. Clearly. Obviously. Also known as Home Depot. Supplied by Home Depot. Literally, dude. I'm like, they're guaranteed for seven years. They die in two weeks.20:42 Those must be dog ears. Oh, my God. They're horrible. But you're right. LEDs. LEDs, man. When we built our house, they were all LEDs. The other thing you can do is you can... And I don't do this. But there are systems where you can keep track of how much electricity you're using. And you can see what your different devices are. It's called the electric company.21:09 no no you plug it into the thing and then you plug it into the wall or something like that oh yeah you're right you're right yeah you can get a device like that um i don't know much about them but if i was only possessing them yeah i'm sure they only last two weeks i'm just looking around this room here and i'm looking at like how many things are on21:29 like all the time i know i have um yeah you gotta turn stuff off guys if you're not using it for example let's say you're watching a movie do you have to have every light in the living room look i put dimmers on every switch everywhere21:49 And you dim the lights. You don't have to have them bright all the time. These are bright right now because we're filming, right? And I got my window open too, right? But normally I wouldn't turn this light on to see the window open. And that's another thing. Open your windows. Open your windows to cool the house at night instead of putting your air conditioner on. Unless it's 30 degrees outside, guys. Well, I know. You know what I'm saying. Put wood in the fireplace.22:16 Right? Right. There's lots of things you can do. Just think what people used to do when it was like 30, 40, 50 years ago. What did they do? How did they get by? Where you're cold in the house, do you have to really put the heat on or can you just put more clothes on?22:34 Right. Right. Tammy does. She puts the jacket on. Yeah. She's totally fine. Blanket on. Cause I'm always hot. So I'm like, ah, I go, it's fine. She's like, I'm cold. I mean, it's fine. I go, you got a blanket over there. Go put that thing on. Do you remember what mom used to do during the summer?22:53 To cool the house off? I remember she had fans. She'd have a fan. She would always open the house up in the morning. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. She'd bring in the cold air in the morning. And then you close it as it gets warm. And you close everything. Yeah. I did that last night. It was hot upstairs. Yeah, same here. It's hot and miserable here in California. It was 75 here, dude.23:14 Okay, it's awful here too. We were freezing two weeks ago. I know. So I opened the door to our balcony. I opened it up.23:25 And by the time I went to bed, it was cool. And then I close it, close it, keep that cool. It really works, guys. It does. And putting a towel under your doors, exterior, that works during the winter. Yeah. So you don't lose heat. There's so many things you can do. Here's the thing. Every one of these frugal things, what do they have in common?23:49 gotta put an effort thank you yeah and most people are lazy don't want to do that they're like they just rather sit around uh you know in a lump and complain and all right well then fine but you're making a choice don't right just shut the up don't get on tick tock and i mean it's expensive i don't want to hear that like deal with it deal with it there's only two things you can do24:15 Figure out how to make more money or figure out how to spend less money. Which do you think is easier? Making more money. Sometimes. No, no, no. Spend less. It depends. Right. Sometimes it's easier to make more money. Like maybe you're working at a job and you know that they're underpaying you and you're just being fucking lazy. We've all been there. You're being lazy and you don't want to look for another job. Okay. And you're like, I should be making way more than I'm making. Right. Go look.24:42 Put the effort, always effort, right? Put out the effort. You might make more money and then you don't have to be frugal and shit. Okay. Can I shift you to another category? What? Entertainment.24:54 Well, yeah, I mean cancel your streaming services. Yep. Oh, my God. You literally only need one streaming service. You don't need any. You don't need any, honestly, okay? If you don't have cable. Let me make a suggestion. Let me make a suggestion, okay? You want to get your money's worth? Buy books.25:15 I'm serious. Buy a book. You know how long a book will last you? So here's the way I look at it. If you want entertainment, there are two really good, super efficient ways to entertain yourself for very little money. Two things, books and video games.25:41 Okay? Books and video games. That's like right out of the gate. There's others, but those are my top two. And both you can buy used. Yeah. So let's just say you buy a game, okay? And that game, you wait, you do your research, go onto YouTube, find out how many hours that game is, and you look at the money and you go, I'm not buying this game when it first fucking comes out. Mm-mm. I'm going to wait until there's a... How many hours was Skyrim? I put 300 hours into Skyrim. Oh.26:11 I put 150 hours into Assassin's Creed Origins. Twice, I did 140 to 150 hours. That's another 300 hours, right? So think about this. You spend how much to go to the movies? You go all the time. Okay, what's the average person spend? Not you. Oh, yeah. I got a good deal. But the average person, $10 a ticket.26:33 Great. So two of you going out, $10 ticket, 20 bucks. Okay. All right. So let's just take one of you because you're not both going to play the video game. So let's take one of you. That's $10. How many hours of entertainment did you get? Two. Two. That's $5 an hour. Okay. Now you spend, you spend $60. $60.26:57 On a game that was 80 when it came out, right? Right, right. Or not even 80, because they're not 80. They're 70 now, right? Yeah, they're 70. Well, it depends. Switch is now 80. Yeah, fuck Switch. So they're 70, and so you wait until it's 50 on sale, $49.99, right? So now it's 50, and you get 50 hours. Okay, let's do that. Right? That's five times...27:25 What is that, like a dollar an hour? A dollar an hour. A dollar an hour. And you're going to do more than 50, by the way. Well, you might. You're going to get 100. You might. I'm just being conservative here. So the amount of entertainment you get per dollar is huge. So you really have to think about it like that. I buy a book. I bought a book, $15, okay? And how long does it take me to read that book?27:52 The month? The month? The whole month? Sure. Yeah. So that's value compared to magazines, right? I honestly think that gaming, video games, are a better deal than a book. Oh, totally. Because I'll blow through a book if I'm not doing other things. I could blow through. Oh, I'm not going to watch TV. The main problem is...28:14 watching television you can also do for free in a way um by just having a you know not having all these yeah i'm not doing that you can pick up all the local channels i know i'm not doing that dude i can't i can't put an antenna in this hoa will fucking have my head on a on a spike28:33 No, I can't do that. So I have to pay. But you can drop that down. You have to pick and choose what matters to you. For me, internet is important. So I'm not cutting that. So do you know the movie deal I got? Do you know how it works? Tell people.28:50 It's $20 an hour. Excuse me. It's $20 a month. Okay. Okay? Unlimited all-you-can-eat movies. You can watch Star Wars 20 times. Okay? So we go on date night every Friday. Right. To the movies. Right. But there you go. There's another approach. You buy... So what is that?29:10 Buy in bulk. It's like buying in bulk. Buy in bulk. You always buy in bulk. You remember mom, she would go to the, it was called Price Club. That was very early on. That was our sales club. That was our Costco at the time, right? You'd go to Price Club, you'd pay a little bit a year to be in the club, and then you could buy in bulk. Mom would go there and she'd buy the thing she would normally buy it, but buy it in bulk.29:37 Buying in bulk always saves you. Always, always, always. Stay off of Amazon.29:43 Okay, you're paying a premium for Amazon. Figure out where you can go physically and buy shit in bulk. Go to Smart Final, go to Costco's, go to Sam's Club. There's plenty of places you can buy things in bulk. And don't buy impulse things. Do you fucking need a 55-gallon drum of peanut butter? No, no one does. Do you really need a sack full of pretzels? No.30:09 Unless you're always buying small pretzels and you're putting them in your kids' lunches, then yeah, then you're saving by doing that. But even then, by the time you get to the end of that pretzel bag, it's fucking stale as shit. Okay, so really quick. So let's say you lose your job. The first place you go to is running your credit card.30:31 You'll get a list. If you go into your credit card statement, you'll see everything you spent money on. No, no. Everything you waste money on. Right. All the things you're wasting money on. But it's a great starting point for cutting back. You can go, that don't need to go. I mean, that don't need to stay. That don't need to stay. And just start hacking away. Yeah. That's it. That's the first step.30:53 That's what we do. We pull our belt tight. We get rid of everything that, unless it's air and water, it's gone. You know, we keep only necessities. Yeah, I've done it. I've done it a bunch of times. Oh, we've done it a bunch of times too. It really works. We're speaking from experience. Yeah. And the thing is, is it, it's temporary.31:16 Right? And then you might not even want to go back. You're like, eh, do I really need Paramount Plus? No. I don't want Paramount Plus. We have it. What about Landman? You gotta watch Landman. I know, right? Gotta watch your Landman. It's the number one show on TV. Yeah, I love that show. Anyway, no, but at some point you gotta pick and choose. Is it worth it? Like, I would never get rid of Spotify.31:42 Because I listen to Spotify. I'm in the top 5% of listeners. They give you the stats at the end of the year. I'm way up there. Oh no, I'll listen to Spotify, but I'll take the commercials. I listen all the time. I listen all the time.32:00 Like that, I'm working, I'm listening. I'm in the car, I'm listening. But they got a free plan. You get commercials. That's all like radio. Hello. You could. You could. Yep, absolutely. You could totally do that. Almost even Zoom. Zoom is free for 40 minutes. So like we could talk for 40 minutes for free until it kicks us off. Everywhere has a free plan with commercials. So be ready for it.32:28 These are all great tips. These are all great areas for people to look, even if you haven't lost your job and you want to cut back. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, don't wait. You can go through this video, write down everything we talked about. It all works, I promise. There's more. Dude, there's so much more you could do. Like, think about this. Your purchases, okay? Where you buy something, you go to the mall, ooh, I got something, and you come home with your little prize. Like...32:58 I haven't done that. Like I went to actually went to a mall for the first time in maybe a year or33:06 Like, stop. Like, in the 80s... Do you still have malls? We don't. You remember Fast Times at Ridgemont High? Yep, yep. And remember that all the kids worked in the mall? Yeah, the movie theater and all that. In the 80s, and maybe even the 90s, I don't know, because I was an adult by then. But in the 80s, like, that was the thing to do. You'd go to the mall. And what do you wind up doing when you go to the mall? You wind up buying shit you don't need. For money.33:32 Spencer's. Clothes you don't need. Shoes you don't need. Here's another thing. Before you go out shopping for anything, walk through your house. Look at your things that are on your bookshelf. Look at things that are in your closets. Go look and find shit you bought that you didn't use. That's still in the wrapper.33:52 Yeah, dude, I still have Laserdiscs. I know. That are in the wrapper. I have DVDs that are in the wrapper. Yeah, I have the original Star Wars trilogy shrink-wrapped that were Laserdiscs before George screwed them up and added all that shit on top of them. Jar Jar Binks and all that. Yep. No, no, no, the first three. This is the first three movies, not the ones that came after.34:19 yeah but you look around your house there's stuff that i bought and i've never opened or you haven't really done much with hold on i got one here hold on all right okay look how stupid this is look how tiny that is do you know what that is it's for what's it for shaving what do you shave it's a mini shaver why do you need a mini one i don't know why wouldn't you want a big one i bought this because it was34:48 Look how stupid. Because you're stupid. That's why. Hold on. Hold on. Ready? No, those are dumb glasses. 20 bucks, dude. I had to get it.34:59 Right, that's the thing. That's the thing. Like, what are you doing? What are you doing? You're being an idiot. I got tons of stuff. Being an idiot, right, exactly. No, I'm a perfect example. Okay, I do the same thing with music, okay? I'll be like, oh, this little library thing sounds really cool. I bet I could write something, a nice piece of music with it. I got a thousand things.35:20 I've spent thousands on music stuff, thousands. And yet I'm still looking for something new. Like I have so much at my disposal. Dude, if I was a kid and I saw all the things that I had, I'd probably smack myself. Like you don't need any more.35:37 Like you go back to your younger self and smack them and go. No, no. It's the other way around. My younger self would look at me and say, I have so much. What the fuck? That's opposite. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So let's don't buy shit. Don't go to the mall. Don't give yourself an opportunity to buy some. Don't go online. And what is it? Women do this a lot. Not men. Dopamine that makes you spend. Yeah. Well, no, it's the hit of dopamine. That's a reward for buying and acquiring something.36:05 Think about it. It literally is a drug, guys. Right. So here's the thing. Women go online and they browse all the time. My wife does it. My daughter does it. I don't. I hunt. So I go online when I need something. But my daughter has Pinterest and she pins all these things that she might want to have one day. Why? Because of evolution. They're...36:25 We're the hunters, they're the gatherers, right? And when they found something and brought it home, or the man hunted and brought something home, which was much more rare, that was a big dopamine hit. It's a reward, right? And so you're living with that biology in today's world, right? With buying shit, like smart glasses and mini shavers. Okay, I gotta be honest. Maybe you think I'm stupid.36:53 but we've already established that but go ahead when I see something on Amazon I want the minute I add it to my wish list I feel like I bought it oh interesting no no no I dude I don't think that's stupid at all is that weird37:10 I think it's totally smart. I do the same thing. I put it in the wishlist and I see in a week from now whether I want it. Okay. On my phone. Dude, on my phone. Hold on. Hold on. On my phone. Okay. So here's my phone. Ready? Right. This is my browser. These are all my tabs in my browser. Okay. On my phone. It's all blurred out, by the way. Oh, fuck. Really? Yeah.37:37 There we go. I'll put it by my face. Does that work? Yeah. Okay. Anyway, it doesn't matter. You can't see it anyway. But I'm just going to read to you the things that I've saved in my browser as a wish list. Right. So I have this plugin called Love 2. Okay. It's great for making ambient music and things like that. That just came out.37:58 Now, Love One was out for a while and I decided not to buy it. But when Love Two came out, I gave it a new look. And yeah, that was kind of cool. Then there's a thing called Skyfire, another sample library where they actually took these planes from World War Two and they recorded their engines. And then they use that engine sound to make musical instruments.38:22 Out of the best mode of view. I know, right? Wattpad, W-A-T-T pad. It's a place where you can write stories and put them up for people to read. Titan X, it's like a shirt gun, except it uses the Mantis X system.38:39 And you can train with it. And it's a lot cheaper. And you also have the Mantis X part of it where you can shoot at targets and you can use your phone as a camera and all. That's something I would like. Haven't bought it yet. Ultra. Ultra is this really cool synth. Like I need another fucking synthesizer in my life that I wanted. Yeah, Howard Jones.39:04 I have so many. These are just things that I look at and I think, God, this is cool. There's a thing called Wires, which is another plug-in that basically makes it sound like whatever you put through it is recorded on a wire. Now, in the old days, they would record things on a wire. If you look at the orange, the black box,39:30 for planes right when they crash they record it's recorded on a spool of wire the information is all recorded on that and they used to record the sounds on wires and it changes them in a really interesting way so these are all things that i watch i watch when you bookmark it don't you feel better i feel like okay no i feel i feel like okay i won't forget it39:53 right and i will it's not forgetting it and if i really really really want it i'll buy it and when i bump into it again i'll go oh yeah i still want this i really want to get it and i'll spend the money but if but 99 times out of 100 dude i am not kidding you i look and i go yeah yeah i really don't need this or yeah who needs a metal basket to carry brisket40:21 Carry what? From the smoker to the kitchen, a metal basket to carry your brisket. But I bookmarked it. Right. I put it on my wish list. Right. 90 bucks, baby. Oh, God damn. Dude, I'll come to your house and for 80 bucks, I'll carry that shit. Yeah. A plane ticket's 90 though. But anyway, so that's another way to keep yourself from feeling deprived.40:50 And yet you don't buy shit you don't need. And you don't feel like you lost anything? Here's another thing. When you feel like you need to buy something, go into your garage. Look at all the shit that's in your garage. Inboxes and just packing in your garage. Shit you couldn't live without. And then go look in there and see how much value did you get? I got crap in my garage that I never used. It's not open, baby. Fucking...41:16 I'm like, oh, yeah, I need this for the barbecue, right? Or someone gave it to me as a gift, and I'm like, oh, yeah. It's still brand new in the box. Completely brand new. Never gets used. Never gets used. I have tons of that stuff. It's stupid. I'm going to go around and look now. Dude, you could literally do this. You know what you do? Here's what you do. You find those things in your own garage where they're all brand new and shit, and you package them up, and you give them to yourself for Christmas as a gift.41:45 Did I tell you that story? What? Tammy's uncle got me a piece of crap gift. I hope he doesn't watch this, dude. I hope he doesn't watch this. He's dead. Oh, okay, good. I'm sorry. I don't mean good, but good he won't have his feelings hurt. Stop. Okay. He buys me the worst gift in the world. Okay. I mean, I look at it and like, oh, great, thanks. What?42:14 Right? The next year I re-gifted to him. On accident. No. I looked at this and go, hey, this has never been opened. I bet Uncle So-and-So would like this. And? I gave it back to him. He never knew. His wife was laughing knowing he gave it to me last year. Dude, he loved it. He started playing with it right away.42:45 Okay, so think about it, though. Okay, honestly, people give you a gift that they would want. I know. We buy gifts we'd want. Totally. And he goes, oh, my gosh. And we start playing with it. Yep. I'm like, wow, well, that was good. Okay, you remember the time Mom bought Otis, Otis, our stepdad, for people who don't know, bought Otis this tool? Do you remember that tool, that wacky tool?43:15 It had handles and it went like a big square. And it was like, he gets it, he opens it, it's Christmas. He opens it and he's holding it up and he's like, what is it? And she goes, I don't know. I just know you have every other tool.43:31 And I know you don't have this one. So this is mom, right? This is how mom thinks. So mom, right? And so eventually he figured it out. It was to help you change the shoe breaks on a Buick that he doesn't drive or own.43:50 Okay, stop. I have so much unopened stuff in this room. It's just fucking stupid. It's stupid. We waste our money. We just fucking throw it away on stuff like that. And then we don't utilize it. We don't get our money's worth out of things. So I think that just to be frugal is to just think about how much return on my investment am I going to get, right? Because here, if you just want an acquisition, put it in your...44:16 Moisture lift, you just want that, hit a dopamine, bring it home, and next week, take it back, unopened, return it. But it's44:25 Like most of the stuff you're buying, you don't need. Think about it as a business. What return on investment am I going to get in this? It's an investment. I'm investing in a lava lamp. I'm looking at your lava lamp. I'm investing in a lava lamp. That's an original, by the way. 1970, baby. Are you serious? Yep. Okay. That's a real original. If we would go back to the house we grew up in. Go and dig up yours. Dig up mine. I buried mine. You did.44:53 Buried in the backyard. Oh my gosh. No, that's an original lava lamp. Does it have the holes in the metal and everything? It has the holes in it. It's real. I mean, it's a classic. That's like owning an Apple I computer. You know, the very first Apple. I love it. There's a thing on the internet, dude, where they have a wall of lava lamps.45:21 and they have a camera on it, and they're all changing randomly, and then they will take a photo of it and utilize that as a seed to a random number generator. So that's...45:33 How they can like seed off of random lava. Stop nerding out, dude. You're totally nerding out on me. I'm telling you. It's just like the last time. I mean, that's the best. You're killing me. That's the best use of a lava lamp I've ever seen. All right. Listen, let me let you go. I think we've kind of covered everything. Beaten this dead horse. Yeah.45:55 Yeah, we did a good job too. Bottom line, you waste too much money, you can always cut back.46:04 That's it. Yeah. And it's just a matter of looking for it. It's there. And your life isn't going to be worse off. It really isn't. It absolutely isn't. I haven't bought, I haven't gone to a mall, like I said, and bought anything forever. I bought a book for the first time in years. What's the last thing you bought? A book. What was it called? Project Hail Mary. Oh, that's coming out. That movie's coming out. Yeah. That movie's coming out this month.46:30 I bet it ain't nothing like the book. It won't be like the book, but I want to finish the book before I watch the movie. Very cool. Let us all know. Yeah, I like The Martian. I really enjoyed The Martian as a movie. I didn't know there was a book. I only heard about it after the movie. I'm like, I'm not reading the book. Very cool. We'll be looking forward for your review. Yeah, anyway, so the thing is, what was the last thing you bought and when?47:02 I literally spent no money. I just go down and tell Tammy, I haven't spent any money. Something showed up on our credit card that wasn't ours. Okay, so I do buy things that I need. Like I need, you know, I bought a cleaner, like a spray cleaner. I need, you know, stuff like that doesn't count. No, no, no. You know, in my mind. Like I bought salt. I went to the store and bought food. But I'm talking about like disposable income purchase other than your mini shaver and the eyeglass, smart glass. By the way.47:32 This mini shaver, I bought a year ago, dude. It's literally brand new in the box. I was going to do a Tech Time video on it. I bought it a year ago. All right, you need to do a Tech Time video, dude. This way you can take it off your taxes. This screwdriver set, it's a little electric screwdriver. Wait, that's electric? Yeah.47:53 Or a battery. Sorry. Okay. Yeah, yeah. But it does all the... It's got all the attachments. Let me ask you a question. How often are you unscrewing or screwing things? Wait. Well, not anymore. But, you know, I think it stopped after 50. But... Yeah. Literally, I've never used this. Never opened it. It's out of the box, but it's still in this box. Look, I love tools. Dude, I'm such a sucker for tools. I'm like, oh, this is a cool tool. Wow.48:22 Wait, I got more. This is literally to find out if your hotel room is bugged. Oh, Jesus. Oh, my God. It can signal when there's a camera in your room or bathroom. Okay, so that's fucking actually kind of cool.48:39 Yeah, I thought about it. But I wouldn't buy it unless I was worried I was being, you know, the FBI or CIA's after me or some stupid shit. Hold on, we're not done yet. Still in the box about a year ago. What is it? It's a vacuum for like a curd jar or a ball jar when you're doing like48:59 When your vacuum, you put it on top of the jar, it pulls it out. Oh, vacuum seal. A vacuum seal. It's a vacuum sealer for on top of a jar for storing food. If you're jarring. Okay, when was the last time you jarred anything? Wait, this is brand new. I never have. Ever? Have you jarred in the past? Wait, have you jarred in the past? Yeah. A year ago. That was the last time.49:26 Okay, well, that's not totally... No, this is... But it's brand new, dude. It's plausible. I've had it for a year in the box. Okay, so all you... It was a plausible purchase that you've now proven in your year of non-use to be a waste. Wait, there's more. Oh, Jesus. This is a stand for, like, your iPhone, and it follows you. It tracks you. Okay, got it. It rotates.49:53 So no matter where I walk. I got a camera for that. I got a camera that does that. Dude, I can't even walk. Why would I need this? In case someone pushes you in a wheelchair or you fall over. Unless God grants my walking ability back. Dude, I'm looking around my room. There's nothing here that I don't use or haven't used. Oh, I take it back. I got one. Here we go. Ready? Hold on. How do you turn off the blurr?50:22 On the video. How do you do that? I'm going to turn the blur off. Go to your camera. There we go. All right. See this? Yeah. It's not blurry, right? That's a jump drive, right? Yeah. I don't know why I bought this. I can't tell you why I bought this. I bought it thinking, oh, this will be good. I can put stuff on it. I don't know why I bought this, dude. I have no clue. Okay? This thing, I know I bought. I know I bought this. That's an SD card.50:50 Yeah, it is 64 gig. I know I bought this because I have devices. Okay, still in the package. Still in the package. How long have you had it?51:01 I so long. I can't remember. It's not even about, but these are all, these are all things that will eventually get used. So, I mean, I, I will definitely use these. Okay. This, this. Okay. I, I, I have to admit that this is something I may never hear. Oh, that's a clip on Mike.51:21 They're tiny little microphones, right? They're super cool for recording things, for even like, okay, so like if you want to have a clip on mic and you want to record two people talking or whatever, but this is great for like, the reason I bought this was to- You don't have that in the studio right now. Do you? To record things where you can't get a big microphone like this one or my Zoom microphone. Wait, hold up your microphone. People can't see it. What?51:47 People cannot see your microphone. Oh, like this one. Hold it up. There you go. Okay, I just want to show. Okay, hold on. Oh, that's a nice one.51:55 it is nice right yeah is that a sure yeah and then i have this zoom line i have this i use this for music production right and what is that to tune in the aliens or something oh it kind of does look uh no it's you record it's a it's a like a field recorder and so you record things and you can you know you use them and you can manipulate them electronically at least that's out of the box52:20 Oh, I've used that a bunch of times. Oh, yeah, tons. I've used that recording. I've used it for lots of things. So, yeah, those are the things that are sitting here on my desk that I bought a while ago and I haven't used ever. Most of the things I'm looking here, I've used, though. A lot of stuff I used. I kind of, over the last 10 or 20 years, have been really scaling back on purchases and trying to really...52:45 really be careful about what i buy my wife's um been doing um a better job of that too she's like if i buy something for the house i gotta get rid of something wait hold on a minute this is the last thing i bought what is it it's the camera webcam53:08 Well, what the hell am I watching you on? On my MacBook camera. I got an external one. I don't even use it. I'm on the MacBook camera. You're an idiot. I know, but what a great example. Oh, that camera tracks you. Hey, we should do an episode where we just show people like cool shit that we bought and we do use.53:33 okay all right i'll start gathering all my stuff and because i have some cool stuff around here i'm like oh that's a cool thing oh that's a cool thing now we're gathering stuff what just cool just cool stuff that we bought that we that is just cool like i have camera stuff i have i have a keyboard here that's kind of cool i have a label maker thing53:58 I have lots of stuff. By the way, that label maker is on my wish list. Dude, that thing is really great. Now, here's a funny thing. Well, I'll wait until we do this. All right. So that'll be our next episode, okay? All right. All right. Let me let you go. Thanks for the laughs and thanks for your time. Yeah, it was fun. Appreciate it, man.54:24 All right. All right. Bye-bye. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Before you go, do you realize how this thing went from how to be frugal to look at all the cool shit we wasted our money on? Don't take advice from these two clowns. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, this is a real professional podcast here. These guys stay on track. Oh, Jesus. All right. Bye, man.