1- Blog post rec: I loved Kristen’s recent post on Teach Me How to be Frugal (in 10 steps). I feel quite frugal in some areas and extremely NOT frugal in others, but I do feel good about the breakdown largely reflecting our family’s priorities and values. I would still like to improve in the areas of accumulating less stuff (and to be clear, I don’t think we are super high accumulators at baseline) and creating less waste.
2- Hot tip for those that tend to spend on travel: a podcast listener alerted me to Travel Mom Squad, a trio of podcasters who offer tips on traveling on points / using credit cards to their best advantage. I feel like it bears noting whenever credit cards are mentioned that these strategies only help if one pays their balances in full every month (which we always have). BUT I feel I am under-leveraged here as we have a lot of $ flowing through our credit cards and our biggest splurge area is travel. I feel like I have the organization skills and a good setup to up my game here.
(I don’t see myself going an extreme route and opening 30 credit cards / buying gift cards to maximize points / etc, but I think there is a middle ground between the simple way we do things now and the super-intense style of travel hacking).
3- Hobonichi has started sending out more emails to subscribers — I think they know people are gearing up for preview month (August) already! On the flip side, if you’re looking for a Tomoe River Paper alternative, check out Amanda’s review of the Papertess Designs Yearly Notebook. (This wouldn’t work for me as I really prefer a vertical weekly layout, but it’s got TONS of space for those and would be great for those who calendar electronically but do everything else on paper).
4- Book club was fun — and I’m hosting the next one, in part inspired by Christine’s great conversation with Sarah Powers! Sarah does a great job detailing some of the ways she’s evolved her life to better fit her preferences and values, from reading local news to lowering friction to host. I love this kind of “hey, this is what’s working for me” types of pod episodes.
5- Two “follow up” updates: I continue to want to double down on efforts to work on my checking. This continues to be a work in progress but I am already noticing the behavior more which I think helps a little bit? And with respect to getting heavier weights: I’ve decided not to go the adjustable route because I really just need a few weights between 30-50 AND don’t really want to be fiddling with plates during workouts. I plan to “reward” my week of finishing the split by ordering some 35s, ha (at this point, I would only need something this heavy for something like a deadlift or goblet squat — but I’d like to make the workouts as effective as they can be!).
IN OTHER NEWS:
I’m on call this weekend, and it’s going to be a busy one! BUT it’s a best-case-scenario situation, where I don’t have to rush into work Sat / Sun / Mon so I really should be able to handle it. I’m thinking of trying to swap out more of my weekends for 2026 (as in: instead of taking all 7 days in a row, asking for trades so that it’s either 4 days at once or 3, just more frequently) and this will be a good experiment to see how that feels.
AND, the kids come home! Super excited to hear about camp and a little sad I won’t be entirely present for them (call) but honesty they will probably be super tired and ready to do a lot of resting / hanging out at home anyway. Plus, A’s camp friend lives 2 doors down (and is also coming home) so they can just continue the camp vibes until it’s time to leave again on Monday morning.
15 Comments
I am going to check out Travel Mom Squad–thanks for the tip! I have been wanting to up my travel points game for awhile. For the last several years we have used the same strategy (my husband travels a lot for work, so he stays at Hilton properties whenever available, and books on American Airlines whenever he can, plus we have an AA credit card that we use exclusively). This has enabled us to take our “big” annual family vacation every year with points covering flights. The hotel points we use sometimes but they don’t fully cover everything and if we’re going to places that are a little more remote we don’t always have an option to book a Hilton. However, I think that there are ways to optimize points better than we are doing and I’d like to spend a little time researching this. With your planner mind, I totally think you would do great in figuring all this out!
Yes to all of Kristen’s posts in general and that one in particular. When I first heard about her blog, I made a snap judgement about the name and had a moment of “I am long past the stage where I need someone to tell me to reuse plastic bags and cook everything from scratch”, and then I clicked the link and read the post and I have been reading avidly every since. Her blog is about goals, living your dreams, realizing it’s OK to change a situation that isn’t working, and oh yes, pointing out that you can reuse bags and cook delicious food.
I added the Travel Mom Squad to my playlist because I never get tired of this topic. I had three big plane trips on the calendar for this year, and instead of breaking out cash, I clicked a button to transfer points. For me personally, having the Chase Sapphire Preferred (the cheap card) and being able to transfer points to United has been the secret sauce.
It’s nice to have kid free time, but the real fun is when they come home and you get to catch up on their adventures!
I do most of what Kristen lays out since we are naturally frugal mostly because of our middle class families of origin. I know you can be raised by frugal people and be a spender but that is not the case for my husband or me. It will be interesting to see how our kids turn out. So far Paul seems to be frugal as he does not want to spend any of the money he has in his little play ATM (we deposit most of his money in a 529 but he gets to keep some cash). I do not do any wizardry with travel points/credit cards/etc. But we do not travel that much so it doesn’t seem worth the hassle. We basically take one trip/year, it’s domestic, and we stay in a hotel. I get easily fatigued by all the credit card tricks/having multiple cards, etc. I know you can save a ton but it’s not worth it for me. If anyone got into that, it would be my husband but I don’t see that happening until the kids are older! Plus we are so wedded to Delta as an airline since that’s where all my points are and that’s the airline we need to take for direct flights. And a direct flight matters more than anything else for us!
I love that you need to buy heavier weights! Way to go! My heaviest weight is 20 lbs and I rarely use it besides dead lifts/single weight squats!
I love Kristen’s blog and she’s quickly becoming a dear friend. She reminds me a lot of what Kathleen (The Minimal(ish) Mom) does in terms of presenting frugality as a luxury. Things can be beautiful and environmentally friendly and satisfying AND be high quality.
We do most of the things she talks about in terms of frugal living. I grew up in a household without much extra money and my parents were (and still are) extremely frugal. I appreciate that my husband and I have the finances that mean we can choose to be frugal and don’t necessarily have to do it out of necessity, but I find it deeply satisfying to save money. And it also allows us to be more generous in terms of charitable giving as well!
We don’t credit card hack much at all. It doesn’t appeal to me, but I know we’re missing out on some great opportunities. Oh well. On the other hand, I can count on one hand the number of clothing items I’ve bought new in the last few years.
I was just thinking (while buying a $$ plane ticket a couple days ago) that I really need to figure out how to do the bare minimum with CC points. A year ago I used Jet Blue points that I had been accumulating for ten years to get one (domestic and not very far) ticket and it was quite exhilarating! But I don’t want to wait another decade to cobble together points for a ticket. Thanks for the tip — I’m going to check out the link you shared.
SHU, it’s Kathleen from the BOBW Patreon group + Minimal(ish) Mom podcast… If you ever want to talk points and miles for family travel in a non-crazy way, just let me know! It’s such a FUN game!
^^BOBW Podcast guest, please!
yes, we should def do this 🙂 I will email you!!!
Currently I only use my 35s for RDLs (and truthfully they are currently being used to hold down the base on the dog teeter we have in the basement lol). I like single leg RDLs better though and I can only do 30s for those, chest press, and single leg rows. I’ve toyed with getting 40s… but then I got bored of lifting. Maybe now that we’re back from vacation I’ll start again.
yes i mostly want heavier for RDLs and goblet squats now. i do not think i am up to 30 for anything upper!!
For goblets I’ve found I can hold two 20s if I push them together. Ymmv. The 20s I have are wrapped in rubber so the friction helps hold them in place. I’ve been considering getting a Y membership and paying someone to teach me to use the smith machine… but I’m afraid I won’t go. 🙁
Smith machines aren’t great bc they convert a fully 3 dimensional movement into a strictly lateral up and down motion, not accounting for spine/body curvature. You’re better off avoiding and doing what you do.
Thanks! What would you suggest for the boredom instead?
Ooh- I will check out Kristen’s blog post. Sometimes I think I’m frugal, but really I’m just cheap in some ways, and spendy in others. I’m sure I could get some great tips.
Good luck with call! And- I tried to leave a comment on your previous post but I’m not sure if I was successful. I don’t want to post a duplicate in case it shows up later? Anyway- I hope you and the kids have a nice, chill weekend.
Loved the frugal blog post–thanks for sharing! Hope call goes well!