As I mentioned in my last article, this post is going to be geared to looking at trying new/different things through a frugal mindset. While I don’t know him personally, one person who has expanded my mind on the frugal way of trying things is Alan Donegan. Alan runs the PopUp Business School and one of his main goals is to not only help people start businesses, but to help them do it cheaply by challenging them to think outside the box. I highly recommend looking him up and listening to podcast interviews on which he has been a part. He also recently started a podcast, though I have not listened to it.
One example for trying something new would be to see if things you already own can be used or modified to suit the purpose. Take journaling. If I was thinking about trying again, if we ignore for a second the six journals I still own that are only 1/8 full, all journaling is is putting words on paper. I could use my laptop that is already bought and paid for, similar to how I am typing this blog post. Or, I have legal pads and printer paper sitting around if I wanted to journal the old fashioned way.
Now, I’m not saying I would always have to journal on my computer or legal pad, but what I would be looking for is proof of concept. I am making sure I would actually use the item before purchasing. If I was consistent with journaling on the computer/legal pad, then I would potentially look into purchasing an actual journal. I could then paste the entries from my computer/legal pad entries to my new journal.
Another potential way of trying new things is using your network. As it is looking like I will be unemployed for a while, at least when it comes to jobs in my profession, I have been thinking about my expenses spreadsheet and steps I could take to lessen my larger expenses. Looking at my spreadsheet, my cell phone bill is my largest weekly expense. I have often thought about trying to reduce this expense, but while on the road I usually use 20-30GB of data, so having an unlimited plan makes sense. I also felt that with the amount of my paycheck what I was paying was not an issue. My final issue was the risk of trying something new with as much as I travel.
Since I have been home and quarantining my data usage has been around 1GB since I am often connected to wifi (something I do not usually do on the road since I have unlimited). I have often heard good things about Mint Mobile, and really like the price of their 3GB/month plan for $180 for the year, equal to the amount I pay for three months of service. I didn’t want to spend that money though to not have the plan work well. My stepdad was in need of a new phone plan, and since the service had good reviews in our area, and my stepdad is almost alway with my mom or I when we travel, we can test out the service with his phone, while having our phones as backup in case the service does not work well. If it does work well, I will seriously consider switching and just being more mindful about connecting to wifi networks when available. The service also came with a 7 day money back guarantee, so if it was awful in our area we could get it refunded.
Another way of using your network that seems to be often overlooked, which is surprising since we are “more connected than ever” with technology, is just asking your network if they have experience with what you are looking to do. Depending on what it is they may be able to let you borrow what you are looking at purchasing to test it out, or invite you over to experience what you are looking at purchasing. They may even be able to get you into a service for free as an invited guest. When I am home I do not have to pay for a gym membership as my mom gets to bring a guest to the gym she belongs to.
I would suggest in looking to try new things to set up a trial period. If you are looking at signing up for a membership service, can you sign up for only a month membership instead of a year? While this may appear to be more expensive, companies often offer major discounts to sign up for a full year, the reason they do this is because they know most people will not use the service. It would be somewhat painful to sign up for a month of service at a place for $100, use it regularly, and then then next month sign up for a year of service for $600. This would be much better though than starting out paying $600 for the year to never use it. Likewise, if you are looking at purchasing a product, look for products that come with a money back satisfaction guarantee.
The point is not to not try new things or spend money on new experiences, but to make sure you are dong so with intention.
