10 "Normal" Things I Don't Do As A Financial Minimalist

a recent study found that the average cost of having a child per year is over eighteen thousand dollars [Music] as a financial minimalist I'm all about optimization and saving money so recently we had to make one of the hardest decisions we've ever made and I had to let my daughter know that after five amazing months it was time to move out all right I think we got it let's cut are you good yeah but this this seems like a little bit much I don't I don't know if anybody's gonna buy this you know if anything I don't think we're going far enough we need views you know I'm just saying it seems like you're taking it a little bit too far fine I'll just do it the old-fashioned way by providing value but for the record I think my way was a lot more fun we don't have any pets the average cost for owning a dog is between fifteen hundred and nine thousand dollars per year now well this is definitely worth it for some people and I know it brings a lot of people a lot of happiness and joy uh for us it's just not something that is really worth it so over the past couple years we've been being extremely Frugal so that we could leave our jobs which we eventually did get more house hacks which were on our third one right now and then have a child uh which we did a couple months ago and we just looked at that expense as a like extremely high plus there's the time and responsibility involved in that that could be hundreds of hours a year and while some people get a lot out of having a pet we just don't we really value that freedom uh while we're home and then also the opportunity to travel instead of having a pet so for us it's just not something that's worth it now the average American gets about 11 of their daily caloric intake from fast food I'm not gonna lie that like kind of uh annoys me a little bit I know there's a lot of reasons for people that have fast food and it's easier and whatever um but your health is one of the most important things like if you haven't got your health you haven't got anything and for me over the past like 10 years I have not eaten from McDonald's Burger King anything like that there's been times where everybody else has gone in my group and I will literally be like I'm just gonna starve even though I haven't eaten in six hours and I'll just wait till I get home as opposed to eating something from there because there's been this rule that I'm just not gonna do it and I want to stick with that rule from this kind of like Financial minimalist mindset it's not all about saving money it's also about how do you feel 20 minutes after you eat that two dollar burger and I want to feel as good as I can every day and that means spending a little bit more time preparing and making sure I always bring the food with me and money getting higher quality foods that are going make me feel better so for the most part I just don't eat fast food buying an extended warranty now when I buy anything whether it's like a phone or a laptop they will try to sell you an extended warranty and if you're anything like me you don't actually use it that's why they offer this is because it's another form for them to make money like I used to buy extended warranties and I realized that I have no idea where I bought my laptop on my phone and my lights or my camera equipment I just don't remember and if something breaks I'm not going to remember if I have a warranty or not or who it's through so I end up just buying another one anyways or repairing it so if you are somebody who is super organized who can remember all those sorts of things then it might be a good idea but for most people it's not gonna make you as much money as you're gonna end up paying for it and I don't know it's just not something that I choose to do shopping as a Pastime now the average person spends about 25 minutes per workday to shopping now part of that is driving to and from different stores and that takes time then you walk around you have to get one thing and it's like all this time that goes into it or uh it also gets racked up by going to TJ Maxx and just walking around for two hours and then you have 17 things that you didn't actually need but somehow you have also shopping on Amazon on your phone or other places online it's just something that we're trying really hard to avoid because for the most part most of the money that we spend on stuff doesn't lead to a lot of Happiness some of it does but especially shopping as a Pastime when you get bored scrolling through sales or walking through the clearance section or impulse buying or when you're at the store or pretty much just really shopping without a list every time we go to the grocery store or we go into any store or we're looking for something online I pretty much just like write it down ahead of time so I know that I'm not going to get anything extra that I don't need need and it saves me a lot of time and a lot of money by the way if you're enjoying this video and getting any value would mean a ton if you would subscribe and hit the little notification thing it really helps me out holiday gifts Americans plan to spend 997 dollars this year on themselves and their families holiday gifts honestly this always feels pretty weird to talk about I feel a little bit like Scrooge McDuck but it's also something that's pretty important like we've sat down and talked with a lot of family uh and especially like me and my wife and what we decided was that we're not really doing holiday gifts anymore unless it's something that we like actually need like if we need a coat and it's getting near winter we're like I'm gonna get you this and we'll call it a Christmas present or whatever because they need the coat anyways but we stopped doing the I'm gonna get one thing for everybody that I know or for all of my family members even though we're all adults and if we need something we can get something and instead we're doing things like taking trips together which is a lot more enjoyable or doing some type of experience together and all pitching in on that or just doing nothing and being okay with that like we still do stuff for like my nieces and nephews and we'll do stuff for my daughter eventually but you don't need to get it's something for everybody just because that's what everybody does posting the highlights now this is something that I had a problem with for a while because when you go on Instagram or Facebook or wherever you see the best polished photoshopped moments of other people's lives you feel like you need to do that if you do anything cool you're like for the gram gotta take a picture of this beach or me doing this cool thing and that's what you post in general I've been really trying to move away from posting the highlights and following these people who are always trying to sell you something or show off and in turn that like isn't great for you at least for me and instead like posting the the low lights and me being weird and stuff that I'm struggling with and real stuff that's gonna help people or humble myself a little bit like anything I post like on Instagram I try to make sure that it actually provides some value and it's not just some form of validation for myself seeing how many likes I can get and that's where you get a lot of your self-worth but being very careful and curating our social medias that we're not always trying to get sold stuff and we're not trying to get validation through it just to fit in all right this might have taken you too far this is actually a Meredith's shirt which is a woman's so it it doesn't fit all right we're back a lot of times people make bad decisions financially because they're trying to fit in whether that's having the newest phone or going out and having drinks with their friends even when they're trying to save money so that they can like actually change their lives or going to college or getting a new car or just doing whatever the people around you are doing like you're the average of the five people that you hang out with most and because of that who you surround yourself with will really change a lot about you so something that I've been really uh geez working working hard on not doing is just because I go out with people doesn't mean I need to get a drink or eat unhealthy stuff like if everybody's having pizza but I don't want to have pizza I'm not going to have it I'm okay with being that guy who's a little bit different and just doing things that are right for me we don't have flowers besides uh besides that one actually it came with the house all right I'm not gonna lie this is kind of a weird one but when we moved here we you had the options of planting like bushes and flowers and stuff like that but instead we went with fruit trees we have uh like a million pears right here like this tree's like like falling over I don't know if you can see that but we also planted raspberries and blackberries and blueberries and strawberries and a bunch of different vegetables and I realize this might be a little bit extreme but we want everything we have to serve a purpose like if we get a dog someday it'll be because we have a farm and we need it to take care and watch out for the chickens and whatever and if we spend money buying plants it would be really nice if they could give us fruit because fruit is like insanely expensive or if we're gonna grow something we can grow something that is beautiful and also provides something for us this might be a little bit extreme but when we came here instead of buying a bunch of bushes and flowers we got a bunch of things that has given us food pretty much all year long paying for housing now don't get me wrong we do actually pay a little bit to live here but instead of buying a single family home which technically we could have afforded after getting the first two triplexes that we've been living in the past couple years we got a single family home with an in-law so the tenants that live right over there pay for over half our mortgage to live here so we're able to live in a nice place that's in a better neighborhood than we probably could have afforded for like the same price as like the crappiest one bedroom apartment in our city and doing this house hacking for the past uh four years now has saved us tens of thousands of dollars it's been the thing that's allowed us to save up and invest more and both me and my wife to leave our job and me to do YouTube full time it all came from this decision that I'm not gonna pay for all of my own housing I need to figure out other ways to be creative where where I risk everything that I have to buy these properties and I fix them up and I try to be a great landlord and in return I'm able to have other people cover some of my living expenses giving me a lot more freedom in return for that risk in that service there's supposed to be a car right here but Meredith has it but yeah I don't own my own car and I know this is not going to be for everyone but the cost of owning a car on average is about ten thousand dollars a year so we realize if we can go from two cars down to one car we can cut an insane amount out of our budget because we don't spend that much to start with so it made things a lot easier for us financially and in return once or twice a month it's kind of annoying when we can't both go separate places at the same time but with a little bit of scheduling we've pretty much figured it out again I know this isn't for everybody we probably know one other family who has children who doesn't have two cars but if you look at the expenses that go along with that you might realize that you can work a lot less or switch to maybe a lower paying job that works from home simply by getting rid of that second car especially if it's a new car that's extremely expensive to own so it's just not something that adds a ton of value to us but speaking of adding value I hope this video added some value to you if it did don't forget to subscribe you can follow me on Instagram and I'll see you next week

Channel: Gabe Bult

Views: 173,490

Keywords: financial minimalism, how to save money, financial minimalist, things i dont buy anymore, things i dont buy, things i stopped buying, minimalism, minimalist, gabe but, normal things i stopped doing, frugal, frugal living

Id: e2StH_sSnG8

Length: 11min 26sec (686 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 17 2022