English Listening - Spending Less Money
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Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 213 of the Listening Time podcast.

I hope you're doing well and that you're having fun with your English learning. I hope that these episodes are fun and interesting for you and that they're good practice for your listening comprehension. And in today's episode, I want to talk about spending less money. In other words, being frugal.

Frugal is an adjective which means that you try not to waste money or resources when not necessary. You try to use your money and resources wisely so as to not waste money or resources unnecessarily. So,

I want to talk about being frugal. And the reason why I want to talk about this is because I think that I go through seasons where I need to be a little more frugal or it's beneficial for me to be a little more frugal because maybe I've had to spend more time

more money than normal because I had to buy something big, make some big purchase, or recently I just moved to a new house and there were a lot of expenses involved in that. And so it's smart to

to try to be a little frugal at this point during this season to help

make up for all the money that I had to spend on the move. So I've been thinking about this and I thought it would be good to talk about some different ways that I am going to try to be frugal for this season. And these might be helpful tips for you if you need to

Maybe be a little bit more careful about not wasting money unnecessarily. Maybe these tips can help you as well. So I'm sure that you'll enjoy this episode and

And please check out my advanced podcast episodes, if you haven't done so already, so that you can practice with real English spoken fast. So that's a necessary thing that you'll eventually need to be able to do. Understand English when people are speaking at normal speed. So you

You should check that out. That link is down below. And also check out my U.S. Conversations podcast in which I talk to people from all over the country about different topics. It's a lot of fun and great practice for your listening. That link is also down below. And as always, please give this podcast a five-star rating and write a review if you can. All right, let's get started.

Are your ears ready? You know what time it is. It's listening time. Okay, let's talk about spending less money. In other words, being frugal. Before I get into some different ways that you can do this, I first want to make a distinction between being frugal and being stingy. So,

Stingy is a word that we use to describe someone who is unwilling to spend money, to give money when people need it, or to pay for things for other people, buy things for other people. In other words, someone who is stingy is selfish with their money.

So that's different from being frugal. Frugal is more talking about yourself and it doesn't have that negative connotation. It's kind of like not wasting money and in a positive way.

Like not that you will just never spend money, right? But maybe you try to cut down on the amount of waste. So that's being frugal. And so I want to be frugal during different seasons of my life. And in general, I want to be a little frugal, even if it's not entirely necessary at that moment. Uh,

I think it's good to find ways to not waste money or waste energy, waste resources. I think that that's always somewhat positive, right? Even if you have a lot of money and you're doing well, I don't think it's good to just waste your money when that's not necessary. So,

I'm going to talk about being frugal, not stingy. It is not good to be stingy, in my opinion. We should be generous with other people, even if I'm being frugal in my life, talking about myself.

always want to be generous with other people. So I wanted to make that important distinction. And one other thing is that I think if being frugal is causing you a lot of stress, I think that perhaps you're taking it too far. Perhaps you're being too concerned about money and spending, uh,

when in reality it's not benefiting you to do so. So I don't know your particular case, but for me, I don't want to stress about spending and money. That would be bad. So I view frugality, being frugal, as kind of like

interesting, helpful challenge, but not something that I want to stress over. So in summary, I want to be generous with other people. I want to enjoy things and not be stressed, but I want to be smart about how I'm spending and where I'm spending, and I want to just have a balance. Okay, so

Now let's talk about some different ways that I plan on being frugal, or maybe I already employ these tactics to try to be more frugal. So first let's talk about energy use when I talk

say this phrase energy use, I'm talking about the different utilities in your house like electricity and water and gas, things like that. So in many places here in the U.S.,

When you have electricity, which most people have electricity in their home, you might be charged more during certain hours. So if you use electricity during those peak hours, we might call them like those peak

the four or five hours where many people are using electricity, you get charged more. And so one thing that my family and I tried to do is to not use as much electricity during those hours. So we have an electric system.

stove slash oven right now and because of that we would probably be charged a lot more if we used that to cook during those peak hours and

The same thing for our washing machine. The thing that washes our clothes is also electric. So when we use those appliances, we try to use them during the non-peak hours. So we get charged less than if we used them during those peak hours. So you can just adjust your schedule a little bit.

to avoid using those big appliances during those hours. In your country, this might not be something that you have to deal with, but if you live in the U.S.,

you might have to think about this. So that's one thing with electricity. Another thing might be with water. So here we have a sprinkler system. Sprinklers are those things that shoot water onto your grass or plants to keep them watered and growing. So that uses a good amount of water. So

One thing that we try to do now is that if it is going to be raining, like we see that there's rain in the forecast, meaning they are predicting rain in the future, we will

that and if it starts raining or it says that it's going to start raining, then we will turn off the sprinkler system to not use that water unnecessarily because the rain will water the grass. And then once it's dry again, we'll turn the system back on so that the sprinklers run normally and

when they're supposed to. So that's one thing. No se trata de tener suficientes papitas de McDonald's. Se trata de tener suficiente ketchup para asegurarte que cada papita tenga un turno. A menos que te atrevas a comer las papitas. Ah, sin ketchup. Psst, te prometo que igual te seguirán encantando. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba.

Another thing that I personally like to do, this is probably not for everyone, but I like to take quick showers. I'm not the person that wants to spend a ton of time under the water in the shower or

that's just not me. So if I don't really need that, that's not a super important thing for me, then I might try to take quick showers or not waste too much water in the shower. But for a lot of people, that might not be something they want to do. Maybe it's your time to relax when you're in the shower or whatever. My wife is kind of like that. So

So I understand that. And air conditioning and heating, this is a big one. This costs a lot of money to run in the U.S. When you run something, it means that you operate this machine. So if you run the air conditioning, the AC, or if you run the heater, the

This can be pretty expensive depending on where you live. And to be honest, my wife, my kids, and I...

We don't really feel the need to always have the house at a certain temperature, so it doesn't really bother us that much if it gets a little bit colder or a little bit warmer. We're accustomed to not having the perfect temperature, especially because we lived in Mexico. My wife is from Mexico and I'm

I lived there for years and in most houses where we lived, in the cities we lived in, people don't have air conditioning and heating that they run all the time. That's not a big thing in my experience. Maybe if you live closer to the ocean and you're in a really hot city, maybe that's different. But in the cities where we lived,

that wasn't super common. So we were accustomed to not having the perfect temperature all the time. So, um, for us, that's not something we, uh, need to turn on and run. So we can be a little frugal there as well. Another area in which we can, uh, be frugal is when grocery shopping. So I think that it's interesting to, uh,

look for deals to try to find what things are on sale. Uh, because you'd be surprised at how much money you can save by buying the things that the store has on sale at that time. Um, and you kind of, uh, decide what to cook that week based on what's on sale. Uh,

We don't always do this, but sometimes we see a really good deal. And because of that, we say, oh, let's eat this this week. So you can go and see what your local grocery store has on sale. Another thing you can do is buy in bulk.

meaning you buy large amounts of something because when they sell something in a large quantity,

It's often cheaper. Usually the bigger the quantity, the cheaper it is. So here a lot of people love going to Costco and at Costco they sell things in bulk and they have good prices for these bulk items. So it might be useful to go to Costco or a store that sells in bulk and

and go there once a month maybe or twice a month and buy these bulk items that will last you a while and you pay less. So that's something that my wife has been doing recently.

Uh, and I think that another way that we can be frugal and also be healthy is buy less junk food, uh, not, um, spend money unnecessarily on junk food just because, uh, you're craving, meaning you have this desire for, uh, some junk food at that moment while you're shopping, uh,

I think it's best to go shopping when you're not hungry so that you don't have these cravings for the junk food that you see and then you can just not spend money unnecessarily on junk food that you might feel bad about eating later. I'm not saying that you shouldn't eat junk food ever.

I eat junk food sometimes, but I'm just saying that if you buy less junk food, you'll save money and eat less junk. So that might help you out. So another area in which we can be a little frugal is at restaurants. So in the US, one thing that you have to consider when eating at restaurants is the tip.

And it might not seem like it's a lot of money, but if you have a large bill, like you have a family of five, let's say, and you spend a

a good amount of money at a sit down restaurant, meaning a restaurant where you sit down and waiters come and serve you that tip that you pay in the U S on that bill can actually be a lot of money and it can really, um, increase the amount of money that you spend every week or every month, uh,

at restaurants, depending on how often you go. So we like going to restaurants. We love eating out. We don't want to sacrifice this. So we go to restaurants, but we often go to restaurants where you order at the counter.

meaning the place where the cash register is. And at these places, you're not obliged to tip. It's not seen as a mandatory thing because they're not coming and serving you at your table. They just call your number or your name and you come up and get your food and then that's it. So it's like...

Eating at a fast food restaurant almost. So at these places, you don't feel like you have to leave this big tip behind.

I still think it's good to tip a reasonable amount if you're receiving really good service even at these places, but it's not a mandatory thing like when you're at a sit-down restaurant. Even though it's not illegal to not tip in the US, it almost feels illegal. Like you're expected to tip and it's a

large amount now where I live what is customary what is normal is 18% so that's quite a lot

So eating at these restaurants where you order your food at the counter can save some of that tip money. And another thing that we do when we go to sit down restaurants is we usually order water instead of other drinks. To be honest, I don't.

I don't really care that much about drinks. So because that's not what I'm focused on, I just order water because water is free at restaurants in the U.S. And you can get refills. It's great. So if you're like me and you're more focused on the food than you are on drinking a soda or whatever, then...

It might make sense to be a little frugal there, not spend that money unnecessarily on a Coke or whatever, and then just drink water for free. So that's what I like to do.

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One other thing that we discovered recently is this app. It's called Too Good To Go. And on this app, some different food places, restaurants, or food establishments...

They post when they have leftover food at the end of the day that they're just going to throw away. And instead of throwing it away, they offer it for a very cheap price for whoever wants to come get it. The number one type of place that does this is donut places and bagel places.

So we recently tried this app out and went and got donuts that were really cheap that they were going to throw away at the end of the day.

And I thought it was really cool because we spent a lot less, probably almost one third of the price that those donuts would normally cost. So we got a cheap dessert that day. So in case you're in the US, you might want to check out that app in case you want to look to see what type of deals you can get.

It's called too good to go. So that's another little restaurant tip that I wanted to give you. Another area in which we can be frugal is when buying clothes. So one thing that I really like to do is buy clothes at thrift stores instead of normal stores.

Thrift stores are stores where they might have used clothes, secondhand clothes, and oftentimes you can find really cool clothes there for really cheap. Many men in the U.S. find suits like formal dress suits at these thrift stores, and they're much, much cheaper than buying a new suit.

And I've noticed that there are a lot of baby clothes, clothes for babies, infants, toddlers, clothes for kids.

They have a lot of cheap kids clothes there. And so we recently bought clothes for all of us, I think, but especially for my kids. And these clothes look really nice. Not all of them, but you can find really cool clothes at these thrift stores for much, much less than a normal store.

And it's kind of fun because you go and you see what you can find. I'm not a person who likes shopping. I do not like shopping for clothes or for anything, really. But even for me, it's kind of interesting once in a while to go around a thrift store and see what I can find.

It's kind of interesting. So I recommend that you try it and you'd be surprised at the quality of the clothes you can get for the low price that you're spending. So check out thrift stores in your area.

And one other area in which I like to be frugal is with credit card usage. So we use credit cards a lot in the U.S. This is the normal way that many people pay for things. And

It's really important to monitor this. I think that it's really important to make sure you're not going into debt and accumulating interest on your debt. That's not what we want. I'm sure many of you know what I'm talking about. It's good to monitor your

your credit card usage and not just pay for things with that card, thinking that you'll pay the credit card off, but really you don't have the money to do so. That's something that's really important to avoid. But another thing as well is that here in the U.S.,

Our credit cards usually give us certain rewards. So one of my credit cards, for example, is specifically advantageous if you use it at restaurants. So if you buy something at any food establishment, then it gives you points if you use that card there.

it gives like 3% of what you spent. So if I spend $100, it gives me $3 back.

in the form of points and then eventually these points accumulate and you have this like extra money that's just sitting there and you can use that money to buy certain things so

I've done this before where I accumulated points by using my credit card. And then after a while, I had a few hundred dollars in points or something. And I use that to, uh,

help us on our trip or go to a nice restaurant or whatever, you can give yourself a treat and not really feel like you're spending money because you have these points accumulated. So I know people that have tons of points on their credit card and they can probably buy

buy a whole vacation, a nice vacation for them and their family because they've accumulated these points over many years and now they just have all this money

extra money that they can use whenever they want. So I think this strategic usage of credit cards, making sure that you pay off your debt and then also using your cards to accumulate points, this is something that has helped me. It might not be for everyone, but it's something that I like to do. It helps me

save or earn a little extra money however you look at it. But I think this is pretty cool. You just have to be careful with it, of course.

Okay, those are some ways in which I try to be frugal, and hopefully these were helpful tips for you. And there are other things I could mention as well, but these are some of the main ones. I hope that this episode was good practice for your listening, and maybe you learned a few words. And I want to encourage you to check out my advanced podcast episodes in which I speak French.

fast so if you want those go down below in the episode description and click on that link and take a look at my US Conversations podcast as well you can go down and click on that link and check that out it's a really fun podcast it's great practice for your listening and I'm sure that that podcast will be the next step for a lot of you so check that out

And as always, please give this podcast a five-star rating and write a review if you can. All right. Thank you all for listening to this episode. And I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.

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