Speaker 1: Finances are individual, so honestly, what works for one person won't work for everybody else.

Speaker 2: Except for that one single strategy.

Speaker 1: Throughout 35 years of marriage, we have had countless goals. Yet, there has been one overarching, overriding one single strategy, which has helped us more than any other strategy.

Speaker 2: That's what we'll talk about in this video, and we'll give you some real-life common examples to help you get the hang of it.

Speaker 1: But if you don't know us, I'm Hope.

Speaker 2: And I'm Larry.

Speaker 1: And this is Under the Median, where every week we talk about practical frugality. So, what is this one single strategy that works for absolutely everybody, and it does not matter what your income is? Well, that strategy is?

Speaker 2: The power of one.

Speaker 1: So what the heck kind of hack is that? Well, it is, we mentioned, it is a powerful one. So let's discuss and we'll explain. Whenever you set a goal, it doesn't matter what that goal is, be it lowering your grocery budget, or perhaps saving more on your utility bill this month than you did last month. Can I get an amen on that? Or it could be figuring out how to pay off your debt even quicker than you're already paying off your debt. That strategy should start with a list of ones that you are intending to take.

Speaker 2: People get so stuck where they are financially. And frankly, Hope and I have been there. It's really hard sometimes to take a look at the overall picture and know where to start. And that's what this process is all about. It's basically getting started with one item. It's all about making that first step. I have an analogy.

Speaker 1: Good, I love your analogies, go.

Speaker 2: Imagine going up a staircase. Now you've got 20 stairs to go up and you're gonna go from the bottom step all the way to the top one in one step, right? No, you take it one step at a time. And that one step is what this process is all about.

Speaker 1: Now, in case you're a little confused, don't worry. We mentioned we have real life examples. And I also made a chart for you guys called the Power of One Worksheet. And we'll work through the worksheet together and we'll give you a real life example of what this Power of One might look like for you. So let's work through a specific example. Let's talk about lowering your grocery budget by $100 a month. And we'll show you exactly how we use this worksheet in order to figure out what our ones are when it comes to lowering our grocery budget.

Speaker 2: So you're starting out with a main goal, something that you want to accomplish in your finances. Well, you want to make sure that you have a smart goal. And what do we mean by a smart goal?

Speaker 1: All of our goals should always be smart goals. They should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time related. So for example, you'll notice at the top of the worksheet that we put in lower our grocery budget by $100 a month, which isn't actually too bad of a goal. But if we were going to make it even more of a smart goal, we would add lower our grocery budget by $100 a month. And we want to lower it by the end of July, 2023. That time related element, super important because work expands to fill the time allotted, right? And goals are exactly like that too. If you don't put an end date, you're going to spend all of your time kind of treading water thinking, well, I'm making progress, but you don't have an end date by which you want to reach that goal. You add that, you're going to reach the goal more effectively and faster.

Speaker 2: So by adding that end date, now you have a very specific time of which to track it and measure it. Step two, you want to break that goal down into smaller measurable goals.

Speaker 1: So we kind of think of these as subcategories and we say three because after three subcategories, our brains start to explode. We've done it like for many years. We've used this whole idea of quarterly goals, of monthly goals, of weekly goals. And anytime we get more than three, it's like tilt, it's not going to happen. So three for us seems very, very attainable and it doesn't give us so much that we feel like we're juggling way too many balls. All right, three subcategories. Here's what that might look like in relation to our example of lowering our grocery budget by $100 a month. And we want to reach that by the end of July of 2023. You want to start once again with this whole idea of filling in this blank. Fill in the blank. I will start with one what. And you're going to have three things that fill in that blank, all right? So those are your three different subcategories. We have our example all filled out. Larry's going to read right from our example.

Speaker 2: So remember, we're starting out with one item. You just want to have one sentence in here that you're actually going to complete and develop. So the first one is, I will start with one grocery trip. Now we're going to kind of break that down. So within that category, we're going to do one less item, which is not on sale, one less convenience food, one less snack food, and one less name brand item.

Speaker 1: So how is that one thing going to help you reach that goal of $100 a month? You know what's going to happen when you do those four things on one single grocery trip? You're going to save money. You are immediately going to save money if you do those four things on one single grocery trip and you start there. You are going to begin to see progress toward lowering that grocery budget. And that's the whole idea. That is like what is the golden ticket when it comes to breaking goals down into ones. Because once you do that one thing, you're immediately going to get off of dead center and the status quo, and you're going to begin to make progress. And once you see progress, believe me, it's like you get the eye of the tiger and you're like, this is fantastic. How can I save even more money? All right, so that's just one of our three subcategories. So the second subcategory is, remember we're filling in the blank. I will start with one meal.

Speaker 2: So we're going to look at the meal and see what we can do to make adjustments there. So within that category, one meatless meal a week, one cheap meal night, that would be like say spaghetti, tacos, potatoes, one night of beans and rice. Remember that beans and rice are nice.

Speaker 1: And it's complete protein. There you go, guys.

Speaker 2: Plan leftovers. That is always a great way to save. And one less pre-made meal.

Speaker 1: All right, so now not only are we making progress on that $100 savings on the groceries every month, we've got two ways that we're saving. We're saving by that one grocery trip and we're saving by that one meal that we're planning every single week. All right.

Speaker 2: So that's one on the front end and one adjustment on the back end.

Speaker 1: Yeah, so each of your three subcategories, they need to relate back very clearly to that goal, which is the $100 savings on the grocery budget. Now let's do one more subcategory because as we told you, we like to plan three subcategories and we're filling in the blank. I will start with one week.

Speaker 2: So within that week, let's make some adjustments there. One weekly menu plan. One weekly shopping list and stick to it. One week of taking lunches to work. One no-dessert week. One less snack from the vending machine.

Speaker 1: That's right. You do every single thing in each of those three subcategories and believe me, you're going to get to the end of one week and you will have seen your grocery budget drop. That's the power of one. Need some more examples? Well, we have some for you.

Speaker 2: But before we do that, Hope, remind them about what they need to do with that list.

Speaker 1: You want to print it off. You want to put it where you can see it because statistically, if you set a goal, that is great. If you do everything we just told you, that's great, but if you will take the extra step, print it off, put it where you can actually look at it and you can track your progress, that gives you that extra edge so that you will be far more likely to reach the goal. All right, now we have some more examples of this whole principle of the power of one.

Speaker 2: So let's apply this to the lifestyle of frugality, something we like to talk a lot about on this channel. Let's talk about how to get to be frugal. So on the one method, you might start with one book. Within that book, you might just start with reading one chapter.

Speaker 1: How about the power of one YouTube video like this one? Or one YouTube channel. Subscribe to one YouTube frugality channel, which by the way, if you're not subscribed to our channel, this is a great time for us to remind you to subscribe to Under the Median. And if you will just hit that like button on this video, that also would be super helpful for us.

Speaker 2: You can look at one website. Maybe look at one meeting with a financial planner.

Speaker 1: Any financial planner, a lot of people don't realize this. Financial planners will, for the most part, not all of them, but I know that our financial planner will. Okay, so we love our financial planner, John Kreekmer. Kreekmer Wealth Advisors. No, they are not sponsoring this video, guys, even though they are a regular sponsor of videos here on Under the Median. We mentioned them because they fit in really well with our one that we're talking about. When we went to see John Kreekmer, he gave us an hour of his time. We were not his clients. We had questions. He answered our questions, and we became his clients. So any financial planner should be willing to answer some questions that you have without charging you for that time.

Speaker 2: A couple additional thoughts on that is that they'll help break down some of the mystery of your budget and your finances, and they'll also act as an accountability partner, somebody that you can go back to and say in six months, how are you doing? Here's some more ones that you can kind of add to the list. Maybe you might wanna go to one seminar. Maybe there's one frugal friend that you can contact with and be accountable with. Maybe there's one course, an online course that you can take.

Speaker 1: Or maybe there's one e-book that you may need to read that will make all the difference in how you're handling your finances and how you're reaching your goals. Now, spoiler alert here. We have e-books that we sell, and we have a bundle that's specifically related to budgeting. I'll make sure, guys, that there's a link to the Frugal Finance Planner in the description of this video. Larry, let's do a couple more really quick examples.

Speaker 2: Okay, let's say, how can this concept be applied toward your utility bill?

Speaker 1: Yes, we all wanna lower that, don't we? Oh, boy. In fact, so we just used this concept, no fooling, with our utility bill. I don't know if you were watching. It was a couple of months ago. We had a goal to have our entire utility bill wind up under $100, and we missed the goal. We didn't reach it. It's actually kind of a fun video. We talk about, in that video, that whole video is about another frugality hack and goal-reaching hack that we also use all the time, and we came up with the idea, and it is the 10% challenge. So if you're interested in another frugality hack challenge from us, and you wanna see how we reacted when we realized we were not gonna hit our goal of lowering our utility bill under $100, I'll make sure that video is linked up above and in the description of this video, but as I mentioned, spoiler alert, our utility bill this month was under $100, and yes, we're gonna drop another video about how we reached the goal, but we used one.

Speaker 2: Go ahead. Yeah, so with the power of one, think about just turning off one light in the room. Think about lowering your thermostat just one degree. Think about unplugging one item that uses phantom power. Do you see how that works? It doesn't seem like a lot, but all those ones begin to add up.

Speaker 1: Oh, wait, I have another one.

Speaker 2: Okay, another one?

Speaker 1: One smart power strip, because you add a smart power strip that automatically shuts stuff off, and you are immediately going to start saving power because you don't have that phantom power going on. All right, that's some ideas with one.

Speaker 2: I got one more. Oh, go. How about cooking one less item in the electric oven?

Speaker 1: Yes, because people don't realize, especially in summer, so this is like, sometimes we have these things that we do that are like, they doubly injure our financial picture, and cooking, especially in the summer, it's getting hot here in the Midwest. I'm not kidding, and when you turn that electric oven on, not only is the most expensive appliance you can use in your home to cook anything, but you are heating up that kitchen,

Speaker 2: which is then causing your air conditioning to run more

Speaker 1: if you've got your AC on, so it's like one of those. Once you stop doing that, and you change to something else, Instant Pot, guys. All right, here's like, this is another spoiler alert. Instant Pot sips energy compared to cooking with your electric oven, and especially in the summer, we're using that Instant Pot a lot more. We seldom, unless all the kids are coming over for something, we don't turn on that electric oven very much because we know that it's gonna cause more energy use on so many different levels.

Speaker 2: I think we've only turned it on once in the last month. I mean, we just aren't using it since we did that little.

Speaker 1: We did a segment, we did a video where we did as much as we could, a scientific experiment that showed how much energy four different cooking methods used, and the Instant Pot ran by like a huge, huge mile on that test. You wanna watch the video, guys. Okay, I'll link that one up above as well and in the description of the video. It was a fun video.

Speaker 2: So you can apply this principle to many areas in your finances. You can apply it to paying off debt. You can apply it toward your vacations. You can apply it toward pet expenses. There are so many ways to apply this, to your gas expenditure on your car.

Speaker 1: To your water bill, to your vacation. Think about the power of one when it comes to like, even not just the vacation, but saving for the vacation. I'm really actually liking this. I just came up with that and I'm thinking that's a really good idea for us. The power of one when it comes to saving for our next vacay.

Speaker 2: Remember that the best of intentions won't get you anywhere. You need to make that first step. And this one principle is one way to make that one first step.

Speaker 1: I love how many times you put one in there. But it's so true. We forget the power of one. Now, you heard us mentioned a little bit earlier in the video, there's this whole idea of this budgeting thing that some of us find a little bit troublesome and trying to figure out how to make that budget work every single month. Okay, so I'm gonna tell you four. Four is the magic number for budgeting, not one. Unless you're taking your one first step toward creating a budget, then you can use one. There are four steps to creating a budget that is actually workable every single month and you can do them in less than 30 minutes. We did a video on it where we walked you through it step by step. That one video is right over there.