Author: greg

How to Eat Like a Superathlete on $130 a Month

I have three priorities when it comes to my food. It must be:

  1. Healthy
  2. Inexpensive
  3. Easy and quick to make

There is a widespread misconception that healthy food must be expensive, but I eat about as clean as it gets and my average grocery costs for the last two years has been a little under $130 a month. How can someone do that without eating off the dollar menu at McDonalds you ask? Here’s how:

My go-to meal for a fair amount of lunches and dinners has been named “The Mix” by adoring fans. It’s main component is lentils, which are the most underrated food on the planet. One serving of lentils contains 10 grams of protein and other great stuff like fiber and iron. When you buy a 4 lb bag, that is 52 servings for $4.88 aka 9.4 cents per serving.

Second is brown rice. Adding some more protein, fiber, and most of the carbs that I eat, I buy brown rice in 5 lb bags for $3.88. With 50 servings per bag, that boils down to 7.8 cents per serving.

Lastly, I add beans and vegetables to The Mix, usually adding on another 10-20 cents per serving depending on how fancy of veggies I use. Season with your favorite spices (my favorites are cumin and chili powder) and you’re good to go. A complete meal with lots of nutrients for 30-40 cents per serving, keeps well and reheats well, and can be customized to taste however you want. This is how I prepare it:

  • 2.5 cups dry brown rice, 5 cups water, cook dat rice following instructions from the package or  the internet
  • 3 cups dry lentils, 7 cups water. Rinse lentils, then cook them, and rinse again when cooked. Again, follow instructions from the package or the internet
  • 1 or 2 cups of whatever kind of vegetables you like (I like frozen mixed veggies, broccoli, or peas). You can either microwave, sauté, or just throw them in your final bowl depending on what veggies you’re using and what you prefer.
  • 1 or 2 cans black or kidney or pinto or *any other kind of* beans. Rinse beans. (I’ve actually started making big batches of dried beans, which cost roughly half as much as buying them in a can)

Throw everything in a big bowl, mix it around, season it. You now have a week’s worth of meals done in 45 minutes. I eat it warm, but I know other people have eaten the mix cold as well.

Honestly, I have not found a more efficient way to get eat healthy, cheap, and easy-to-make food than the legendary Mix. If you know of anything better, please let me know!

I’ll be detailing more of my food habits soon, stay tuned.

#FoodGoals

 

(Picture has been edited to show texture)

If You Know the Good…

Sitting around a campfire one summer on a family camping trip, my aunt told the story of a philosophy professor she encountered in college. This professor would have lengthy debates with his students over the concept that, “If you know The Good, you’ll do The Good.”

The students would argue that they knew that going to a party, getting drunk, and staying up late instead of studying wasn’t “The Good” but they were still going to do it. The philosophy professor would then argue that they did not fully understand the benefits of The Good, and if they did they would do The Good.

This idea of knowing The Good pops into my head whenever I am in need of motivation to improve part of my life.

If I think eating lucky charms for three meals a day (as I did freshman year) isn’t The Good, then I will do some research. Reading that cutting sugar out of your diet can benefit your overall health including giving you clearer skin (as well as more serious stuff like reducing your risk of having heart disease or a stroke) gives me the motivation to improve.

I might even go down a rabbit hole and discover that there are entire cultures that experience no acne whatsoever, which is largely attributable to their non-Western diets, avoiding processed foods and dairy. I’m starting to get a picture of what The Good looks like.

This concept can be used in all areas of life. If you aren’t feeling satisfied with something, try learning all you can about it and let your new-found knowledge guide you toward The Good.

Know The Good. Do The Good. Be The Good.

#MoneyGoals

 

(Pictured: Flowers in the Brisbane City Botanic Garden. Brisbane, QLD, Australia. May 2017.)

Don’t Buy a New iPhone

Smart phones are undeniably life-changing. The first iPhone will probably go down in history as one of the defining inventions of the early 21st century. Can you imagine going back to even  2002 and showing someone who had a giant box for a computer that a little touchscreen in your pocket could do everything their box CPU could do and faster?

And now smart phones have become more than just a super computer that fits in your pocket. They are fashion statements, luxury items, customizable expressions of self.  People lose their minds whenever Apple introduces a new iPhone, and I have to say, almost everything about them is attractive.

Everything but the price tag. The least expensive version of the iPhone 8 is $699.

As a proud owner of an iPhone, I will not tell you to go and buy a $10 flip phone. All I’m asking is to consider waiting. Wait one year. Maybe two if you can handle the gut-wrenching agony ;). With some minimal Craigslist searching, I found an iPhone 7 for $200.

Now, you won’t be the cool kid on the block, and you won’t have everyone asking to hold your phone. You will still have the second most advanced, beautifully styled, hand-held supercomputer made by Apple, and more importantly you’ll have an extra $499 in your pocket. Invest those leftovers, and now you have a more affordable phone and an extra $7,400 in forty years.

Nobody is going to care who was the first person to have the iPhone 7 in forty years. But you will definitely care about seven grand in the bank. #MoneyGoals

 

P.S. If you think you’re getting a phone for a cheaper price because you have a contract you’re not. You’re just paying for it over the life of the contract.

An Obituary for My Bike

As many of you know, my bike was stolen last weekend. Besides my laptop it was my most valuable physical possession. I bought it in 2015 for $650.

While it is frustrating to have someone steal a valuable item that was my main mode of transportation, I am full of gratitude for the two years of service my bike provided me.

Since I didn’t have to own a car over the last two years, my bike has saved me thousands of dollars. It’s kept me in great shape, and the physical benefits of riding roughly 10 miles a day for the last two years should add a substantial amount to time to my expected lifespan (not to mention more savings on healthcare costs).

Beyond the quantifiable, my bike has provided for great memories, riding with friends, family, or by myself. It has even sparked some friendships, and many conversations on campus.

So thank you bike! It was nice knowing you :’(

Then again, for two years of physical fitness, thousands of dollars in savings, longer lifespan and unforgettable memories, $650 seems like a steal (pun intended).

#MoneyGoals

How Much Do You REALLY Make Per Hour?

The obvious factors that affect your take-home pay for a job are 1. how much are you getting paid? and 2. how much is taken out for taxes?

But you’re not getting paid your after-tax wage per hour. It’s only per hour you are working, and doesn’t take into account commute time, lunch time, or what you have to spend on transportation, clothes, or food that you otherwise wouldn’t have spent had you not had a job.

For example, my current job pays $15 an hour. After taxes are taken out, it’s roughly $12 an hour (shoutout to Texas for not having a state income tax). So in an 8 hour day, I make $96 after taxes.

I have a one hour commute in the morning, a 30 minute lunch break, and an hour and a half commute back home in the evening. So my work day really takes up 11 hours. We’re down to $8.73 an hour (96 dollars/11 hours=8.27 dollars per hour).

Now thankfully my commute is always free, thanks to school giving full-time students free public transportation passes and me not owning a car. I also bring my own lunch, so food costs are the same as they would be if I was at home. That means my real hourly wage is right around that $8.73 number.

But let’s imagine that someone drives their car to work which they bought with a loan, and then buys fast food at lunch every day (which is not rare at all, even though it should be). Here’s their made-up stats:

Wage: $25 per hour. After taxes, let’s say $20, so $160 in an 8 hour day.

Commute: 1 hour one-way, 2 hours each day.

Lunch break: 1 hour

Car payment: $350 per month (national average new car payment is $500 *gags*)

Insurance: $100 per month

Gas: $50 per month (they have a really efficient car, good for them)

Lunch: $7 more per day than it would cost if they brought their own lunch. ($10 lunch vs. $3 lunch estimate)

LET’S DO SOME MATH!!

$500 per month transportation costs (car payment, insurance, gas)/20 working days per month= -$25 per working day

Lunch is -$7 per working day

So their real hourly wage is (160 – 25 – 7) dollars/11 hours = $11.63 per hour.

This hypothetical person is spending ALMOST HALF of their after-tax money on the job itself. Since we know that money is simply a derivative of time, this means that the first half of their workday is essentially unpaid and wasted time.

Move closer to work, bring a lunch from home, take public transportation, bike, or walk if you can. Smile, and enjoy the raise you just gave yourself. #MoneyGoals

 

(Pictured: Extra ridiculous traffic during rush hour. Plano, Texas)

What I Want for my Birthday

Fear not if you haven’t bought me a birthday present, I don’t want you to give me anything.

What I want is for you to open a Roth IRA if you don’t have one yet (check out this post to learn how to go about it, and I can help you out too!) OR if you already have a retirement account, put an extra amount in there. Maybe $20, maybe $100, maybe $1,000 if you can!

I’d like nothing more than for you to invest in your future, it would make my day 🙂

Happy birthday to me, and happy investing to you #MoneyGoals

 

(Pictured: Homemade vegan strawberry cheesecake brownies. Mora, Minnesota. August 2017)

The Secret Company Behind My $12/Month Phone Bill

When I was in high school and all my friends started getting cell phones, I promptly argued to my parents that I should have one too. They told me that I could get a phone whenever I wanted to, but I had to pay for it. So I rocked a pay-as-you-go flip phone for a couple years when I was 15 or 16. Then I got an iPod touch, and just used a texting app whenever I was on wifi. It wasn’t until I graduated high school that I started coughing up 35 bucks a month for using my brother’s 2011 Android smartphone.

Set on auto-payment, I hardly noticed the $35 slipping out of my checking account every month. Then I started tracking my monthly spending, and realized that in the last 2 years I had spent $840 on keeping my hand-me-down dinosaur of a phone alive.

That had to change.

The hours after that realization were spent researching how many texts, minutes, and megabytes I used on a monthly basis and finding what plan could deliver those numbers at the lowest price.

I found TPO aka The People’s Operator. They run off of Sprint’s network and keep their costs low by not having physical stores, and by spending nothing on advertising (which is why you’ve never heard of them). They also donate 10% of your bill to a charity of your choosing.

Their $16 a month plan ($19.51 after taxes) gave me as many texts/minutes/data that I had been using previously, and saved me $15 every month which would be $360 saved after two years. Then I started watching how much data I used, and found I could significantly cut it down by downloading podcasts while on wifi instead of listening to streaming music while biking.

So now I pay $10 a month which comes to $12.18 after taxes. My $22+ savings every month will add up to over $500 after two years. If I invest my savings for the next 40 years ($270 every year compounded annually at 7%) I’ll have an extra $57,000 lying around just from substituting podcasts for Pandora radio. Not a bad tradeoff, huh?

If you’re interested in TPO’s plans, feel free to check them out here. If you follow that link and end up using their service, you’ll get a $10 credit (and I will too, so thanks!)*

The one bump in the road that I had with TPO was that it didn’t send pictures when I first started using it, but it’s an easy fix which you can find here, and I haven’t had any problems since.

Also, if you are interested in reducing the amount of data you use, check out these tips, most of which I use and allow me to easily get by on the lowest-cost plan possible.

Happy savings friends! #MoneyGoals

 

*If I ever recommend any product/service on here, I will do so only if I believe that the product/service will save you money or make you money. In short, if I’m saving/making money it’s only because you are saving/making money. It’s all about the win-win 🙂

(Pictured: My good friend Sammy J modeling his state-of-the-art iPhone 4s. September, 2013. Mora, Minnesota)

What Do You Want?

Imagine you are at a restaurant.* A bow-tie clad waiter approaches your table and hands you a menu. You open it, and are surprised to find that there is no food to order. Rather, this menu is filled with paths your life can follow. You can choose to be whatever you want, do whatever you want, go wherever you want.

This may sound like a dream, but it’s more reality than we often realize.

While it can seem like our only option in life is to work 5 days a week for 40-50 years then spend our last couple decades on Earth sitting in an armchair watching other people play golf, there is an endless amount of other options out there.

You can travel the world, like this guy who lives in a new country every 4 months. You could save aggressively and retire before you’re 35 like this guy. You could live a life radically different from anything you’ve ever seen before.

ALL OPTIONS ARE AVAILABLE TO YOU.

Yes, some things require more work. Yes, some require taking risks. Yes, your family, friends, coworkers (even strangers) may not agree with what you want. But at the end of the day it’s your life. Take some time to think about what you want to do with it. Please don’t read this post and look back at your life while you’re sitting in an armchair at 75 years old and regret not taking that cross-country trip on your bike (I’m talking to you future Greg).

The first step is figuring out what you want.

Then go.

Do it.

 

 

*Which should be hard to imagine because you cook all your own food and never eat at a restaurant right? 😉

Money is Power

Money is neither good or bad. It is a tool, and can be used for positive or negative things, just as a hammer could be used to build a home or could be used as a deadly weapon.

Unfortunately, we hear a lot about the tool of money being harnessed in negative ways, often in the pursuit of more money and power. Big tobacco companies paid researchers and scientists to claim cigarettes weren’t bad for people’s health, and sugar companies are doing the same thing today.*

But you, beautiful reader who is saving and investing, you can use the power your money grants you in positive ways. You can save lives, help your community, spend more time with people you love. Your power could help you quit a job that isn’t making you happy, travel the world, focus on your health, or volunteer more.

So keep up your efforts to save and invest, and if you haven’t started yet, now is the time! #MoneyGoals

 

*I found a lot of articles on this, so if you want to read more check these out:

http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/07/20/how-sugar-industry-using-big-tobacco-tactics-downplay-danger-sweets

http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/a-big-tobacco-moment-for-the-sugar-industry

Also, random fun fact I learned while doing some research for this post, every President we’ve had for the last 60 years has been a multi-millionaire.

5 Things I Wish I Did Freshman Year

Being home for my little sister’s graduation party took me back to my own transition from high school to college. I accomplished quite a bit freshman year, but here’s what I wish I would have done on top of those accomplishments.

1. Get a job (preferably on campus)

I worked a few jobs in high school and had a decent amount of savings going into my first year of college. I burned through those savings real quick, and then I had to get a job sophomore year. Looking back, I had so much free time as a freshman, and definitely should have picked up a part-time job.

2. Talk to my professors

This becomes easier as you progress in college. Class sizes get smaller and you become more comfortable talking to profs. But it is also less important at that stage as well. I needed the most help freshman year, but didn’t make it to a professor’s office hours until I was a junior.

3. Join more organizations

You get to meet new people who are interested in the same things you are, make friends, and most importantly eat free food. I didn’t want anything to decrease my free time after being involved with everything in high school, but I wish I would have joined more student organizations freshman year.

4. Eat healthier

I sometimes think that I wouldn’t eat as cleanly now if I didn’t experience throwing down multiple burgers with a side of Lucky Charms every meal as a freshman. But once you start grocery shopping and cooking on your own, you’ll realize that fresh fruit and vegetables are much more luxurious than Lucky Charms. So take advantage of the healthy food you can eat on your meal plan while you still have it!

5. Learn how to cook

The summer between my freshman and sophomore year I told myself that I would learn a few good recipes. It never happened, and the first few months of my sophomore year I was eating sandwiches, mac n cheese, and oatmeal cream pies. Now that I know how to cook for myself, it’s one of my favorite things to do, and it’s a fun and cheap way to entertain other people (who are usually impressed by your cooking skills).

And one thing I wish I didn’t do: Compare myself to other people

My first months of freshman year were spent looking at Facebook at what all my high school friends were doing at their colleges. I compared my experience to theirs, and I also compared myself to the people I met at my school who were taking huge class loads, landing awesome internships, and driving fancy cars.

One of the smartest people I know once told me that comparison is the thief of joy. It’s fun to reconnect with old friends, or meet new exciting people, but don’t use them as a yardstick for how your life is going. You have the power to make an awesome experience for yourself wherever you end up in college, or in life for that matter. Make your life what you want it to be.