Hey, what's up?
John Sonmez here from simpleprogrammer.com.
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Today, we're going to be talking about something that is not necessarily a career related question
but just a personal development, just a general question if you're trying to be financially
smart, which is how to be frugal and not have your friends think you're a cheapskate asshole.
He says here—all right, the question is, "How to go out with friends and live frugally
at the same time?"
This is from Mark and he says, "I want to save my money, but my friends often want to
do expensive stuff like going to the restaurant or ordering pizza."
I don’t know about ordering pizza being an expensive thing.
I don’t know about that.
Man, you're really a cheapskate dude.
No, I'm just kidding.
I'm a cheapskate too.
I got like a 13-year-old Toyota Corolla.
"I often refuse their offer because I don't want to spend my money on something I don't
need.
My friends call me cheap and greedy because of that.
I feel that my frugal lifestyle has negative consequences on my relationships.
How can I achieve my goal of saving money without jeopardizing my friendships?"
Additional info: "I'm a student and I want to save money so I can invest."
Well, you're a smart dude.
You're wise.
Your friends are not.
Maybe you don't want these friends.
I mean I've done some videos on this.
You can check out—I should have a playlist on like getting rid of your friends, but no,
I've talked about this before, at least one video or a couple of videos where I talked
about like the people—it's true.
Jim Rohn, I think, was the first person who said it or he's quoted for saying that you're
the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
If these people don't understand investing and frugality, and making a future for themselves
and short-term gratification versus long term, delayed gratification and the benefits of
that.
I don’t know if you want them to be your close circle of friends.
It doesn’t mean they can't be your acquaintances, but you might want to really consider, if
you want to be hanging out with people that don't understand this, and not only that.
I mean it's fine if they don't get it, but there's another thing if they're calling you
a cheap bastard and think that you're greedy.
They're really not getting it and that doesn’t seem like really good friends either.
I mean if my friend wants to do something that I think is dumb, as long as it's not
hurting him, I'm not going to make fun of them.
I'll make fun of them, but I'm not going to be mean.
I'm not going to call him a cheap bastard or greedy, or anything like that or make that
kind of a harsh judgment on him.
I'm going to try and support him and help him if I can, right?
If he's got some idea and he's going to try and do something, especially to better himself,
right?
I mean if you're telling friends, "Hey, look.
I don’t want to spend because I want to invest and I've got these plans in the future
and I'm willing to make the sacrifice," and they're still like, "Oh, you're a greedy bastard.
Oh, you think you're better than us?" then you are better than them.
You are.
Lose them.
Right?
I mean that's the truth.
That's not a friend.
A friend should be supporting you and there should be a mutual benefit there and a relationship
where you are helping each other that you're not necessarily judging.
You're being honest with each other.
It's a totally different thing if my friend is making a bad mistake and he's doing something
that's really stupid, I'll tell him.
Right?
That's what being a friend is as well.
I've got a really good group of friends.
If you haven't watched the Entreprogrammers Podcast, you can check it out here.
We give each other some honest advice.
I appreciate that a lot, but we support each other as well and that's the thing.
I'm not saying necessarily ditch your friends, although maybe that is the subtext.
Maybe not the subtext.
Maybe that is what exactly what I'm saying, but it might be a good idea to ditch your
friends.
Even if you don't, that's fine.
If you don’t ditch your friends, then this is what I would say.
You just have to be very clear and very unbending that this is how it is and what you're going
to do.
Lay down the law.
Just be like, "Look, when you guys go out for pizza or what not, it's cool.
I'm bringing my like—you make fun of me.
You can whatever—"like be strong.
You're either going to be influenced by your friends and you're going to influence them
and 90% of the time they're going to influence you.
Right?
It's going to be really hard to overcome that, but sometimes maybe you're that shining light.
Maybe you’re the prophet.
Maybe you come in and you're like, "Look.
Yeah, you got pizza.
It's fine."
You bust out your tuna fish sandwich and you're like, "This is what a future millionaire eats.
It's of tuna fish sandwich."
I don’t know what it is.
Maybe you influence them by doing that, but you're going to have to hold firm and be really
strong.
It's much more likely that they're going to get to you.
It's much more likely that you're going to be buying that expensive pizza.
I don’t know where you're getting your pizza at.
You can go to Little Caesar, it's like $5 pizza, but it's more likely that they're going
to get you, especially if there's a bunch of them and I'll think this way.
Maybe, again, you know, I hate to just say—I'm not just saying ditch your friends even I've
said that so many times, but maybe find some better friends.
Maybe find some friends that are higher than you are.
Maybe find some friends that have—that are thinking along the same lines and also wants
you to invest, because where is this going to go?
I mean think about it down the line.
You've got big plans for yourself.
You want to live a different life than they want to live.
They want to live in a short term and they want to live in the slow lane.
Actually, give them MJ DeMarco's book The Millionaire Fastlane.
Give them all a copy of that and see what—see if that changes their minds at all, but yeah.
I just don’t see a really good solution for you aside from you can't hang out with
people that are going to judge you like that and are going to hold—they don’t have
to agree with you.
Don't get me wrong.
Not every friend has to like agree with you 100% with what you're doing, but they got
to at least support you and they can't be a bad influence on you.
You hang out with bad apples, you're going to become a bad apple.
It's going to happen.
It's just so hard to resist that from happening.
You got to be smart about this and yes.
You already know that the path that you're on in life requires sacrifices.
You're willing to make those sacrifices and not buy the expensive ass pizza.
You're going to have to make more sacrifices.
It's going to end relationships.
That's how it is.
You got to realize that you're worth it and the path that you're choosing.
You choose, I mean which is it, which is more important to you?
The path that you know what is right in life or having these friend that you may not even
hang out with in five years, anyway?
All right.
That's all I got for you.
Good luck and I wish you well, and I'm glad that you're wise, but don't give in.
Don't cave in to these friends.
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I'll talk to you next time.
See yah.