Today on the show we dig into frugal fashion tips for men with Steve from stevenomics.com he's listener of the show longtime listener and an expert on how to express your sartorial self for less First though sponsor of the day today is audible and I'm gonna share with you a book recommendation Which would be an excellent book for you to own with your audible subscription The book is called the success principles by Jack Canfield.

I first came across this book years ago in the bookstore Subsequently got the audiobook and it's a book. I have returned to many times and recommended to many people It's a very thick book, but it's divided into very short and pithy chapters And it's one of the really excellent success books to go over and go through yourself The audiobook version as long as you get the unabridged one is about 21 hours and 11 minutes But what's beautiful about it is it's divided into short pithy chapters And this would be a good one to listen to a chapter a day in the past actually with my family at one of our Meals, I've gone through the success principles and read it to my family one chapter a day If you haven't read it before check out the book the success principles by Jack Canfield Get it as your free first month download which you can get at radical audio books Calm sign up for a free subscription to audible you get one free audio book Make this your first one if you haven't read it go to radical audiobooks calm Welcome to the radical personal finance podcast.

My name is Joshua sheets, and I'm your host. Thank you so much for being here You're tuning in for the first time. This is the show where we talk about financial independence and living the good life the rich life Now here's what you need to know the pursuit of financial independence is not in contradiction To living the good life now we support doing both of those wholeheartedly and today we're gonna talk about how My guest today is a listener of the show his name is Steve He writes a blog at Steve onomics calm and as you'll hear in just a moment as soon as I play the interview He was a very earlier listener of radical personal finance But I think you're really gonna benefit and value from some of his content today He's gonna share with you some ideas around how to build an excellent wardrobe for not much money, it's hard to guess I was gonna say it's hard to overstate the importance but Looking great is very important It'd be nice if people judged you like God judged you which is just look just to look at the inside But unfortunately, that's just not the facts People look at the outside God looks at the inside.

So today let's talk about the outside and I'm convinced that it's possible to live a rich life and express your fashion sense and develop a wardrobe that's useful to you Without breaking the buck break without breaking the bank and today Steve's gonna share with us some ideas Make sure you stay tuned to the end of the show where I'm gonna share with you some things that are important for you To notice about Steve's story in and of itself To make sure that you're doing what he's doing Steve welcome to the radical personal finance podcast.

I appreciate you being with me today. No, just what thanks for having me So you're a listener of the show longtime listener the show and as we begin, I just want to say thank you for your Longtime not only listenership, but also patronage of the show I have your I received an email from you in the very beginning weeks of the show that was one of the emails that really encouraged me to Continue on with creating radical personal finance And I want to thank you for making the time to reach out to me and and and encourage me when I was starting the show So as a podcast host to a longtime listener, thank you very much No, no problem.

Yeah, you've been a big inspiration and really helped me with my with my finances over the past What is it? Are you are you going coming on a year now? It's been a year. Yes, since I started the show full-time Yeah been a year. Oh, so it's a it's an awesome.

It's an awesome thing And I mentioned that I didn't tell you when we were chatting before I turned on the recording but I mentioned that just to say that if there is Just as a reminder to the audience if there is an independent media producer that you value their work Send them an email send them a note those little notes of encouragement make a big difference many time in the independent media space It can feel often like you're just you're kind of putting information out there into the world without much feedback so if there's somebody that you are appreciating the information make sure you take the time to just Send them a note and let them know as those little things pile up and mean a lot so Steve I've invited you on the show to talk about the topic of fashion and how to get a good bang for your buck and one of the things that themes it's important to me is Living frugally pursuing financial independence These things should not be at the cost of the good life There's no reason to scrimp and save and do nothing and just live like a poor person So that someday you can live like a rich person.

I don't approach life that way rather in my mind It's about pursuing the intelligent strategies that Pursuing intelligent strategies that you can use to live the good life now and live the good life later So I'd like to start with maybe just introduce yourself a little bit and share with us a little bit about your own personal financial Independence journey and your own goals and projects Okay Well a couple years ago.

I started you know reading the blogs I Saw Jacob early retirement extreme you know mr. Money mustache saw what they were doing I was already pretty good at saving money, so it just kind of put a plan into place You know for what I need to do you know following the 4% rule seeing how much I need to save how much I need To invest in order to eventually be financially free and you know My views have kind of changed over the years before it was like I'm gonna be financially independent I'm just gonna lay on the beach with my wife and then you know like well You know what that actually might be a little boring so, you know, I'm looking forward to making it to that goal through the years, but You know plan to to do a little bit of work as well.

And yeah That's that's how that's been. I did a lot of traveling after college, but now I'm working in Silicon Valley working in sales So I always appreciate when you're you're chatting about sales I think it's a great profession for a financial independence, especially if you're not on the engineering side you didn't study engineering in in school and a lot of the Financial bloggers out there did so I think it's another good good path to to get there All right, you know the harder that you work the more money you can make so I really enjoy that So I enjoyed your writing because and this is also demonstrating one of the things that I continually talk about You maintain a personal finance blog at Steve onomics calm I'll link in this in the description in the show notes, but you're not a real active blogger.

You're not Dedicated to you're not you're not trying to become the next big mega personal finance blogger You're just sharing a little bit about your experience but what that allowed me to do as a media host was gain a little bit of insight into you and into who you are and That's ultimately what's brought us forward to bringing you on the show today In your blogging before we get to fashion I want you to talk about your wedding and I'm springing this on to you because you wrote an article About your wedding of how you and your wife Built and designed a frugal wedding and it became went viral basically on I think huffington post of memory is right Talk a little bit about how you and your wife planned for your wedding Okay.

Well, I mean I was a I met my wife in in Korea when I was teaching English over there You know after doing some some traveling we came over here We decided we wanted to get married but you know We're looking at the money in the bank and we were like, you know This is probably better for a house down payment or something than one day, you know, what do you think?

She felt the same way. So How can we do this frugally? So Yeah, so we just started going at it luckily my family, you know was very helpful, you know, my my aunt made a cake You know another family member made a you know bouquet We ended up going to San Francisco City Hall, you know, it's beautiful City Hall.

We got some great photos I asked my my college friend. This is my big brother my fraternity - if he would you know take some pictures because I knew he was a photographer and You know, he did him on the house, which I was pretty surprised I was willing to pay him some money, but that was a you know, definitely very nice And then you know, we like we like clothing as we're gonna get into so You know, I ended up getting a tuxedo off of eBay Brooks Brothers one I got it altered a little bit, you know got it for a quarter of the the retail price and you know my wife She actually found a beautiful wedding dress at a at a thrift store and I was a little hesitant because I'm like, you know We like thrift stores, but your honey your wedding dress doesn't have to be from a thrift store, you know, right?

But she put it on and it was perfect and she's like, I love it You know, like I don't care what the price is. It's it's perfect for me and I looked great on her and you know So she picked it up and we went from there and you know, our photos look good and we had a great day up in San Francisco.

I Will make sure to link to the article so people can read the article with details and see some of the photos But two comments and the reason I sprang that on you number one I think the thrift store dress is an awesome example of Being willing to spend money But also knowing what you're looking for first and not looking just at a price tag My wife and I actually did something similar with our wedding We spent a lot more than $1,000 that you did but her dress was actually not a wedding dress It was a bridesmaids dress that she ordered in white so when she was going around and looking at wedding dresses and all the Stores, she didn't find one.

She liked didn't find when she looked and she starts looking and sees this cute bridesmaids dress Asked about it was able to order it in white make a couple of alterations to it and I think the price tag was something like $250-$300 for the for it because it was a bridesmaids dress instead of a thousand or two thousand dollars because it was listed as a wedding dress and It was just a neat example of how if you know what you're looking for You don't have to judge it spending more money is not necessarily a virtue get what you want and spend the money you need to spend Yeah, sometimes people just like to you know, brag about how much it costs or something But it's all about getting you know, the best quality for for low prices to me So and then did you use the savings for for something fun instead of spending it on the wedding?

No, I mean right now We're still just saving so we're you know saving towards a financial independence You know, maybe if houses get a little cheaper out here in Silicon Valley, they're a little pricey right now Maybe we'll buy something in the future. So yeah right now it's just you know, tucked away safe well, the other thing the other theme that I wanted to just mention is when talking about Doing things like having a frugal wedding in my mind you can't beat something with nothing and so often the Decision criteria that people have I know that I struggled with it when I when my wife and I were planning our wedding Was the fact that well, you know, I want to provide the best.

I want to provide the best for my family I want my wife to know how much I care about her. I want it, you know the day to be very special and so if you're looking at saving money on a big event like that and if your Comparison is between I want to provide the best.

I want to provide a very special day or I'm just gonna do this frugal cheap thing and Be a financial bomb and everyone's gonna look at me and say can't that person spend some money? Well, generally we're gonna We're gonna make the decision to say I'm gonna provide the best but if we expand the definition of what providing the best is and Let's say that we're a young couple.

We're financing everything ourselves parents aren't stepping in and if the question is between Okay, we could spend thirty thousand dollars on one special day or we could spend $5,000 on a special day and put twenty five thousand dollars on a down payment on a house or perhaps for some people We could spend a thousand dollars on a special day And then we could take the next year off and instead of having a one-week rushed forced honeymoon Because we spent all the money on the day to get all our friends drunk on our dime Rather we're gonna go travel the world together for the next year and have a one-year honeymoon All of a sudden now you're not taking something and trying to beat it with nothing.

You're not trying to take Oh special day versus You know, I'm a cheap jerk rather you're saying I'm gonna take something and I'm gonna substitute something better That's more in line with our life goals. And I like how you Bring that out in your article and also in your other writings on fashion where it's not about cheap versus crappy It's cheap versus inexpensive and better Exactly.

Yeah, and as far as traveling, I mean we met in Korea. We went to you know, 12 countries in Asia We you know, we lived in Australia for a year. So we were already, you know, we were kind of tired of traveling a little bit So we're like, you know, we're gonna take it easy We're gonna go, you know up up to San Francisco and we went to Tahoe for our honeymoon.

So we kept it local We had a family friend let us stay in her cabin, you know free of charge old family friends So, you know, you got to use those connections and never had a you know, necessarily the money connections But you know people are always willing to lend a helping hand.

So it's good to use your network So let's jump into fashion. You're a bit of a fashionista and yet you also consider yourself a frugal Financial independence oriented guy. How do these two things? How are they able to coexist? You know, I think You know if you have a list of I make a list of things that I want to buy and I just wait You know, I make I'm very patient make sure I get the best deal on it.

Make sure I really love it You know, I don't I'm not very good at spontaneous buys, you know outside of maybe groceries or something like that Everything is very methodical and planned out, you know, have you heard the saying good fast cheap, you know pick two, right? So, you know, I don't necessarily need a fast.

I after a while you kind of have everything so Yeah, I just think you can have both and you can dress really well for you know, surprisingly Not very much money, especially if you kind of know what you're looking for Do you approach fashion as something that is just purely a hobby that you enjoy?

perhaps an expression of a creative part of yourself or do you approach it from a utilitarian perspective of as An example, I'm gonna raise other people's perceptions around me by being a well-dressed person. I Don't know maybe a little both. I mean, I like to dress well But I think it's fun to be a little bit of creative as far as you know I think everybody kind of needs their own personal style like Alice, you know, I'm in California It's a little warm here.

So but outside of summer. I'm usually wearing a sweater To the office the office is always cold. So that's kind of my own little like personal You know personal piece of fashion so, you know, they see me Oh Steve you're the you're the guy wearing the you know The cool sweater, so that's kind of my little fun thing So I think it's a it's a cool way to be creative whether it's you know The pocket square a tie or some fun socks or something like that.

So You know, you get kind of boring if you do the same thing every day So I'm looking at an empty closet and I'm looking at a bank balance that I know I need to buy some clothes But I want to be careful and make good decisions. Where do I start with?

Outlining a blueprint for the things that should be in my closet Well, I mean, I guess it depends a little bit on on where you work say We're a little casual here But you know, you want to wear button-ups and in pants as far as button-ups for me. I'm kind of an awkward size I'm a 15 half neck, but I'm kind of thin with long arms So it's actually really tough for me to find a you know, 15 and a half by 35 shirt So to be honest, I go to the Brooks Brothers sale And at the end of June it just happened and at the end of December 40% off shirts.

I pick up a few shirts there You know go to the mall Check out, you know, five six stores all at all within an hour Try on all the pants see which ones you like the most, you know and wait for the you know 30 to 50 percent off sale That's what I do for for that because thrift stores you have to be a little bit more patient You're not gonna go in there.

You're not gonna find a navy suit, you know your first try Thrift stores I would say are more fun for adding to your collection make a list of things you would like and then you know Go in there and browse but don't expect to come up with you know, some Savile Row suits that you know, the Prince You know donated what's the most number of years of service?

You've gotten out of a Brooks Brothers button-down shirt I Have some that I bought two or three years ago. I just bought a few more Actually, I've been I've been exercising a lot. So actually the extra slump that are getting kind of They're shrinking and I'm growing a little bit.

I'm getting a little stronger So I went with the regular slump at this time. They're getting a little snug, but the quality is still there I just I guess is it shrunk a little bit? So I'd recommend air drying all your shirts when I was in college I had a reason I say that's just because my Brooks Brothers story when I was in college I had a business a boss that it was kind of a mentor and I needed some clothes and so he trotted me down to the Brooks Brothers store and we bought a few Brooks Brothers shirts button-down shirts and I bought the one that I most remember was just a blue oxford a blue long-sleeve oxford I bought it so that would have been about two thousand and perhaps two thousand and five and I wore that shirt Multiple times per week for approximately five or six years and what I loved about it I love to travel with it because I could wear in every single context where I would you know I could wear it with a suit and tie I could wear it with jeans you know taking the suit off tussled on with a pair of shorts and sometimes I'd wear it to the beach and it was it didn't wrinkle it lasted for years and That convinced me of the value of at times paying for quality when there's quality How do you approach quality versus cost when it comes to clothing?

Well, I'm willing to you know I'm making a little more money now, so I guess I'm willing to you know, splurge a little bit more for for quality But you know if you're patient, I think you can get the you know, the good stuff for cheap as well I was in a San Francisco thrift thrift store and I ended up getting you know Three of the Brooks Brothers shirts actually in my size in dry cleaning bags and that was you know, probably the best You know time I ever bought shirts.

I was pretty happy about that Recently I got a Shot racer. It's a leather jacket and I've been wanting this thing for years and I wrote about it a little bit. I had a You know what? I talked about your alpha strategy that that you mentioned John Pugsley the author So I've been you know, I wanted to finish my outerwear collection So I really wanted this jacket and then about $800 new.

This is it's pretty expensive So I was scouring eBay and you know, I needed a 38 long I got the long arm So I finally I finally found it and I was you know willing to pay a little bit more for that I wasn't gonna you know I wasn't expecting to get that for $50 like I would maybe at a thrift store So I pay a little bit more for that.

So it's it's definitely worth it if you really need it I mean, I highly recommend the list make the list go through the list and just Just wait for for the perfect deal and don't just you know buy things be like, oh, it's a fun polka dot shirt Like do I need this polka dot shirt?

Am I gonna wear this polka shirt every time I wear it? Everybody's gonna remember it. It's a lot better probably to wear a blue or a white shirt the just to refresh people who may not have heard when I've talked about the alpha strategy in the past the idea is in order to avoid the damaging effects of changing currency valuations, especially inflation if You can simply buy everything that you need for the rest of your life Then you can avoid having to pay more for things in the future.

So there are some things that are obviously consumable you can't buy all of the Raisin brand that you're gonna need for the rest of your life because it'd be stale in a couple of months But there are some things that are durable goods where you can go ahead and make a careful decision and by buying something once or Stockpiling something today, you will probably never need to purchase it again in the future, which means that you've converted financial assets which are subject to the effects of inflation into durable goods, which are not subject to the effects of inflation and Clothing in my mind is one of the good places where you can apply this to some extent What is the longest?

like what are some of the the clothing items that you've had where it's kind of the buy it for life concept where you've bought it and It's lasted for an incredibly long amount of time where it was worth paying for high quality. I Would say you know outerwear and shoes are Are definitely good for that.

I mean you can buy like I said leather jacket Maybe military pea coats are good to buy at thrift and vintage store, you know, London fog trench coats wool overcoats Harris tweed sport coats and you know, I would recommend putting them in a bag so that you know Moss don't eat the wool but outerwear I think is great for that also shoes you get the Goodyear welt meaning You can actually it's sewn the bottom is sewn to the upper So if it starts to wear you can actually replace the entire sole My recommend brands like all then Allen Edmonds and the vintage floor chime Imperials.

Those are all made in USA They're made, you know, really strong and it's pretty cool when if something goes wrong you take it to the cobbler They fix it up. I recently had a couple pairs of shoes where the heels Split and I just take it to the cobbler and they can either glue it or sew it and it's it's pretty inexpensive And I think those I mean, I've had a maybe five years I've been wearing them, you know off and on and they've been fine for that But I imagine I'm gonna keep them, you know, 10 20 years plus you just get them polished up put in shoe trees So I think I mean I shoes and outerwear definitely great for that and those can also be found at a great price assuming you're your patient Yeah, I agree with you shoes especially For years of the dress shoes once I learned that trick then I switched to making sure to buy dress dress to me dress shoes that could be resold and Then consistently just resoling them from time to time Makes a big difference as far as not just looking at the upfront cost But rather looking at the total lifetime cost amortized out over a period of time and then even you know You Allen Edmonds, I mean you're gonna pay 300 Well, I mean 300 plus bucks if you're getting it new without getting a deal on a pair of shoes But sometimes my experience even other types of shoes if you just think about it if you don't impulse purchase something And you just do a little research and do a little bit of thinking about it You can buy a pair of shoes that can last you for a lifetime I have a couple I have two pairs and I wound up when I was in high school I went to a high school that required uniforms and uniform shoes and at that time Doc Martens were quite fashionable.

And so I bought a pair of black just Doc Martin shoes black leather shoes, which were intended for To wear with my uniform that was in 2000 it would have been 1999 to be 98 that I bought those shoes. I still have them and I still wear them occasionally and They're not quite as fashionable as they were back in the 90s But they're perfectly functional serviceable shoes and I wore them every day for four years all through middle school and high school And then beyond that I've continued to wear them routinely and they've lasted for years and just that convinced me of Not necessarily buying it now at that time again.

This is I'm dating myself here with the brands But at that time I had previously purchased some Skechers shoes a Skechers brand They fell apart in a year or two but the Doc Martens brand which were twice the cost have lasted for almost 20 years and in my mind as long as the price that's associated with the brand is Connected to quality and is not exclusively associated with the image of the brand It can be a really valuable way to go for extending the value of your dollars Yeah, absolutely.

And yeah, don't worry about dating yourself. I think we're about the same age As well, yeah, I think the best way to buy clothing where you know It's not gonna go out of style Look at Don Draper's shoes and and buy something that looks a little similar in the some of the brands that I mentioned, right?

Yeah, it is true if you go when I was in when I was younger I would read all these books on on style for men and that is The reality is although maybe perhaps the size of the lapel changes a little bit from time to time You can pretty much go with some standard fashions and they haven't changed much in 50 or 100 years unless you're at the cutting edge in which case they're changing every season because we got to Extend the lapel an inch or cut it down or widen the tie or skinny the tie up But you can with a little bit of thought you can have some fashions some fashion that will stand the test of time What other ideas and tips do you have?

Regarding how to get the best bang for your buck I would recommend finding a good seamstress because when you go Buy vintage and thrift clothes, you know, they might not fit perfectly But you have to know what you can alter what you can't alter, you know a shirt you can take in the body No problem.

You can take in the sleeves. No problem on a suit, you know If the shoulders are off, you're not gonna be able to do anything But a lot of times you can lengthen the sleeve or shorten the sleeve, you know Of course, you can him pants and take in pants.

It always cracks me up when people say oh the waist is perfect But the pants are too long You know One you could probably figure out how to how to him them yourself or have a family member that can him a more you can Just you know, hey a seamstress $10.

They can take up those pants for you So I think finding a good seamstress is very helpful You know and that'll help, you know clothing last test time especially with suits You know, I would recommend I Recently read a really good book a tidying up book I know it's become pretty popular right now and I got rid of a lot of things after reading that, you know You need a perjure closet if it doesn't bring you joy If it doesn't bring you happiness if you're not wearing it regularly, you know, just get rid of it donate it I like to give back to the you know, thrift stores that I buy from already It's like a you know, the circle of life is some of the stuff so cheap It's like I'm renting it for free anyways, so then I you know, I give it back to them Yeah, it's it makes all the difference in the world if you have We live in an age where we More is not necessarily how you demonstrate.

Well things have gotten so cheap that it's almost much harder to have fewer things than it is to have more things and It's a lot more satisfying to have five shirts that you rotate through and that you love and wear each of them For me anyway than to have 30 shirts of which I actually like three Yeah, absolutely.

And that's recently what I did and it feels so much better and I ended up getting some new shirts But you know, I got rid of more than I then I just purchased So yeah, it feels good to just be able to hey I can wear any of these shirts You know assuming it matches my pants and my shoes and you know not have to worry about it And there's not any shirts that I you know, absolutely hate wearing So that's always a great feeling as far as you know Go into thrift stores a lot of them.

They're kind of in clusters together like I really you know anybody up in Northern, California I really like San Francisco the Mission District You know, they'll have ten thrift stores and they're all right connected to each other and you can you know You can spend the whole day just walking through the different shops and you're gonna find some pretty cool stuff some pretty cool donations So recommend, you know doing the cluster doing the rounds one of my uncles He likes a thrift store shopping as well.

And my wife does too. So sometimes the whole family will drive through over in San Jose So we'll go to four or five and they're just kind of in a in a circle so, you know you check them all out and You know just be picky because say your favorite item is a 10 out of 10 Don't buy anything that's lower than like a 7 out of 10 because you're not gonna wear it Even if it's a good deal, it's a good brand.

Oh, I love this brand Oh, but it's a you know, it's a size 32 waist and I'm kind of a 33 34 now You know, you're not gonna wear it You're not you know, if you're trying to lose the weight you might but it's better just to you know Buy your current size and you know Make sure that you love it coming out the gate not have to do you know tons of alterations to it and stuff like that Are there places that you or resources that you would suggest?

It's hard a little bit hard in an audio format to talk about how to discern the quality of one suit over another how to discern the quality of a pair of pants that you get from H&M versus a pair of pants that you get from Brooks Brothers, but are there resources?

websites books YouTube channels that you find to be particularly helpful on that subject. Yeah, absolutely when I first got into it I was reading them all. I think my favorite book is called gentlemen. It's by a journal. It's a return a German man I can't remember his name. I think it's Bernard perhaps but you can find that pretty easily on Amazon probably about $30 So gentlemen, that's a great book as far as websites.

I've been reading this website put this on for a long time There's one website called We're the guy he only shops at thrift stores Oh an affordable wardrobe and he only shops at the resource He talks about all the quality and it's it's pretty interesting and his title something like, you know being poor is no excuse For you know dressing dressing poorly.

So I enjoy that website. There's another one. He changed the name a couple times It was a style blogger and now I think it's articles of style That's a little more high-end, but he started out with really really basic tips But I think those websites are pretty good in that that book as well as far as figuring out quality What's next on your outline there?

Um, I'd say like for eBay and Etsy those are for things you specifically Want you know the exact size, you know, that's the the jean jacket in the 38 long, you know You need that exact one. You're not gonna go to a thrift store and just find it I think the thrift store is great for perusing you have your list You're looking for you know, some some cool items, but don't expect to find them all the time But if you need a specific item, you know eBay or Etsy I think are are the way to go For me the internet helps a lot because you know, I'm a seventeen and a half thirty seven We have an unusual size for shirt You can find 35 inch sleeves all day long.

But if I want my sleeves to fit properly, it's 37 So the internet helps a ton. I almost never find something that I can wear Thrift store. I basically give up same thing with shoe size. I'm a size 16 shoe So the way that I shoot shoe shop as I walk into the store and ask the ask the clerk Do you have anything in a size 16?

They go in the back and they come out and they say nope and I go out of the store The internet has been a real boon for oddly shaped people like me Yeah, I mean you and me is a 35 you can find but then the neck will be 16 16 and a half So then you know if I wear a tie, it's gonna look funny So it's it's kind of hard, you know Especially with kind of the fast fashion brands which they're doing medium So medium will be my next size and then the sleeve will be you know, 33 So it's like well, I guess I can wear this with a sweater But you know again, it'll be brand, you know, say it's brand new for $100 I'm gonna pay $100 for a shirt that doesn't fit perfectly, you know, no, thanks I'll wait for a sale or you know when I was living in Asia I got a lot of things custom-made so that's kind of nice because still pretty cheap I was going I was just going through some of the clothing.

So I mentioned the outerwear and The shoes are great for For thrift stores. Also, I you know, I love sweaters. I'd mentioned that, you know, look for wool and cashmere You know double check for holes hold it up to the light and actually my favorite sweater is is navy in color It's you know, it was woven in the United Kingdom, you know, it was about $15 at a vintage store And actually my cousin she was teasing me.

She's like you're gonna pay $15 for you sweater That's kind of a lot and I was like, but it's perfect and it's navy and you know I need this color and I got it and now I wear that thing all the time. So You know, you can you can find some great deals out there and yeah shirts I usually buy new pants they can be slimmed or hemmed so You know once you find out what brand you like the most whether you know jet gap gate J crew Brooks Brothers or you know, whatever you decide you like then you can just you know Look look for them at the thrift store.

Look for the plain khakis and you know pick those up You're a watch aficionado. What's the deal with your interest in watches? They're cool No, I don't know I like looking what goes into the watches so you just look at all the craftsmanship You know, these are handmade in one shop and in Switzerland You look at all the pieces that go into it and it's just something that I can really appreciate You know how much time and effort was put into to building, you know such a device versus in digital watches are gonna be a little bit more accurate, but You know, it's not quite as um, you know, I don't know.

It's not quite as exciting I like the old the craftsmanship, you know, I always like I was like vintage things I like the you know, the classic styles that aren't gonna go out of fashion. Is there actually any Functional difference between less expensive watches and more than higher priced watches The movements the movements can be a lot more complicated, you know, some of these companies They're just completely reinventing the movements But you know, you can go down the rabbit hole and you can spend a lot of money on watches So you got to be careful.

It's not the best for Someone trying to reach financial independence. That's that's the point. I'm at I got a I Got an old Omega Seamaster a few years back off of Etsy from an antique store and you know I love that thing and it wasn't it wasn't too expensive but now I'm looking at Rolexes and you look at Patek Philippe's and you start, you know going up and up and you're like Wait five thousand ten thousand twenty thousand for a watch like I should probably You know get out of here.

I should I should stop looking at these beautiful instruments Have you ever successfully made money with any of your knowledge with watches or or? fashion flipping any Item of clothing that you find underpriced and finding the right buyer for it You know I did for a while when I came back from Australia.

I wasn't working at the time I was kind of you know, it's hanging out for a few months I started to apply for jobs casually and I would go to thrift stores, you know get the Harris tweed You know sport coat that didn't fit me and you know I'd get it for five bucks and I'd put it on Etsy and sell it for $40 But after a while, it just got kind of tiring and then once I started working I just realized that the opportunity cost wasn't quite there right now.

I have excuse me a lot of a Lot of clothing I've been meaning to sell and then now it's getting to the end. It's at my So my parents house right now and now I'm starting to think you know what I can make some money on this But how long is it gonna take me to sell and how much you know?

What time is it worth to make you know, five hundred or a thousand dollars selling this? So now I'm just starting to think I might just donate it. But you know, it can be done I know I've seen people that do it they go and they buy a suit It's not on their size or they buy some nice shoes not in their size and then they just sell them See, I got a pair of Alden's one of the most beautiful pairs of loafers I've ever I've ever picked up at a thrift store and you know, these shoes are you know, four or five hundred dollars new I think I got them for under ten So I have in there, you know way too small.

It's like nine and a half. I'm soon 11 But I was like, oh, I'll just I'll sell them You know I can get a hundred bucks for these on eBay and My brother-in-law came came down from our for our wedding and he brought some sneakers and my wife was like, what do you mean?

You're wearing, you know, I know our weddings casual, but you can't wear sneakers to our wedding So I was like, hey, why don't you try on these shoes? They fit him perfectly So, you know, I gave those to him. So he was pretty happy has some nice pair of dress shoes It's definitely interesting because The things that you get so excited about at a certain point in your life the ability to make ten bucks on a transaction a later point in your life It just becomes not worth the time invested but If you weren't paying attention to those things, it's almost the principle of it If you weren't paying attention to it, you probably wouldn't have gotten to the point where you cut your time was worth more so I Always hate to diminish the value of saying, okay Yeah You can find this little thing here for seven dollars and you can turn around and sell it for forty because that's what ultimately leads on for the ability for you to find a value of something price at seven hundred thousand and Know that if I can connect this with the right market, it'll be worth a million four and you make the spread so I love to encourage that and I love how different people can research a market find something out and Learn in that market whether it's selling fountain pens online or whether it's flipping Classic shoes or figuring out how to deal in watches.

It's all commerce It's all buy and sell and we can learn the lessons of successful investing no matter where we are Yeah, I agree the principles are very important because my wife and I I mean we we got into the early retirement community reading the blogs and You know talking to different people in it We got pretty hardcore and we were you know cutting out everything and then after a while, it's like alright Well, let's have a little fun.

And then once you started making more money and we're still spending about the same It's like, you know We don't really have to have to stress anymore about this because of the principles are in place where you know Rent cars food. Those are you're gonna be your three most expensive things.

We have those in check where they're always, you know, very cheap So, you know if we want to eat out every now and then that's gonna be fine because the other principles are in place So, you know, we're on track if anything, you know It's more important probably just to make more money because there's not a lot of things that we can cut at this point, right?

Right you go through phases and and at one phase the big wins are with Well at one phase in life the big wins are the short-term wins are cutting expenses But you get quickly to a point if you're good at it to where the marginal benefit the overall benefit of a small marginal decrease in expenditure is not nearly as great as the marginal benefit of putting effort into earning and short term long term, that's what I love about finance and What I appreciate you bringing that out because it's not that it's anything is right or wrong It's a matter of what phase am I in with this particular aspect of my financial life?

Yeah, absolutely. Any other tips on your outline there? I Think we pretty much, you know covered it I would say, you know, just really focus on the classics folks focus on your personal uniform what you like to wear You know, this isn't a costume contest, you know A lot of times at the vintage stores you get the you know, like a leopard print coat like winter You know, when are you gonna wear that?

You know things like that. Like if I'm gonna wear something fun, it'll be you know, say I wear a fun sport coat But then I'm gonna wear a plain shirt or I wear a fun pocket square So I'm gonna wear a plain tie So that would be you know, one of the tips, you know focus on the classics think, you know 10 20 years down the road when you're looking at pictures, you know Cuz there's always gonna be pictures out there now with all the social media, you know Are you gonna be embarrassed that your pants were you know, so tight that you know, you can see your change or something You know or they're they're so short you can see your whole sock So, you know try to think a little bit long-term and realize wait Is this fast fashion or is this gonna you know, stay in style for a long time?

last question for you Steve you Enjoy your you indulge your fashionista tendencies, but you also ride a bike to work. Is that right? Do you still do that? You know, I recently switched jobs So I don't because I work so early in the morning that there's no traffic so I'd prefer just to drive there because I can get to work and you know about 15 to 20 minutes So, but how were you doing that when you were actually riding a bike?

Well when I was it was about the same distance but in a different direction, but I worked at a later time So it was taking about you know, 40 minutes to ride my bike there, but it would take you know 25 to 45 minutes to drive there depending on the traffic So I did enjoy riding the bike and then you know, that was another thing.

I wasn't even saving a ton of money I drive in you know an older Japanese car. It's not that much to maintain Gas is really isn't that high but you know It kind of it helped that because I would listen to your podcast or other podcasts while I was writing listen to ebooks I was getting my exercise and I was learning and I was saving money So it's a great, you know trifecta of things to do.

So I still enjoy I'm riding my bike on occasion I'll ride downtown right around the city. But as far as going to work now, I know I just drive just because you know It's so quick no traffic and I'm getting up pretty early most days So I need I need a little more sleep That's the priority understood.

Well Steve. Thanks so much for coming on the show. I I love when I can profile not only a listener, but just the little things that Everyday people can do and I really was looking forward to bringing you on to just share as one friend to a few others some of the tips and ideas of how you can indulge a specific interest without necessarily Sacrificing the overall goals of financial independence.

I appreciate you're coming on today. All right, Joshua. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. I Hope you found some of that information to be useful and inspiring as we go today I want to make sure that you notice a couple of interesting things about Steve story and Here I want you to recognize the importance of how he actually wound up on the show The reason he wound up on the show is because he has a website.

It's a very simple website Check it out at Steve onomics comm but it's beautiful and he has a couple of interesting articles listed there on the website and the reason that's important is Steve side is not popular and Steve. I'm not insulting. I'm just stating it's not popular You'd be the first to say that first thing you should do anytime You're thinking about a website wanting to find out how popular it is Go to Alexa comm and type it in Steve's Alexa rank is 2.8 million globally This is essentially invisible on a global basis and he doesn't actually publish that many blog articles He publishes it looks like I would say one a month That's his standard posting rate is one a month But the reality is he's got a dozen or two articles a few dozen articles there and that brought him to my attention So instead of being another just a name which many of you who listen to the show who write me emails I thank you for doing that But you're just a name because I don't you don't have a site that I can that's linked in the signature of your website Steve is more than a name He's a name and a website and then obviously I could go to his website.

I can read a little bit about him I could get a sense of who he is Even though it's not intensely personally doesn't have a lot of personal pictures on there I could get a sense of who he is. Now. Here's my question for you, and I'm gonna kill the music here for a moment Do you have a website?

Do you If not, you need to you need to and Gonna be launching a website sponsor here soon, but you go to get a WordPress site get something. It should be self-hosted But you need a website Because this is the thing that's gonna happen to you You need an online presence and you don't need to be the next top, you know hundred thousand sites in the US But you need a site to back you up with the right person the right perspective employer the right interviewer the right Person the right potential spouse.

I don't know you need a site to back you up So make sure that if you don't have a site that you go and do that. It's extremely extremely important and Steve's winding up on radical personal finance today is a perfect indication of why If you don't have a personal website of some kind Go get one today I should be launching right as I say this the website sponsor trying to get Squarespace to sponsor the show Squarespace is awesome.

I'm convinced of the value there I've got a WP engine look for in the in the I've switched to WP engine get use my WP engine affiliate link It's wasted. I shouldn't waste the opportunity to plug a website manufacturer. Anyway, I ran out of music. I'm out Thank you all so much for listening If you'd like to support the show, please become a patron of the show go to radical personal finance comm slash patron Or make sure that you go just use some of our affiliate links That'll get create commissions from me, which will be hugely helpful go to radical audiobooks comm download the success principles by Jack Canfield or use the affiliate link for WP engine which will be in the description for this show.

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