#jakeregal

Welcome back to the internet’s most popular advice blog. Did you know that dictionaries used to, but no longer, consider “internet” a proper noun? Today’s question comes from Edgar from California. He asks:

“I'm really bad [with] my finances. Any tips on how to be more efficient with my money that [aren’t] cheesy as fuck?”

Excellent question! This is an issue I’ve dealt with routinely in my adult life. I haven’t had a 9-5 day job since college. While this sounds awesome, in reality it has led to some pretty lean times. Particularly, before I started generating reliable income coaching improv, I lived day-to-day hoping I would book a national commercial every six months. I was very, very broke. Here are some things I learned then:

1) Stop going out to eat so goddamn often. This is the big one. I genuinely love fast food garbage, but taste aside, dollar menus helped me stay alive. For years, I would routinely limit myself to spending three dollars or less on meals. This meant innumerable (delicious, delicious) trips to Taco Bell and McDonald’s. Cook more if you like to cook. My mentality in my poorest times was that it was okay to spend money on food for someone else (read: a date), but that I shouldn’t spend money on food for myself. You can save a truly shocking amount of money thinking that way.

2) Don’t drink at bars. Same deal. By all means, go to your friends’ parties, but become comfortable with hanging out while sober. This also saves you money on Ubers. This method also makes house parties feel that much more special, because you can get smashed for cheap if you want to.

3) Reward yourself periodically. When I was spending no money, I found myself occasionally building up an irresistible urge to buy something substantial. I actually felt this urge most strongly when I was most broke. Something to do with fear and desire, I’m sure. Rather than always deny myself that pleasure, I would periodically let myself make a purchase (usually a video game). By rationing out these transactions, either as a reward for an accomplishment or because it had been months since my last purchase, I was able to take control of my shopping habits. I feel like if I completely denied myself the ability to buy anything, my id would take over and I’d find myself being completely irresponsible. With a reward system, I gave myself the power to buy or not buy.

Hope these ideas are helpful! I apologize if they were cheesy as fuck. Remember, if you want to submit your own question to be answered in a future entry, fill out this form!

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If you’re a regular reader of my Tumblr (statistics suggest that literally no one is), you know that I’ve decided to answer your life questions and dispense advice. To summarize: I am completely unqualified to answer any question in any field but I will attempt to respond with complete sincerity. Submit your own question here:

https://goo.gl/forms/cbRWa30wpDIihOEu1

This advice blog’s inaugural entry comes in response to a question from Will in California:

“What are every day habits you follow in order to be/stay/become happy?”

My answer to this question, I suspect, will only be helpful to people very similar to me. I am a very introverted person who is a self-employed freelancer. Left to my own devices, my instincts push me directly towards mild depression. I will, if I don’t stop myself, spend all day in my apartment playing video games and watching Part 16 of that endless OJ Simpson documentary. I love socializing, exploration, and adventure, but my brain never actually suggests attempting these things. Here are some things I do to fight my instincts:

1) Shower. An easy way for me to take a quick gauge of my happiness/depression level is to observe my willingness to shower. When I am content or motivated in life, taking a shower feels like an obvious and instinctual choice to start my day. When I’m depressed, I’m disinclined to shower, because it feels like unnecessary work. I try to fight this feeling by showering anyway.

2) Take a substantial walk while the sun is out. There’s nothing worse than the sun setting as you realize you haven’t been outside all day, except for the thirty steps between your car and the casting office where you auditioned for a regional commercial for Cheerwine. I make a point to walk somewhere, anywhere, every day. I live in Los Feliz, which is a very walkable neighborhood, so I have lots of options (Grocery store? Library? The weird park a block away from me with the Frank Lloyd Wright house?) for destinations. I also have a gym membership, and I try to go as often as I can, but honestly it’s tied with DirecTV Now for the thing I spend $35/month on that I use least often.

3) Perform as often as possible. Acting is the only effortful activity that I am psychologically inclined to do. It ticks every box for me. It’s fun. It’s social. It’s physical. It’s exhilarating. It’s challenging but rarely frustrating. It works the logical side of my brain (every character and every line is a puzzle to be solved as you create a coherent through-line) and the emotional side (I love delving deep enough into a character that I make choices in performance that genuinely surprise me). I’m fairly confident that I have the reputation as a “UCB nerd.” I’m one of those people who go to a million shows and try to get on all the teams. This is not necessarily because comedy is my life’s passion, but rather because it’s an aspect of my career as an actor that I have some control over. The life of a film and television actor is arbitrary and cruel, but UCB offers a fairly straightforward (if perilous) path to performing consistently.

4) Don’t sleep too much.

Well, I hope this was helpful. I’m one column in, and I’ve already gone on rambling tangents and made everything about myself. That’s the kind of response you can expect from future entries. 

Agree with my answers? Disagree? Let me know with a comment, or shoot an email to [email protected]