Hiya, Julia Louis-Dreyfus here from the Wiser Than Me podcast, among other things.
And I've got a bit of a hot take.
Our relationship to our food can feel disconnected.
We don't always know how or where our food is grown.
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When I use Mill, I'm participating in a circular system.
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It makes me feel like I'm part of something bigger, and that feels really, really good.
And it's all so ridiculously easy.
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I have mine sent to a small farm, but if I wanted to, I could use them in my garden or for my backyard chickens, if I wanted backyard chickens.
And I don't know, maybe I do now.
Maybe I don't.
Anyway, maybe Mill is transforming me too, just a little.
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Lemonada.
Hello and welcome to Happier, a podcast where we talk about how to be happier.
This week we'll talk about some fun and also useful exercises to do as part of No Spend February.
I'm Gretchen Rubin, a writer who studies happiness, good habits, human nature.
I'm in my little home office in New York City, and joining me today from Los Angeles is my sister Elizabeth Craft, my partner in No Spend February.
That's me, Elizabeth Kraft, a TV writer and producer living in L.A.
And Gretch, here I am not ordering food.
It's a challenge.
But before we jump in, we got a few fun updates.
The first was a couple of people who responded to our comment about raise your hand.
You know, step forward to volunteer, to make something happen.
Yes, Carol said, So sweet.
We told the story behind the purchase of the dress, which was fun, as my mother had bought the dress on sale in a shop window for 3 while I was at work one day.
I had a copy of the speech my late father gave at the wedding reception.
I had our eldest son read it out and we all drank a toast.
45 years on.
It was fabulous.
The family each left with a wedding favor, a small bag with the bride and groom's favorite chocolates and sweets from the time of the wedding in October 1979.
It was the most wonderful little party, which I will never forget, and I am so glad it happened.
I hope this might encourage or inspire.
Gretchen, what an incredible idea.
What a great idea.
And these are such good ideas for things to do like go back and the letters and the invitation, the invoice.
I mean, and then getting dressed up in the dress and veil.
I mean, yes.
This is really fun.
And again, it's like just deciding I want to make this a thing and we don't need to.
It doesn't need to cost a lot of money.
It doesn't need to be some big elaborate thing.
And yet it's so memorable and so delightful.
And what a great thing to bring you all closer as a family.
I love that.
Yes, really beautiful.
And Rachel wrote.
You made an offhanded comment in an episode about how doing something annually is not that frequent.
And I just wanted to point out that I had the opposite realization this year.
We completed our fourth annual First Sunday of Advent weekend with my husband's aunt this year and it made me realize that seeing someone once a year actually does move the needle on a relationship, even though it doesn't seem frequent.
I have many aunts, uncles and cousins who I don't see very often, many of whom I haven't seen in years.
So once a year with this aunt is amazing for our relationship.
This is a great reminder that the opposite of a profound truth is also true.
And one thing our father used to say is that frequency was more important than duration, and we should try to see each other frequently, even if we couldn't do it at great length.
But I think Rachel's right that even once a year is quite significant in terms of keeping a relationship going.
Yeah.
Rebecca said this about our discussion about to ask a question is to answer it.
She said in the Barnaby story Glad He's Okay Now, where Gretchen realized that some questions are answers in themselves.
I have two examples.
I once worried to my therapist, what if I'm a narcissist?
She answered, a narcissist would never ask that.
And a lighthearted one.
As a family who likes to play tabletop games, we have a saying if you ask whose turn it is, it's probably yours.
Meaning you're asking because you weren't paying attention.
That is a great insight.
Yeah.
As a Mahjong player.
Oh my gosh, it drives me bonkers.
Yes, right.
Okay, so that's good self-knowledge.
If you're the one who's asking, it's probably well.
This reminds me of a proverb of the profession for poker players, which is if you can't spot the fish at the table, you're the fish.
So anyway, I love that.
Those are two great examples.
Okay, this week our Try This at Home suggestion.
Okay, this is very silly, I would say, and it's extremely small and concrete, but it's satisfying and it's very appropriate for No Spend February and that is to turn in your coins.
Yes.
So Grace, sometimes we have our transcendent ideas and sometimes we have the very practical small idea.
This is one of the practical, tangible ideas.
Yes, absolutely.
And this occurred to me as something that would be worth doing, because we're discontinuing the penny here in the United States.
And that got me thinking about coins.
Yes.
It's a good reminder.
A lot of us have coins just lying around.
And the thing about this is they accumulate.
They're sort of in odd corners.
You have a jar here.
You have a jar there.
It can feel messy.
And what do you do with them?
A lot of times we don't use coins as much as we did in the past.
So they're just sort of sitting there.
So you can turn in your coins and just get cash for your coins.
So how does one turn in their coins?
OK, I did a little research.
OK, so CoinStar is a company that often offers self-service kiosks.
These are often in grocery stores or drugstores.
I'm sure you've seen them.
And that allows people to take their loose change and they can exchange it for cash for e-gift cards or charity donations.
So you don't need to sort them.
You don't need to roll them up.
But here's the thing.
If you want to get money back, they charge a quite substantial fee.
Whereas if you get a gift card or you make a charity donation, then you get the full value of your money.
Here's the thing.
In 2020, Coinstar reported that the average amount that a person brought in was $56.
Wow.
Yeah, that's not nothing.
So you're getting the money or the gift card or you're making a charitable donation.
And you're also clearing clutter because it feels good to get this stuff out of the way.
And if you use one of these machines, you just pour your coins in and then you just get a voucher back.
Now, a lot of times at a bank, they have these machines just like an automated sorting machine.
And if it's your bank, they won't charge you.
Or you can roll your coins.
A lot of times a bank will give you free wrappers and then you take all your dimes and all your nickels whatever, and you roll them up and then you take the rolls to a bank or credit union and then they give you the cash back.
Well, of course, Gretchen rolling coins makes me think of being at grandma and grandpa's house, rolling coins.
That was one of our big activities.
We would go stay with our grandparents and they would give us jars and coffee cans full of coins and you and I would roll them and then we would get to keep the cash.
Yes.
We'd sit on the floor, cross-legged with all the coins in front of us, watch TV and roll coins.
And we were so industrious.
But listen, I must mention so Elizabeth had a grift going as a kid.
That annoyed me so much as, like the superior one who was five years older,
Elizabeth told our grandparents that she collected dimes.
Yeah.
Well, in my defense.
And they gave her their dimes.
And I was like, dimes is just money.
How are you people falling for this?
I had a bank that I got for Christmas that was just for dimes.
It was this tube, this long tube.
And it was very pleasing.
And as you put in the dimes, it would add up.
So, I mean, to me, that was a collection.
I mean, it was just funny because it was one of these things where I was just hopping math.
You just got to put your hand over your dimes.
But I will say that I still have a very vivid memory of that little thing.
It was very satisfying the way it revealed the coins in this long tube.
It was a cool thing.
Yeah.
But the other childhood memory that I have listed, that I don't know if you were there with me, but like somehow there was an afternoon or something where our mother got it into her head that it was time to cash out our coins.
Because at that time, our father was working in an office building that had one of these machines.
There was like a bank on the first floor and she knew that you could take them in and convert them.
This was in the days where, I don't know, people don't have coffee cans around as much as they used to, I feel.
But anyway, we had so many coffee cans full of coins.
And they're so heavy that the bottoms would be bulging out.
Yes.
And I remember going, were you there this day?
Do you remember this?
Or was it just...
I think I was there.
Okay.
And so when we took them out, they were so heavy that the trunk of the car lifted up as we took the coins out, because they were so weighty.
So I wonder how much money we got because we took in lots and lots of coins.
And so it's satisfying because you get the money the cash money or the gift cards or the donation and you also get this stuff out of your house.
So I think this is a fun one, right?
This is very practical.
Yes.
So let us know if you do try this at home.
Did turning in your coins make you happier?
How much money did you get for your coin?
I'm sure there are some people who have like a bazillion dollars in coins.
There's also probably some people have absolutely no change because they never use cash.
Because they never use cash or they just leave it behind.
Sometimes you go into a corner store and they'll have sort of a dish where you can leave your coins.
Yes, we're just going away from coins.
But let us know what you think on Instagram, Threads, TikTok, Facebook.
Drop us an email at podcast.gretchenmovement.com.
Or as always, you can go to the show notes.
This is happiercast.com slash 572 for everything related to this episode.
Coming up, we've got a useful hack for no spend February.
But first, this break.
I'll see you next time.
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Yeah.
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So here's a hack that comes to us from Melissa, and it seemed very appropriate for No Spend February.
She writes I just wanted to drop a quick note to say that Elizabeth's 26 for 26 item about using her head massage gift certificate gave me a great idea.
I still had a couple slots open on my 26 for 26 list and as soon as I heard that I realized that I must have at least 15 gift cards and gift certificates that I need to use.
Some of these I've had for years, so I added an item to my list to use up all those gift cards this year.
It will save me from losing out on the value, and it's also a pretty fun task.
What a great idea.
Yes.
And you and I were saying February our no spend.
February is a great time to use a gift card or a gift certificate for something, because you already have it.
And it is funny how these can add up.
Like somebody gave Jamie and me a very nice gift card for our anniversary to a nice restaurant.
I keep forgetting about it.
But I want to use it because sometimes they do expire or they get lost or whatever.
So I think it is a good idea to use these up.
I will note this about gift cards.
So often we give gift cards and it might feel more like a gift if it's very particular.
Like it's a gift card for a meal at a particular restaurant, or it's a gift certificate for 10 movies at this one specific movie theater, or whatever.
To the giver, that feels more like a gift because it feels more like an actual specific thing.
But what research shows is that what people really like from a gift card is something that is unrestricted as possible, as much cash as possible.
So they would really rather have something that is either like a cash substitute because it's like a credit card gift certificate or it's like a huge big box store where you can spend it on any way that you want.
So that's just a good example of sometimes what a person's impulse is to give is not the same thing as is most pleasing to the recipient.
Interesting.
I know for me with gift certificates.
I hoard them because the anticipation of it I'm not willing to give up.
So I have to make myself use it.
Otherwise, I'll hoard.
Well, see, this is interesting, Elizabeth, because is that an aspect of saving?
Because, you know, you and I have this problem with saving T-shirts, saving stationery.
It's exactly the same.
Saving candles.
But as often what happens when you save these things?
You end up wasting them because they become less valuable over time.
You might lose them.
They might expire.
The company could go out of business.
Yes.
It's really something where we're better off using them up right away and getting the full value.
But yeah, saving them.
The strange saving impulse.
Okay, Gretch, it's time for a four tendencies tip.
Okay.
So I read an article in the Wall Street Journal and it was all about estrangement.
But to me, this read like a possible example of obliger rebellion.
And I just thought that this was really interesting and Because so many listeners write in about Obliger Rebellion, because it is a puzzling phenomenon but also a very common phenomenon.
I thought that I would just share this.
Okay, so this is the May 2025 Wall Street Journal article called What I Tell Mothers Who Feel Rejected by Their Adult Children.
And in this article, therapist Rachel Glick tells the story of a woman named Marjorie who said that she and her son Sam had always been very close, but she had not been part of his life in three years.
And this is the quotation.
"'Her son pulled away,' she said, after she questioned his decision not to include his brother in his wedding party.
She couldn't understand why he would react so violently.
His decision to cut off contact seemed to come out of nowhere.'"
So when I hear that, I'm thinking, bing, bing, bing, bing.
That kind of sounds like obliged rebellion to me.
OK, and so then later in the piece she explained that after she worked with the therapist to try to connect again with her son, Sam Marjorie discovered that in fact, to him this particular argument was just the latest of many times that she'd felt that his needs or feelings were being dismissed.
And that she believed that she preferred his brother to him, that she took his brother's side and was more tolerant of his brother's mistakes.
So to me, I'm hearing I'm ignored.
I'm neglected.
I'm overlooked.
Everything is being expected of me.
No one's listening to me.
It's all becoming too much.
I'm going to blow up the situation with obliger rebellion.
So I just thought that that was really interesting, because I think sometimes there's a situation and there's many different perspectives in which to view it.
Obviously, this is just like Monet's haystacks.
There's a million ways to look at anything, because people so often ask about what a blight to rebellion looks like.
And of course, I don't know these people.
I'm just reading the same Wall Street Journal article as everybody else.
But to me this is the kind of thing that presents as a blight to rebellion, because people will often say it's disproportionate.
One little thing and the person just wildly overreacted.
But if you know what you're looking for, you see the building anger.
You feel the building resentment.
You can see that the person is starting to feel more and more pressure and is starting to get that explosive feeling.
And that's when you can intervene and then try to fix it before the obliger rebellion really sets in.
So that's why I think it's useful to sort of think about how it might look.
Whether or not in this particular situation, that's what it is, because again, I don't know.
I'm just reading the article, but I think it's an instructive example.
Yeah, and of course, obliger rebellion can be your own or somebody else's in your life.
Well, a thousand percent.
I think everybody needs to learn about it, because obliger is the biggest tendency, for both men and women.
This is the tendency that the biggest number of people belong to.
Obliger rebellion, when you know to look for it, is quite common.
It can be very, very beneficial, but it can also be very destructive.
And mostly you would rather not have it.
You would rather fix the problem before the rebellion actually is set off.
And so I think it is really good whether you're an obliger yourself or you're dealing with an obliger in your life.
It's really good to keep it in mind and just to know what it looks like, how it might come up in the world.
So, you know, I'm always looking for four tendencies examples in the wild.
So that one caught my eye.
All right, Gretch coming up, we have a listener question related to whether you're an aerialist or a juggler.
But first, this break.
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Okay, it's time for a listener question.
And this is interesting.
It has to do with the difference between jugglers and aerialists.
And to refresh your memory.
This distinction has to do with how you like your work and your schedule and your days to feel.
So jugglers are people who really thrive with keeping a lot of balls in the air.
They like to have things back to back.
They like to be kind of rushing around and feel like, ooh, I've got a lot on my plate.
I've got a lot going on.
And then aerialists are the people who like to swing purposefully from one thing to another.
And in between, they have a pause.
So it's like, I do something, and then I have a little break, and then I do something again.
And so these are two different styles.
And Amanda has a question about how this came up in her relationship.
Yeah, she said, Because I don't take time between activities when he's around, I overcompensate the few times that he is not around and lose track of the fact that I do enjoy activity, just not as much activity as he does.
I have recently tried to schedule 30-minute breaks, even when he is here, to give myself the downtime I need, and also to plan a brief activity or two when he is gone, to keep myself from making this mistake.
I wonder if others in this situation have tips.
Well, can I just say that I think Amanda is thinking about this exactly right, which is how do I honor my aerialist self, even in the midst of his juggler freneticism, which he likes and thrives in?
And then also, how do I keep myself from just crashing to a complete halt when he's gone?
So this is the self-awareness that is so useful, because then you can say things like, well...
I need to schedule downtime or I need to schedule activity because too much downtime.
If I feel like I'm being a couch potato, then that is not being an aerialist.
That's being a couch potato.
I love that that is at the one end.
What would you call the other end?
If the extreme negative of an aerialist is a couch potato, the extreme negative of a juggler, I guess, is like
It's like the Roadrunner cartoon where your feet are going over the cliff.
Exactly.
Well, I wonder what other people have experienced this, like balancing this.
If they're picking up a vibe from somebody else.
I could also imagine this in the workplace, where there's a kind of pace that people are gravitating toward increasing.
And if it's not your natural pace you might have to find like okay, how do I sort of make room for what works for me amid the larger atmosphere?
Yes.
So we need listeners to weigh in.
Yes.
Have they experienced this and what do they do about it?
Absolutely.
Because I'm sure jugglers could also feel frustrated when they're with aerialists.
Oh, I'm sure.
Well and again it's the same thing, which is when you understand there's sort of this distinction.
It's not like one person's right and one person's wrong.
It lets you have more compassion, because you're like oh, I see why you keep saying that you don't want to.
We have a whole open Saturday.
We've only got two things on the calendar.
Like, I don't understand why you don't want to do anything else.
It's like, oh, you're a juggler.
I'm an aerialist, that kind of thing.
Yeah.
So I can't wait to hear what people have to say about that.
But listen, now it's time for demerits and gold stars.
And this is an even numbered episode.
And that means it's your turn to talk about a demerit.
What is it?
So Gretch, I'm calling this a demerit.
Maybe it'd be better called a happiness stumbling block.
But I just do not feel like I have the right shoes for winter.
I'm literally sitting in my closet thinking I've been through other winters.
What did I wear on my feet then?
Yeah.
I'm baffled about what I should be wearing on my feet.
I mean, like I get sandals in the summer.
That's easy.
What is winter in Los Angeles?
Well, it's not that wintry.
I mean, it's 50s, 60s, 70s.
And I wear sneakers.
If I'm not wearing sneakers, I don't know.
I feel like I don't have shoes that are not sneakers but are closed-toed.
I mean, yeah, I have some boots, but I don't want to wear boots to the mall.
Don't you have loafers?
I don't wear loafers.
See, this is the thing.
I'm just... Yeah.
I don't know what's happening.
I don't know what I did before.
I've worn shoes my whole life.
This is the thing.
It will happen and you're like, I literally have no memory of ever facing this dilemma before.
And clearly it has come up a thousand times, right?
Isn't that funny?
Yeah.
I don't know.
Is it that styles changed in such a way that like...
I used to have shoes I wore all the time.
Like I can't think of a pair of boots I had that I wore a lot.
But now they just are very unstylish.
But I'm just surprised you have a lot of stuff in your closet.
Like you're just looking in your closet and like literally nothing is suitable.
Nothing feels right.
So it's just baffling me.
Okay.
So I don't know what to do about it.
I'm not going to buy any new shoes.
Not in February.
Yeah.
But it's just something I'm contemplating.
Well, the next.
As you go out and about, you can see well, what are other people wearing on their feet.
That's a good idea.
I'm going to do that.
Didn't think of that.
This does feel like a problem that can be solved.
It's a funny problem to have.
And I know exactly that feeling where you're like, what have I done about this before?
It was kind of like remembering COVID, where you would travel for the first time after COVID, and you're like I literally don't remember how to pack a carry-on bag.
What goes in a carry-on bag?
I have no concept.
What did I take on a plane?
It all had to come trickling back into your mind.
Yes, it feels just like that.
Or like the morning routine every school year in September when you're like, what time do I get up?
How do I make lunch?
Yes.
How is this ever possible?
Yeah.
All right, Gretch, what is your gold star this week?
Okay, this is a gold star that I'm giving to my daughter, Eleanor.
And this was something that happened right after our father died.
Eleanor sent us a video.
It took a minute to figure out what this video was.
What it was is that a couple of years ago, when we were all in Kansas City, we dug out some old home videos.
For instance, when our parents were bringing me home from the hospital as a newborn.
Wow.
And we were watching them.
And Eleanor, unbeknownst to anybody, had recorded us watching them.
So in her thing that she emailed to all of us, you could see the video of our parents, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and coming home with this newborn baby.
And you could hear everybody commenting on it.
Yeah.
For instance, our father was so tickled by this.
And, you know, we've talked about how we wish that we had more recordings of his voice.
And there's his voice just piping and everybody's just sort of commenting on it.
Oh, look at that.
Look at that haircut.
Who is that?
Where is it?
Oh, yeah, that's...
And it was such a time capsule of that moment of us watching.
It was so fun to watch the video, which it's kind of hard to watch it.
So we don't watch it that much.
It's kind of a little bit of a hassle to get it out and watch it.
But we didn't know that she had this.
And so it was just such a delightful kind of slice of life from the past.
Yes.
That we all got.
We really loved it.
Yes.
Gold star to Eleanor for making the video and then for remembering she had it and sending it to us.
Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely.
It is a precious keepsake.
Yes, it is.
And it's a good reminder that sometimes these moments that seem very, very evanescent can be very precious.
And the resource for this week, the Since You Ask podcast, my other podcast that I do with Lori Gottlieb.
We took a break and we're back.
We've got a bunch of new dilemmas.
In the first episode, Lori and I talk about how to tell someone a painful truth about themselves, like a parent who has bad breath or a friend who may have overdone it with Botox.
We had a question about that.
And I also shared the single piece of advice that has been the most helpful advice to me since our father's death.
And Elizabeth, I know that was advice that has been helpful to you too.
We've talked about it.
So we hope you'll join us for that conversation on, Since You Asked, wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Yes, I love the new episodes, Gretchen.
Excellent.
So what are we reading?
Alyssa, what are you reading?
I'm reading Strangers by Belle Burden.
And I'm reading Panin by Vladimir Nabokov.
And that's it for this episode of Happier.
Remember to try this at home.
Turn in your coins.
Let us know if you tried it and if it worked for you.
Thanks to our executive producer, Chuck Reed, and everyone at Lemonada.
And here's your rhyming reminder.
If you love the show, leave a review to let us know.
Until next week, I'm Elizabeth Craft.
And I'm Gretchen Rubin.
Thanks for joining us Onward and Upward.
Elizabeth, you know one of my items on my 26 for 26 list, which is to rate and review podcasts and books.
And I just said that in our outro of our show.
And it's reminding me that I need to get busy and do some more rating and reviewing of my favorite podcasts.
I have to go rate and review Since You Asked.
I have not done that.
Oh, good.
What a good sister.
From the Onward Project.
Hi, Gretchen, Craig Robinson, and my little sister Michelle here.
We host a new podcast called IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson.
We know you're the queen of giving advice, so we wanted to get a few tips from you.
You know, Gretchen, a lot of our listeners are going through some major life changes.
What advice do you have for folks who are trying to stay grounded in the midst of major life transitions?
Craig and Michelle, I am so happy to be talking to you.
Here are a few questions that might help us gain perspective.
So consider questions like this.
What activities take up my time but are not particularly useful or stimulating for me?
Do I spend a lot of time on something that's important to someone else but is not very important to me?
If I could magically change one habit in my life, what would I choose?
And here's a question.
Would I like to have more time in solitude restorative solitude or would I like to have more time with friends?
You know, just thinking about questions like this can help us start to figure out how we might make our lives happier.
With greater self-knowledge, we're better able to make hard decisions that reflect ourselves, our own nature, our own interests, our own values.
In my own case, I have found that the more my life reflects my nature, the happier I get and the more grounded I feel when I'm going through a period of major change or transition.
For more great advice, search for IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson wherever you get podcasts.
You can listen to Issa Rae on letting go of certain friendships, Kiki Palmer on why disappointment is actually the key to career success, Seth and Lauren Rogan on caring for aging parents, and so many more.
