20 - We Gamify Grocery Shopping in this one (Part 1) - Gamify This!

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome back to Gamify this, thepodcast game show featuring the
artist Samuel the gamer Sean theNerd puzzle.
Join us as we compete to come upwith the best Gamify.
Solutions to our daily. Experiences on Gamify This.

(00:28):
Welcome back to Gamify This. I'm puzzled today's host because
I won the last episode. This is Sean the gamer and
Samuel the nerd. Samuel.
The art? No.
Yeah, yeah. I'm Puzzle the Nerd, as was said
in the intro just a few seconds ago.
Normally before we start the day's topic, we're going to talk

(00:48):
about a little bit about our lives, get things off our chest.
The lobby The. Not the lobby the Yeah, the
lobby. The main menu of the game.
The lobby main menu. So here we go.
Character selection. Character Selection What
character will you be today? How has your week been?
Samuel, I could go either way. How do you want to start?
My bad situation got worse. I wanted things to end well

(01:13):
there, I didn't really want themto end at all.
But they were unexpectedly endedand I thought maybe I'll still
be friends with this person and they completely cut me off and
so I'm missing a friend now too.Everything sucks and I hate life
right now. Should I gimmify that?

(01:39):
It goes in the vein of change. That was one of the changes that
we did Remember Me having to leave in two weeks and Samuel
having to deal with it and neither of you doing very well.
Go go watch episode 13 Chain. Did I really remember the number
off the top of my head? Hang on, hang on.
It was number. It was episode 13.
Whoa, nice man. I have an odd quirk about me

(02:01):
where I remember numbers that don't matter.
I remember you telling me about memorizing license plates when
you're a kid. I don't know if you've played
any of these games in this genre, but the games where you
try to complete a run and get asfar as you can in that run until
you die and you restart. One life.

(02:22):
But the difference, though, is, yeah, one each of those runs,
you unlock things and you level up.
So each run you go through is a little bit easier, and you go a
little bit farther, and you restart and you go a little bit
further. It isn't like one life where you
die and you have to start the game completely over.
You start the game over, but youhave better weapons or better

(02:42):
skills, or at the very least you're familiar with the layout.
It does feel like what just happened to you was a game
breaking bug that just has no explanation and glitched out.
It feels like 'cause it's like, OK, I think I kind of understand
that that is over and I need to play a different game now.
But I feel like it's more like agame that was bugged and I'm

(03:05):
still stuck in it even though everything's been shut off.
And it was like all shut down and nobody told me.
And I'm there waiting for them to shut it all back on.
And no one's saying anything to me.
That's why I hate it when peoplelie to me.
And people say, well, you what? You're going to have to learn
about life symbols. People do lie.
What you have to learn about life is you can't trust anybody.

(03:27):
It's like, but you should trust everybody.
You should be able to trust people.
It's something wrong when peopledo lie.
I mean, maybe part of it was thethreat of.
I'm not trying to attribute fault to you, but maybe next
time try to avoid being frantic.Because if they're having
thoughts and mulling things over, if you're going to be

(03:50):
frantic at them when they're saying they need space, that's
going to give them the definitive like, oh, here's a
reason for me to finally decide I'm going to put my foot down
like blah, blah, blah. There is credence to following
after someone when they say theyneed space, especially when it's
someone you know very well. But when it's someone that
you're still trying to figure out, it's best to err on the

(04:12):
side of believing them and. Coming back to it later.
Yeah, but I, I do understand there was a feeling of frenzy,
of frantic, and that might have given her the mental excuse to
just finish it. I don't think it was a direct
result of what you did. I think it's a direct result of

(04:33):
how she reacted to what you did.I'm going to say what I said
when I was trying to convince you it was fine, that I was
leaving when I was Michael, whenwe were doing the episode 13.
It's it's OK to feel sad. But in this sense, it makes more
sense because if you force a process, you're just going to

(04:53):
break everything. It's not a bad thing to let that
happen. And I think you'll be happier
with the end result of a naturalgrief process rather than trying
to make sure you're fine. One of the most confusing things
though, is we tend to have two reactions to grief, and that is
completely ignoring it and acting like it doesn't happen or

(05:16):
pushing ourselves way deep into it and trying to get it over
with. Like grief isn't just the
depression. Grief isn't just the reactionary
sadness. It is a process and it's
something with many layers and steps to it.
And it's something you need to listen to your body and your
mind and. Insult.
Insult. If you believe in that, you

(05:38):
heathen. Kind of loop that in with mind
personally, but I do believe that we have souls anyway, but I
I feel like we tend to have reactions of completely ignoring
the grief and acting like it doesn't exist.
I definitely are on that side because I'm a more analytical
person who I am aware of my emotions.
I'm in tune with my emotions, but I, I try to just kind of

(05:58):
avoid them a lot of the time. And when I have them, I try to
just be like, all right, time for emotions.
Let's get, let's get this task done with time to go through a
motion cycle and then we'll be done with it.
I had something similar like this to happen, but with a close
friend. And at first I wanted to act
like it didn't happen. But then I realized this is a
very close friend and I need to,I just need to address that it

(06:21):
happened and not act like it didn't happen.
Then I tried to speed run the grieving and that worked for a
while, but then like two months later, I was like, Dang, that
did happen, didn't it? And I went through the actual
grieving, like delayed. Well, it seems like today we

(06:42):
only really had time to hear from Samuel because we do need
to fast track it. On to the topic.
Sean, did you want to? Very, very briefly, you said you
had something you wanted to mention.
Had you gamified something in your life, Something that you
wanted to share? In a way, I, I've gamified
introspection kind of because I took a glorified personality

(07:04):
quiz. OK, It's like a, it's like
$200.00 with an interview and like a personalized thing.
Going through seeing what you agree with, disagree with with a
professional, I realized why I'mso emotional.
They're called themes of talent.They're they're like 34 themes
of talent and everybody has a top five.
OK. My top five.

(07:25):
Were according to this study. According to the Yeah the
System, my top five are empathy,relatability, communication,
adaptability, and developer. Basically what that means is I
can read the room really well ifI care.
I enjoy being with people and having deep conversations, deep

(07:48):
friendships. If it's not vulnerable, it's not
worth it kind of thing. So I have like a couple tiers of
friends communication. I'm I'm good with words if I
have time and I enjoy like delivering good messages and
making it memorable. I'm adaptable.
I live in the moment a lot, which is interesting because I

(08:09):
have trouble with being in the moment.
But that's because the moment isboring and I am like, I need to
live in a different moment. So I go to a different moment
and live that one developer is like, I enjoy helping people
with things, you know, realizingpotential in something.
I had this interview with the guy and it was crazy accurate.

(08:30):
It was scary. Like.
It got to the point where I would say something about how I
work and he'd be like, that doesfit in with the themes.
Then he would be like predictingthings about my personality
based on the things and I'd be like, holy cow, that is exactly
how I run. That was a really positive,
positive development in my life.Really, really fun, pretty nerdy

(08:55):
and heady. That was it for me.
Not everything in my life is great.
Not everything in my life is horrible.
We're doing OK and there's positives there.
Yeah, it's really good to hear. I know that that's been a
background struggle for you that's been stressful and
upsetting and kind of causing you anxiety.

(09:17):
So it's really good to hear thatyou, you got that.
I was excited to hear about it. And I forgot to ask you how it
went because that happened on Thursday, right?
Or Friday, right? Yeah, because of that, you can
be a pilot now, right? Was it causing anxiety for me?
Existentialism, which I believe is under the umbrella of
anxiety. All right, well, thank you guys

(09:37):
for sharing. I'm going to pause the recording
real quick so that Samuel can switch to his microphone because
it's been his laptop this whole intro segment and he can't
change the input while it's recording.
So I'm going to pause it real quick.
We're back. OK, OK, well, thank you for
sharing those things. A little heavier, but it's

(10:02):
always good to discuss those things.
Piss. What?
Sean. Don't piss on the podcast.
I just wanted to say that. OK, well.
That happened in my personal Life, OK.
All right, well, let's reel it back in.
I am today's host and I'm going to be bringing the topic here.

(10:25):
And in my new traditional sense,I'll be introducing it with a
story puzzle. No, I just spat in the
microphone Puzzle is franticallysorting through a list,
muttering numbers under his breath while Samuel sketches on
napkins, envisioning the perfectlayout, and Sean is strategizing
routes like he's plotting a dungeon raid.
Each has their own unique approach, but the goal is the

(10:47):
same, One mission that must be completed before time runs out.
They're all here for one thing, the perfect grocery run.
Today we will be gamifying grocery shopping.
Wait, but that's one that I'm going to be doing.
It's on the wheel. Well, you can remove it from the

(11:08):
wheel then, because I have a whole thing planned out here.
I didn't realize it was on the wheel.
Yes, you. Did every time you're like, I
can't wait to do that one. That one is going to be so cool.
I keep forgetting that ones on the wheel.
It's going to be so cool. When you have a schemify grocery
shopping, grocery shopping. It's a Wellness thing.
I don't want to change the topicthis deep in.

(11:29):
You will not. Now before you pick up your pens
and papers and your Word document typing out today, we're
going to do this together. We're not going to take long
segments of writing and the longsegments of presenting.
We are going to do this togetherand I'm going to be writing down
points on the side. You guys don't have to worry

(11:50):
about that. Mostly you 2 are going to be
having a discussion about this, and I'm going to be leading that
discussion following my documentup here.
Sean looks like Granify this. Yes, Samuel, we have talked
about every single episode. It's how he looks in the call.
It's how he looks in the call. It's not how he's going to look
in the recording, but. Why is this call so crappy?
Samuel, I'm going to say it in away that relates to you.

(12:12):
OK, Computer stupid. No, your computer's better than
mine. It's the Internet.
No, it's. It's the computer.
Stupid. I understand it now.
Technology being dumb right now.OK, OK.
You sounded so disappointed. Another thing I want to remind

(12:32):
you 2 about is when I host, I like you guys to bring research.
I like you guys to bring. Sorry, Yeah, I'm letting you
know ahead of time that your solutions must include at least
one research factor study. I like.
I like bringing stuff up. And as we're talking, you can be
Googling in the background. You can guys can start Googling
now if you find something cool to talk about whatever.

(12:54):
I want to start out with the psychology of decision making in
high in high stress environments.
I'm having trouble talking because I can hear myself over
Samuel. Just bear with me.
I want to talk about the psychology of decision making
high stakes environment. I personally have a article from
Medium with that exact name, Thepsychology of decision making in
high stakes environments and it talks about the pressure cooker

(13:16):
of high stakes decision making, what are high stakes, the weight
of the outcome, impact of pressure, etcetera.
And there's definitely a pressure when shopping.
There's definitely a pressure inthe holiday season when
shopping, especially thinking out the family dietary
restrictions, how much time it'sgoing to take to prepare the
meal that you're planning for your wallet because you're also

(13:37):
going to be having to pay for Christmas presents in the
following month off the top of your head.
Like I, I have AI have a document open here where I'm
going to be writing down the perfect grocery run.
Well, not the grocery ground, but the perfect gamified
solution for grocery shopping. And I want you guys to be
helping me out. So starting out with the
psychology. Is it our turn?

(13:59):
Yeah. Samuel, what are some What is
going through your head when you're grocery shopping or when
you're shopping for anything really?
Will I get one of these things, both of these things, or neither
of these things? And will I still have money when
it's over? Oh, OK.

(14:20):
I usually end up leaving with a lot of stuff that I hadn't
originally planned on getting because I noticed it existed
while I was there. OK, so impulsive.
Is that something you like or dislike?
I do it a lot. A majority of the time.
Do you regret it or are you excited about that thing that
you found And realize, I found this.

(14:41):
I would never have seen this anyother time.
Like those movies you sometimes bring home, you found Halloween
classics that you wouldn't have otherwise watched.
You know, stuff like that. Jerry's Christmas stockings or
whatever. Yeah, I pretty much regret it,
but it also is kind of nice. Christmas stockings, we're
cursed by that. That demon of a book appeared

(15:01):
while we were drumming the othernight and we both screamed hey.
You wouldn't know how I came across that.
Oh, I was shopping for some Christmas stuff.
That is an experience. We would not have had if it
wasn't for Samuel's compulsive buying tendencies.
OK, nice. Five points for Samuel.

(15:21):
So I'm thinking some of the objectives that we might want
are only buying what you want to.
Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty.
That was only pay for what you need.
Yeah, yeah, I forget about that.OK, but sometimes you you need
stuff or want stuff that isn't on the list.

(15:43):
But you shouldn't go too far offthe list but.
I don't want to go too far in mylife without those things
either. OK, now remember, we aren't,
we're just talking about ourselves and our own
psychology. We're we're trying to gamify
this. So yeah, I think of analogies,
think about games, think about how you can spin this.
OK, Sean, All right. So what do you say?

(16:04):
Let's make the main goal of the game to leave with what you
want, so that's. Always my goal.
Yeah, and and that's the goal for the game.
That's a it's a pretty simple goal for grocery shopping
because that's that is the thingwe want to do when we go
shopping. So I wanted to bring up
something now that Samuel has brought up his sort of

(16:28):
compulsive buying. This Medium article talks about
a phenomena called the Go fever,which happens when you are under
a high stress environment or in a high stress situation, like
going to the store and trying toget done fast and you're in this
determination to move forward. That relentless going forward of

(16:50):
this tank that you've turned into, it can lead to more rushed
and impulsive decisions. I'll tell you about what I had
today. I go to Michael's to buy my
craft supplies and I save all myreceipts because that is good
for taxes to take my art business seriously.
It saves me money in the long run.
But I also have reward points with them.

(17:11):
So I'm just trying to hurry through there because I'm within
the hour of this art event I need to be at.
And she asks me as I'm checking out, do you want to apply for a
Michael's card? And I said no, I I'm already on
the rewards program so I'm good.And she said, no, it's the
Michaels card. And I'm like, oh, sure, it ended

(17:32):
up taking longer going through the process, but I'm like, OK,
now I'm going to have to wait for that to come through the
mail and everything. And went out there thinking, did
I do that for me? Or was I just trying to speed
things up and I tied myself intosomething else?
Yeah. But now I'm going to have to use
that every time I shop there. Now here's some examples, some

(17:53):
real world examples that led to people dying.
The Challenger space Shuttle. Yes.
NASA proceeded with the launch despite concerns about the O
rings and the cold weather. And it exploded and seven people
died. Boeing 737 or the seven?
Yeah, the 7:30, you see the 73747 where they updated the the

(18:15):
autopilot and they did not tell the pilots about it.
And it was similar enough that the pilots didn't notice it
until it became engaged. And it just went into a nosedive
that they couldn't turn off because they weren't trained how
to. And that led to many casualties
across many crashes because theyhad to meet a schedule.
They had to meet a quota. They had to get these planes out
and get these planes flying without telling the pilots how

(18:37):
to use it. So, you know, these are things
that can happen as a result. And it's not to make you scared
of your own decision making, butit's a real problem.
It can lead to you draining yourbank account or missing time in
an art event that you're wantingto go to.
So this is something that we want to prevent.
How do we prevent the GO fever from occurring?

(18:58):
Sam was the one with the problem.
Sean, do you want to come up with a solution?
I think recognition is the important thing is because I
didn't even know about this, butI, I can identify it now I've
experienced it. And I think the first thing is
to always be looking, not looking for it, but you can
recognize it if you see it kind of just being ready to to catch

(19:23):
it and recognize it and take some time to disarm it.
If you think of it like like ticking time bombs coming at you
from different directions, it's like you see it in your
periphery vision and you take a moment to intentionally catch
it, turn it off, throw it away before you keep going so that
you don't rush yourself. Do they periphery bitcham?

(19:45):
Seem like you're falling asleep.So that's something that should
be going on the whole game is always are your defenses of
yeah, always looking out for these minds.
Well, that's that's why I have the go.
That's why I have the go is because I am like really stopped

(20:06):
up and slowed down by my over analytical analysis paralysis
that comes with OCD. So to compensate, I tend to rush
through things and say don't think about it, just do this,
don't think about it, just do this.
Maybe instead of don't think about that do this and the do
this being an arbitrary nebula in your mind.

(20:30):
Having a written list that isn'tjust a grocery list.
Also writing down things that you know your weaknesses until
and writing down reminding yourself you don't need to sign
up for a card. You don't need to buy a movie
that you see today some other time.
You can go to the shop and have time to stroll around and look
around, but maybe write some specific things that you know
are your pitfalls. I'd see, I'd see a solution to

(20:50):
that if presented with somethingthat looks like a good option.
Prioritize writing that thing down rather than prioritize
putting in your cart. If I take 2 seconds to write it
down, what would take one secondto put in my cart?
I save $20 and maybe a lot of minutes of sitting at home
thinking, why did I buy this? Why did I buy this, you know?

(21:16):
So you have a brain cart, right?There's the shopping cart in
your head. Here we go, game time, game
time. Where you put ideas,
opportunities in the right cart.So if you see a movie, you don't
put it in your cart and lose money.
You put it in your cart and you come back to it.

(21:36):
Everything you think about, you can put it in a cart if you
want, just put it in the right one.
Cart, cart. Mentalize it.
Cart Mentalize. This is all about cart
mentalizing. Oh yeah, cart mentalized.
That should be the name of the game.
No, I liked mental cart or you said brain cart.
All right. And now what?

(21:56):
OK. This next round I kind of have
the CHEAT SHEET. I kind of have the answer key
for my personal, my personal solution to this problem, but I
want you guys to discuss it. One thing that people worry
about going into shopping and one thing that they worry about
the whole time they're putting stuff in the cart and the whole

(22:17):
time they're checking out is didI get the best deal?
Am I spending my money wisely? Is this smart?
No, no and no. And I want to know if you guys
have any solutions to this because I personally have a
something that me and my girlfriend Jesse do that has
helped us a lot mentally and hashelped us money wise.

(22:39):
But I'd like to hear you guys. Impose the first one.
Am I getting the best deal on the items that are in my cart
this deal like either best quality or best money spent?
And then what was the other thing I said?
Do I have the budget for it? And do I have the budget for it?
Yeah. And then the third one was, is
this a good idea? You said that to yourself.

(23:01):
No, you said 3. Things.
I meant two things. I meant two things.
I meant two things. Am I getting the best deal?
And. Do I have the money for it?
And do I have the money for it? Yeah.
Well, deal money also priority, whether this is actually a
priority to pick up and buy, right?

(23:21):
So I think that should be #3. Samuel, do you have these
thoughts? I have all kinds of thoughts.
It's very busy and loud up there.
Do you have any any ideas on howto combat specifically the value
craze? Like the anxiety about spending
your money will. On my way here, I was at Walmart

(23:42):
and I just told myself, look, what would be worse?
Spending too much money on a lotof stuff or spending a chunk of
money coming home and finding out you don't have all of the
stuff and then having to go backand spend another chunk of
money. That kind of put me on the fence

(24:02):
there because there's kind of two sides to the problem, right?
One side of the problem is spending just enough money and
then finding out, oh, there's a list of other stuff that I do
need and I spent money on some stuff I don't need.
And then there's the other one of spending just this much

(24:23):
money. So I think it's a good idea to
just give up on shopping and notdo it.
No, I think it's a good idea to have very specific things you're
getting that day. Make notes of those other things

(24:45):
that come up while you're shopping so that you have it in
the brain cart or the cart part.Mentalization.
Wait, sorry, can you repeat thatlast sentence?
I didn't catch it. Cart part mentalization.
It's a good idea to get the things you specifically planned
on and create a list while you're in the store of the other

(25:08):
things. That would be good ideas that
you come all over in your head when you get home.
OK, so this is you spent a lot of time talking about the
problem, Sean. Sean has a thought, but let's
let's go into solution very soon.
That was partly a solution. Let's try and nail down that.
But Sean, I want to hear what you have to.
Say every time you go to the store, it's a level or a round.

(25:30):
And each time you take a list inand you take a list out.
And the the list you take out helps you make the next list
that you take in. Because if you want, you can
actually write something down onthe intake list like I'm, I'm
going to get this and then and then go in.
And then it's just, but that waslike level structure and like

(25:54):
what happens right before and right after.
So that's when you get into yourlobby, your lobby being your
house. And you can look at what you got
little things over and start making another list.
Go through your sticker pads andyour achievement list and look
at your trophies. Yeah.

(26:14):
That's what the lobby is for, right?
Yeah. Because it's like inhaling and
exhaling, or it's like income and expenses.
You need income in order to expense, right?
In order to spend, you need money.
And in order to make a list, youshould first go into the store,
buy the stuff you planned on buying, make a list, leave with

(26:40):
the list. I think another goal should be
getting things off that list. I think another goal, I think
you should get as many things onthe list as you think of while
you're in the store and then go home and get off of it.
As many things as you can sayingI don't actually need that.
I don't actually need that. And then you'll have like 3
things. Wow, I actually need these
things. And then go to the store and.

(27:04):
It's like an offload thing. You bring your ideas home, you
cross out the ones you don't need and put the ones you do
need on your actual cart. That's how it works with sales
too. When you're selling something to
somebody, you need to qualify them.
You have to actually get them totalk a lot so that there are no
questions asked what they want. And they'll have all these ideas

(27:25):
of what they want. And you've got to narrow it down
to one specific thing. And it can't just be the most
expensive thing. We're trying to push this one
out the door. This is the one you need.
It's OK. Everything you said here's we've
got this and this, but I think you might want this one based on
everything you said and everything we have in the store.

(27:47):
I know what you mean. I know actually.
With like hot tubs? You're you're eliminating excess
options. Yes.
So when you're in the store, that's like discovery when the
when you're asking the customer questions and they're saying
stuff and you've got a long listof that like a whole bunch of
words so that there are no questions unanswered, There are

(28:08):
no questions leftover. You know the customer really
well. You know your own needs, you
know what you need from the store really well, and then you
can narrow it down to what you specifically need.
Samuel, do you think this could contribute to helping the
anxiety about money? Yes, yes, it should solve both

(28:29):
problems. One, you're not spending as much
money, and two, you're not worrying as much about what you
should have spent money on. But then we also have the
problem of like, if you're looking for a chicken breast and
you're going through the freezerand it's like, well, I want six.
You don't want to buy 6 packagesof one chicken breast.

(28:51):
You want to find one package of 6.
And I think that's the kind of anxiety Michael's talking about
the. Best deals for sure.
I had a difficulty today buying eggs because I was like, oh
shoot, I don't even know which game I'm playing because I'm
trying to fill my cart, right? I'm like, my cart should be
full. I feel like that's the
responsible adult thing to do isto come home with all of the

(29:15):
groceries, not just like a few things.
Come home, wait several weeks, let this stuff rot, and then buy
like three other things. Anyway, I was like, I need eggs
and I was thinking, OK, these eggs are on sale, They're cheap.
Several of them are cracked, so you can switch them out for the
ones that aren't cracked and whatever these are on sale,

(29:36):
these are cheap, but they're notthe cage free chicken eggs.
I'm like, well, yeah, I could get the cage free version and I
could get the most healthy version of each thing in the
store. And then I'd be spending like
three times or four times as much money as I originally
planned to. Yeah.
So the question I was trying to ask myself is what game am I
trying to win right now? And unfortunately today the game

(29:57):
I had to win was get as much as you can while also spending as
little as you can. And I was doing it through
Walmart instead of ALDI because I had to pick up food for
Captain. OK?
So it wasn't as little as I could spend those, as little as
I could spend at Walmart. Recording.
Thank you. Sean has been offered or gifted

(30:17):
something. I I have my dad came in the room
and slipped in my flaming Nacho cheese dorito chips anyway.
You didn't replace your Doritos with lettuce.
I thought you weren't going to eat chips in there anymore.
Oh, I didn't make your poster yet.
I totally forgot that's that's, but that doesn't matter right

(30:40):
now. Oh wait, you made that a
boundary for yourself. No chips in the bedroom.
He's trying to make it a boundary just like I'm trying to
make it a boundary that I will only ever buy cage free chicken
eggs. But I didn't today.
I bought 2 cartoons of factory chicken eggs.
So I have. For my own good and not for the
good of the world. I have a couple ideas.

(31:03):
OK. I wanted to remind you guys I
really like research and the points really like research, but
do bring up your idea because itwas an idea from your own head
and that is that does have value.
OK, in the lobby before you go on to the next game, you want to
do a couple things. You want to one, set a budget

(31:26):
for this run so that you know ifyou were within that budget.
I knew I was going to spend thismuch, and I'm not anxious
because I decided that that was a decision I made.
It wasn't impulsive and I'm not going to ruin my finances
forever because I just overspent.

(31:47):
It also helps limit buying things that you don't need.
You only have enough money for the things you do need.
You won't buy other things. The second idea I had is to
decide which game you're playing.
Like Samuel said, it's like selecting your difficulty.
You're selecting. Do I want to only get what I

(32:09):
need, or do I want to get a bunch of stuff?
Do I want to buy in bulk? And that is up to each
individual's discretion and judgement.
But it is imperative that you decide which of these you're
playing in the lobby before you start the round so that you have

(32:31):
a purpose for the round and you don't get lost.
And getting lost starts anxiety going.
Yeah, there's like 2 battles I fight.
One is getting out of the house to go shopping, the other one is
trying to shop without a list and getting stuck in the store.
Puzzle knows this really well, but I was like, he can almost

(32:51):
hear my thoughts as I'm getting ready to go shopping as I'm
lagging and lagging and it's just because I'm thinking about
what I'll look for on there, notbecause I'm making a list I
have. Research.
So what's the solution? OK, I want to hear your
research. I'll tell you what I've written
down so far, which is not very much.
I've written down. The problem is buying too much.

(33:12):
In case you missed something. I've, I've narrowed that down as
the problem we wanted to solve right now.
And the solution so far has beenan intake, slash, outtake list.
That's all I've written so far. There's been a lot of discussion
since then. I want to hear your research and
I want us to kind of define the solution.
Yeah. So when you are sad and
depressed, you don't tend to say, you know what I'm going to

(33:33):
do to make myself feel better? I'm going to eat carrots and
broccoli and do a bunch of exercise and get up early in the
morning. No, you feel good when you have
eaten carrots and broccoli and gotten up in the morning and
done exercise. Same way with chicken eggs.
So cage free chicken eggs are often 3 to $5 more expensive

(33:56):
than the factory chicken eggs. We are in a world where that is
the case and the economy can afford to have a lot more
chickens in the factories. The economy will continue,
however, to be able to afford that as long as we continue to
buy the factory chicken eggs. And the cage free chicken eggs

(34:17):
will become constantly high prices as the inflation
continues to happen and as we continue to fight pollution and
other environmental crises, as we continue to make bad
decisions on our environment andhow we treat the world we're in.
We're going to be spending 4.6 trillion more per year and 6.2%

(34:40):
of the global economic output. Loosely read, dyslexically
researched information. Anyway, all that to say, we will
not be thinking about the solution in the time that we are
feeling bad, in the time of financial difficulty, we are not
going to do the things that are best for the world that we are

(35:01):
in. However, I think we should try.
I think I could buy less things that are more valuable rather
than buying lots of things for more valuable costs.
I I really think I should have just gone from two cartoons of
eggs to one carton of cage free chicken.
Eggs, because I feel like in thelong run you're going to end up

(35:22):
throwing some out. Every time I eat these eggs, I'm
just going to continue to punishmyself for the chickens that are
suffering and living their worstlives.
You don't have the future of ourenvironment that I've given up
on apparently. And just said, you know what?
I'm unhealthy and I'm depressed,so I'm going to keep eating
doughnuts. Michael, what was the original
problem? The problem is buying too much
in case you miss something. So I said buy less with more

(35:45):
value. All right, so the way you
started this conversation, Michael, is anxiety about having
the best value and spending too much.
Yeah. One of the ideas I had for that
is set a budget. You won't go over for this
shopping run like, you know, youwere willing to spend that.
That reduces one part of the anxiety.

(36:08):
And I, I have an article on how to set a good budget.
One of those things being like, look at your expenses for the
previous few months. Look at how much your meals are
going to cost. Look at how healthy you want to
be, how environmentally conscious you want to be.
And all of these things will help you set your budget.

(36:29):
Before you go shopping, can you say again what the problem was?
OK. So I started out by saying how
do you prevent worrying that youbought bad quality or bad priced
product and that you have enoughmoney?

(36:49):
And we turned that into a specific problem of buying too
much in case you missed something, which is kind of
connected to the compulsion buying from the first round.
Oops, getting a little repetitive here.
And Samuel's solution was buyingsmall amounts of good quality
product, which in the long run does end up being more expensive
because you still have to eat the same amount of food.

(37:11):
But in the long run, might save the environment, might save the
economy. Which isn't a personal
responsibility, it's kind of a group effort.
It is a group effort, but I am part of the effort.
Not everyone can afford that though.
I'm trying to make a solution that can help everyone of
varying backgrounds of budget. And every good little deed,

(37:33):
innocent folks and ridden healthand world, every good little
deed, he's the evangelical catastrophic.
Forget, forget evangelical. In a world full of horrible
people, one good little deed goes a long way.

(37:53):
I can make a difference to this starfish kind of thing.
Every little date, every little person.
That is true. That is very true and I do agree
with that and I agree with the sentiment and I agree with the
research and the background to that.
But in the research that you quoted, you said out loud, not
everyone can afford that. And you also said as the as the

(38:15):
economy continues to get worse, because that's just how it
works, it all inflation is a never ending thing.
Everything is true. Always getting more expensive,
sometimes faster. When I'm slower, things will
never get less expensive. Unless something bad happens.
Unless something. Horrible happens.
Yeah, the higher quality stuff, the farm grown stuff will always
be more expensive. Until the factories are shut

(38:37):
down, which? Isn't going to happen.
Look at it this way, we. Don't have time to.
When you make an actual solution, it is important to
think about the philosophies andthe economic decisions and the
ethical decisions. But in the long run, you can't
be standing in the aisle staringat that, thinking about the
lives of the chickens, which sounds kind of heartless, but

(39:00):
you know there's a a right option and an affordable option.
And sometimes you are given the opportunity to afford the
ethical option over the affordable option.
Sometimes you have seven children and you're working 5
jobs and you're not making enough money to buy the ethical
option and you have to feel guilty after working your whole
butt off to get food for your children.
A lot of those people don't buy eggs.

(39:27):
Michael, what was the original? Problem.
The problem is budgeting. OK, the the previous one was
psychology. This one is budgeting.
And the problem was how do I know I have the right amount,
the the right quality, the rightprices?
How do I know I'm getting the best deal and how do I know that
I can afford this? And Samuel saying you can't
afford it, you need to get the best quality and have the

(39:48):
ethical decisions, which isn't agreat solution.
Sean started out with a decent solution with the intake outtake
list. I have another solution.
You need constant availability to your hub to figure out what's
going on there. Figure out what you need.
Figure out what the people are going to be doing, or if if they

(40:10):
want to focus on quality or quantity or affordability, or if
they're easy going or if they don't care.
This only works if you live withsomebody else, but it's very
helpful to have two people. In tune with the list and the
needs so that if you get lost, you have a hotline that you can

(40:31):
you can call up your friend or your wife or your brother and
you can be like. We're your dog.
Or your dog and you can be like,I don't know what to do here in
this situation and you tell themthe situation and they give you
feedback. Yeah.
I always shop with my partner and we make sure that we even
when we buy something we're not planning on, like I might look

(40:53):
at something, I'm like, I reallywant that.
And I don't think I'm ever goingto get that except for right
now. And we're both like, OK, let's
look at it. Sometimes we don't, sometimes we
do. Josephine's Curry powder and
cumin paste. I just started thinking about it
like one of my Co workers is a minimalist right?

(41:13):
Doesn't have like anything in his house.
And I'm like, wait, where do youkeep all the clothes and stuff?
And he's like, no, they're all in my dresser.
And so I'm at work and I just ask him, what do you have in
your fridge? He's like, what do I have in my
fridge? And then he started going
through his like, I'm like, you have shredded cheddar, right?

(41:33):
He's like, no, I have mozzarella.
I said, oh, I don't have mozzarella in my fridge.
That's your problem. That's just a different flavor,
man. Well, I thought it'd be
psychologically better this time.
I got mozzarella instead of shredded cheddar, because I
always buy shredded cheddar. I always buy bacon.
So instead I bought I bought sausage links.

(41:55):
I always buy cereals. So I bought a different kind of
cereal. So is this trying to trying
different things to figure out what's best for you?
I think if I change the thing, Ithink a little bit more about
what it is and whether I need it.
OK. I will say switching from bacon
to sausage is way more protein per dollar I.

(42:18):
Was hoping and doing this I was getting away from the pig.
Maybe it's not pork sausage. Maybe it's beef sausage.
All sausage is beef. That's what sausage means.
Well, breakfast sausage tends. Michael, add that down.
Samuel's solution is Variety helps you process what you're
buying. Variety helps variety by

(42:40):
variety. But let's nail down this
solution because it's only roundtwo and we're already overtime
for the whole episode. So I I feel like this has been a
bigger issue, which is good. Like this is something that
needs to be talked about. Here's one of the problems with
budgeting. You are putting items in the
cart. You're roughly looking at the

(43:01):
numbers. You go to the checkout and you
realize I didn't think about tax.
I didn't think about this item is $0.50 more than it was last
time. This item is $0.30 more than the
last time I bought one extra box, which is an extra $2.00,
which adds up. You don't do all that math while
you're putting stuff in the cart.
How do you actually adhere to the budget?
This is literally how it works for me.

(43:21):
I look at my options, I say if the cheapest way is unethical,
then this is not something that I need right now.
If I can't afford the ethical version, I need to buy something
else and that helps. That takes a whole thing out of
my cart. But it takes a whole thing out
of you eating. Yeah, but then I had then I got

(43:42):
to end up thinking about something else to eat.
And that that drives into the creative part of my brain.
Some people end up becoming lactose intolerant.
And it's like that whole diet thing we're talking about in the
change when, right, you had to drastically change your diet.
Your doctor said you're going toneed to make some major changes
to your diet. Remember that one in episode 13
change? And that's when you start to

(44:04):
notice things. They start to stand out to you.
And you're like, wow, I can savemoney and feel myself the same
way and still feel good in my heart about what I'm doing.
But that's still overthinking. No, this is to avoid
overthinking. No this.
Is you're spending more time in the store and this is about
making the most optimal? Is this something you decide
before you go to the store? OK, I'm not getting eggs this

(44:26):
time because it's too expensive and not ethical.
Yes, most days I do what you do.What if I'm making the list and
I say, oh man, I cannot afford, right?
I mean, it should. I cannot afford eggs.
I won't buy eggs, I'll buy something else.
Potatoes are cheaper, right? So potatoes?

(44:49):
I've not had them in a while. OK, so far what I have is that.
Hey, Sean, can you a little closer to your microphone?
Being in the hub and then being in the store.
OK, being in the hub is being inthe store.
Yes, being in the hub, being in the store, one thing you that
always happens is that the intake list, outtake list thing

(45:14):
that's to help you not overspend.
The other thing is coming in with a target budget so that you
know if by the time. One thing I liked about round
one is we ended with a solid analogy slash mind picture with

(45:36):
the always put something in a cart, either the physical cart
or the mental cart. That's what helped with the
compulsion buying in the psychology.
What's something that can physically, mentally,
analogically help with money struggles or mental money
struggles, stuff like that? You're trying to hit a target.

(45:58):
He's trying to hit a target but I don't agree with it because
he's saying. I'm not trying to hit any
target, I'm just saying I I can't write down this.
Was solutions I did. I went from bacon to sausage.
OK, forget the eggs in my for for.
Ask me for an analysis. Psychology.
I'm talking about budget. OK, we're assuming that you know
what you're going to the store to buy.
How do you know? Let's say it was for a budget

(46:20):
reason. I looked at the bacon.
It was too expensive, so I bought sausage in it instead.
Which is more healthy? OK.
But how do you know that was outof the budget?
Like you skipped a step here. Price tags?
What? What are you?
What are you trying to get out of me here?
It does work for some, it's. Being too difficult.
OK, so how do you make the budget like where does, where

(46:43):
does this come from? Where?
Where does the budget come from?OK, I usually have a top number
I can't cross. I have an article about this.
I have a top number I can't cross.
If I was shopping in the last two days, I made $200 a day.
Don't spend more than $200 in the grocery store.
OK, nice. I try to keep it under 100 if I
can, but if it goes over 200 I start pulling stuff out of my

(47:05):
cart. OK, I got some tips on how to
make a budget, that kind of budget that Samuel's talking
about. If you want to hear him from
this article. Take your average monthly spend
on groceries and split it between your future trips.
Your future kids, you started soconfidently.
The tip is to spend is to is. The tip is to spend as a

(47:31):
business. The tip is to look at your
average monthly spend spent on groceries and you're going to
set a target for your month and you're going to split that
between all the shopping trips. So that's one way you can.

(47:55):
And if you realize that the grocery shopping has been
leading you to debt, make that go a little smaller.
OK. Here.
Here is something that I've noticed and it's obvious to most
people, but Target, Walmart, ALDI.
I used to shop at Target all thetime because I didn't worry as

(48:16):
much financially, but I was spending all of my money on
groceries. By the time that I started
needing money like for other things I couldn't, that wouldn't
have worked, I had to move over to Walmart.
Now I realized ALDI I'm spendinglike half the amount that I
spent at Walmart. So when I'm on a much lower
budget, I just shop at ALDI and like $50 tops.

(48:39):
Then I have to shop at ALDI. But if a hundred 5200 tops, I
can shop at Walmart. If I can go above 200, I can
shop at Target. I know those are extreme
numbers. That's not like shopping every
week. That's like shopping on my pay
week. Right now.
I'm going to place where I'm like, shop at Walmart on your

(49:00):
pay week. Don't shop at Target on your pay
week. That was good.
That was good. Good job, I'm trying so hard to
work with what you've given me. That was a good big picture
thing. We we kept getting lost in the
weeds of simple like specific decisions and stuff I think.
It was stuck in the egg carton. You got me stuck in the egg
carton, man. I couldn't.
I couldn't hear. I was screaming for help.

(49:21):
OK, so right here in the solution I have variety helps
the process. Keeping an intake outtake list
and choosing the store based on your current budget.
Yeah, if we don't have anything else for this round, I just want
to share what I'm currently doing.
I'm still trying to figure out how to make this whole thing a
game. That's what you said you wanted

(49:43):
and I'm trying to figure out howto do this.
Sometimes a solution is good enough, it doesn't have to be a
fully gamification. Yeah, no, we got concept now.
Everyone shut up. Only only speak when I ask you
something. The core of this game is the
round system and the hub system.Every round is a shopping

(50:08):
session and all the time in between the shopping session
you're in the hub. The thing that helps you with
overspending buying things you don't need is the intake list
outtake list system. That's part of the level select
you. You address that before you go.
Not overspending is helped by taking a, a partner on your

(50:33):
mission. This is multiplayer now.
So what you need to do, I can't do that.
I, I, I just, it's multiplayer now.
You either you, you take a partner on your mission with
you, or you have a man in the chair that knows numbers and
knows priorities and knows what to do and knows what you have

(50:53):
and what you don't have. Michael, I want to know one
other solution and I will put itinto game format.
Variety helps the process. Bring a friend, intake, outtake
list. Choose store based on budget.
Choosing the store is also basedon the level select.
Once you've decided your budget,you have a menu to flip through
different stores, like a slide menu with arrows and stuff, and

(51:15):
you keep sliding until you get to the store and then you select
the store. Are the ones that aren't this
one going to be blanked out? It's like out of budget, out of
budget. You can like click on the ones
that are in budget. Absolutely.
And if you want spare change, you can go for one that's below
budget. The ones that are more likely to

(51:36):
get you spending less and havingwhat you need are highlighted.
Yeah, although you might not have what you need.
Right, right. Yeah, yeah.
More solutions that we've written down.
I'm trying to put this I'm everything.
We've just tried collecting, Putit into one game, yeah.

(51:57):
He's just trying to get all the points by being the only one
talking. No, he's he's just trying to
condense it. You said rounds and what are you
calling lobby? HubSpot Hub?
Yeah. OK, so variety helps the
process, bring a friend and takeout take list, choose store
based on budget. Those were the four.
OK, I don't really agree with the variety helps the process

(52:19):
thing, but Samo really believes in that, so I'm not going to
discredit it. You know what?
Let's make that an option in themenu.
So yeah, Samuel did say he sometimes decides that before he
goes to the store. Yeah, yeah, I make the list and
I say, what if I think of other things from the store?
I'm like, put them on the list, put them on different lists so
you don't accidentally end up shopping for them again.

(52:41):
Samuel is completely asleep. Samuel's asleep, I'm flipping
out, and Michael's hysterically laughing.
I love this podcast, Sir. I've been doing a lot of work.
Sorry, I was just. Thinking about the fact that you
parked in the middle of the street and still lapped in your

(53:04):
car for three hours. Wait, what?
We'll talk about this later, OK?I want you to finish talking,
Sean. I'm almost done.
I'm losing steam. Before you go to the store,
Samuel's game that he brought tothe table is is variety.
Have a variety session to help you think about your shopping

(53:29):
experiences and and the other one is.
To get exactly. What you wanted?
Baby, you're completely cut out.It was a game.
Yeah. So you laughed so loud that your
microphone. Actually.
Cloud just completely cut out you.

(53:50):
Didn't hear anything. It just completely cut out and
it's like, and then there's likea boss like, Oh no, he's
screaming out and he's like catches the very end of it.
You get exactly. I heard get.
The two games you can play 2 approaches are variety and
Precision. Don't deviate from your list or

(54:14):
find alternatives to what's on your list still within the
budget to help you think about what's best for you, your
family, and your blessings and prosperity upon you and your
posterity. All that variety helps you think
about it. OK.
And then the store is where you have a heads up display that's

(54:35):
telling you information about all of this stuff you've set up.
This is to represent you keepingtabs on your goals in your mind,
where if you look at an object and it examines the price tag
for you and it's like this is a little higher than usual.
Or if you've said you want to bemore diverse this time you go up

(54:56):
to the eggs and your heads up display scans it and says try
cage free eggs this time you canjust get one.
Or with the bacon, it scans the bacon and says try sausages.
You'll get more bang for your buck that way.
And if you if you look at your cart and you do the lethal
company scanner and it says thisis $2.00 above your budget.

(55:21):
How does it know your budget? How are you counting all those
prices? Price tags are not on items
these days. That's not good.
Can you take things off of your checkout like in self checkout?
Yeah, I didn't. Just today I pushed XI thought
it was going to make an employeecome, but it actually just took
it off and I sort of aside because the box was really yucky

(55:44):
looking. OK, so you take, if you really
care about your budget, you can take time, take a detour to the
self checkout, put everything inthe checkout and if it doesn't
meet your budget, you can take some things back and rethink.
So it's a little bit of an of a time to analyze what you have.
Here's the thing, you don't haveto check everything out.
They aren't going to edit it. I want right out.

(56:05):
They didn't even ask for my receipt.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
No, not a church stealing. Not shoplifting.
I like you could check out like a third of the things in your
cart. No, no, no, no, no.
Sean, thank you for condensing everything.
Yeah, I appreciate. I had to go through that in my
mind too, like should I gamify shop with things?

(56:26):
OK. No.
To condense it down to two sentences.
That four times, but try it one more time.
Your hub is where you set up your criteria and wants the
level, the game, the round. The shopping session is where
you're actually doing it and youhave a hug that's telling you
about your criteria and wants togive you informed decisions.

(56:49):
That you set up beforehand. Mm, Hmm, perfect.
All right. Since we're running so short on
time, I'm just going to tell youas quickly as I can the process
that. Wait, I think this one should be
A2 parter because you have more levels you wouldn't do.
Well, I'm going to share my current method and then we're
going to wrap up this half of the episode.

(57:09):
The second-half will be out verysoon.
The way that we currently do it,me and my girlfriend is we like
to shop at ALDI because that's where our budget currently is
and SAML did bring up that amazing game.
The system that we actually do is ALDI, Walmart, Target, where
we start with the cheapest and we see what we have left
throughout the week when we eat food.

(57:29):
We both have the Walmart app installed on our phones and
we're logged into the same accounts.
We have a shared cart and when we run out of items, we put them
in our shopping cart. And the nice thing about that
shopping cart is it shows the exact price of the items in
store and it gives an actual total of the cart including the
tax. So if I were to go to Walmart
and buy all those items, that isthe exact amount it would cost

(57:51):
to the dollar to the cent including tax.
So when we have that full list of items that we need with the
total including tax, we go to ALDI and we go item by item and
we see how every single item is slightly cheaper.
We go to check out and we realize what would have been
$130.00 was $98. Or there's going to be like two
or three items like Clif bars orbody armor.

(58:15):
That's a Walmart brand drink forwhat's it called?
Not a power drink, a super drink.
Wellness a buff? No.
No, no, no, no, no. I.
Think it's called sports drink? Anyway, they're going to be
items that are not at ALDI, but for chicken breast, egg, pork,
you know, beef, ground beef, stuff like that.

(58:37):
We go item by item. We check out and we see real
time how much money we saved. And then we go to Walmart and
get what we have left on the list.
But that way we get an actual idea of our budget for the
actual items that we actually need, including the taxes,
including current deals, whatever.
And it's helped a lot. It's, it's, it's taking a lot of

(58:57):
stress out of it because I know going in it is going to be
either this exact amount or less.
I really like that. That's really good that I never
even thought of that. Yeah, apps are pretty great.
So every time you move on to a new favorite store, choose a
more expensive one, download that app, add everything to a

(59:20):
cart so you see the actual total, including current prices,
because you can't always base itoff of last week.
Eggs are like gas prices, they are going up and down every
week. Chicken and beef, they go up and
down every week. Sometimes pork dips 50%, just a
random day. So having an up to date list
that dynamically updates withoutyou having to do anything about

(59:41):
it because it's in an app that'sthat's in someone else's API,
someone else's database where they're up updating the prices
in real time. That's awesome.
That's the system that we use. And it's it was Jesse's idea and
she's very brilliant for figuring that out and it's
helped a lot. You'll, you'll have to remind me
of that when I start shopping. Is Samuel actually asleep?

(01:00:02):
He's genuinely asleep. How?
Don't do that. I did not mean to hit your head.
So puzzle was talking for a longtime.
Thank you guys for watching. We're going to be back in Part
2. We're going to finish gamifying
grocery shopping. In the meantime, if you want to

(01:00:22):
see me or Puzzle or Sean, you can check out Sean on 10 Pint
Potato OS. You can check out Puzzle on
Puzzle MTM and Me on Suma, Clause Tuner on Instagram, and
Mozart Meadows Records everywhere else.
All right. And as we say at the end of
these episodes. Game.
Over, over, over. Game paused.

(01:00:47):
And as we say at the end of Part1.

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20 - We Gamify Grocery Shopping in this one (Part 1)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}20 - We Gamify Grocery Shopping in this one (Part 1)