Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - How to Stop Impulse Buying with the Frugal Friends | Clutterbug Podcast # 241

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

In this episode, I chat with Jen and Jill from the Frugal Friends Podcast, about easy ways to stop impulsive buying and shift your mindset around spending. They share tips to help you think differently about frugality, showing it's not about being cheap, but about making smart money choices. You'll also learn simple hacks to enjoy things like Starbucks without overspending. If you want to save money while still enjoying life, this episode is full of practical tips anyone can use!    Learn more about the Frugal Friends Podcast here: https://www.frugalfriendspodcast.com Pre-Order their new book Buy What Love Without Going Broke here: https://www.frugalfriendspodcast.com/pre-order-buy-what-you-love-without-going-broke/     You can find more Clutterbug content here: Website: http://www.clutterbug.me YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clutterbug TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clutterbug_me Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clutterbug_me/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Clutterbug.Me/   #clutterbug #podcast #frugalfriends Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I think all of us would love to be able to be a little more frugal, save more money, don't be so wasteful when it comes to our spending. And if you are like me, and this is something you're yearning for, you're going to love today's podcast because I am being joined by frugal friends, both Jen and Jill, who are the host of one of my favorite podcast, frugal friends, they are here to show us some real life ways that we can live a more frugal life without feeling like we're going without. So welcome, Jen and Jill. I'm excited to have you here. We're talking about money, but you're going to make it not horrible to talk about money. So this is awesome. How are you guys doing? We're doing great. We're so excited to be here. We love having fun talking about money,

too. So thanks for having us. Yeah, you guys are kind of like my podcast frenemy. You know, we like battle in the charts. Oh, it's not much of a battle. You're always ahead. of us. You're always just right on top. Not true, friends. Not true. I'm like, where are these guys coming from when you knock me down? I love it. I love it. I'm so excited to finally meet you guys. I've been listening to your podcast because again, I was like, who are these girls and why are they beating me? So this is amazing. I am not an overly frugal person. So right off the bat, I'm curious, were you both always frugal? Like, it's just, some people are just naturally good with money. I am not one of those people. Are you guys one of those people? I'm so, I'm so glad you would say that

because that the, I'm not naturally good with money is what we're trying to battle against. Because I'm like you, I would say, I thought I wasn't good. I just wasn't good with money and so that I would never be good with money. I thought buying the generic brands at the grocery store, that's about as frugal as I can get. That's good enough for me. But I realized while my husband and I were paying off our student loans, we paid off $78,000 of debt in two years. So I went from really not being frugal to being super, super, super frugal for two years to where now I'm at this point where I found the radical middle. between the two. And I realize nobody is born good with money. Spending, earning, saving, investing,

that stuff is a skill. Well, investing is more of an action. Everything else is a skill. And some people are born naturally more adept at skills, but you still have to practice and hone them. And there are sub skills around them that can make the actual skill set easier to perform. So what I have learned is, yeah, maybe I wasn't good with money then, but that's because I really didn't know about it. And now I'm just practicing this journey of continually improving the way I practice spending. I like that. Okay, Jill, were you always good with money? No.

No. Yeah, we're straight out of the womb. My parents just handed me an investment account. and she's been off to the races ever since. I'm the next Warren Buffett. No, not at all. However, I will say that some of the tenants of frugality do make sense to me. They do align with a lot of kind of what might be in me and what I might want to be aimed at.

However, my definition of frugality has certainly changed over the years. When Jen and I first met, and I, too, was in a debt payoff journey. did I paid off about $60,000 in seven years. So I took the much slower route as compared to Jen. But my background is in the mental health field. So I'm a licensed clinical social worker. And straight out of college, I had more debt than I earned year over year. I was making about $26,000 to $30,000 a year in my kind of entry level positions. And so I felt as though my circumstances demanded that I do a lot with a little or try to figure out how to do a lot with a little. And that was my kind of scarcity mindset. And I thought that that was frugal. I thought that that's what frugality meant.

Kind of through the years, though, I've come to realize and through conversation and the things that we've learned in research that frugality is actually being good stewards of all of our resources. And that doesn't have to do with how much money we make or how much debt we have to demand frugality. Frugality. frugality can follow us throughout any season of life and can be helpful for us whether or not we're making a ton of money or not a ton of money. There are principles here at work about simplicity and managing our resources well and sure being resourceful, but definitely pushing back against the scarcity mindset. So I would say, yes, frugal to some degree, but learning what that

actually means and pushing back against the cheapness that often is associated with frugality. Yeah, that's good. I live with a very frugal husband, which is nice because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have a nickel to my name without him. So he's taught me definitely like live below your means. And I'm going to just, let's just be super honest. I feel like this was actually easier when we were living really broke. Because I was in the mindset of we have no money, we have to like, you know, be thoughtful of every single thing we purchase. But then as I picked up a second income and we started earning a little bit more, it was a lot easier to justify like stupid spending. So now I feel like I've lost that frugal thinking. Does that make sense? Because I don't have this outward pressure of like,

like you're not going to get your mortgage payment or you're not going to be able. But I still, I don't want to be wasteful. That's what this really comes down to. Like, I don't want to be wasteful. So please help me. Here's my issue. I have squirrel syndrome. And so I know what I'm supposed to do.

But then I'm in the store and I'm incredibly impulsive. And decluttering has helped definitely me stop and think because it's really painful to have to declutter the useless crap later. So that has definitely taught me to not just like, oh, look at this scented candle. I love fall. And I'm like, I come home with a pumpkin spice candle that I don't need to add to my pumpkin spice candle collection. What's wrong with me? I forgot I had five at home. But do you have like a secret?

I'm always looking for the hacks and the secret. Girls, listen. But how do we kind of rewire our brain to combat that impulsivity that comes with just forgetting to remember? Well, you kind of have already one of the ways that we recommend. And it's creating these internal motivators. So for you, when you see something and you're like, I value having a decluttered home more than bringing this declutter, this clutter into my house. So that's an internal motivated that's going to be stronger than, you know, I'm saving for a vacation. Like, yes, that's great.

But it's so often to the distant. We have this internal gratification thing inside of us. It needs to be served, right? So we can't just forget about it. And these internal motivators are kind of what help us serve the instant gratification. For me, it's if I'm scrolling Amazon late at night, and I have two of them. The first is I don't think you can buy your way to green. And so everything ends up in the landfill.

Maybe it makes a stop at the thrift store. But everything ends up in the landfill. Nothing just, unless it's food that composts, nothing just disintegrates, right? So I don't want to be responsible for putting that item in a landfill at a later date. So that's really important to me. The other thing is I don't really want to help Jeff Bezos afford another rocket ship. Like, that's just another thing that I don't want to be part of. Like I would rather my money go to somebody in my community, like a local service provider, a local

restaurant, keep the money in the community where it's going to feed families and children and not buy yachts and spaceships. So those are just some internal motivators. You have to figure out kind of what works for you. Oh, that's really interesting. way of kind of looking at it differently. So when you're logging into Amazon thinking, just picturing him on his yacht, you know, just throwing $1,000 bills off the side. And do we want to contribute to that? Oh, that's good. That's a different way of looking at it. So you guys have a new book coming

out, which is super exciting. Buy what you love without going broke. And I saw, I pre-ordered it on Amazon, so I'm super excited. Thank you. I'm so happy for you. But what I love about this is it really looks like it's different from traditional financial books because it isn't about budgeting and what you can't have and saving. You're literally teaching people how to buy what they love without going broke. So can you tell me like what's the inspiration here and the overall kind of message that you're sharing in this book? One of the things that we've noticed over the years of podcasting is some of the myths around money, not just how gate kept it is and how complex people want to make it seem for job creation.

And so we can give other people our money to manage it. But also the myths around money. And one of those myths is that we're either spender or a saver. and we live on one of these extremes or the other. And in reality, we're all spenders. And we all make spending decisions every single day. But most of us are not taught how to spend, how to spend well. And we're even told that spending is something to try to avoid, only spend on what you need, which is another myth, needs versus wants. How do we even tell between the two? And so really wanting a guide to give to people in how to spend. It's not wrong. It doesn't have to be only on needs and we avoid all of our

wants and we completely deprive ourselves. But how can we learn the skill of spending and feel really confident about the money decisions we make both now and for the rest of our lives? There's a lot of principles in the book that create space for longevity, not just a blueprint of do this, this, and that and you're on your way to fantastic financial futures. But instead, here are some of the things we need to take and grasp and individualize for ourselves so that we can then feel confident both now and in the future. I love that. And you talk about really identifying what it is that you love, like your underlying drive. Like what are we searching for when we are looking at the store filling that void inside of us? I love this different way of looking at it.

For me, when I'm in the store, I'm not thinking. When I'm on Amazon, I'm not thinking. I'm just reacting. So taking time to kind of get to know myself, is that what you're talking about? Like, where is this underlying? Oh my gosh, I need this coming from. Where's that need coming from? And then how can we fill it a different way? Is that kind of like, I'm just, I'm assuming, because I haven't read the book, but I read your synopsis. Well, you're getting it. Yeah. We shop to either pursue or avoid. So we will do a lot of impulse spending as a way to avoid what's really going on, stress, emotions, lack of activity, all these things. And we kind of want to reprogram that to let's shop to pursue. And by shop, I don't necessarily mean spend money, but let's spend time to pursue. do. And it's these things that are most important to us. And so when we focus on those and we use those as our North Star, not necessarily the things we can consume, it's this whole like shift that changes the way we consume. And we went on this years-long journey of figuring out, okay, what is it that matters most? Because there's got to be this way to spend money and not feel

guilty about it. As women, we are the primary spenders in our household. yet spending is quote unquote bad so we're bad with money if we spend so it just doesn't make sense it's why so many women have so much like guilt and shame around money because of this like they don't add up so how can we pursue what matters most to us and we found that most people most Americans at least have the same for things that matter most to them and this was really uh we we found when we looked at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which is this triangle that has all of our needs kind of in a hierarchy. So the first level is physical needs, food, water, shelter. We got those basic needs. And then we go up to psychological needs, belonging, love, self-esteem. And then atop,

we have self-fulfillment needs. And so we were looking at this, and everybody's talking about, oh, your needs are only like food water shelter. If you spend on anything besides that, your basic needs, you're spending outside of, you know, what's responsible. But we found that even if you don't recognize these higher needs, like family, friends, fulfillment, faith, all those things, even if you don't recognize them as needs, you still pursue them. And what ends up happening is that you are trying to avoid them because they're quote

unquote bad. So you spend on other things to try and meet that need, but it never really gets met. So for me, like when I'm not feeling good about myself, like I'll try and look at clothes. Maybe some clothes will make me feel better about myself. instead of looking at the root of what am I really trying to pursue? Let's stop avoiding. Let's start pursuing. And so those four things that I mentioned, family, friends, faith fulfilling work,

tend to be the things that people find most important and kind of align with a lot of the hierarchy of needs. So we say, let's do everything we can to first pursue those so that we feel fulfilled. we feel like we're getting what we want. So we do less spending on avoiding things, avoiding feelings and uncomfortable things and all of that. Which if I can add, this ties into that impulse spending that you were talking about already Cass with, okay, I'm in the store and I'm incredibly impulsive. Now, there are marketing tactics at play here too that that we can learn and help us to not spend in the impulsive ways that are not beneficial to us, but also recognizing that they might be

to meet some of these needs that we haven't given ourselves time, permission, space to explore. It might be that this candle that you've now said, you envisioned, I'm going to be at home, I love fall, I'm creating this environment and ambiance, right? There's more to it, but even below that, what is it? Is it imagining a nice after, with family, where things are relaxed and we can enjoy a meal together, right? There's usually something even deeper that we're trying to meet through these purchases, not to mention, again, the marketing tactics that are at play to getting you to spend this money, but our own deeper needs that we're trying to meet. And I think if we can create some of those pauses, those

opportunities for curiosity and learning ourselves more, we can then identify, oh, it's not this candle that I think is going to create this. It's me carving out time with my family to enjoy a good meal. I'm going to do that. Yeah. Oh, yes, yes. I mean, I know, because I've been working really hard with like mindfulness on my spending, what I find for myself is I'm very easily tricked by marketing. Does this make sense? So I'm very easily influenced by others, which is ironic given my job. But there's lot of pressure that I feel, and maybe it's just in my own head, but I feel like there's a lot of pressure to be a great mom, to look young, to be in shape, to have a beautiful home, to be able to whip together these like incredible meals. And I'm busy and I work full time. So when I am

sold the lie of this chopper is going to make you look like Martha Stewart when you are cooking and make your life easier, but you still get these incredible results. Or these jeans are going to make your butt look like you just did 50 squats. Or this candle is going to make your home feel like fall and clean and fresh without me having to actually clean or do the thing. Right. So I'm looking for these kind of shortcuts to this perceived life that I want. But it's, the reality is it's impossible for me to have this whole perfect.

you know social media life in every aspect and I think a lot of people maybe are feeling that same way we kind of want that shortcut and we think we can buy our way to the end even though that end that goal that we think is there isn't actually real because that's that's nobody that like nobody's live in that life it's all just fake and a candle ain't going to get us there and we know that right on the you know it's somewhere we know that but i i want to like push back on the easily influence like i i don't want anyone to feel like they're more easily influenced than other people because marketing is extremely tailored extremely researched people who are in marketing get paid a lot because that's where money is made in businesses so it's not that anyone is easily influenced it's that for the last

hundred years marketers have been refining their process. We talk about the story in the book about Edward Bernays. He is the father of public relations, but he's actually originally referred to as the father of

propaganda, but he saw that word was going out of fashion, so he p-darted and renamed himself the father of public relations. But he was one of the foundational guys that kind of set the tone for how marketing would work in the future. He's the nephew of

Sigmund Freud. And so he used a lot of Sigmund Freud's research to work for companies. Like one of them was cigarette companies. He worked for several cigarette companies when they were trying to get women to smoke. So what he did was he capitalized on the suffrage movement. The women had just gained the right to vote. And so he said, if you smoke, you'll be more like men and that will bring you closer to the equality you seek. He even rebranded cigarettes to be called them torches of freedom. And all of this was to get women to smoke. It was it was exploiting a generally good desire within us for the profit of a corporation, for the profit of men. So when we are talking about marketing, these desires within us to be a good mom, to be a good

wife, to be a good human, a good friend. These are really good desires that marketing is sometimes intentional, like manipulating. I don't think marketing is bad. Marketing is great. Like, we're marketing this book and we want everyone to read it, right? We'll be out front about it, though. Yeah. We won't be underhanded. The thing is, you have to understand when it's, when it's being manipulative on and not even in an intentionally malicious way. but just that is how marketing is. It's going to tap into those things that are most important to you. And now, unfortunately, with technology and algorithms,

they can very, very highly hone in on what's most important to you. So just the fact that you know this can help you inside decide, okay, is this marketing or do I really want this product? And you talk in your book about the dopamine hit. And I, I mean, I have ADHD, so I've learned a lot about this. But that's that feel good, right? It releases a lot of chemicals to instantly make us like, ooh, I feel good. And buying, come on, let's be honest. It feels good to buy a new thing. But it's fleeting and it doesn't last. And so we're kind of little addicts, aren't we? When we're stuck in this cycle of. of, oh, let's buy it. Oh, I got a boost. I got a, I feel good. I feel good. Which is why shopping can be highly addictive. And you talk about a way of retraining your brain, kind of retraining those receptors with a 30-day no-spend challenge. I'd love to hear about that. What does that look like? Are we spending $0 at all? And how can that help us kind of change our brain with

this impulse dopamine-seeking behavior? I've been doing no-spend challenges. for seven, eight plus years. And I started doing them just when we were paying off debt to save as much money as possible. What I found was that even more than the money, like if you do it just to save as much money as possible, it's kind of going to be like a yo-yo diet for money. So you're not spending anything. Then you're done with it. You're probably going to spend all the money you saved.

What I found is when I looked at it as a way to, you're not spending. figure out what I value, the benefits of it lasted long after the money-saving aspect. And that was kind of reinforced when I read Dr. Anne Lemke's book, Dopamine Nation, is that she works with addicts of all kinds, like substance and non-substance. And what she found was that when her patients abstained from their addiction, Usually non-substance is what she worked with for this one. But when they abstained for four weeks, then their dopamine baseline started to reset. And in my research outside of that, is I found that there was a study with rats where they got a treat after a bell rang 10 times.

And the dopamine release, you'd think it'd be the highest when they got the treat. it was the lowest. It was the highest right before they got the treat. It was the anticipation of consumption that released the most dopamine. So when we can take 30 days to pause and just stop spending on everything non-essential, so obviously we're putting gas in our car. That's probably the question I get the most is I was trying to do a no spend challenge, but then I had to put gas in my car.

And I was like, you're not impulse buying gas. for your car. It's not, it doesn't count. We're trying to look at the things that we're unintentionally buying and, and be more intentional with our spending. I think I'm pretty intentional with the gas. I try to go as low as possible before I put gas in my car. Dangerously low. Right? So we, we look at non-essential spending, take a pause from it for 30 days so that we can reset our dopamine baseline of anticipation for buying and also so that we can create healthier ways to pursue dopamine. Because again, that's a healthy part of our body. That's a healthy part of our brain. We don't want to get rid of it. We just want to pursue it in different ways, but there's no

incentive to do that if you can solve all your problems with spending money at any time. And that's the goal of the challenge. And I, in eight years, have never done a perfect no-spend challenge. If you can do a no-spend challenge perfectly right out the game, it's not a challenge. It's just you don't spend. That's right. So don't be afraid to do it imperfectly. That's how you learn.

The point is to learn. You learn when you make a mistake, you reflect and say, okay, what caused me to spend on this? And how can I make a better or different decision next time? Yeah. for saying that because I do have this all or nothing mentality kind of in my brain. So whether it's a diet or I've tried no spend challenges, I can do a week, no problem. When we get to about day nine, I mess up and then I'm like, well, see, it's over. And then I just go back to my ways. But I like that. Okay, you might mess up, but you're not out of the challenge. It's 30 whole freaking days, girl.

you're still in it, you're in it to the end. That's really good because I think a lot of us have this all or nothing. And as soon as we mess up, we just all the cards crumble. We just like, we beat ourselves up and we completely give up and we go back to the old ways. Not only do we, many of us have an all or nothing perspective, but we are drawn to the extremes. We can see the bipolarization of topics in every aspect of our environment. lives. And it's what we often choose because sometimes it is the simpler choice to just be so extreme with something. And while a 30-day challenge does sound a little extreme, we're not advocating that people live there and stay there for long. It's just an opportunity to identify what are my

spending behaviors, what are my triggers, what new habits would I want to implement? How can I get creative to solve some of these needs rather than constantly go to purchasing to solve my problems. And even Dr. Lemke's research also supports that, that you take a dopamine fast, but it doesn't mean that we can't reintroduce the topic, the substance, whatever it is, the action. It can be reintroduced and find healthier ways of engaging with that. So it's not to totally cut spending at the knees for the rest of our. our lives, but rather to reintroduce spending in a way that we can feel really good and confident about. I have to take a second to thank today's podcast sponsor, Hello Fresh. If you're like

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You may not need to. Here I am. I'm here. That's me. I'm going to take this one because that is honestly the example in the dozens and dozens of shows, hundreds of our shows. That's the one I always used because it was the first little barrier that I could get over. And so I used to make perfect budgets, and they even had a little bit of a coffee, you know, category in there because I know I'm supposed to treat myself. I'm not supposed to deprive myself, right? So I'm making these perfect budgets that are exactly what I'm supposed to spend and save. And never once could I stick to it. I would either spend all the money at the Starbucks right out the gate and have nothing left and then inevitably overspend.

or I would not spend any of it because I would feel guilty if I even thought about spending it because I was paranoid about overspending to the point where that took up so much energy in my brain. I just quit budgeting. Like it was just a toxic cycle. And so I had to understand, okay, why am I buying Starbucks or coffee in general? It's not the drink that we're trying to cut out. There's this deeper underlying reason. So we tell everyone for you to find your Starbucks, do a 90-day transaction inventory. Look at all your transactions from the last 90 days.

We say do this before you ever start a budget because this is going to tell you where you're going, where you're shopping out of habit, where you're shopping impulsively. And you can kind of, you can sort it. If it's in a spreadsheet, you can sort it by retailer and see. okay, I'm going to Starbucks look for patterns on these days, like at lunch during the week days, on my way home, on my way to see my mother-in-law, like you're going to see some kind of patterns over 90 days. So that way you can start to say, okay, if I mindlessly order through the Starbucks drive-thru like this, you know, over and over, I'm just going to choose

this one thing and figure out a healthier coping mechanism. I'm either going to make coffee at home, you know, buy myself like a fancy sweetener or whatever. I'm going to incentivize doing that, make it as good. We don't want to like make crappy coffee at home to replace our pumpkin cream cold brew that we are avoiding triple star day for, you know, like you've got to make it just as good to not go. Okay. And so just pick one. You don't have to pick all of the habits. Work on one at a time. And so that's, that's really the most practical way. But also filtering in like if, if I'm going to get a coffee with a friend that I haven't seen for a while, then that's something that's like meeting a higher need for me. That's not mindless. That's intentional. But first, I want to look at my needs and

be like, how can I meet all these without spending money? Is there a way like we can come, we can hang out at my house or hang out somewhere for free? And if those options aren't available or they're not right, I'm going to spend the money on Starbucks without guilt. I'm going to do it because I know it's meeting a real need. Or if I'm treating myself, if I say like, if I send five emails today, I'm going to get myself this. And this is not like a, you know, know, everyday thing, but maybe like a once a month little external reward, then I'm going to do it. So it's just making sure you're intentional with these. The same coffee purchase made for different reasons can be in alignment with your values or out of alignment. You have to figure out which.

I know, you don't want to know why I buy coffee, why I have a coffee problem? Because I'm a toddler, okay and I and I hate doing grown-up stuff but I know I have to so anytime I'm like oh I got to go grocery shopping please kill me I don't want to go I'm like it's okay I'll treat myself to a Starbucks first or my husband's like let's go to the hardware store have you ever been to the hardware store with your spouse it is it is a nightmare girl we went to two year renovations on our homes with different spouses mine was three years oh mine was two years that's a that's that's my own personal hell right there Okay. So I'm like, well, that's why they put a Starbucks in the parking lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Home Depot and Lowe's, every single one. So then I'm like, well, it's okay because I'll get a Starbucks in the way. So if I'm going to the doctor's, I'm like, oh, I'm going to have to sit in the waiting room. That's okay. I'll treat myself. So I've kind of conditioned myself when I have to do something I don't want to do. My brain is like, it's okay because I'll get you a Starbucks as a treat. So I need to look at a reframe of like, how can I stop doing this?

And I don't know what that is yet because it seems like it's the only way I can get myself out the door and to the grocery store. Girls, help me. Help me. You need a, you still need a treat. Like, we all need treats, right? Like, treats are not bad. Let's just abolish that. Like, I was, my friend in her stories, she was at this like PTA meeting and someone passed her on Hershey Kisses.

And all the moms were like, oh, I'll be bad. and have and she was like it's not bad when did we get the idea that like Hershey kisses her bat so that's a little tangent but it's like in the same line like treats are good let's figure out a way to treat ourselves where we're not spending six plus dollars for every treat and we reserve if we do something special too many times it becomes not special so let's reserve those things for things that we deem truly truly terrible. So we get the extra special treat for them. So yesterday, I was craving a pumpkin cream cold brew because that is my drink of choice every fall. So I actually looked up a recipe on how

to do it like online. And I have to say it was pretty easy and good. I would have added a little less pumpkin spice, like actual spice. But it basically hit the spot. And you can, get yourself a special cup that makes you feel even better than a Starbucks cup. Sometimes it's the actual physical feeling that we have to replace as well, right? So maybe you invest in a $20 cup so that you're saving yourself the $6 every time that you're getting the drink. So maybe we'd make a little upfront investment to change that. Or if you already have one, you start to use it more regularly. But yeah, make it special. Make it a treat, but let's just save the treats we spend money on for those things that are ultra terrible. Yeah, that's good. And the self-awareness.

Like I feel like knowing the reason why my habit, my like a, you know what I mean? It's because it's suckage. I got to do something suckagey. And I'm like, well, I better treat myself to it. You know, like a little toddler like you, you got to go to bed. But if you, you know, you got to go to bed. do your or you got to do your chores and if you do then i'll give you this i do this is what i'm doing to my dang self you know to make myself do the crappy stuff that i don't want to do um but yeah you're i like that there are ways that i can still do that and treat myself that isn't going to end up you know with a four hundred dollar a month Starbucks budget which is ridiculous that's real money i don't know how much it is i'm guessing because i i don't look at my budget because i'm but my husband's

screaming at me, so it must be high. We're all little toddlers, honestly. Amen. We operate out of mainly cognitive biases because they help make our lives more simple. They allow us to take those shortcuts because we are so exhausted with all of the decisions that we're making on a daily basis. And so when we can grab for whatever's right in front of us, we're going to do that. But the problem is, like you're defining, we then can end up spending far outside our means or what we want to be on this thing. And it's no longer actually a treat. It's just a habit. And I think that's where we can give ourselves, value ourselves enough to learn about who we are, how we tick, what we're drawn to, why we're drawn to those things, the better off will be.

So when we can get curious with ourselves about what is it about this treat, what type of reward do I need and implement some creativity, we might be really surprised at what actually works when we maybe provide a time-limited opportunity to not go for buying our way out of our problems. But instead, think about what else could we do? There was actually another study that we talk about in the book related to this idea done by Harvard Business Review, where they looked at a lot of different companies. their teams. And with some of those companies, they gave them limitations and parameters around a problem to be solved. And for other companies, no limitations. All the resources, all the finances, all the team

members that you want to solve a similar problem. And what they actually found by the end is that those with the limitations and the parameters showed greater levels of creativity, productivity, better teamwork. There was so many outcomes when given parameters versus the team that didn't. Sky was the limit and it just did not bode well for implementing creativity or problem solving. And the same is true for us. I think sometimes we can really push against, why can't I just have all my little traits? Why can't I just do this?

But in reality, if we give ourselves the opportunity to define parameters, not deprivation, not taking away all of our resources, but here are the times that I can do this. Or here is the amount of money that I will allow myself to spend on this just for the next week. We can then start to exercise our mind muscles a little more and recognize, oh, I actually found another way to solve that need. And maybe that actually is more beneficial for me or I enjoy that more. That hits the need more congruently than what I was previously doing. Oh, yes. You know, I'm hearing you say this and it's reminding me of basically when I look back at all the

success that I've had or things that have really worked out in my life, it's because I had to get creative. So getting organized is one example of that. My house was a wreck, but I didn't have money to go to the store to solve my problem by buying a bunch of storage containers. Like I just didn't have any money. I had to get really creative and come up with solutions. and that cost nothing. And that taught me how to be a better organizer. It helped me identify my organizing style and that other people have styles. It's really the foundation for my entire business. If I had the funds to just go buy bins and baskets, I don't think I would be where I am today. Oh, because, yeah, that's it. I had no money. I had to think outside the box. I had to flex my brain.

and I discovered a passion and skills that I didn't know that I had. And you're identifying something really important here, and that is we are whole people. And so every aspect of our personhood impacts the others. And when we can achieve benefit, more knowledge of ourselves in one area, it's going to wear off on and be beneficial for these other areas. And one of the things that we also talk about in the book as a place to start, is actually our physical spaces. Simplification and decluttering in our physical spaces do lay the foundation for a lot of the principles that are helpful for us when it comes to our spending.

So all of the things that probably many of your listeners have gone through of identifying what to keep, what to get rid of, what to give away, what's important here, how can I maintain this, those exact tenants that were built, that foundation that's laid is going to be helpful when it comes to what's important with my money. What do I want to spend? What do I want to save? Where do I want to put this? What's valuable? What's not? How can I get creative? You're already doing it. We're just translating it into this aspect of our personhood. Yeah, decluttering helped me get off something called the scarcity cycle. I don't know if this is just what I call it. So what happened when I was super broke, I mean, living paycheck to paycheck, I didn't trust cash. I didn't trust money because in my brain it would be gone tomorrow and I would have nothing left. What I did trust is the actual objects that I bought, which felt more permanent. So when I did get paid, I would run to the store and I would buy things on sale. Or it was like, oh, well, I better buy two pairs of jeans because I probably can't buy jeans in the future.

I didn't see money as safety. I saw stuff as safety. And so I got really stuck in this scarcity cycle of collecting, collecting. collecting, looking around at my things and seeing that as safety because money felt very fearful and it could be gone tomorrow. And that cycle was horrible because now I'm drowning in clutter. And then as I started to get rid of things, it felt like getting rid of safety. It felt like getting rid of money. Even though the money was spent, it felt wasteful. It was painful, horrible process. But it did help switch my brain in that money is the safety, not the stuff. The stuff no

longer felt safe because it had to go at any moment. And the process of decluttering helped me get out of that scarcity cycle. And I think it can be helpful for other people too, because we don't realize we're in it. Do you guys know what I'm saying? Do you see, you're picking up what I'm putting down? Uh-huh. Yes. When money is not promised or maybe your income is not set every week, every month, it's, yes, stuff is feels safer for sure. And it's concrete. It's tangible. We don't use tangible money really anymore. So, and even still, that's just paper. I know Jill and I talk a lot when Jill has cash, she immediately wants to go spend it. I don't even deal with it. I don't even deal with. cash. But yeah, it's that tangible. We always value what's tangible, what's right in front of us more. And it is, it's a mindset shift. And I think letting go, physically letting go is such a powerful lesson. I mean, I used to fill freezers with food because I went, I had so many times where I couldn't afford groceries. So now I've got all these freezers with freezer burnt food and I don't even

know what's in them and I'm just like hoarding frozen meat. And then when I go to make dinner, I'm not even thinking to defrost it. But my brain is still set in, well, I better stock up when I can. I better stock up when the getting's good. I better buy when it's on sale. I better protect myself, protect my family, safety, safety, safety. When the truth is, most of that would just go to waste. And what I really needed was that extra money in the bank when the air conditioner broke or our car needed to be fixed. But I had spent it on freezer food. You know what I'm in can goods. I feel this in such a deep way.

And I so appreciate your vulnerability because what you're saying, I think, resonates with a lot of us and that mindset. And I, neither one of us can say that this is an overnight process. Jen and I have come to our place of understanding of finances and frugality now after six years of podcasting. And I guarantee you what we say in six years from now is going to be. a little different from what we're saying now. We're continuously learning. But I think finding some of these trusted voices to help identify what is a good framework. Because here, you are identifying

for yourself. This isn't actually beneficial for me. And I think that we all need to get to that place rather than just hearing it from somebody else. I need to know for myself why I don't want to have debt. I need to know for myself why having a freezer burnt stockage of food is not good for me. Why having all of these collectibles isn't actually in my best interest. That needs to be some of that self-discovery and some of that curiosity that we talked about of what is it about these things that provide security. And is there other areas that I could experience safety and belonging and security and start to shift some of the ways that we think about what safety, belonging security looks like. When we think about our future, you know, sometimes saving and investing feels very

ethereal. We don't understand it. What we do understand is a product in my hands now. And what it can mean is just knowledge equipping ourselves with what is tried and true helpful financial information, Who can I trust with this? Do I have people in my community who I see the way that they're living, the way that they're spending? I respect it. Can I ask who they have learned from? What books would they recommend that I read so that I can slowly but surely start to understand what are the anchors? What are the foundations that I need to start tethering myself to and move in that direction? But recognize that every next best step for ourselves in all aspects of our lives, is going to be good for us. So if we're just in a stage right now of decluttering, that is going to be good for our finances. And it'll help us understand what is our clutter cryptonite? What are the things we are drawn to spending on? What could this money have bought me? What could this have meant for the vacations that I wanted to take in these past years? What could this have meant for the debt that does feel really emotionally weighty to me. What could this mean for my future? What could I

buy in the future with some of this money? And maybe even thinking about saving and investing as spending for the future. I'm still spending money for my future self so that my future self can have fresh meals, not frozen. And treats. And treats. So future me can have treats. But it's a process. And I would. I wouldn't say to do it alone. Find community and find the influence that's going to be helpful and trusted. And I think that's what's so great about your podcast. You can be that voice for so many people who need to rewire their brain to think about finances differently. My parents never taught me. School never taught me about money. And so I love that your podcast is that kind of foundation. Right. It's that place where people can go to get the information we need. never had, but not in the make a budget, don't spend way, in a really, like, honest, real

life. And I feel like it's geared to women, which I kind of appreciate as a woman. So please let my listeners know how they can find you, how they can listen to you, and when your book, your new book, comes out. Yeah. So we are Frugal Friends podcast available wherever you're listening to this podcast, including YouTube. And buy what you love, without going broke is kind of the distillation of what we have been talking about on the podcast for at least the last four years. And you can get it at buy what you lovebook.com. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I hope everybody goes over and listens to you. And we can all, yeah, break the scarcity cycle and stop giving our money to Jeff Bezos yacht and

spaceship. Thanks for having. If that's what you're passionate about then yes join me it's been an honor thank you guys so much and thank you to all my listeners we'll see you guys next time