Financial Feminist - Best of 2022: How to Stop Emotionally Spending

Episode Date: December 20, 2022

In this re-release of one of our top episodes of 2022, host Tori Dunlap guides you through a shame and judgment-free practice to help you curb your emotional spending purchases so you can spend money on the things you ACTUALLY like without guilt. Pre-Order “Financial Feminist: Overcome the Patriarchy’s Bullsh*t to Master Your Money and Build a Life You Love”: www.herfirst100k.com/book See the show notes from the original episode: https://herfirst100k.com/financial-feminist-show-notes/stop-emotional-spending Tori's Holiday Gift Guide: https://view.flodesk.com/emails/639cb8593f2d9b5325b02fab Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, financial feminists. I'm so excited to see you back yet again. We are talking all about emotional spending today. And if you've been following us for a while, you may be like, maybe I thought we had an emotional spending episode. And that's because we did. We're doing a little re-release today for a couple reasons. Number one, you always need to understand where your money is going, if you're spending according to your values. And also, if you're that person who is getting to the end of the month and you're like, where the hell did my money go? This episode is going to be for you, even if you listened to it six months ago. The second thing is that it's really, really easy to emotionally spend right now.

It is Christmas time. If you are listening to this on the day, it is like four days before Christmas. And so if you haven't gotten a gift, by the way, we have a gift guide linked in the show notes below by person. So if you're like, I have no idea what to get my dad, you and me both. I never know what to get my father for Christmas. We have that linked below. But very easy to spend a lot of money right now. And so we thought this episode would be a great reminder for everybody, for all of our listeners. And finally, this episode is a little excerpt of my upcoming book, Financial Feminist, Overcome the Patriarchy's Bullshit to Master Your Money and Build a Life You Love. Said that all in one breath. And this

is straight from our second chapter of Financial Feminist, which is all about spending. Spending according to your values, making sure that you are mindfully spending because you don't have to stop spending money. You just have to stop spending money on shit that you don't care about. So we're going to use this episode to curb that emotional spending to make sure we're making thoughtful spending decisions and that we're not swiping that credit card, swiping up on those Instagram ads and going crazy with our money because you worked hard for your money and you deserve to keep as much of it as possible, but also when you're spending money, love your purchases as much as possible. So thank you as always for your support. I hope you are staying safe and warm this holiday season. Thank you for your support of the book.

It's been so exciting. I've already seen a couple of you go to Barnes & Noble in person because apparently for whatever reason, Barnes & Noble has released the book early. So some of you have actually gone into your local Barnes & Noble and purchased it already, which is very exciting. Thank you for your support as always. I hope this episode helps you, especially during this season of your life. And without further ado, it's not. If you need that tub of Ben and Jerry's after a hard week or a morning latte when you're not feeling great and just trying to get some energy in the morning, the last thing I'm going to tell you to do is deprive yourself. to get some energy in the morning, the last thing I'm going to tell you to do is deprive yourself.

I am never going to tell you to not buy something. We know that the reason you're not rich is not the avocado toast or the lattes. It's the systemic oppression. Deprivation is never the answer. 99% of diets fail because the more you tell me I can't have fried chicken, the more I want fried chicken. It's not willpower. Go back to Victoria Garrick's amazing episode on diet culture. Diet culture thrives on deprivation. And when we view our spending in terms of diet culture, it's very similar, right? Deprivation. Stop spending money on everything. I don't need you to stop spending money.

I just need you to stop spending money on shit that you don't care about. I'm going to say that for you one more time. I don't need you to stop spending money. I don't want you to stop spending money. I just need you to stop spending money on shit that you don't care about. I'm going to say that for you one more time. I don't need you to stop spending money. I don't want you to stop spending money. Money is meant to be enjoyed. I just need you to stop spending money on shit that you don't care about or shit that isn't mindful. Because when it comes down to it, our money is there to bring us joy. Because if emotional spending is a thing, right, and we have all of these quote-unquote negative emotions like stress or anxiety right, and we have all of these quote-unquote negative emotions like stress or anxiety, we also can have all of these positive emotions like joy

and ease and hope, and our spending can give us all of those things. You worked super, super hard for your money. You work very, very hard for your money. I would really love for your spending to reflect that. I would love for you to take the dollars that you worked hard for and have them be spent on things that you absolutely love. Wouldn't that be a great feeling to take the money that you work day in and day out for and actually see the return on that money, the joy return on investment, I'm never going to tell you that you're not rich because you spend money on something you like. Not only does that math not work, but statements like this are shaming, judgmental, and they don't acknowledge

systemic oppression. I want you to spend money because that's what it's there for. But really, again, I want you to spend money on things that you actually like and things that bring you joy. I am not the financial expert who's going to come and take away your coffee because that's just bullshit. If coffee is what you love to spend your money on, amazing, great. The world's so goddamn hard already. Spend $7 on a coffee. Great. I'm here to advocate for you so you can feel confident in saving and spending money on the things that you love. Money should bring you joy. It is meant to be saved. It's meant to be invested. It's meant to be used as a tool to help you build the life that you want. The whole point of this episode is to help you take control of your money

and love your purchases again while still being able to save for the future. Emotional spending becomes a problem when it's one, consistent. It's happening a lot. It's happening very frequently. It's not just a one-off purchase to make yourself feel better. I bought a $75 pregnancy pillow at the beginning of the pandemic. I am not pregnant nor planning on becoming pregnant. I just needed to feel something. But if I was buying the equivalent of the $75 pregnancy pillow every other week, or maybe every week, or maybe every day, probably a problem because it's consistent. The other way it can become a problem is if your emotional spending results in some sort of financial distress or mismanagement, is if you

are significantly sacrificing your financial goals because you're emotionally spending. Or if you look at your bank account every month and you're like, where the hell did my money go? Or you look at your credit card statement and you're like, I don't even fucking remember making that purchase. What did I buy? You're spending money either consistently or on things that are resulting in some sort of financial distress. So we're going to walk through an exercise in this episode that will help you curb your emotional spending. It will help you make decisions that align with your values and budget. And fun fact, it is directly from the pages of my upcoming book, Financial Feminist. So to combat these emotional spending tendencies that we all have i made it a practice to ask a few

questions of myself if i'm about to spend money or have my clients ask themselves before making any sort of spending decision if you are in your car if you are somewhere where you can't take notes, maybe either just reflect on these questions or write them down. We also have had people literally make these like their phone background. I know one person actually took these questions, printed them out and put them on the back of their credit card, which was like next level. But like if that's you, go for it. Question number one, what is my current headspace or emotional state? So we've talked about how big of an impact our emotions and headspace have on our money. But this becomes even more obvious when we're asking ourselves, what kind of emotional state

are we in when we're making this purchase? Just encouraging ourselves to be mindful. just encouraging ourselves to be mindful and it's not just desperation or anxiety or stress that causes you to overspend I've also overspent when I've been feeling really good right it's also when I've been out on a Friday night and I'm loving my life and my beautiful friends and I've had maybe one two minute drinks and in this heightened emotional state where, by the way, again, I'm feeling very, very good. I've moved on to the $20 cocktails and I've ordered some chicken tenders that I'm not hungry for. And also I bought the entire group multiple rounds without even thinking. So in this way, spending can become a vice. It's really, really easy to try altering our mood with our purchases. We all know that there are certain things that can bring us a lot of joy, but there's also a lot of things that we can buy that only feel good in that moment and then really don't bring us anything. So in this question about what is

my current headspace or emotional state, we're going to dig a little deeper. We're also going to ask ourselves, am I buying this thing to fill some sort of void in my life, even if that's just minor? Will this purchase give me more than just a brief reprieve from that thing? Am I emotionally heightened and therefore more tempted to be careless? It's good to ask yourself this question to at least be aware. Again, we're trying to be mindful. We're not looking to judge ourselves. This shit happens to everybody. I'm a motherfucking financial expert. This shit still happens to me. I need you to not delude yourself, though, into thinking it's not happening to you. It is okay if this purchase you're making is to emotionally cope with life, because sometimes life is fucking hard. But if you're

constantly, again, making purchases to emotionally cope, that is an issue, and it's not just for your bank account. So if, for example, every time your boss is mean, so you buy something, you're not fixing the fundamental issue, which is your bad work environment, right? Or leaving your bad work environment. The emotional spend is a temporary solution that doesn't ultimately work to make your life actually better. And I don't want you relying on this band-aid solution that would distract you from a longer-term fix of getting real with yourself and asking, again, will this actually help me cope and with what issue? Let's move on to question number two. How many taco dollars does it cost? You probably heard me say that and you're like, I'm confused. So this blog

post came out a few years ago and it changed the game for me when I read it. It was from the blog Science Finance and the author loved tacos, like more than anything. And when she would go to buy something that wasn't tacos, she would think to herself, okay, but how many tacos is this thing worth? How much is this thing in taco dollars? So, for example, this jacket is $50. A taco costs $5. So, this is 10 taco dollars. I could either buy this jacket or I could get 10 tacos. You need to decide what your taco dollars are. My personal taco dollars are travel dollars. I love to travel. So when I think of my purchases in terms of like, where could this get me in the world? It helps reframe it. If it's a hundred dollars jacket, I go, okay,

this could get me from Seattle to LA, or this could get me one night in an Italian Airbnb somewhere. You're going to discover through doing this that sometimes the purchase is worth it, and sometimes it's just not. So whether that's taco dollars, or airplane dollars, or skincare dollars, or plant dollars, that's probably my secondary currency is plant dollars, you're viewing your purchases through the lens of what's really important to you and not to someone else. My lovely friend Paula Pant, who's another financial expert, says you can afford almost anything, you just can't afford everything. You get to prioritize where your money goes because you can't just go out and purchase everything you want in this world. So you're reframing your

purchases through the lens of the thing you actually want. That simple reframe of taking your favorite thing and then juxtaposing it with the thing that you're about to buy is going to allow you to discover just how much worth that thing has and whether buying that thing is worth giving up something that you know that you'll truly value. Our third and final question. Number three, am I accurately evaluating the worth of this purchase? When I say something's worth, I mean it on a couple different levels. These are like questions within questions. First, is this thing actually worth the price tag? Is it actually worth what they're asking me to pay? Is the quality of this item worth the price tag? The second thing is like, am I going to glean a lot of value from

this thing? Is it something that is actually valuable to me? And the third and most important for someone who loves a good sale like I do is, is it actually worth the money or am I buying this thing just because it's on sale? We have all been here, right? We see it's on sale and suddenly we convince ourselves to buy it because, oh, it's on sale. I'm so guilty of doing this. I'm more likely to buy it because I feel like it's a steal, right? I'm like, oh, I got a bargain today. But if the original price of something was $100 and now it's 70% off, you're still spending $30, right? And if it's something you were planning on buying before, amazing, cool, you did just get a deal. right? And if it's something you were planning on buying before, amazing, cool, you did just get a deal. But if you're buying something that's on sale just because it was on sale,

well, we still lost money. We still spent $30 that we weren't planning on spending on something that we probably don't really like that much. I also like considering the most important thing for me, which is like the cost of use of an item. So the cost of use is exactly what it sounds like. How many times you're going to use this and what is the cost per every time you use it? So if we divide the cost of an item by the number of times you anticipate using it, you can get a pretty good idea on whether or not the purchase is a good buy. So for instance, if you have fallen in love with smoothies, me, like, every day for the last five years. I don't think I've gone through a goddamn day and not drank some sort of smoothie.

And maybe you want to make them at home to save money as opposed to going to, I don't know, your local smoothie mart and buying a $12 smoothie. You can divide a $60 Nutribullet by 261, which is the number of working days in the year. So you're like, oh, this blender is expensive. But maybe you're going to use it every weekday, maybe even every day. And maybe you're also going to use it occasionally to make soup. That's a fun thing about the Nutribullet is sometimes you can make soup with it. This isn't sponsored. I just have a Nutribullet and I love it. So if we take the $60 Nutribullet and divide it by the number of working days in the year, our cost per use is 23 cents. I'm good spending 23 cents every time I use this thing. Me personally, I've gotten much more intentional about the

clothing I purchase now because I'm in the privileged place where I can afford clothing that's a little more expensive, right? I'm not shopping as much at H&M anymore, both because they're kind of environmentally disgusting, but also because I can figure out, oh, this pair of shoes at H&M is going to fall apart pretty quick, as opposed to these pair of shoes that I might spend more money on, but they will last me longer. They end up being significant investments for me. So if I'm buying a coat that costs me $500, but I know I'm going to wear it constantly and it's good quality and this will last me for years, that's a good purchase for me because the cost of use is very low. My first ever designer purchase was last year. I was in

Paris and I really wanted a pair of designer sunglasses. And I thought to myself, actually, let me even go back. I wanted something. I knew I really wanted to make my first designer purchase. And I was trying to figure out what that would be. Something that would always fit me. Something that was timeless that I could wear over and over again potentially pass on to somebody else maybe after 40 years and I thought to myself well it probably needs to be an accessory and I purchased a pair of sunglasses I purchased a pair of Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses and I love them and I wear them all the time so that felt like a really good purchase to me both because I made a memory right I was in Paris with my best friend buying my first designer thing but also because I knew I'd wear it a lot I knew it would look good for a very long time. It would last me a long time.

It wouldn't randomly fall apart the fourth time I put them on. The cost per use was low, even if the upfront first-time investment was higher. These are just half the questions I encourage people to ask when they are about to make a purchase. And it's not like you have to sit here at the register and be like, what are the six questions? Let me go look. Let me ask myself all six, right? It's more just the thought and the exercise of being a mindful spender, of just taking a pause and evaluating something before you spend money on it. Again, I don't want you to walk away from this episode thinking, before you spend money on it. Again, I don't want you to walk away from this episode thinking, she is telling me to evaluate all my purchases and the evaluation is going to be, I can't buy it.

That's not it. That's not it. Sometimes it will be it, right? Sometimes that's the takeaway. And other times, yeah, if you've thought about this purchase and it, you know, aligns with your values and it's something you really love and it aligns with your taco dollars, right? Yeah. Spend money. I want you to spend money. So we talk even more in depth about the psychological side of money. We spend a whole chapter of my book, Financial Feminist, talking about the psychology of money and about how to spend in a very mindful way that, again, not only is focused on bringing yourself joy through your money, making sure that your hard-earned money is spent thoughtfully, but also gives you room to continue saving money and investing and paying off debt.

There is a balance that we find between our spending, our current spending, and our financial goals. You're going to hear me talk about this book so much in the coming months because this has been a four-year process and I've worked so hard on it. It is being released in December. However, we start pre-orders. You can pre-order the book here very, very shortly. So if you want to be one of the first people to hear when a copy of Financial Feminist is available to you, there's a lovely link in our show notes for you to sign up. I would love for you to support this book. You'll hear a lot more about it in the coming months. We have all of the questions

that we encourage you to ask in order to be a mindful spender included within the pages of Financial Feminist. As always, team, we appreciate you being here. If you loved this episode, As always, team, we appreciate you being here. If you loved this episode, please tag us, tell a friend, write the emotional spending questions on the back of your phone and sharpie. I mean, maybe do that. I don't know. Do whatever. It's your phone. You can do whatever you want. As always, tag us at Her First 100K, tag us at Financial Feminist Podcast. And if you aren't already subscribed to our YouTube, we also release clips and sometimes up to like 10 minutes of our interview episodes, the video of our interview episodes. So if you'd rather hear the words actually coming out of my face hole, you can do that on YouTube. Team, can't wait to see how your purchases start getting a little more mindful with these questions, with these reflections from this episode.

I will leave you with, you don't have to stop spending money. You just need to stop spending money on shit that you don't care about. Have a great rest of your day. I'll see you next week. Thanks for being Financial Feminist and I'll catch you later. Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist,

a Her First 100K podcast. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap, produced by Kristen Fields, marketing and administration by Karina Patel, Olivia Koenig, Sharice Wade, Alina Hilzer, Paulina Isaac, Sophia Cohen, Valerie Oresko, Jack Koenig, and Ana Alexandra. Research by Arielle Johnson. Audio engineering by Austin Fields. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton. Photography by Sarah Wolf. And theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks

to the entire Her First 100K team and community for supporting the show. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First 100K, our guests, episode show notes, and our upcoming book, also titled Financial Feminist, visit herfirst100k.com.