Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - "I Shop To Cope With Grief. How Can I Quit?"

Episode Date: July 27, 2023

Today you'll hear from a Money Rehabber who lost her father two years ago and feels waves of grief on Father's Day. To cope, she spends more than she thinks she should. Today, Nicole gives her a plan to help her set some healthier habits.

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It's time for some money rehab. When people ask me about my podcast, they say something along the lines of, so what's your show about? Money? And I get the question. It's in the title. But the thing is, barely anything is really about money, even money itself. Money is so tied up in our relationships, our emotions, our power, our choices, that when we have a quote money problem, money is rarely at the root of that problem. Anyway, I got thinking about this because a sweet, sweet listener DM'd me about something she struggled with on Father's Day and asked for strategies that could help her next year. When she DM'd me, she sent me a voice note. Here it is.

me. She sent me a voice note. Here it is. Hi, Nicole. This may sound super odd. I love listening to your podcast. I have learned so much. My question is kind of odd. I lost my dad during COVID. He had COVID pneumonia, and this will be my second Father's Day without him. And last year and this year, around this time, I just get really sad and depressed and tend to spend money because it's that moment that just makes me feel good for a moment. And I know that's not healthy. That's not good. And I know that's not healthy. That's not good. Do you have any tips so that way I can set myself up next year in a way that I won't feel the need to go spend this? I don't know if I need to give myself like an amount that's okay to spend an amount that's not like I'm not quite sure how to handle this. To this listener, I just want to say thank you.

Thank you for sharing your feelings and your story with me. It is really an honor to be in your circle of trust, and I do not take that for granted. And I am so sorry to hear about your dad. I know I mentioned this back in my DM, but I lost my dad too. And so when you talked about how Father's Day makes you feel, it gave me a pang of familiar sadness in my heart. Father's Day has been a struggle for me too. The emotions are complicated and I know I don't need to say this or explain it to you because you get it. So believe me when I say, I totally understand the urge to put a bandaid on your pain.

I just don't want you to beat yourself up over making choices that brought you some comfort at the time. You did the best you could and you needed to take care of yourself. Instead, I want you to feel proud about reaching out for help. Recognizing that this behavior isn't serving you is not easy. And so you're already further along than you know. Before I give you my advice, though, I want to wholeheartedly endorse finding someone you can talk to about how you're feeling. Therapy is something I will plug all day every day and twice on Sundays. I know the advice, go see a therapist, is not a new concept, and maybe it feels like lazy advice on my part.

But what I'm hearing is that you're having a hard time, and in shopping, you've found a quick fix that makes you feel better for a fleeting moment. But I'd guess that there's a crash after that high, right? Once the newness of whatever you bought fades, there's disappointment that the relief didn't last longer, right? That's one of the main reasons why shopping isn't a good coping mechanism, along with the fact that it can actually hurt you and add more negative emotion if you're overspending. And so let me speak from personal experience. I lost my dad and therapy has really helped me cope in a healthy way and face that grief instead of burying it in shopping bags. And by the way, you don't need to spend a lot of money to find a good

space to talk. There are plenty of awesome support groups that are free and valuable. All right, that's all I'll say about that. Let's move on to the money stuff. So I loved that your mind immediately went to making yourself a budget because that's exactly where I would start. My recommendation is to set a budget that allows you to invest in yourself in two ways. I'm going to walk you through how I think about this, and then I'll get more granular. First, I would take part of that budget and invest in your future. Make a little extra contribution to your retirement fund and think to yourself that you're buying yourself something pretty. It's just for your future self to go on a shopping spree. And remember, thanks to the beautiful, beautiful power of compound interest, a $500 contribution can turn into $5,000 after 30 years.

So that's a great present for your retired old lady self. And here's the second reason why you should invest in yourself. Buy yourself something for no other reason than because you want it and it makes you feel good. Seriously. And of course, you shouldn't allocate more money than makes sense within your overall spending plan, and I'll get to that calculus in just a second, but I am all about giving yourself a little extra TLC on Father's Day. And if that means buying yourself something for the sake of buying it, do that. But make sure you're intentional about that purchase. There's a big difference between mindful spending and mindless spending. Now, to be clear, this does not mean you need to meditate in the parking lot of your favorite store, but rather you need to be fully present when you swipe that card and acknowledge

that the thing, that the thing, that one thing, you treated yourself to was your gift to yourself on Father's Day. This is an area of psych research that's getting a lot of attention and has been showed to be effective with lots of different compulsive behaviors, like eating, for example. Mindful eating, or just being more attentive to the actual experience of eating instead of zoning out while you're snacking, has been shown to help people that struggle with binging behaviors. So if you're being mindful when you make this purchase, how's my stamp of approval? And let me just give you a little sneak peek into the future because I've been there. If you talk to people about how to self-soothe on Father's Day after losing your father, a lot of people are going to tell you to volunteer or make a donation in his memory.

If that resonates with you, do that. It's awesome and admirable. It's my flavor of coping for sure. But please hear me when I say, if it doesn't sound like a good outlet for you, do not feel like you have to do it. Do not feel like you need to take care of other people yet or turn your grief into something bigger than yourself start with you put your oxygen mask on first so let's get granular about how you should do this i have a simple rule for spending and i call it the three e's i love alliteration the rule is basically 70 of your paycheck should go to essentials 15 should go to the end game or your future goals your future self and 15 should go to the extras and that's all goals, your future self, and 15% should go to the extras.

And that's all the fun stuff like eating out with friends or treating yourself. So what I would do if I were you is for the month of June, when Father's Day falls, I would reallocate an additional 10% total between the end game and the extras. For simplicity's sake, I'm going to say an additional 5% to the end game and an additional 5% to the extras. Although if you want to give yourself an additional 6% or 7% on the extras, I'm not going to be mad about it. That means for the month of June, you'd budget 60% to pay your essentials, 20% on your end game, and 20% on the extras. Let's make this a little more real and look at a tangible example. Say you're bringing home $3,000 a month. That would mean in June,

you would give yourself an extra $150 for your future self to put toward retirement or another goal and an extra $150 to your present self to put toward whatever the hell you want. That $150 will grow into a very nice present for your end game. But for $150, you can also buy yourself a pretty nice something extra. Okay, now let's take a step back because there's another important piece to this plan. I want you to also tweak your spending plan for May to make extra room for a little extra spending in June. So remember, for June, you're going to allocate 60% to the essentials, 20% to the end game, and 20% on the extras. So for May, I want you to compensate for that and put 80% toward the essentials, 10% toward

the endgame, and 10% toward the extras. See what I did there? From a budgeting perspective, this is important because the changes you make in May reconcile the changes you make in June, or in other words, cancel each other out. This prevents you from sacrificing your essential costs or your endgame, but it's also important from a conceptual standpoint. Because that crash you feel when you overspend, you won't be feeling it when June comes and goes because you're not overspending. You planned for this. Sure, you'll be spending more on yourself in June, but only because you spent less in May. And because of the discipline it

will take to tweak your May spending plan, I guarantee it that when you buy yourself something nice in June, it will be guilt-free. And that brings me to another important nuance. Some people take a slightly different approach to this, where they spend more in June and then they plan to spend less in July. This doesn't feel as rewarding because the additional spending doesn't feel earned. Instead, you can feel anxious or stressed because it's like you're playing catch up, which is not so rewarding. So tweak your spending plan in May so you can take care of yourself in June. And if you need a little extra support, you know where to find me.

For today's tip, you can take straight to the bank. If you've historically had a hard time sticking to a budget, try this. After you determine how much you're allocating yourself for your personal gift, consider taking that money out in cash rather than planning on putting it on a card. Giving yourself a spending limit on a credit card is all too easy to tweak on the fly, especially when you're emotional. But giving yourself a physical limit, like the amount of literal dollar bills in your wallet, is much more powerful. Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin.

Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Levoy. Our researcher is Emily Holmes. Do you need some money rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your money questions, moneyrehab at moneynewsnetwork.com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram at Money News and TikTok at Money News Network for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.