More Money Podcast - 116 How a Shopping Ban Could Help Refocus Your Finances - Cait Flanders, Author of The Year of Less (Millennial Money Meetup #3 Live Recording)

Episode Date: September 28, 2017

I was joined by Cait Flanders, author of The Year of Less, for my latest Millennial Money Meetup in Vancouver and she shared about her 2-year shopping ban. Long description: At the event, Cait dropped some major truth bombs that I want to recap right here. It’s funny, even though I know Cait really well and we talk all the time, when she was sharing her story, some of what she said really made me think twice about how I think about spending, saving and earning. You Shouldn’t Feel Guilty About Spending Money For instance, a big part of her personal finance journey is getting out of debt. In her early 20s she spent more than she earned and racked up a bunch of consumer debt. So, she hustled to get that debt number to zero and has maintained her debt-free status ever since. This is no easy feat, but what she discovered was that after becoming debt-free, her spending started to ramp up again. This wasn’t because she was a shopaholic, it’s because she just wasn’t being mindful with her spending. Let’s be honest, that’s probably most of us. We are so used to spending first, thinking second, that most of what we buy isn’t anything that’s of any real value in our lives. She also found that she wasn’t saving that much. What’s the point of being debt-free if you can’t finally allocate those debt-repayment dollars towards your savings goals? That’s where the shopping ban idea came in. She wanted to take control of her spending without feeling guilty about it. That’s an interesting thing that she made sure we all understand. A shopping ban isn’t to make you feel bad about spending. It’s to prioritize your spending. She still had to spend money, despite what “shopping ban” may sound like. She still had bills to pay and sometimes needed to buy a new bed or pair of pants. And that’s fine. But she just wanted to make sure everything she spent money on mattered. Mindful spending is definitely something I think we can all try to be better at (though as I mentioned in the recording, I’m not sure I’m strong enough to do a 2-year shopping ban). Be Open to the Idea of Earning More I loved that she brought this up, because Cait and I actually talked about this one-on-one during my Vancouver visit. We’re both self-employed, though Cait’s been at it for a few years already, and making money is definitely at the forefront of your mind when you’re solely responsible for making the bacon. I do sometimes miss getting a guaranteed paycheque every two weeks, but I also love finally being my own boss. Still, I’m always thinking about earning. I’ve got a spreadsheet I update constantly, I use Freshbooks to help me with my accounting (which I literally couldn’t live without), and I’m always hustling to make that money honey. For full show notes visit: https://jessicamoorhouse.com/116 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to episode 116 of the Mo Money podcast. I am your host, Jessica Morales. Thank you so much for joining me for another episode because, ba-bam, it is season five and I'm doing two episodes every single week, which I am so excited for. So from now until I wrap this season up in mid December, you can expect two episodes every single week with yours truly. And this episode is actually kind of a special episode because it is the recording of my latest millennial money meetup that I did in Vancouver, my hometown. I did it this past September, September 18th, and it was so much fun. I really wanted to kind of, well, bring it to my hometown, get together with my Vancouver pals and listeners of the podcast, readers of my blog, watchers of my YouTube channel, or people who had no idea who I was and showed up anyway.

Yes, there was a number of people who just came and they're like, don't know i saw this on eventbrite and it sounded cool and that was pretty cool that they came to an event and had no idea what it was who i was why they were there so thanks all you uh people who found me through eventbrite thank you for making my day and showing up at my event another uh also thing that i should mention of course is a big thank you to EQ Bank. They sponsored the event once again. They were the sponsor of my first ever Millennial Money Meetup actually a year ago in September in Toronto. So thanks, guys, for sponsoring my event to promote financial literacy and just have a good old time with some millennials who want to learn more about money. I was also joined by the wonderful Kate Flanders, the personal finance blogger, podcaster of Budgets and Cents with Carrie Smith,

and the soon-to-be author of her book, The Year of Less, which is coming out in January 2018, which I'm very excited about, even though I know her personally, but I'm really excited to read her book to see what's going on in there. So she was my special guest for the event. And kind of the theme of the event was all about kind of, you know, her jams, which is shopping bands, conscious consumption,

and mindfulness and being more mindful with your spending and just your money overall. So we talked about all that stuff. And I recorded it, but it was a very busy venue. We had a malfunctioning microphone at times. So bear with me. The recording isn't amazeballs, but it ain't bad. The content is amazing. And if you go to the show notes, I have actually included a lot more information about what we talked about, some important stuff that you may want to check out. So just go to JessicaMorales.com slash 116 for all that good stuff.

There's also the video, too. If you're like, I don't want to listen to this, I'd rather watch it. There's also the video there as well. But I hope you enjoy this special episode with myself and Kate Flanders. And I also hope to do many more millennial money meetups. I have some things in the works. I hope I can do some more very soon. But if you're listening right now and you want me to maybe come to your city, shoot me an email. Let's see if we can work together. You can help me put it on. I think that'd be super fantastic. Jessica at JessicaMoorhouse.com

is where you can reach me directly. All right, enough of my yabbering. Here is that interview with Kate for my Millennial Money Meetup in Vancouver. So I wanted to have Kate, my pal, and one of my favorite bloggers and podcasters join me for this event because obviously I was a fan of hers before. I was friends with her and I'm super excited to talk to her about the next phase of what she's doing now, which I think is awesome. So if you're not aware of what Kate Flanders has been up to the past several years, like me who's been following her for all these years, she originally had a blog called Blonde on a Budget and it was very much about talking about

debt and how to get out of debt and she did it and we'll get a little bit into that because it's not something that's very easy to do now she's out of debt and now she's trying to kind of plan her life or she has been planning her life being debt free how to maintain that life debt free and what's really cool is instead of just like you know all right'm done. She's really kind of thinking about money in a very different way, being more mindful with it, which I think is awesome. And she's been on a couple of shopping bands, which we'll talk about, which is crazy, but I think it's so neat. And just talking more about how we want to spend our money and being more conscious of that. So Kate Kate, would you mind just, like, sharing a little bit of your backstory?

Let's kind of start about, like, where you started with the debt and how you started blogging and kind of documenting your journey. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Good question. It's funny because a few people have asked me here tonight how long I've been blogging, and I was like, uh, October 1st, 2010. So I've been blogging for a really long time. Uh, I started writing anonymously seven years ago, um, because at the time I was 25 and I was maxed out with almost $30,000 of debt. Um, and when I say maxed out, I mean it like the banks wouldn't give me anything

more. That was it. I had $30,000 or just under. And I had no, no option sort of then, but to start paying it off and to start getting serious about my money. So back then, I mean, I took all kinds of measures. In some ways I would say I probably did a two year shopping ban then because I basically didn't spend any money for those two years. I put myself on a super tight budget. I just didn't really give myself a lot of disposable income. We can talk about, like, good and bad side of doing that. Like, the good was that in two years I paid off all my debt, which is great,

because, of course, like, who doesn't want to be debt-free? So it was great. However, there were a lot of problems sort of in the way that I paid off my debt, and the biggest one being that I think it was great. However, there were a lot of problems sort of in the way that I paid off my debt. And the biggest one being that I think it was too aggressive. So I didn't give myself, like I said, like any disposable income. And so what happened once I was debt free was that I sort of immediately went back to spending all my money. So I didn't go back into debt. But for reference, like when I was paying off my debt,

there were months where I was putting up to 55% of my income towards debt repayment every month. Yeah. And it was like a lot. So the problem then after was that I sort of had this feeling like I'd been depriving myself for a long time. Life hadn't been that enjoyable for those two years. I had also been really harsh on myself. Like I would say a lot of really mean things to myself sort of about how I had gotten into that situation. So all of it led to like just a lot of bad feelings. And so once I was debt free, like I said, I went back to spending it all. And I would at the beginning of every month tell myself, you know what, I'm going to save 20% of my income.

It's totally doable. It should have been doable. Like that should not have been an issue. But I would get to the end of every month. And I used to back then, like I would publish my budgets every single month on my blog. And I would get to the end of the month and I would be lucky if I had saved five to 10. And instead, my blog posts those months were full of excuses, and I genuinely mean excuses for why I had been only able to save that much. And it was all about like, oh, this other stuff came up, and then this thing happened, and I wanted to go to that event, and I wanted to go on that trip, and whatever. That's not to say that any of those things were bad.

Like, you know, having some fun is good. And that's why I think when you're paying off debt, it's extremely important to have some money in your budget to actually enjoy your life. But I think that, like I said, the way I'd done it wasn't good and it genuinely didn't feel good. So I would publish those posts on my blog and be like, Hey guys, I saved 6% or something. And I would feel bad about it. I would feel bad writing it. I would feel bad publishing it. I almost felt bad too, because the excuses that I was writing and putting out there, so many people were actually commenting, being like, that's okay, Kate. I'm like, come on guys, push me. I can do better than this. Like, what are we doing? And I didn't feel good, though, because I did know that I could do better.

So that's the first three years of blogging. That's a lot. And from that is when the shopping ban started. Okay, so we're going to get to the shopping ban. Because, like, explain what that is, why you went on it for so long, how did you survive? Because I think I tried went on it for so long. How did you survive? Because I think I tried to do it for a month. You did.

You did try to do it for a month. I think I did. I don't know if it's on the blog, so it's embarrassing. So I'm like, I'll delete this. This is embarrassing. Because I tried doing it for a month. I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing. I like my things. Okay, so like I said, I would publish these posts every single month about how little I had saved,

and I felt genuinely really bad about it, and bad because I knew I could do better. Also, I had savings goals that I wanted to achieve, and I wasn't. And so I could look back at all my spending for the last year and see how much money I had blown on stuff. But again, like it wasn't bad per se, but when you're not reaching any of your goals, and that feels bad, like, work towards that. Like, what could I start doing so I could actually start achieving some of my financial goals?

So the idea for the shopping ban was, it started as, like, I don't even know. Like, is shopping bans a thing before you? Because I didn't know. Are they? Did you invent them? I don't know. Because I didn't know they wereans a thing before you? Because I didn't know. Are they? Did you invent them? I don't know. Because I didn't know they were really a thing before you. I don't know about that.

I think that I hadn't read about it either. I will say that. I remember I didn't even know what the rules were going to be until I started typing them. Like, I'd been kind of stewing on it for a couple of weeks. And then one day I was like, all right, well, maybe I'll do this. And I guess I'd be allowed to buy that thing. And I would not be allowed to buy that. And I don't know. It really came from a place though, of like me knowing I had some goals. So a huge one was for me was that I wanted to be saving more for retirement. Um, so I knew I wanted to be putting as much money towards that as I could. I also,

it wasn't like intentionally part of the shopping ban at first, but something I'd been wanting to do since I was literally like out of high school was I wanted to travel more. And I never did like my entire twenties. I saw all my friends going all kinds of cool trips. And I said no to basically everything literally up until I was like 29. Wow. Other than going to a couple of conferences, the only thing I'd done was gone to Vegas. I'd never been anywhere cool. All my friends had been everywhere. And there's two reasons. Like one, I mean, the story I told myself was like I didn't have any money.

Realistically, that was true. When I got credit cards at 19, I used them like they were free money. So I just used it like it was like a second bank account. So I never had to say no to anything because credit could pay for it. Yay. No. No. No. No.

So one of my goals with the shopping ban was that I wanted to be able to travel more as well because that had just been something I'd been dreaming about for so long and I was never seeming to make it a reality. So the idea, yeah, was like I came up with three lists. So the first one was sort of the essentials. So things obviously you're allowed to buy. Or for me, everyone's rules are kind of different on this. So it's like obviously I'm allowed to buy groceries.

I'm allowed to get gas for my car. I say it's basically like anything consumable. So if I used up something, I could replace it. Like if it was something I genuinely used often, I could replace it if I ran out. Um, and so that was one list. The second list was the non-essentials things you are not allowed to buy for an entire year. So for me, this included clothes, shoes, accessories, books, electronics, basically anything. I remember you had a candle addiction. Sorry to bring that up, but you did. I remember you had a candle addiction. Sorry to bring that up, but you did. I just said I remember you have a candle addiction.

I'm like, who buys candles? I was wondering when I go to the shops, I'm like, who the hell is buying this $10 candle? Everyone. Is it just not me? Just not you. No, but it was one of the things on the list. I wasn't allowed to buy candles. And literally, it's funny.

I do like candles, but you literally like lighting your money on fire. Literally, yes. and literally it's funny I do like candles but you literally like lighting your money on fire so the candles are on the list I could not buy candles thank you Jess yeah basically anything that I didn't need so if I actually needed something I could buy it so there were a couple things throughout the year my plan was to do this for a year there were a couple things that did come up that you actually need to buy. So for the ladies, you'll probably understand this. You totally know what I'm going to say. So women, it's a very common issue that the jeans will rip in your inner thigh. Yes, thank you. It is so annoying and you think you can fix it. Like one of the things that I did that year was I learned how to sew. And so I asked my, I'd asked my mom and my aunt if they could teach me how to sew.

So I did learn how to patch it. That patch lasts about six days. If you're lucky, especially denim that stretches. And it has to just stretch being over you anyways. So that doesn't work. So eventually I had to go buy jeans because I only owned one pair. So I'm allowed to buy a pair of jeans. It sounds like my husband who has one pair of jeans. And he's adamant that that's all he needs. Yes. No, it is. So I still only own one pair of

jeans. Good for you. Yeah. That's not hard. What else happened that year? Oh, actually my cell phone, good old electronics. They build them not to last, so my cell phone did this thing for months and months and months where it would shut itself off, super annoying, and eventually one day it just turned off and it never turned on again, so I bought a cell phone, but I also, in making that decision, I learned new things that I wouldn't have done before, like I didn't buy the newest model, I bought the second to last model, right? It's like, do I actually need that? Do I want that much money to be going towards this thing that is only going to last me

a couple of years? Probably not. So yes, I could. The second list was, yeah, all these things I wasn't allowed to buy. But I was allowed to buy something if I absolutely had to replace it. And the third list was something I had called an approved

shopping list. But that was sort of, um, like to describe the items. It's first, like one was a dream. My bed was 13 years old. I really wanted to replace it. This is not some, like, I want something fancy. Like I'm like, I need a bed. My back hurts. I'm old now. My back hurts. I want a new bed. So a goal was to get a dream. Guess what? Shopping ban three months in. I finally was able to afford a bed. Wow. It's weird how that happens.

So a bed. There are just some things. I didn't even own like winter boots, anything that could work for winter. So I added that to the list. I bought one pair of boots. They lasted me many years. So yeah, there were three lists. That was the ban. I set out to

do it for a year. My goal was two things. One was to see if I could live on less, but I also really wanted to start saving towards the schools. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. I think this is a good transition to your book. She has a book coming out in January called The Year of Less. So lots of good stuff.

I'm so excited to read it. But what I guess, you know, what I would love to know. So you experienced it. What were some of the key things that you got out of it? What did you learn? What did you expect? What were things that surprised you from the shopping van? It's funny because like my first answer, because we're talking about money would sort of be like, I can tell you the numbers. So the numbers were, like I said, when I started the

shopping ban, I was going through this period of only saving five to 10% of my income. By the end of it, my income every single month was, um, I think it was 51% on average that I've lived off of. Wow. So my expenses throughout the month, it was 51. And then I spent 18% on travel. Wow. And so I saved 31% of my income for retirement that year. So financially, I mean, there were obviously successes

in that I was able to achieve a lot of goals. I went on a ton of trips that year. It was so much fun. I got to see so many friends, see a bunch of new places I'd never been to before. Actually, we hung out in Charlotte at a conference. Why is it in Charlotte? Oh, it was New Orleans that year. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, okay, it was New Orleans. My God, that was in the book. I should know that. Oh, my God. I've just been, like, six years. Like, I forget what that. Oh my God. I've just been like six years. Like I keep forgetting which city it's been in. Uh, yeah. So like financially it was great. I think that what was more interesting and it's something I talk a lot more now on the blog was that some of the bigger things I learned

were more about all the habits I had around why I was spending for so many years and changing those habits. And there were two things like one, actually one of the things I totally forgot to around why I was spending for so many years and changing those habits and there were two things like one actually one of the things I totally forgot to mention this but it's an easy one to talk about one of the things I told myself I wasn't allowed to buy for the year was takeout coffee and that was not because like take our coffee's bad I don't believe in the whole like like all those rules like the latte factory and you're not allowed coffees if you want to like say like I don't believe in any of that. Like you can buy whatever adds value to your life,

spend money on it. That's fine. For me, I just wasn't comfortable with how much I was spending on takeout coffee anymore. Like I couldn't justify, I worked from home. I couldn't justify that I was for whatever reason, spending like a hundred dollars a month on takeout coffee. I mean, you've been to the building I was living in. It was on the bottom floor. It was very easy, but I wasn't comfortable with it. So I was like, you know, changing that habit though. Like I didn't realize until I couldn't get takeout coffee, how many habits I had around it. So like, even if something as simple as like the mornings I would wake up where I was so tired that you feel like you can't pick your arms up like you just get out of bed you're like oh do I have to do anything today for whatever reason back then like this was a habit it seemed

easier to me to get dressed and go downstairs than to just make it at home to like you know have a french press yeah like I don't I don't know so anyways it's like breaking little habits um I also had a huge really bad habit for me again because I don't I don't know. So anyways, it's like breaking little habits. I also had a huge, really bad habit for me again, because I don't need this stuff, is that pretty much any time I would think of a book I wanted to read, I would just buy it. Like I would immediately go on Amazon or Chapters, whichever had it cheaper.

Back then was the like $25 free shipping. I would add a second book just to get the free shipping. All of a sudden I had two books showing up, right? Like this happened all the time. And I ended up having like 50 books I hadn't even read. I've probably had more in my life too that I've just given away at other points, right? So I've probably given away 100 books or more that I've just never read, but I had bought, I don't know, on a whim because it seemed like something I would want to read. So there was a lot of that.

It was a lot of habit stuff um not to get like emotional but the bigger part of it was that I realized that year I went through a bunch of different things so one being a breakup one being my parents ended up getting divorced uh things that I had not expected to happen and I learned a lot about my tendencies to over consume when something like that is happening like when something really crappy is happening, to be honest, right? Like it went way beyond just like a bad day at work, way beyond that.

Like you just realize like when you're feeling so down, and it's so interesting because I've never identified as a shopaholic. So that's where it's like sort of another thing, like I've never identified as that, but it doesn't mean you don't have tendencies to overconsume. And it doesn't mean that you've never used retail therapy.

There is like psychology around actual spending and that it does things to your brain and it makes you feel better temporarily. So I learned just a lot about my personal tendencies to overconsume when things like that happen. I'm sure there's so much more I could say. I'm like... Well, you wrote a book on it, so...

She wrote a whole book. I'm like... Well, you wrote a book on it, so... She wrote a whole book. I put the rest into the book. Yeah, no, and that's, I think, why I think your kind of personal finance journey is so interesting to me right now, because it really does focus on the spending. And all of us, like, I know, I saw a lot of people nodding their heads, including me, when you were talking about emotional spending. Oh, my gosh. Definitely.

I definitely experienced that a ton a good year ago before I left my job. I was spending a lot of money, and I didn't really realize it was a problem until I started looking at it. I'm like, well, why am I buying? And why am I buying? Oh, it's to make myself feel better. And then it just kind of goes from there. Yeah. I totally get that. Well, and I can also add that one of the, is this on? I don't

know. Did you just turn it off? No. Josh, can you hear me? Oh, hello. Um, I would also add that I talk about it a lot more in the book, but one of the other things that made me realize was my tendencies in past like life's of mine is like that I used to also binge or over consume on food or alcohol in those same instances so there's a lot of there's just a lot of crossing of that in the book and it just in life like you have a bad day oh well you reach for a glass of wine or just spend like everyone's habits are different. And so the biggest thing that I took away from that or from the whole year, just spending-wise, was, like, nothing I spend money on is going to help.

That's not what's going to help this. Like, what really needs to happen is I need to strip things back and figure out what's going on and fix that stuff instead. I guess the other part of it, and it's not about money, but I also got rid of 70% of my belongings that year, which at the same time that you decide to not shop for a year, it feels very like counterintuitive to also decide to get rid of all of their stuff. And so like the argument, I don't have one. I will never go around and tell everyone that they need to do that. You don't need

to do that. What it did teach me again,, going back to the spending, though, and the habits was that there were so many things I had in my home, not only that I had kind of wasted money on, which then it's like, you know, what other dreams and opportunities had I missed in life? Because I hadn't been allocating money to what I actually wanted, but for whatever reason was acquiring stuff instead. The other thing that happened with getting rid of stuff was I was able to see how many things I used to buy for the ideal version of myself. So that being like, when you go shopping,

like not always, but there are often times when we'll go shopping, we'll see something, whether it's a book or a piece of clothing or an electronic, like anything. And you immediately put yourself into this like headspace of like, if I have that, I'll be more this, that, or the other. Like I'll be smarter. I'll be, I'll look more professional.

This book will help me become a better person, like all kinds of stuff. And so I was putting all these expectations on these objects that I, number one, I never got because I didn't use or wear any of it. I didn't get better or smarter or more creative or more professional. I didn't do those things. But, yeah, it really just showed me, like, if I buy stuff in the future, I want it to be because it actually aligns with, like, who I am. I will actually use it.

Because at the end of the day, like, one of the biggest things I want to say is, like, spending money is not bad. It is not bad to spend money. You're not a bad person because you buy anything, but it feels so much better when you're actually spending stuff or spending money on stuff that you use, like stuff that doesn't collect dust, stuff that actually adds value to your life every single day.

Then it feels great. Like then there's no shame. There's no bad stories. You can tell yourself in your head about like, Oh, I shouldn't have done that. Like if you're actually using it, great.

There's nothing wrong with that. Like you can buy whatever you want as long as you use it. So that's sort of what I've gone through ever since. So I ended up doing it for a second year. Yeah. Like I finished the first year and I decided to do it for a second year because it was sort of intuitive to me now. Like it was just common sense. Like it was just sort of a way of life. Um, the one reason I decided to continue was because the one thing I had regretted not doing was I wished I had kept track of how many things I actually did buy and use. And now this sounds like extremely boring. Like I wanted to keep track of things like how many sticks of deodorant I used. Oh, that's a good, oh my gosh, that's so specific. Well, I mean, in general, like literally all toiletries, I think that not, I wasn't someone who did this a lot, but you see it, like people stockpile, you see a sale price on something. And

so you buy like four of them because you're like, you'll never see that sale price again. Insider tip is like, your sales are cyclical and you'll usually see it that price within 45 days. So like it will come again. So, but I did do that sometimes I got'd buy two or whatever and then you just have them building up for a long time like fun fact I think I used five sticks of deodorant a year like it's just it's not that much and like I think I used four tubes of toothpaste or like just it's super weird but it was more to show me that like we buy so much stuff that we don't actually need yep right so it's just a way of like actually having some data of like what a maybe average female consumer would need. Yeah. So I don't know it was super dorky it was totally for like data points I was very curious but it's helped me.

It's helped me a lot. Yeah. Well I have no idea how much data I use. Next time you start one write the date that you like opened it. Oh yeah. It's just, it's like, it's so dorky, but it's kind of fun. No, I know. I like that. And I think I relate to that a lot just because when me and my husband moved out of our tiny one bedroom apartment, bought a two bedroom townhouse and I'm like, Oh, this is great. Like we don't have that much stuff. So it's going to be easy to move and it's true and we've been there for a year i'm like we don't have enough space how did that happen it's like i it's not that we yeah it didn't feel like we really accumulated that much but somehow we did and somehow we don't have space i think that's probably well hey it's a space issue vancouver it's like you can't find a very big space in vancouver um but it's also about i really like

that you know really just taking that extra time, maybe doing something crazy like a shopping van, or like tracking exactly to the, you know, deodorant stick what you're spending, to really see what you're, like, where are your dollars going, and, and I think that's, I like, honestly, it's only the past couple years that I started to really start to look more at my spending, and see if it was associated to the life I wanted, the person I wanted to be, the values that I thought I stood for. And it was, you know, it's sort of hard to look at those numbers and realize they're not reflective of all of those things.

It's a blow to your ego and you kind of freak out and you don't know what to do. But I think it's really important for us to do, especially, we've kind of you know not had the easiest time a lot of us have been graduated during the recession a lot of us aren't making as much as you know the city you know to keep up the cost of living in these expensive cities so it's even more critical now to really pay attention to how we're spending our money because you know know, it's hard out here. It's expensive. It's expensive, it's expensive.

Is there anything else you'd like to share? I know I'm super pumped to learn more in your book, but what else would you like to kind of let people know? I don't know, it's a good question. I think that it's funny because any like podcast interviewer I've done whatever people usually like is there anything we missed or like if you could give one piece of financial advice like what would it be I normally people like save more or spend less and I'm like yeah those are no I'm like those are good it's fine it's fine I think oh oh oh there we

go I think that um I think one of the biggest things I've learned over the past few years, and I can say this from looking back at how I used to use credit cards and to how I spend today, I think that it's more interesting in the short term, like, rather than trying to become, like, a financial expert and, like, get all your shit together, rather than trying to do that, I would say pay attention to how it feels every time you spend money. I think that it's so interesting to pay attention to spending money on something,

and if it makes you feel bad, stopping and asking yourself why. Is it because you don't have the money? Is it because you know you're buying it for the wrong reason? Is it because, yeah, you're about to go into debt for it? Just figuring out, like, if it doesn't feel good, why are you doing it? Why are you putting your money towards that stuff if it doesn't feel good? So again, I'm not trying to be, like, in an emotional way. That's where I just sort of bring it back to the mindfulness

stuff of, like, paying attention, like, get into your body a little bit. Like we do so many things just react, we're reactionary. Everything is always like fast, fast, fast, done for convenience. And I think if we just stop and pay attention

to how we're feeling, it also then feels good when you spend money on stuff you, oh, it never feels good to spend money, no. It also then feels good

to spend money on stuff that you get a lot of joy from. Right? Like I feel good when I'm on a trip and I've saved the money I wanted for that trip because then I can enjoy the exact trip that I want like if I want to do something I can afford it because I've taken the time to save for it and I enjoy the trip and that thing so much more and so it just feels good to be on that side like that side of things where it can actually feel good to spend money and not always like shame yourself or just be like,

this is wrong for some reason, or it's just not getting me what I want. So that's, that's my advice. Well, I hope you liked that interview with myself and Kate Flanders from, uh, the third millennial money meetup, uh, that I did in Vancouver recently this past September. I loved chatting with her and I'm super pumped to read her upcoming book, The Year of Less, that comes out in January 2018. If you want to pre-order the book, because yeah, you can do that, just go to kateflanders.com slash money meetup. It'll direct you to Amazon where you can check it out and pre-order your copy. Also, another fun fact,

Kate has also agreed to be part of my book club. So when her book comes out, and I will release more details about this soon, we will be joined by Kate in my private Facebook group to discuss her book and you can ask your questions live to her. So for more information about my book club, go to jessicamorehouse.com slash book club. Easy peasy. Also, you can just go to the show notes jessicamorehouse.com slash 116 and I'll put some more information in the show notes about that. Well, that is really it for me. The only thing I do want to remind you if you didn't listen to yesterday's episode, episode 115, is I'm doing a contest right now to celebrate season five. It's super simple. All you have to do is leave me an iTunes review of what you think of the podcast, Overly Nice Things. Obviously, you know, I'll probably pick a winner who's saying nice things, not not nice things, but you know I'll probably pick a winner he was saying nice things not not nice things but you know uh so just have to leave me an iTunes review check out the show notes also jessicamarose.com slash

116 um for some more details because basically I just need you to do uh you know a review do a little screenshot-y thing and then send me this screenshot so I know that you did it and also I have your email so I can contact you if you are the winner. Another thing that I kind of previously mentioned, but in case you're new to the show, I've got a private Facebook group. It is called the Money, Life, Balance Community. Over a thousand members so far, but we're missing a few people. And those people are you listening right now. So if you want to be part of an engaging community that wants to learn more about personal finance, money, life and balance, you want to, you know, be part of future book

clubs that I'll be doing. If you just want to be part of an awesome online community, then this is someplace you should go. It is super simple to get in, just go to facebook.com slash groups slash money life balance. Again, I'll include this in the show notes. If you don't know, want to type that in, that's totally fine. But I hope you join me in the Facebook group because a lot of fun things go down and there are a lot of great questions being asked. A lot of good community, good old stuff is in there. So I hope you decide to join us after you, you know, listen to my episode right now that I'm going to wrap up. Okay, I'm done talking. Thanks so much for

listening once again. And I will see you back here next Wednesday for a brand new episode of the Mo Money Podcast. This podcast is distributed by the women in media podcast network find out more at women in media.network