Carly Hill: But how am I even supposed to do it? Is that a question you ever find yourself asking when you are looking at a budget that you've set up , but you're not sure what the action steps are to make that happen in your real life? Today on the podcast, I have Paige Pritchard who owns Overcoming Overspending.
She is a certified life coach and through the lessons she's learned in her own experience as an overspender, she now teaches other women how to get to the root cause of their overspending and make a commitment to healthier spending habits.
All right. So Paige, thank you for coming on the Debt Free Mom podcast, and we are going to focus on overspending. So I would love to hear from you. Why is your account called Overcoming Overspending? What was your story that led to focusing on that topic?
Paige Pritchard: Yeah. Love to share that. Well, first off, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. But yeah, my work, I'm the founder of Overcoming Overspending. And I mean really this all kind of started with my own background and my own struggles with being a compulsive shopper in my younger 20s. My story kind of starts right when I graduated from college. I was 22. This was, I mean, this was 12 years ago. Okay. I'm not 22 anymore, but I did what most millennials do. Maybe not most, but a lot is after college, I had $40,000 of student loan debt. I had no savings. I had no money, but I was offered this job right out of school $60,000 to actually work at a car dealership and sell Cadillacs of all things.
And so I decided like, okay, I'm going to move at home with my parents because I was moving back to Dallas, which is where I was raised. I'm going to live at home. I'm going to get this debt paid off or at least a good chunk of it. I'm going to build up savings. I knew my expenses were going to be really, really low that you're living at home. And also the car dealership I was working at, they gave me like a Cadillac to drive. I mean, they were like, this isn't your car now, but you know, you can drive this and we'll pay for the gas and insurance.
And so it really should have been this year where I just made really substantial strides, honestly, towards building a solid financial foundation for myself. And long story short, that was not what happened. I shopped away basically my entire salary, right? Like I said, people always hear my story and they're like, well, you didn't spend all of it because you had bills and expenses. And I'm like, I really didn't. I mean, I had taxes that were taken out and like my health insurance that was taken out and that was pretty much it. And really what happened to that year was shopping really became my coping mechanism. I had a pretty hard time that year. You know, I thought it was just going to be this year. Like I really had this idea in my head. I was, I'm a nineties baby and like kind of grew up in the early 2000s. So I had this idea in my head of what being an adult was going to be and what corporate was going to be, you know, I had like Andy Anderson from how to lose a guy in 10 days, or, you know, like 13 going on 30, where you had these like women showing up to these jobs, like dress to the nines.
And I really thought that that's like what the real world was. And so I would leave on my lunch breaks, I would go up to the mall and it was not uncommon for me to just drop like $500 at Nordstrom's, $500 at J. Crew. And the problem was, is I was doing that two to three times a week. And then you'd span that out over the course of a year. And I shopped away my entire salary, right? My $60,000 salary was basically in my closet. And there's a lot of things that played into that. It wasn't all just, oh, I want to present this version of myself. A lot of it was, which we can talk about, but a lot of it was, I was going through a hard time. I did not handle transition from college to real world super well.
Me and my college boyfriend broke up. I was really sad about that. So like I said, I was definitely using shopping as my coping mechanism. And it got to the end of that year, and my parents were like, okay, you've been here a year. Like the gig is up. Time for you to go. Fly birdie. And I couldn't even afford a security deposit to put down on an apartment, and I think my parents kind of had an idea of what was going on. I just don't think that they knew the extent of it because I was hiding a lot of it. I was bringing a lot of stuff in, like, after they were asleep or when I knew they weren't home. And so my parents were like, what do you mean? What do you mean you can't afford a security deposit? Like you've been making $60,000 a year, having no expenses. Where did all your, where did all your money go? And, I always say I feel very lucky to kind of have my light bulb moment when I was 23 years old. I know a lot of people listening to this, you're like, I'm 33, I'm 43, I'm 53, and I'm just now having kind of like my wake up call with money and finances. But, basically, over the last 10 years, I've spent that time really diving into the mindset behind money, behaviors behind money, emotions behind money, because what I realized is when I went out to actually solve this problem, the only advice that I could find on Google was just the surface level stuff. It was like, you know, unsubscribed from emails and unfollow people and delete your credit card autofill.
And for me, for somebody who had truly become a compulsive shopper, the issue was much deeper rooted than that. It was like, listen, I don't need to even get the email. I'm just going to go up to the store. Like, I don't need to delete my credit card autofill because I know my credit card numbers by heart. So it was kind of like the surface level stuff wasn't helpful to me. And that's when I really started to be like, okay, there has to be a blend here. Like there has to be a blend between actionable strategy and just the deeper stuff, the mindset stuff. What is your mindset around money? What is your relationship with money? Are you, are you coping? Are you trying to solve for something with your money and shopping that ultimately it can never solve? So I went back in 2020, got my life coaching certification to kind of blend like the numbers and the math. And I know you and I have been in this space for a long time and in this same world and followed each other. But when I first started, I was talking about all things money. Anything and everything money, I mean, budgeting and credit scores and negotiating your salary and all that sort of stuff. And I just felt like I was helping a lot of people a little bit and a lot of different ways. And it was about 3 years ago where I started to notice this perfect storm was brewing. Because it was like, first of all, with the rise in technology, with the rise in like Amazon, and just how easy technology has made shopping, that was one thing. The rise in social media, just really taking our levels of comparison and discontentment in our current state and our current lives. Like that was just pouring gasoline and then the pandemic. So it was kind of like between all those three things I really started to notice people were coming to me in the cracks like in secret being like.
I'm in $10,000 worth of credit card debt because of shopping because of just overspending. I'm bored. I'm trying to entertain myself, or I'm sad, or I'm insecure. Like, can you help me with this? And I really started to realize no one's talking about this because everyone's too embarrassed to talk about it. Everyone's ashamed of it. I know from my own personal experience that there's really no actual help out there, because if you're really trying to solve this problem, the only help you're getting from people is just telling you, like, oh, just unfollow people, just unsubscribe from emails, right? Like, that's pretty much, just stop, just stop, just stop, it's so easy, just stop, right?
And so I was like, okay, there's something here. People need help with this, but no one's talking about it because people are too embarrassed to talk about it. And I've been through this. Not only have I been through this, but I also feel like I actually have solutions that will truly help you. So that was the birth of Overcoming Overspending. And now it's what I do. If you're struggling with overspending and pull shopping, compulsive shopping, it's like, I'm your girl.
Carly Hill: I love that because I feel like so many people like myself and like you, whatever we do right now is born out of some struggle we experienced in our own personal life first.
So like we experienced the struggle first. And then through the process of needing to believe that we were not the only ones to be struggling with that, but also not seeing that the solution was readily available like you said, I love that now that it comes full circle so that we can then take whatever we experienced and be like, let me find the other people who were in the exact same shoes that I was and be able to bring them along so that their struggle can not be as challenging as mine was or not last as long as mine was, right? Like the, the solution is more readily available. So I definitely, I understand the like heart and the desire behind that for sure.
So when you recognize that that overspending was deeper than just the mechanics of putting your card into something, what were some of the things that you found eventually that did help that actually were able to break some of those habits? For example, what made you able to stop going to the mall on lunch break?
Paige Pritchard: Really the two areas that I always say, okay, like you have to focus on these two areas first before we get to the more tactical stuff, which this is kind of where I started is like your mindset behind shopping and spending.
So there's kind of like your mindset behind shopping and spending that really kind of breaks down between like how you perceive yourself and also your thoughts and beliefs about money. I can talk a little bit about both of those and then the emotional component of it. Right. So let's just start with the mindset piece of it.
So one of the biggest realizations to me in the beginning was that your identity, like the way that you see yourself, is everything. It's everything. Because the identity that you hold about yourself is ultimately the identity that your brain is going to live into and create more of. And I feel like specifically spending is the one area of money where we take it and we assume it as a part of our identity.
Like it becomes more than something that we do than who we are. And a lot of the women that come to me, they'll say statements to me like, Oh, I'm a shopper, right? Like I'm a shopper and my husband's the saver or I'm a splurger or I can't be trusted. Like all that sort of stuff. They, they just hold this identity of themselves of like, you don't understand, like, this isn't just something that I do.
It's like, it's in my, like, I've had a woman tell me before shopping is in my DNA. And I'm like, I don't think it is, but right. But it's, it's just the point of like what you believe to be true about yourself is what you will create. And so part of this was starting to really unpack, like, I call it your spending self concept, but like, what is your spending self concept that you hold about yourself?
And it's recognizing that spending isn't who you are. It's just something that you do. And when you realize like, Oh, this is just an action that I take, it's not like an ingrained part of my personality, then it becomes something that you're not imprisoned by, like you're not imprisoned by this identity anymore, because when you believe it's something that you can't change, it's just like chains that you're held down to.
And then you start realizing, Oh, this is just something that I do, which means it's a skill and I can get better at it. So the first thing that I really started to do and unpack is like, what is my spending self concept? And I actually realized that I had a really negative spending self concept. I mean, this, this can go very far back. Even in like high school, high school and college I was forming my spending self concept of, Oh, I'm just somebody who spends money. Like, even in high school when I would waitress, I would get cash and then I would go spend it. So I had formed this identity of myself of I'm just somebody who spends money. I can't be trusted with money. I spend it as soon as it hits my bank account. And then it's also breaking down. Like, what are your beliefs about money and what do you value? So for me, I was spending it became very easy for me to spend because I realized that up until that point in my life I only valued stuff. Like I saw no value in saving. I saw no value in, in having money. I only saw value in stuff. So therefore I only saw value in spending.
And another like huge shift that I had kind of like towards the beginning was showing myself the value of what not spending money buys you. Because like what I always say is like with every single dollar you earn, you get to go shopping with and you get to buy something with. The trade off is, am I going to buy myself something tangible by actually spending money?
So like buying myself a product, a service or an experience, or do I want to buy myself something intangible? Like time, freedom, options, having more choice and autonomy over my life. And like, those are more intangible things that you can't see or touch. Like you're the only one that gets to experience that. But that's what you buy yourself when you're not spending money, when you're saving money or having money. So that's kind of like the mindset piece of it. It's like going deeper. It's actually starting to pay attention to like, what are the beliefs that I have about money and how is that affecting my spending? And probably even more importantly than that, like, what are the beliefs that I hold about myself and how is that impacting the way that I spend money?
Carly Hill: I love what you just said about how we form our identities sometimes without even realizing it around our spending and we tell ourselves things about ourselves.
I know I have done that, too, in the way that we buy stuff, especially when we buy stuff related to like how we look or how other people perceive us. I have to use my money to buy this thing so that those people think this thing about me. And one thing I thought of as you were talking about that is also the way that companies, consumer companies especially, can market to us in a way that actually does change what we believe about ourselves.
So, creating a problem that we perceive about our body, our home, our car, and they open this loop in our head that the only way to solve that problem that we didn't know we had 30 seconds ago is to buy their thing. That's definitely what I thought of when you were describing that overspending is that we have to also realize some of the outside forces. So like you talked about, right, like the inside forces in our internal identity, but also are the outside things that might be making us believe something about ourselves that we would not have believed if we hadn't seen that advertisement or seen that social media account. And the more I dig into that kind of stuff, the more it's wild, how much. effort they put into making us believe things about ourselves. Have you seen that or noticed that in yourself or in your work?
Paige Pritchard: Oh my gosh. Yeah. It's, it's rampant. I mean, it's what you're talking about goes, it's so deep rooted and it's so subconscious. And the thing about it too, this is what I always tell the women in my community.
I'm like, look, we are all smart ladies. We are all educated and successful. But I'm telling you what, like the retailers and the marketers are 10 times smarter than any of us. And it's not because we're not smart. It's because they literally have teams of people. They have million dollar, multi million dollar budgets of people who are literally hired just to understand you on a deep, intrinsic level to get you to spend money that you wouldn't have spent otherwise, or for you to spend more than you would have spent. And I mean, that's what advertising is. Like you said it perfectly. Advertising is bringing to the forefront of your mind, like in introducing this problem to you that, exactly what you said before, you might not have even have perceived it as a problem, but then they position it to you like, no, this definitely is a problem and we have the solution. And what I always say to is like, yes, it is like externally based, but also if you start to pick up and notice it advertising is very internally based as well.
I know I keep coming back to the internal stuff, but that's what advertising is. Advertising is like, a feeling, right? Like that's what they're selling you. They are trying to sell you a feeling. They're trying to sell you an emotion, right? And that's why, like, in a perfume commercial, you don't even know it's a perfume commercial until, like, the last, like, five seconds of the actual commercial, right?
It's because they're trying to sell you like an emotional experience. And to say like, if you want to feel the way that you want to feel, my product is the solution to that. So yeah, totally see what you're talking about.
Carly Hill: And especially, I think one of the exactly the way that you're describing what you do with your teaching is that the very first thing to help us stop that overspending is to just be aware of what's happening, aware of what's happening internally and aware of what's happening externally. Because I feel, like you said, it is, they're so good at it, they're so precision. Like, I mean, they can just cut to the insecurity that you didn't even know you had. And then you see some little thing on an end cap at Target for two seconds. And suddenly you feel like the only way to solve that problem is to buy that thing. The effort that they put behind it is so well done that we then convince ourselves "nobody else told me to buy that. I'm deciding to buy." That is what we want to believe about it. When in reality, like you said, it's a multi million dollar culmination of a budget that led me into that led me to be in that aisle in the first place. And then to believe that message about myself and then to think that I needed to buy that thing.
So as you shifted that for yourself for realizing what you were telling yourself about you and that instead of saying "I am a shopper" to shopping being something that you just do, what kind of mindset changes did you have to make like to tell yourself a different story? So what did you have to replace "I'm a shopper" with? What were those identity things that you had to recognize oh this is actually who I am and I don't need to be I'm not cemented into being a shopper.
Paige Pritchard: Great question. So here are some of the self concepts that I now hold about myself that are very different than the 22-23 year old version of Paige. And here's the thing is that you could still hold the self concept as a spender. I actually still hold a self concept as a spender, but I think it's just in a more helpful and productive way.
So in the past, I had a self concept of I'm someone who can't be trusted with money. Now I have a self concept of I'm somebody who makes really wise financial choices with my money. In the past, I had a self concept of I spend my money really recklessly. Now I have a self concept of I spend my money in ways that bring the highest level of value into my life.
So it's like, I still have a self concept as a spender, but it's like having a self concept as a spender in, okay, I spend my money in responsible ways. I spend it purposefully. I give myself time to consider a purchase before I actually like pull the trigger on a purchase. I'm really big on like work with your brain. Don't try to fight against your brain. So if you try to introduce a thought, a belief, a self concept to your brain, that is just completely and totally opposite of what your brain currently believes or what your reality is reflecting, your brain's really smart and it's going to reject that. It's going to be like absolutely not. That's not believable. There has to be some level of believability in order for you to step stone your way from one identity to another. And I just want to say this, this takes time. It doesn't happen overnight. But find a new belief or a new identity or self concept that still feels true to you.
But it's just like, this feels better to me. So like I said, one of my self concepts is, is like, I'm a really good saver, but I'm also a really good spender. Like I'm good at saving money and I'm good at saving money and I'm good at spending money, but spending money in a purposeful way. And I just want to say that when people hear what I do, they think that my job and my mission is to get you to stop spending money. They're like, oh, so you just help me spend less. Yeah, and the truth is, is like sometimes my clients do end up spending less as a byproduct of the work that we do, but my biggest thing is like, I want to teach you the skill of spending, I want you spending in a way that's actually going to make your life better versus making your life worse.
So oftentimes it's not even a matter of like, I'm here to get you to stop spending money. I want you just to become a better spender. So it's like knowing that, how can we form a self concept around that versus more like the harmful self concept of like, I'm a splurger. I always go over budget. I can never stick with my plan.
We say these things like they're just facts of the world, but that's really just how your brain is interpreting all the evidence around it, if that makes sense.
Carly Hill: It's so helpful to like, I do a similar thing when I build a budget. I think people assume that I'm going to send it back to them and then it's going to be like, never eat out again and don't have personal spending cash and you know, like all those things.
And it's like, I want all of those things for you, but I want them in a way that benefits your life overall, not just in the five seconds that you buy it, which I think is a very similar thing to what you're saying too, is like, if the shopping is like, planned and part of your overall structure for what you want out of your finances, then great, go for it. I hope you buy those things. But if you enjoy it for a minute and then you spend six months time trying to dig yourself out of 30% interest rate credit card debt, you yourself are not going to enjoy that. And so that's what we're trying to prevent, which I think is a really hard thing. 'cause like you said, I think people just jump into in order to fix my finances, I have to just never do these things again, which I think that's why people push back on like, Oh, I don't want the budget. I don't want to work on my money because it's going to be terrible. But it's actually like, we're trying to maximize how much you enjoy it, not minimize it.
Paige Pritchard: And I'll say this too. I'm sure you see this in your work and with your clients as well. To your point, there is that initial resistance because of this idea that we have in our head of what this is going to be like, and we're like, Oh my gosh, this is going to be hard. This is going to stink. It's going to feel restrictive. It's just going to be having to say no all the time. And what I find is that once you can get through that initial resistance of realizing like that's not what this is, and that's not what the point of all of this is, I cannot tell you how many times someone will come up in my community and just be like, I had to get myself over the initial mind drama of it, but now that I'm past that hump, this feels so much better.
This is actually so much more pleasurable to me. It feels so much better. Like I just, I like myself so much more like, and this is what I always say to the world that we live in, this is consumer culture, again this comes back to the advertising and the messaging and the marketing, social media. What you're gonna be slapped with in the face every day, all day is instant gratification. Do what you want, when you want it. There's no need to wait. There's no need to suffer. There's no need to plan, there's no need to delay. And of course they puts that, push that message out to us because that message gets you to spend money and it gets you to buy things. But many times, like when I talk to the women in my community and I asked them like past the very fleeting to your point, like minute long rush that you get from the dopamine hit, what comes after that? Like, does that actually feel good to you? Like, do you enjoy that? Does that feel enjoyable? Because many studies have shown that compulsive shoppers, what will happen is they'll typically start shopping when they're in a negative mood, and they use shopping to improve their mood.
And the shopping will improve their mood. It will kind of give them this rush. It's like this euphoric rush, but then always what's waiting around the corner is the crash. It's just like, if you eat too much sugar, you're going to have a sugar crash, or if you drink too much alcohol, you're going to have a hangover.
The same thing happens with our spending and with our shopping. And so it's like recognizing that of like, Oh, like this is going to feel good for a tiny moment and then it's going to feel awful and then it's going to feel terrible. And then it's all it's going to do is just create more negative emotion for myself down the road.
Cause then like exactly what you said, now I'm stuck with $20,000 of credit card debt. That's charging me 30 percent interest every single month. And so it's like when we can get our minds wrapped around waiting, delaying gratification, planning, like saving up for things. It actually, like when you actually just allow yourself to try it and do it, most of the time what you find is like, this feels so much better. I actually prefer this so much more, but it's just getting yourself out of that mindset that we are kind of all trapped in. I call it like the Amazon culture of like being able to buy something and have that instant gratification of it just being on your doorstep, like a couple hours later, when you can get yourself out of this, you're like, Oh, like it's actually so much better to wait.
And that's why I always say, the anticipation is where the dopamine is. Anticipation, the waiting. Dopamine is called the anticipation molecule because it gets released in anticipation of the pleasurable event. And so that's why, like, they've done studies to show that you actually get more pleasure out of the period of time before you take a vacation than you actually do, like, on the vacation.
Or, like, another example I always use is, like, for me personally, like, I love Christmas Eve day more than I love Christmas day. Because it's like when you're Christmas Eve, you're like, oh my gosh, like you're in anticipation of what's to come. And it's the same thing with your money and the same thing with your purchases.
It's like when you can allow yourself to wait, you're actually going to get, it feels so much better, but you have to just get yourself to the point where you're just willing to try it. You're willing to like push past that resistance and all the mind drama that you have of like, Oh, this is going to be hard and it's going to suck.
It's going to be hard initially. Yeah. It's going to be hard initially. It's going to feel uncomfortable because you're just doing something that you're not used to doing and you're doing something that's unfamiliar, but when you can push past that, there's so much good on the other side.
Carly Hill: Yeah, and I think, you know, as we're talking about the way our brains are wired, I think one of the things that our brain is naturally wired to do is kind of send us warnings when we're doing something we haven't done before.
So we have to kind of push through that and say, just because I'm feeling like this is the wrong thing to do, I need it. Like, I have one thing I ask myself or ask other people is. Does this feel wrong simply because it's new or because it's actually the wrong thing to do? Like, if you go about a different way of budgeting and you're like, this feels backwards, this feels like it shouldn't be what I'm doing, and it's like, pause for a minute and ask yourself, is my brain just telling me that because I've never done this before or because it's actually a bad thing? Because sometimes we do have to override those more basic human signals that our brain sends us and be able to use our more complex brains and be like, this is actually okay. I'm safe here, right? I'm safe in this not spending space. Nothing actually bad is going to happen to me if I wait one week to buy that thing, for example.
Which leads really nicely into the whole reason I reached out to you and ask you to come on here is because I saw one of your Instagram reels where you had three questions for people to ask before they actually made a purchase. And that relates to that idea of waiting as well. So can you, for those who didn't see that reel or don't follow you yet, what are those three questions that people should be pausing and asking before they jump into a purchase?
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So can you, for those who didn't see that reel or don't follow you yet, what are those three questions that people should be pausing and asking before they jump into a purchase?
Paige Pritchard: So these are three questions that are a little bit out of the box and a little bit out of the ordinary, which is why I like them because I think they get you thinking about your money and your purchases in a different way.
So the first one is: if no one could see what I'm about to buy, like if I, could buy this and I could never show it off to anybody. I couldn't snap a picture of it and put it on social media. If I was the only one that got to enjoy this purchase, would I still be buying it? And I love this question because truth be told, I mean, I think this is, I'm guilty of this as well, right? I think we all are. But so many of us have gotten to a point where so much of the money that we're spending and the things that we're buying are actually for other people. Like they're for us, but the motivation behind why we're buying it is so driven by other people. What are people gonna think of this? Oh, I want to be able to show this off on social media. I want to be able to impress people. We spend so much money trying to buy the attention, the validation, the praise, the eyeballs of other people. And I love this question because this really gets you to think about who is this purchase really for?
Like, is this really for me or is this really for other people? And I have a lot of clients that I work with who come to me and one of the first things they tell me is like, my life just doesn't feel like my life anymore. I don't really even like a lot of the things in my life. Like, I don't like, you know, I bought a new house, and I bought all this new furniture for it, and I don't even like it anymore. Or I go into my closet, I have a closet full of clothes, but I feel like I have nothing to wear, and I like none of it. And so if you find yourself kind of in those patterns, it's probably because you're doing a lot of spending for other people and not really for yourself. And so that's why I love this first question because it's like, if no one could see this, if no one else's opinion mattered, if I couldn't show this off and have people go, Ooh, ah, look at her, like, she's so cool for having this or for having that, like, would I even care? Would I even care? Would I even, would I even be considering this purchase in the first place? And like, for me, I know when I look back at my younger self who did a little, a lot of shopping, I got sucked into so many trends. I bought so much stuff just because everyone else had it. And just because I was like, Oh, well, everyone else has this. So I need to have it because I wanted to fit in. And this question like snaps me back, right? Like a couple of years ago, well, probably like two years ago. I had this moment where I just felt like everywhere I looked and everywhere I turned, everyone had a pair of golden goose sneakers, right? Those sneakers that look like they're like five years old when you buy them and they're brand new and they're expensive. They're like $500. And I remember having this moment of like, well, do I need a pair of Golden Goose sneakers? And you know, 23 year old page would have absolutely without a doubt gone out and bought them, because she wouldn't have wanted to be the only girl who didn't have the Golden Goose sneakers. And now when I ask myself that question, I'm like, I don't even like these. No offense to anybody who has a pair and likes them. They're just not my style. They're just not my personal style. And so that's the first question.
The second question is, and this kind of comes back to the emotional piece of our spending, is, is this a time to shop or is this a time to feel? So a lot of the women that I work with, like I said, shopping is their go to for making themselves feel better. And this really helps you tune into the emotional state that you are in when you want to go shopping. So you're like, Oh, I've had a hard day. Let me run up to Target. Oh, today's been so hard. The kids have been crazy. I'm just like, I'm just stressed to the max. Let me just curl into bed with a glass of wine and pull up you know, my favorite site and do and do some online shopping. So it's like, are you using shopping to change your emotional state? This question will tune you into that.
And the reason why this question is so important is because ultimately, again, we've kind of touched on this several times, but it's like we get this idea in our head that shopping will make us feel better. And the truth is it will make you feel better temporarily. And that's why people get tripped up because they're like, well, I do feel better. I'm like, yes, you felt better for a moment in time, but how about now? Like, how about now? A couple days later, a couple of weeks later, how do you feel about that purchase now? Was it worth it? Do you still like it? And. We think that shopping is a cure for negative emotion, but all it really does is it's just pushing the negative emotion that you're trying to numb yourself to and distract yourself from to tomorrow or into the future. And I always say, like, listen, the negative emotion isn't going to be solved from the shopping.
So you can either deal with it right now and not shop it away, or you can shop it away in this moment, but then just future you, like future Carly, future Paige is going to have to deal with that.
Carly Hill: Yeah, I think one thing I I think it was last year when I talked about I was trying to break the phrase of ignorance is bliss and talk about that in terms of money, and I was like, ignorance is not bliss. It's just delayed sorrow delayed suffering. It's just pushing off when we suffer, but we're going to suffer in some way, unless we peel back the curtain and say "what exactly is going on here?" So that's why I like that second question, especially because it's making them say in a similar way to number one, but in number two, it's like internally, why am I being drawn to shop? Is it actually because my kitchen needs a new gadget? Is there actually a need that I have? Or is the need from the shopping itself? And that one specifically for myself, I know I, often when I get stressed, if I feel just like things are out of control, I feel like shopping is a way to create control.
So like if I go and I'm like, okay, like our schedule is nuts and, and this is going on. I have a lot of work projects. If I walk into Home Goods and I buy a couple new pillows and a couple, whatever. Then I can control at least one little corner of my life and feel like I had some autonomy or some license over something.
And then just like you said, it's like you get that for five seconds and then you come home and you can put those pretty pillows on your bed and all your work projects are still right there. And all of the stress that was, you know, so it's like coping mechanisms aren't bad, but we want to find coping mechanisms that are solving the actual problem, not putting off the problem.
Paige Pritchard: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, you know, it's like, you hit the nail on the head with the control thing, right? It's like, you use shopping to make yourself feel more in control in the moment, and for a moment you might, but then later on you're going to feel out of control because you're going to look at your finances and be like, Whoa, look at all this spending, right? Or, you know, what I always say, it's like, You spend a lot of money in the moment because you don't want to feel deprived in the moment. You're like, I don't want to tell myself, no, you're fighting against that emotion of like deprivation. But then again, later on down the road, it's like when you have to say no to things because you don't have the money for it because you spent it all previously.
It's like, guess what you're going to feel. You're going to feel deprived. So even more deprived than you even more, even more exactly. And so that's what I always say. It's like emotions are never a matter of if, but when. And to your point, the trade off that we're always faced with is I can deal with this emotion right now. And it's always going to be like in the present moment, when you have that opportunity, it's always going to be on a smaller scale. So I can feel the deprivation now on a smaller scale, or I can feel the deprivation a year from now, that's going to be on a much larger scale. And so what I always say is like, hook up your future self, like take care of that future version of you.
And that's what I think about a lot is like, okay, I'm going to feel this for you now, and I'm going to deal with this for you now so that you don't have to worry about dealing with a year from now or a month from now or whenever. So that's the second one.
And then the third one is 30 days from now, will I still want to buy this item or am I going to want my money back? And I like this question for a couple of reasons. One, it just gets you out of that present moment thinking, and it actually has you thinking about how am I going to feel about this 30 days from now? And you can switch off the time period. I mean, you, you could even do like a week from now, a week from even tomorrow, tomorrow, a week from now, how am I going to feel about this? Am I still going to want it? Or am I going to want my money back? So it takes you out of that present moment thinking. And then the second reason I really love this question is because it reminds you kind of what I was saying at the beginning about how your money has inherent value. Like when you don't spend money. You're still buying yourself something when you choose to keep your money, that is valuable. So it's having you view this trade off of 30 days from now. Is the money going to be more valuable to me? Or is the value that I'm going to get out of this purchase going to be more valuable to me? And listen, sometimes the answer to this question will be. Like, yeah, 30 days from now, I, I really think that I'm going to want this thing more than I want the money I'm about to spend. Sometimes that is the answer, but sometimes the answer is going to be, Oh, you know what? In 30 days, this is probably going to be something that I'm going to look back on and be like, no, I'd rather have the money back than to have this item.
And so it gets you just thinking in the future. And it also reminds you of like the inherent value that your money has, like keeping your focus on that trade off between money, having value and the things that you exchange it for have value. And I always say like, we're not going to do this perfectly 100 percent of the time, but money is a tool that we want to use to inject value into your life. And the way that we do that is by buying things with our money that are more valuable to us than our money is. That's how we win. That's how we inject our life full of value is we buy things that are more valuable to us than our money is. And oftentimes we buy things that are less valuable to us than our money is, which is how you like get into a place where you're like, this is all junk.
This is all clutter. You have like rooms overflowing and bathroom sinks overflowing and pantries overflowing. It's because you've probably spent a lot of money where the item wasn't as valuable to you as your money is meaning like you just didn't get a lot of use out of it. You bought it impulsively. The allure wore off super quickly. Yeah. That's why I love that third question.
Carly Hill: Yeah, and it reminded me of a chapter of the book "Psychology of Money." One of the chapters is called "Wealth is What You Don't See." And that is so important to remember that when you exchange your dollars for something, I think that's what, that's like the false assumption that you're kind of breaking down is like, oh, well, if I go by some physical object that I got to spend my money. If I don't, then I didn't get to spend my money. But what you're actually saying is there are things we can see and there are things we can't see. And you are able to buy both of them. It's just that sometimes it's the, the stuff that we can see is the lower hanging fruit, right?
It's the, it's the, I can walk into Target and I can hold this thing in my hands. And so I feel like I actually bought it. Where investing in retirement is so abstract that it's like, well, I can't feel it. I can't hold it. And so it feels less valuable. But if we kind of remove ourselves from, you know, don't try to answer this question while you're standing in Target, like answer it somewhere else and say, which one do I actually want more of time freedom or another hoodie, you know?
And it's like, sometimes we, it's easy to convince ourselves that the physical object. Is the thing that we want more because we're just in the moment, but then if I, if I know for myself, if I ever allow myself to kind of zoom out, and that's what that question that third question does is like, you're feeling a moment, but if you zoom out, what's the feeling overall?
And that zoomed out feeling I, I know for myself, like nine times out of 10, I'm going to pick the time freedom and the future options and the security that cash in my savings account brings over the stuff. I just have to get to a point where I give myself the space to ask the question first.
Paige Pritchard: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
And I'll piggyback on what you said. If you've never read "The Psychology of Money," read it. It's like one of my personal favorites. And one thing that he says in that book is he says like wealth is what you keep. Right? It's like being rich is being able to, like, bring in a lot of money and, like, rich is your income, but wealth is a ratio because wealth is what you keep.
Right? And so, like, just, just keeping that in mind, and again, it's like, I think that was another big mindset shift that I made kind of looking between, okay, what's the biggest difference between Paige in her twenties and Paige in her thirties was Paige in her twenties viewed saving and spending as like enemies to each other of like, oh, well, by doing one, I can't do the other.
And I just think that that's just such like an unhelpful mindset to have because when you look at it that way, when you look at it as those two things fighting against each other, oftentimes when you're in that emotional moment, you're always going to choose exactly how you stated it, the low hanging fruit.
And so when you can actually start to look at them as compliments to one to one another of saying, okay, I get to buy something with every dollar I make, what do I want to buy? And another way that I've reframed saving in my mind is saving is simply just deciding to spend money later versus spending it now, like you still get to spend it, but it's just like you're maybe just not going to spend this until you're 40 or 65 or maybe you're going to spend it next month or maybe next year. But they're not enemies of each other. They're just complements to one another. And that's literally all it is. It's asking yourself two questions. When do I want to spend this money? Do I want to spend it now or do I want to spend it later? And what do I want to buy myself with it? Something tangible or something intangible.
Those are, I mean, that's really what it boils down to is asking yourself those two questions. And they're complements to one another.
Carly Hill: That's amazing. And I think I'm also a huge fan of that book. And one of the things when he talks about specifically about savings is that we have to learn to put money aside before we know what it needs to be used for, which I think that is the really hard thing is like putting money away in savings feels like we're just saying no. It just feels like you don't get to use this. But exactly what you said. I know my own life this past summer that has been so true for us has been, we put money in savings over, like we built our emergency fund back in 2017 or something. And then we used a good chunk of it this summer to replace our van when it was totaled because we were waiting for the insurance company.
So it was like back in 2017, I had absolutely no idea that six years from now, I'm going to need to replace a van in cash with short notice. But I'm so glad that I put the money aside because now in 2023, now I do know what the money is for and I have the option to use it. And without having done that savings in 2017, not aware of what we're going to use it for, then we would not have had the option this summer. And so what you were saying before with it being hard at the beginning, I think having to first start saving without knowing what you're going to use it for is very hard.
But I always say it like the first time you get to use your emergency fund instead of putting something on debt; I feel like that is one of the big mindset shifts is the first time you actually get to have different options than you had before. You're like now I'm bought in. Now I understand why to put money in savings because I love this feeling of Oh, I have this problem and I can solve it without debt, without freaking out, you know?
And so it is hard at the beginning, but it's like, if you can just trust the process enough to let it happen once, where you have that one shift, where you experience something very real and very difficult in your life, and you get to have the option to do something different than what you used to do, I feel like that's often when people turn the corner.
Paige Pritchard: Absolutely. And I just want to say to that, like, it is okay as well to use your emergency fund. I hear like from women all the time in my community who they get so excited that they've finally built up their emergency fund. And then something happens and they're like, I have to use my emergency fund. And I'm like, don't freak out.
That's what it's there for. That's what you saved it. And so it's like, I know it, I know it feels really nice to like save up this pile of money. And it's almost just kind of like, you get to log into your bank account, you get to see it there and you're like, Ooh, it's so pretty. And then, you know, like life happens, you know, it's like, you need a new van or you need a new washing machine or, you know, something happens and you have to use it.
And I know like to, to your point, it's like, it's so exciting. And then it's a, it's a rollercoaster of emotions. It's like, it's so exciting that you have it and you don't have to use debt. And then also on the other token, there's this moment of like, okay, here we go. Like I've been planning for this, but like now it's game time.
Like, here we go. And I have so many of my clients who were like, I just, I don't want to use my emergency fund. And it's like, but that's what you, that's what you saved for. And that's what it's there for. That's the whole purpose of it. And when I always ask them, why, like, why, why is there so much resistance?
I always hear like, well, I got it saved up and it's, it's so nice that like, it's there and now I'm going to have to replenish it. I'm like, it's okay. You've done it once and you will do it again, right? You've done it once and you'll do it again. This thing of life happened and there's going to be a lot more on the way.
So we're going to use it here. We're going to get it replenished back up. And then the next time something happens, we'll be prepared again. So I just, I just want to say that it's okay to use your emergency fund.
Carly Hill: It's an opportunity to thank your past self. For doing something that you now are able to use and have the options for.
Okay, I have one more question. I just thought of this. So it's on the fly. That's okay. Yeah, as we're talking about this, how, what is the definition of overspending? Like, what's the difference between spending versus overspending. How does someone who's listening know if the things they're buying are are fine and not harming anything or if it's like, Ooh, maybe I am kind of falling into this overspending kind of place.
Paige Pritchard: Yeah, that's a great question. So, in the context of what I do, right, the very literal definition is just either spending more than you planned to spend or spending more money than you have. Okay, that's like the very literal definition. Now, in terms of what I do, again, It's like we had to come up with like a catchy, like overcoming overspending, right?
So the way that I define overspending is any spending that you are doing, that's to the detriment of future you. So that can look like a couple of things, because yes, that can absolutely look like spending more money than you have. And oftentimes it does look like that, but it doesn't necessarily have to be because like some women come to me and they're like, well, I'm not going into debt.
Yeah, I'm not spending money that I don't have. So therefore, it's my spending a problem that I need to give some attention to. So yes, it can be spending more than you have, but also think about it a couple of other ways. Again, the big one that we've touched on a couple times, but are you using shopping to cope to numb to distract to buffer from your emotions because that becomes a problem. Because it's never really going to solve the problem that you're hoping that it's solving. It's honestly just money spent in vain, right? It's just wasted money because you're spending it to solve a problem it's not actually solving. And all it's doing is making the problem deeper. So it's like, are you is shopping your coping mechanism?
It could be your spending more than your making. It could also look like other financial goals that you have are suffering because of your spending. So do you have a financial goal to maybe save up a down payment for a house or to be able to take, you know, a certain amount of trips every year that cost a certain amount?
But you're constantly feeling like you're not making the progress that you want to be making towards those other larger financial goals that you want to be because you're spending too much. Another big indication of it is, is your spending affecting you in non financial ways? This is a big one too. Is it affecting your mental and emotional health? Is it cluttering up your environment? I mean, so many studies have shown the negative effects of clutter, right? Like clutter increases your cortisol levels, which is the stress hormone. It puts you in a low grade state of fight and flight. It reduces your mental capacity.
So do you, like I talked about, do you have like the rooms in your house where it's like, Oh, we don't go in there. It's just stuff, right? Like. The overflow room or, you know, the, the cabinets that are busting at the seams, does your environment just feel heavy to you? You walk in and you're just like, oof, this is a lot of stuff.
Are you hiding, like what I did, are you hiding your behaviors from other people? Is your shopping creating a lot of shame, a lot of guilt? And also the time. Like how much time, how much of your precious time are you actually spending on shopping between searching for deals, actually shopping, tracking packages, unboxing, returning things.
I mean, I have clients that come to me that are spending hours of their weeks just on this one thing like reselling things reselling things on Facebook and Poshmark. Your time is so precious and like one of the biggest things is like when you can cut back on this you just realize oh my gosh like look at all this like extra time that I have. So it's like is your shopping overspending and pull shopping impacting you in non financial ways?
So don't just think like, oh, because I'm not in debt, this isn't a problem. Like to me, I'm like, just because you don't have the most obvious consequence of this that maybe other people have doesn't mean it's not a problem. That's basically like saying, oh, I'm overeating and I'm eating sugar and junk and, you know, like binging on alcohol every single night, but I have a really, really fast metabolism.
So I'm not gaining any weight. So it's not a problem. It's like, well, just because you're not gaining weight. It doesn't mean that you're not a problem because you still, you can't sleep. You have no energy. You can't get through your days, but you're just taking like the most obvious consequence and being like, Oh, because I'm not gaining weight, it's not a problem. It's the same thing with overspending. It's like, just cause you're not in debt. Doesn't mean it's not a problem. So those are some ways to look at. I define it again as any spending that's just to the detriment of future you.
Carly Hill: Yeah, I think that's really helpful because I think I know I have noticed other people say a very similar thing to what you just said is like, Oh, well, specifically when people think about their credit cards, they're like, Oh, well, I pay it in full every month.
And so it's like, as if that is the be all, I think it's that nothing, nothing is going wrong, right? That everything's fine because I can pay it in full every month or something. And it is more that, that how, it's not how much or how little are you spending, it's how mindful are you being or not being about the, the purchases that you're making.
So I love that that answer because I think it does help to clarify for people, like, do I need to do some self assessment of the reasons behind my spending. It's helpful for everybody to do, you know, I hope people are listening who maybe didn't think that they were overspending and it's like these questions that you gave are still very helpful to process through before we make a purchase, even if someone out there wouldn't identify as an over spender. It's still going to just increase that wisdom and thoughtfulness and future planning. If we go through some of those questions to filter out the difference between buying something because we feel like it in the moment and actually being helpful to us in the future. so I mean, I do, I am more on the practical side of this whole thing, you know? Like, we have, we each have our different areas, and I'm more in the spreadsheets and the numbers and all that stuff. But the, the mindset and the mentality behind it comes up all the time, and you can't separate the two.
Paige Pritchard: And so, I always say, like, think about money as kind of like an iceberg, right? So it's like you have the part like up above the water that's like the math, the numbers, the black and white. But if you don't address like, you know, the mass that's underneath the surface of the water that you can't see, like you wouldn't know it was there if you weren't looking for it.
But like, That's the mindset and that's the emotions. And I mean, I'll just end like saying this, right? Like exactly what you said. It's like, if you're just going to take one thing away from this, it's like, just realize that your spending habits are a skill. I mean, I think a lot of us like with money, we spend a lot of time learning about how to make as much money as we can and how to get our credit score as high as we can. And there's a lot of things about money that we're like, okay, I need to learn how to do this. I need to learn how to invest. Spending is like the one area where we're just like, I don't need to learn how to do that because we view spending like breathing. Like you don't come into the world and need to learn how to breathe. You just come into the world, like inherently knowing how to breathe. And you do, you just breathe and that's how a lot of us think about spending. We're like, Oh, I just spent, you just spend, you don't need to learn how to do it. There's no skill behind it. There's no strategy behind it. Like you just, you make money and then you go spend it. And it's like, when you start to realize, Oh, this is actually a skill. It's like, it's something that I can be skilled at and better at and more purposeful at. It's totally game changing. Because it just, you're like, Whoa, okay, this just goes from being something that I just do on a daily basis, very subconsciously and oftentimes very like absentmindedly to, Oh, I'm actually going to slow myself down and actually start giving some like thought and consideration and purpose behind this.
Carly Hill: That's so helpful. That is a great, a great final takeaway. So Paige, can you tell people where they can find you if they're listening to this and they're like, I need her help.
Paige Pritchard: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm on social, Instagram and TikTok. My handle is @overcoming_overspending. I also have a podcast of my own. So clearly if you're here, you like podcast. My podcast is called The Money Love Podcast. And the best place to start, I have an online membership that's called Overcoming Overspending. You can learn about that at overcomingoverspending.com. We do you get my entire like process for overcoming overspending. We do coaching calls every single month. We do like 10 calls a month, but I also like the best place to start, really. You can go check that out if you're just like, yes, absolutely. Let's go. But I have a training that's called "Why You Impulse Shop and How to Stop." You can find it just linked and all my social bios. But that's a really good place to start. If you're like, okay, a lot of what you said today kind of resonates. I want to kind of just dip my toes in, start with that training. It's like an hour long training. It's totally free. And we'll really dive deeper into like the mindset and emotional pieces. That's a good place to start.
Carly Hill: Awesome. Well, I hope people go run and check those things out because I know I learned from you as well.
So thanks for coming on. Thanks for sharing all of your wealth of knowledge and experience. And I know that it will benefit the people listening for sure.
Paige Pritchard: Yeah. Thank you for having me on Carly.
Carly Hill: Paige is just a wealth of information about how to address our spending in a way that doesn't feel restricting, but instead helps us achieve our goals. My favorite takeaway from this episode was the idea that we are always spending our money. When money comes into my bank account, I'm always choosing to spend it on something. Do I want to buy something that is temporary and needs to be replaced soon? Or do I want to buy some future freedom? Do I want to buy some time? Flexibility? I think that is a great way to approach your money, to help see that these choices that we make might not give us some flashy item that we can show off, but instead give us what we really want. I hope that if this episode was helpful to you, that you will check out all that Paige has to offer and help you overcome overspending as well.
If you know someone who would benefit from the positive message of this episode and realize that there are ways to make changes without simply taking all the fun out of life. We would love if you would share this episode or rate the podcast, all of those things help us to get this message out there. I'm Carly Hill and this is the Debt Free Mom Podcast.
Thanks for listening to the Debt Free Mom Podcast. If you want to join me as a guest on the show, go to dfmpodcast.com. The Debt Free Mom Podcast is hosted by me, Carly Hill, and is produced, edited, and mixed by Kyle Hill. Music for this episode was written by Kyle Hill. Hit subscribe wherever you're listening to join in with every new episode as we grow our confidence and contentment in our personal finances.
