How to stop impulse shopping and tips for emotional spending

Have you ever found yourself mindlessly scrolling on TikTok only to find yourself bombarded with products and enticing shopping hauls? It's hard to resist the urge to purchase when everyone seems to be raving about the latest must-have items. And today, I am going to talk about a topic that is so close to home for many of us, which is impulsive shopping, emotional buying, and the powerful influence of social media on our purchasing decisions. I have joining me today the amazing spending coach, Paige Pritchard. She's here to share her expertise on how to break free from the grip of impulsive shopping and regain control over your finances. Are you ready? Let's get started.

Okay, hello everybody and welcome back to the podcast. I am so thrilled to have Paige today. Paige, I have been following you on TikTok, really TikTok related, said for you. It was at a time where I definitely needed you, and I just love all the resources that you provide as a spending coach because that is one of the number one things that comes up with my clients in therapy. Some of these impulsive behaviors, and we don't actually address it as much because we don't think it's as important or as pivotal to to share these things. But then we start seeing like money issues, anxiety issues, and I'm excited to have you to share a little bit about your areas of expertise, specifically talking about how social media influences us.

Um, yes, oh my gosh. Well, we could truly talk about that for hours, right? I mean, it's just it's huge. And it's like so ironic that like we found each other on social media, but I'm so happy to have this conversation with you today. And to your point, I think that you are spot on when you were just talking about this isn't typically an area that when we look at maybe like mindset issues we're having, emotional issues we're having, like working through past traumas, things like that, that money and specifically our spending habits is an area that can really get impacted by that. I think that most of us think of money as just a really like finite, black and white, numbers-driven, a very like masculine resource. When the reality is is that there's so much mindset, there's so many limiting beliefs, there's so much emotions, and the behavioral aspect of money is so huge. Like I always say, money is 90% mental and emotional and only like 10% numbers, right? So if you go into your money and specifically the spending side of it, and you're only focused on on the numbers piece, then there's going to be a whole slew of issues that come up, right? Like you're going to have the numbers, and you're going to have that how-to. This is what I see with my clients a lot, but then when it comes to actually nailing the behaviors, something is just going to start to crumble along the way, right? And you're just going to be like, I have the blueprint and I have like the structure. It's just like, I can't seem to stick to the structure, or with the behavioral components, things just start to break down. So firstly, just want to say that you hit the nail on the head on that, and that was just kind of like a long little side note that I had in my head. I just wanted to affirm that.

But just to kind of give your audience a background on me and who I am and what I do. So I'm Paige Pritchard, and I refer to myself as a spending coach. I am a life coach who really kind of focuses in the one area of life of money. But even going much deeper into the money space, I solely focus on what I call the outflow of money. So what I typically help women with is impulse shopping and overspending. I typically work with women who make great incomes, right? Like they make a good income, but they're spending all of it and they don't really have a lot to show for it. And what I also say, and you probably see this a lot in your work as a therapist, but you know, I say that they're kind of using money as a form to escape their life, using it to numb, using it to buffer, or just using it as an escape. And also using it to buy things that can't be bought, like using money in an attempt to buy their self-worth, to buy their confidence, which are things that can't be bought, right? Like ultimately, they can't be bought. We don't think of it that way. Like the world and consumer culture that we live in tells us that it can be bought. And so, you know, I work with a lot of women in their 20s, 30s, 40s who have gone through years and years and years of spending their money on a lot of things in an attempt to, you know, like I say, like buy things that ultimately can't be bought. And then they're kind of left feeling like, okay, well, what gives? So I focus on the outflow of money, spending. It's the one area, I would say, like a couple years ago when I started this work, I was really focusing in money as a whole, all of money, you know, like making money and, you know, I did, I did a lot on that side. But this one area is the area that women kept coming to me almost like in secret, right? It was kind of like slipping through the cracks of my DMs and they're like, hey, like I don't, I don't want to ask you this question and like, don't tell anyone I'm asking you this, but it, you know, it was along the lines of like, I'm in a lot of credit card debt because I'm spending too much, or like I'm buying a lot, I'm shopping a lot, I feel really guilty, I feel really ashamed. And spending is just the area of money that we just think about, you just do it, right? We're like, you just spend it. But one of my big messages is that spending is a skill. It's actually something that we can get better at. Like I'm like, it's just like riding a bike, right? Like it's just like it's something that you have to learn how to do and do it well. It's not just like, well, we're just gonna spend the money. It's like, there's a good way to do it. And I, I don't want to say there's a good way and a bad way to do it, but I'm like, you can learn how to become a, a good and a better spender. So that's what I help women do.

Like you said, there is a way that's going to support your, your own personal goals, right? So like, not necessarily labeling it bad behavior, but maybe behavior that really isn't serving your own personal finance goals, and you not seeing that this could be a side where you can improve and implement, you know, new strategies to make sure that you are making progress. I love that you said that spending is a skill, like learning how to spend is a skill because growing up, the mentality for me was, if you have it, spend it, almost as if like, you never know when you're gonna get this again. Even if, even when I reached a level of like having that overflow, having that overflow of money, it's like, oh, I had this desire to spend it. I shared this earlier in the year, this example of I had done my taxes and my accountant had said, oh, you have this much left. And immediately I was like, oh my gosh, how am I going to spend it? Like that was the immediate thing. I didn't know that there was another option, which was like, how do I want to save this? Or how do I want to give myself a cushion? Or how do I? It automatically went to, how do I spend this? You know?

Yeah, no, and I can completely relate to that because how I really came into this work is I actually myself used to be a compulsive shopper about a decade ago in my younger 20s. I once impulse shopped my way through like my entire annual salary. And this, what you're touching on right now, is something that I work a lot with with the women in my community, but it's something I call your capacity to just have money. And a lot of the women that I work with really struggle with this, right? Because we're constantly in the mindset, and I was the same way, like when I was really in my shopping era, is I would already know before I would even get paid or before the money would hit my bank account, I would already know and have decided what I was gonna go spend that money on. And this is something that I, I feel a lot of us don't consciously tap into because, to your point, this is a very like subconscious thing that's going on where we have these subconscious thoughts of, well, somebody might take it away from me, so I'm going to go ahead and like regain a sense of that lost control that I feel like I haven't had up until this point, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna make those decisions and I'm gonna resume that control by spending it right away. And I also think too, that a lot of women really struggle with the identity piece of it, right? Like being someone who steps into the identity of someone who has money. And that was my big issue when I impulse shopped through my, through my annual salary, because that was when I just graduated from college and I went from being like a broke college student who had no more than $20 in her bank account at any point in time to making a $60,000 salary. And so it was almost like I was in this identity of being a broke college student, and then boom, overnight, I started making $60,000. So my reality represented, and my bank accounts represented something much different than my identity. And so it was almost kind of like, it's kind of like our way of our brain self-sabotaging. And this is why you see lottery winners, this happens to lottery winners all of the time. And I'm not, this is like a much larger scale, right? But you can just take this principle and distill it down. So like 30% of lottery winners end up going bankrupt, 80% of NFL players also end up experiencing financial difficulty shortly after leaving the league. And I think a big part of this is the identity piece of it, of especially when we go from these like big jumps in income. It's almost like when our identity is still rooted in this person that we used to be, or the financial reality that maybe we grew up in, right? Like if you're someone who grew up in a household where money was really scarce, and maybe kind of like a, like a poverty background, that sort of thing, when you actually start making money of your own, although it sounds nice, right? Like it sounds nice to be like, oh, I'm making $60,000 now, there's still something within us that is still like very uncomfortable with that, having that level of wealth. And I know for me, it was an element of like, I can't be trusted with this, I'm gonna screw this up, I don't know what to do with this, I can't manage it, and I'm not, I'm not worthy of making this amount of wealth. And so we find ways to self-sabotage that. So to your point, what, what you're saying, it's like almost having money gets, gets to be uncomfortable for us, which is very ironic because a lot of us are always thinking about like, oh, it'll be so nice one day when I'm like making all this money and all this stuff. And then we get ourselves to the point where we are making that amount of money, and we end up so sabotaging it. So it's like, so fascinating how all of this works.

Oh my gosh, yes. There's this thing in therapy that we call magical thinking. So I will be happy when, I will be happy when this happens, I'll be happy when I have this X amount of money. And one of the things that I've learned working with like ambitious women and women entrepreneurs, they'll get to the next step, they'll get to the promotion, they'll get to the six-figure, seven-figures, and the money problems are still there. The scarcity mentality is still there. The self-doubt, you know, and lack of self-esteem is still there because it, we're not necessarily actually addressing what you're saying, like we're, we, we have this as a behavior of like, to cope, and we're not actually addressing like the root causes of why we're doing what we're doing.

Yeah, and I see that a lot in my clients too, because because a lot of women that I work with think that the solution to their problem is making more money. And so they think like, okay, well, I just need to, I just need to make more. And when I actually start to get into their numbers and stuff like that, and I start to look at what's coming in and what's going out, it's very clear to me. I'm like, this isn't an inflow problem. And I want to make this clear, like sometimes the problem with money can be an inflow problem. Like sometimes the problem is like, simply you're just not making enough, right? But oftentimes, it's not an inflow problem, it's an outflow problem. And when we have an outflow problem, our brain automatically wants to go to, okay, the solution to this problem is just having more inflow come in, instead of actually changing the behaviors that's causing the outflow problem in the first place. And then to your point, they make more money, and the behaviors still happen. Like I always say, like whether you're, if you're making $30,000 now, your brain is still going to come with you. If you're going to be making $100,000, your brain is still going to be there. You don't just magically like get a new brain when you go from making $30,000 to a thousand to $100,000. Like would it be nice if you did? Sure. But it's like, your brain's gonna come with you. And therefore, if you, to your point, if you don't address the root cause of it, those behaviors will continue. And I always say, like, if you can't manage $30,000, you're not going to be able to manage $100,000 or $300,000.

Yeah, exactly. What do you think are some telltale signs of someone who does have shopping habits that are not supporting them, or what we were just talking about, having this overflow, but still having this mentality, I need to spend it all?

Yeah, so this is kind of, you know, I, I always like to talk through kind of the signs of of compulsive shopping, right? Which again, is something that I definitely used to be. So one of the biggest telltale signs, and this was certainly true for me, is if you use shopping to change your emotional state. And typically, with compulsive shoppers, when they are shopping, they will be in a negative emotional state before they start shopping. So next time you go shopping, or next time you want to buy something or spend something, and you kind of catch yourself having the mindset of like, I want to do this to make myself feel better, I'm not feeling so great right now, like tap into what's the emotional state that you're in. Are you in a negative emotional state, and are you using shopping to get you out of that? Now, the ironic part about that is like, they've done studies to show that with compulsive shoppers, like they do kind of get that quick rush and that like quick flood of dopamine that does cause like a spike in happiness or kind of that like euphoric feeling. But almost always, what happens after that, and what's waiting around the corner, is the crash. I call it the spending crash. It would just, it's, it's similar to having like a sugar crash, like if you eat too much sugar, or having a hangover if you drink too much alcohol, it's the same effect, right? It's the pain pleasure systems in our brain trying to balance each other out. So the ironic part is, is that there will often be the crash, and the crash will even take you lower than where you were before you started shopping. So it's like, are you using shopping to make yourself feel better? And do you find typically after shopping that you have the crash?

And then a couple of other signs are like, you know, one, one telltale one is you could be spending more than you're making. So if you're in debt, if you have credit card debt, meaning you're spending more than you make. However, I do want to put a little asterisk on that one because you can still be a compulsive shopper and not be in debt. And sometimes I see that a lot with with the women that I work with, like they think that their shopping isn't a problem because they make great money and they're not, they're not spending more than they have, so they're not in debt. But they kind of check all these other boxes. But for some people, it does mean spending more than you make, credit card debt. If you're hiding your behaviors. So if you're hiding your behaviors from maybe like a close friend, or maybe a parent, or a spouse or a partner, you know, it's, it's very similar. I'll, I'll say this, like being a compulsive shopper, or even having a shopping addiction, it's definitely not something to take lightly. And I think it's kind of, it's one of those things in our society and our culture. I see it all the time on social media where people kind of like laugh it off, they're like, oh, ha ha, like I have a shopping addiction. And it's like, having a shopping addiction is no different than like having a gambling addiction, being an alcoholic, like being addicted to some other substance. Like the reaction and the dependency in our brain is very much similar. So our society kind of wants to play it off like it's not a big deal compared to maybe other forms of addiction, but it, it definitely is something to like take seriously. And I, I want to say this, like there's compulsive shopping, and then there's it turning into an addiction, right? Right. So the, the addiction would just be like, constantly thinking about it, like you just cannot help to be always out there like spending money, buying, buying, acquiring that sort of thing. I, I don't think like for me personally, I ever got to the point of it being an addiction for me. I think if I had continued, it might have gotten to that point. But I was definitely a compulsive shopper. Like I talked, I checked a lot of those boxes of like, I was using shopping to make myself feel better, I was hiding my behavior from other people. So again, those are just some things to kind of look out for. And maybe one of those resonates with you, maybe none of them do. But also at the same time, I would just say, like, if you feel like you're, like the spending that you're doing, just isn't serving you. And I, I want to say this too, like, I think that sometimes we think that in order to want to work on an area in our life, it has to get to a point where it's like really bad. And I also believe too, that something doesn't have to get to the level of where it's like a compulsive behavior or even to where it's an addiction for you to be like, okay, I need to do something about this. If you feel like you're just spending your money in a way that's just like, not doing it for you, right? Like if you're, if you're spending money on a lot of things that you're just kind of like buying to buy, and after you get the thing, you're just kind of like, I don't really know why I did that, like why did I do that, like why did I spend money on this, I didn't really get much use out of it. If you're not hitting other financial goals that you want to be hitting, like let's say you're like, I really want to save up for a down payment for a home, which means that in order to do that, I'm gonna have to put aside $500 a month, and you're not able to do that because you're spending too much, like your spending is eating into that, and it's almost kind of like sabotaging future goals that you have for yourself. That could also be a good enough reason just to say, this is an area that I specifically want to work on.

Yeah, there, there are two things that like just caught my attention what you were saying. One of them is this idea that we kind of, it's kind of embedded in our culture to poke fun on impulsive shopping and like calling it, you know, retail therapy to justify our purchases. I don't know if you've seen those memes where it's like, hide the Amazon packages so my husband won't see them, you know? Like, so we've like really, we've really made it a point to like to justify that this is behavior that can be okay. And I think too, another point that you made was the fact that because we're not in debt, because we don't have this like extreme negative outcome, that it doesn't, we don't think we were the problem, right? Instead, you said that we end up having internal behaviors that were like the feelings of shame and guilt, and then hiding things, right? That results in that the external behavior, but it doesn't necessarily, I think for a lot of people, they have a hard time noticing it because it's like, like you said, there's no external issue. To someone looking inside, they're like, oh, well, you're doing great with your money, you're making money, like you're not in debt, like there's nothing wrong with that.

Yeah, a common example I often use for this, because I would say that one of the most common questions that I get from people on social media or wherever is, if I'm impulse shopping, but I'm still spending within my means, is that still bad? And I actually did a TikTok video on this, and it was funny, people kind of had like adverse reactions to this. I just, this is just my personal opinion though, like my answer to that question is still yes, right? Like it's still a problem. And this is the analogy that I always use, right? It's kind of the equivalent of somebody who has a really, really fast metabolism, but who eats a lot of junk food and sugar and just stuff that's like terrible for them, but they don't gain any weight because they have a fast metabolism. And they're like, oh, well, the fact that I'm just filling up my body with with junk food and sugar and maybe like alcohol, it's fine because I'm not gaining any weight, like the number on the scale isn't changing. Although there's all these, to your point, you made an excellent like correlation to this, it's like all the internal stuff, they have no energy, they're sleeping awful, they can't focus, like they're not being as productive because they're not fueling their body with what it needs to be fueled with to be at optimal levels. And it's kind of the same thing with our spending. Again, because a lot of women are like, well, I'm not in debt, right? And I think it's just like, when we don't have the obvious consequence that maybe other people are suffering, we're like, it's not a problem, right? Like, well, if this person ate what I ate, they would gain weight. I'm not gaining weight, so it's not a problem for me. Oh, I make a lot of money, I make, you know, maybe I make more money than the average person, and I'm not going into debt, so it's not a problem. And to your point, like there's so many, I'm, I'm really big on, there's so many non-financial consequences to impulse shopping and overspending. People just want to focus on debt and what's left in your bank account. I'm like, clutter. Right? There have been so many studies done on the effect that like clutter has on us. Like it increases our cortisol levels, it puts us in a low grade of fight or flight. So when you shop a lot, you have a lot of like clutter. It, you know, to to your point, it really, really takes a hit to your self-confidence, right? Like constantly, time after time after time, when you're constantly telling yourself, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna stick to this budget, I'm gonna go in, I'm only gonna stick to my list, and you're constantly breaking that word to yourself. Like I call it being out of integrity with yourself. So there's just there's so many like non-financial consequences. Like a lot of women in my community, it's adversely affecting their relationships and their marriages, right? So we, we always want to think of, oh, well, I don't, I don't check the box for experiencing the obvious consequence of this. Meanwhile, there's like all this other stuff that's going wrong. And just because we don't have the one obvious benefit, we're like, it's fine, it's not a problem. What really it is, it's causing a lot of adverse effects in other areas of our life.

Yeah, and I think like the biggest, at least for my clients, when I've seen them, like their biggest struggle when it comes to changing behavior is like, well, I got myself in this mess, so, right? Like this self-deprecating, negative thoughts and feeling like, well, it's my fault, feeling adult and the shame. So that kind of stops them from taking action, changing things. Do you think that there's some steps where they can start if they are feeling like they're listening to this and they're like, oh yeah, this is me. I may not have these negative consequences, or I am in the point where I am seeing some outward negative con, the obvious consequences, but I just don't even know where to start, where to start helping myself feel better in different ways than shopping?

So I think to your point, there's kind of like two parts to this. So the, the first is, and I, I just want to say, like, this runs so deep with money, the spending shame. Because again, and especially with women, as women, we already come into a world where we're told, you know, compared to our American counterparts, that we're just, we're not going to be as good with money as our male counterparts, right? We're, we're fed that messaging like our entire lives. And we're also, again, this is very like subliminal, but there's also this message out there that the spending that women do is frivolous and it's wasteful. And then the spending that men do, it's like, it's an investment, you know what I mean? Like it's, it's thought out and it's an investment and all this sort of stuff. Like, so we're already up against just all of these like subconscious programming that we've all been fed our entire lives. And so I just want to tell those of you who are experiencing what I call spending shame, I want you to know that like, first of all, it's totally normal. And and oftentimes, it's, it's a result of all of these things that that were fed. Right? One of my favorite analogies, this is just like a good place to start, because I think I think sometimes with shame, with it being so deep, it can seem like this really like huge, like deep thing. An analogy that I always like to give is whenever you're thinking about past choices or past decisions that you've made with money that maybe you feel shame or guilt over, I always say think of those past choices of money kind of like how you would think about an outfit that you wore 10 years ago, or maybe in 15, 15 years ago, right? So if we were all to like go onto Facebook or whatever, find a picture of ourselves from 15 years ago, I guarantee you that almost every single one of us, like the first thing we would do is we would focus on like what we're wearing in that photo, and we would be like, oh my gosh, like that outfit, you know what I mean? We'd be like, right? No, like I know for me, it used to be like the big like bobble necklaces and stuff like that. Like why were we all dressed in business casual?

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And so whenever that happened, like, you know, this has happened to me too, like when you see an old photo of yourself and you're like, oh my gosh, like look at what I was wearing, and you kind of have this like moment where you're like, like, oh my gosh, but but at the end of the day, you kind of chuckle about it, right? Like you're not super serious about it, you kind of chuckle about it, you're like, oh, haha, like that's so funny that I thought I looked like so amazing at the time, right? Like I really thought I was styling. And I want you to think about your past choices with money in that way. Because, you know, it's like when we look at ourselves in the past, we don't, like in that example, we're not like, oh my gosh, you're so stupid, I can't believe like you wore that, like that was such a terrible decision. Like we don't like berate ourselves for those choices that we made in the past, mostly because we can remember back to that time, and we can remember like, how in that moment, we really, really thought that we were making a good choice and a good decision, even if today we would make a completely different choice and a completely different decision with the knowledge and the experience and the background that we have right now. So I always say, like, is it possible for you to have compassion for your past self? And I'm really big on, and I find that we do this a lot, is we're constantly judging the past version of ourselves with knowledge that we have today, but we didn't have back then. Absolutely. Like, I should have known better, I should have done this, I should have, you know, and it's like, how, how you didn't even know any of that information, right?

Exactly. And so, you know, I'm, I'm really big on, like, don't ever beat your past self up for a decision that she made with the information that she had at the time. Because really, at the end of the day, like that's all of us are trying to do. All of us are just trying to do like the best that we can with the information that we have like at this, at this point in time, right? And that's how that's how life is. Like you're gonna go and evolve and mature, and you're going to learn new things and have new life experiences that are going to teach you new things that are going to inform future decisions that you're going to make that you don't even have in, in today's world. So my thing is, is like, can we find compassion for that past version of us? And even if the past version of you, the justification was, you know, like, I did a lot of impulse shopping and I put a lot of stuff on credit cards, even if that past version of you was just doing that because she was trying to self-soothe and she was trying to make herself feel better, and in that moment, she really thought and she really believed that that was going to solve the problem, that that was going to be the solution. Even though now we might have more knowledge and information to say like, okay, well, I know now that it doesn't work. But it's, it's again, it's, it's viewing your past self just how you would view your past self in that example, right? It's kind of like, can we have love for that version of myself that really thought in that moment she was making a good decision? And just getting disciplined about, I'm not going to choose to like beat myself up and berate myself for information and knowledge and experiences that I just simply didn't have back then. There's nothing good that comes out of that.

Yeah, it doesn't help. I always tell clients, I mean, whenever they're like, why am I doing what I'm doing? I, I do tell them, like, is the "why" going to help you do the "what next"? Like, is it gonna help you do the "what next"? Like, why did I? And what I'm saying in the context of like, what a shame, like, why did I do that? Like, why couldn't I have done better? You know, like, is that "why" going to help you? Instead of like, okay, what can I do better? What did I learn from that?

Right, exactly. And I know like with debt, right? Like debt tends to be a big area of money that we experience a lot of guilt and shame over, right? And I'm really big on, listen, you know, like me and my husband went through, we paid off about $98,000 worth of debt, like student loans and credit card debt. And, you know, it was like, I remember during this, during that time, this was like years and years and years ago, before I came into any of this work and before I knew any of this, right? And it was really hard on myself during that time. And I really thought that the answer and the solution was to like, torture myself through the debt payoff process. When really now that I see that like, it's actually possible to pay off debt or to like form a new relationship with money from a very like sufficient kind of like abundant place. And to your point, I think how we do that primarily is not really focusing on the past that kind of got us here, but it's, it's kind of just the acceptance of like, okay, I'm here, and now what? Like, how do I make the best of this moving forward? What is this debt going to teach me? What is it going to open up to me? And how am I going to become a better version of myself through the process of paying off this debt? Because to me, I'm like, you're gonna have to pay it off one way or the other. So you can either, you know, I, I, I know I use a lot of like food analogies, but they're just, there's so many now, there's so many like closeness, right? Because I'm like, it's the equivalent of hating your body skinny. Can you do it? Sure, if you want to. But it's like, how you're gonna feel on the journey is how you're gonna feel when you arrive, right? So it's kind of like, it's a good one.

Yeah, and like if you're gonna have to pay off this debt, let's actually make it something that's gonna help you serve you, turn you into a better version of yourself, versus just like doing what I did, which felt awful and terrible of just like hiding in the guilt and the shame the whole time. And and then thinking that once it's paid off, you're just gonna like, again, you're just gonna get a new brain. Like the universe is going to be like, congratulations, you're debt-free, here's a new brain, and you're just magically gonna be like, oh, I just feel so much better now. It does not work that way.

I hear you. I think we think that we need to criticize ourselves to positive change. And that, I mean, that can help. Like, I mean, you said yourself, like it did help you change some behaviors, but it's not like you got a new brain. Like you had to work through that self-criticism in order for that behavior to be long-term, right? Like again, if we hate ourselves to skinny, by that time, like how will we ever learn to give ourselves compassion? Because that was the first like step that you said, give yourself compassion, see yourself in a compassionate way, so that you are able to move forward and make positive changes when it comes to your spending habits.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So and, you know, I'll say this, it's definitely easier said than done, right? Like I get it, I've, I've been there. But it's just compassion and and self-love, it's like, it's, it's a muscle, right? Like the way that we think about ourselves and our inner dialogue, it is a habit, right? Like that is a habit that we form. And just how if you want to change any other habit, you know, if you're like, I want to start waking up at, you know, 6 AM every day, or I want to start going on a walk every day, or like any other habit that you would want to form, having love for yourself, compassion for yourself, and being kind to yourself is also a habit that you are going to have to practice. Because many of us, our brains get familiar, and those neural pathways of like the negative self-talk become very strong. And I think a lot of us think like, oh, okay, well, now that I know this work, and now that I have this knowledge, it's going to be like a, like a, a switch in my mind that I just am able to just flip on. And it's like, no, it's going to take some time. But, you know, just, just be kind and patient and give yourself grace. And just know that it's a journey. And, you know, it definitely takes time. But that's okay. Because I'm like, the time's gonna go by anyways. So if the time's gonna go by, like, do you want the time going by, like, you know, still feeling the way that you're feeling and feeling awful and indulging in the self-loathing and the toxic negative thoughts, like, or do we want to work to change it? Right? Even if it does take time.

I agree. I think not only are we kind of working against our, you know, internal dialogue, but there's also all this like external feedback we have, like scrolling on TikTok and getting that hit of dopamine, especially, you know, like with the pandemic, I think that really did isolate us a lot. And to feel connected, things like getting the Stanley Cup, you know, or, you know, little, or getting the walking pad, or, you know, all these things that went viral on social media, like it, it almost felt like I need to get that in order to feel connected to people. And I think too, like signing, like the email subscriptions, right? And then like, this sale is happening now. I'm kind of curious if you have any like tips or strategies when we are faced with these external like influences.

I do, and I'm happy to give you guys some good tips that you can start with. But I just want to kind of like second what you just said, because I kind of think that, you know, as human beings, we're wired to compare to other human beings, right? Like, like physiologically, that's just how we're designed as human beings. And I think that social media has just taken our propensity to do that, and it's just poured like gasoline on an open fire, right? And in terms of like, our spending habits, it's like social media, and there's something about TikTok, right? Like I know that you and I found each other on TikTok, but I love TikTok. Like TikTok has truly become my favorite. But I honestly think that like the overconsumption on TikTok, it's very unique compared to other platforms. I can't necessarily like put my finger on it, but I think you're so right. And actually, I've never heard someone describe it the way that you did of saying that almost like it feels like a community, and when you see all these videos of people that having it, it's almost like you want to feel like you're a part of like the club and you have it as well, right? But let's talk about some tips to kind of just keep keep all of that in check, right? The best thing that you can do, and I know this sounds very, very simple, but it truly is one of the most helpful and effective things that you can do, is to put a bit of time in between you and anything that you buy. Because I think what has happened with social media, with Amazon, with, you know, one-click purchases and credit card autofills, it has just become so incredibly easy and convenient to spend money. And that's not an accident. That is by design. What I always tell the women in my community, I'm like, look, I am not saying that any of you are not smart. I know that we were all incredibly smart women. But the retailers and the marketers are smarter than all of us. All of us. They spend millions upon millions upon millions of dollars a year. They have teams of people whose sole job right is to study you, is to know you on a deep and intimate level, and is to know psychologically how to manipulate you to get you to spend money and buy things. And a big part of that is they want to make the shopping experience as easy and as convenient for you as they possibly can. Because they, because our, our human brains hate obstacles, friction, jumping through hoops, right? Like our brain is pretty lazy. Like our lizard brain is pretty lazy. It just wants to like, kind of be running on autopilot. So just know, and again, I'm not saying any of us listening to this aren't smart, I know we are. But it's just like, you would just be fascinated to know like all the little tips and tricks they have up their sleeve that you don't even realize is a tip and trick until you start studying it, you're like, whoa, it's crazy. So putting a pause in between seeing something and buying something is one of the best things that you can do. Because we have all gotten into this cycle of like, see it, want it, buy it. See it, want it, buy it. It's just become this like reinforced habit loop. And so if you can practice, see it, want it, pause. Right? And one of my favorite tools to have is I call it a things I want to buy list. And I actually have mine in Notion. I don't know if you know of it. Notion's kind of like a, I don't know, it's like an online kind of like notes app or something like that. You can like basically organize your life in it, right? So I have my things I want to buy list in Notion. But you could have this like in the notes app on your phone, written in a journal, something like that. But anytime I see something that I want to buy, whether it's like on a social media ad, or even if I'm just like strolling the aisles of Target and I see something, I'll either take a screenshot of it if it's something on my phone, or I'll take an actual picture of it. And when I'm sitting down at my computer, I will add it to my things I want to buy list. Because the thing with shopping and buying is that actually the most pleasurable part about it to us is the anticipation period before you buy something. And that's why they call dopamine the anticipation molecule. Because dopamine actually doesn't start getting released when you buy something, it starts getting released when you start thinking and anticipating buying something, right? So the reason that this tool is so effective is because when you see something that you want to buy, and then you kind of say, okay, brain, I'm going to give myself a little bit of time. I think 72 hours minimum is good. I think for a lot of us who struggle with spending and shopping, 24 hours frankly, just isn't long enough. I'm a big fan of making that window a little bit wider. I say 72 hours. If you can, a week actually, I typically find is like the sweet spot. But when you get to sit down and add something to your things I want to buy list, you're still getting a hit of dopamine because you're adding it to your things I want to buy list, and you're kind of like relishing in that anticipation of possibly buying this in the future, right? So it's actually like that period of time leading up to a purchase is just as pleasurable to us as actually getting to buy something. And oftentimes, I find like when I add things to my things I want to buy list, I would say half the stuff that goes on there, I never end up getting. Because after I've given my brain time to cool off, I come back to it and I'm like, yeah, I know, I, I'm not like as excited about this thing as I was like a week ago, right? And again, that's just like how our brains are designed to work. Especially like you touched on sales, right? With sales, like I call it your sale brain. When you see a sale, your, your brain lights up like a Christmas tree, right? There's so many things happening in your brain when you see a sale. Like you get a hit of dopamine, you, you, you get that rush. We go into what's called competitive mode, where it's almost like we feel like we're playing a game that we're trying to win, right? Like we're trying to win against the retailers, we're trying to win against other consumers who have to pay more than us. That's

Why do they call it bargain hunting, right? It feels like a hunt, right? So you're in euphoria with the dopamine, you're in competitive mode. And then the other thing that's happening with sales, which this is the least obvious to us but the most powerful, is your loss aversion kicks in. The amygdala, the part of your brain that controls your fear responses, activates. And so you go into loss aversion mode because there's almost like this fear of, if I don't buy this thing, and if I don't get it on sale, and if I'm not able to save this money, I will never be able to like, I will miss out on this deal forever, right?

And so your sale brain, I always say, like especially with sales, give yourself time to cool off. And I know the rebuttal I always get is like, well, what about 24-hour flash sales? They're only 24 hours, you know what I mean? And I'm like, listen, okay, one more thing about sales, right? There have been, there's this non-profit called, I think it's called Consumer's Checkbook, and every couple of years they do studies on sales. And they study like pretty much all of the big retailers, right? Like the Costcos, Kohl's, Nordstroms, like they, like they study a lot of the really big retailers. And they track their sales. And basically, long story short, most sales are completely bogus because they're always on sale. Like it's always on sale, right? Like there are a couple of big offenders like Old Navy is a big offender of this. Kohl's is a big offender of this, right? Like if you walk into a Kohl's and like you, you don't see that like that little like gray sign at the top where it's like two for one or, you know, this is 30% off, like you don't buy anything full price at Kohl's, right? Everything's on sale. And they do that by design, right? The sales are kind of bogus.

And really, like the, the pricing strategy to them is like, let's just say you go to Old Navy and there's a pair of leggings that's $40 and it's 25% off, so you can buy them for $30 instead of $40. Old Navy never, ever, ever had any intention of you ever paying $40 for those leggings, ever. Like they knew that they, that you were never gonna pay $40 for those. They were never gonna charge you $40. But as a consumer, when we walk in and we're like, oh, 25% off, like I can save $10, like so those leggings are essentially like perpetually on sale, always, all of the time. Like the sale, if you even want to call it that, because it's not really even a sale, it never goes away. Our brains like to see what's called an anchor price, which is the price that our brain, it's called an anchor price because your brain anchors to that number. So in this example, the anchor price would be $40, the $40 full price. So we anchor to that full price and then we say, oh, well, I would have paid $40, but now I can pay $30. Right?

So sales, like putting just putting a pause, whether something is on sale or it's not on sale, but especially if it's on sale. And even if your brain wants to argue with you to be like, but it's never gonna be on sale again, ever. I'm like, it will. It will be. And also, if you think about it this way, I'm like, every store does a sale pretty much with every holiday. And we pretty much have holidays like every 30 days, right? Like a store will have a Valentine's sale, a St. Patrick's sale, an Easter sale, a Mother's Day sale, a Father's Day sale, a Fourth of July sale, a going back to school, I mean, a Labor Day sale. It's like every 30 days, there pretty much is a sale, right? So if your brain's trying to be like, this is never going to be on sale ever again, it's like, that's probably not true.

Absolutely. And honestly, like I think for me, because my, because I've had that thought too, like, oh my gosh, what if I miss out on that item? And I had to kind of give myself the evidence that I'm not missing out on anything. That two weeks from now, three weeks from now, and that would mean like, okay, like if my brain is saying I'm going to regret this, I am going to really be like, oh man, I should have done it. That's okay. It's a temporary uncomfortable feeling. Let me see the evidence three weeks from now if this item is still on sale or this item is still at the price that I initially wanted to buy it. And you know, if the result is it's still on sale or it's still at a lower price, like that means that they're messing with me, you know? It's not detrimental. It is not life or death for me to get that item.

Something too that I've done to kind of pause, especially on TikTok, because I love watching like organization ASMR type videos and hauls. And one of the things that that could trigger like, oh, I should buy something, right? What I've done is I'll save it, but I've never go to my save folder. I never do it. And when I do it, it is so overwhelming to scroll down and look at every single video that I almost don't even do it. So what I end up doing is at the end of the month, I will just delete all the videos because it's just the act of like, oh, that anticipation, like I could get it at some point. Exactly. Like giving myself that, that space.

I've also used, I don't know if you're familiar with this, it's called Leave Me Alone. It's a Chrome extension. I think it's a Chrome extension where it basically helps you unsubscribe to email lists and things like that. And that has been super helpful because I will notice that I will subscribe to things that I've unsubscribed through in the past. And I have to kind of remind myself, what are you doing? Like, because then I'll start getting text messages about the sales and things like that. And I'm like, whoa, this is too much. Especially if I'm feeling down, especially on my period. My whole strategy is like, look, if this is like really a behavior that you're trying to change, I think that initially, out of the gate, there's a lot of kind of like things that you can do to limit your exposure to triggers. And so, yeah, to to your point, the one that I've used recently is it's called Unroll.me, right? So either like Leave Me Alone or Unroll.me, right? Those both are very helpful because you can clean out your inbox.

Two other really cool Chrome extensions that I'll share with you guys. One is called Pause, and these are both free. One's called Pause. And I'll send these to you, Monica, so you can put them in your show notes, like maybe just link to their websites or something. And then the other is called, I believe it's called Icebox. But they're Chrome extensions that you use on your desktop. And so you can, when they're whenever they're turned on, what Pause will do is anytime you go to a website that you're trying to shop less on, it kind of pulls up this like window and it has this time, it has this like ticker timing down for like 30 seconds to like a minute. And it, it basically tells you, like, let's take a pause, right? Like, let's take a pause before we go before we go shop. And then what Icebox will do is Icebox allows you, while you're online shopping, they call it putting it on ice, which is where you say, like, I'm not gonna buy this right now. I'm gonna buy it maybe like 30 days from now, right? And so in what Icebox does is it will actually replace the buy now button with a little button that says, put it on ice. So those two are really good.

And then to your point, like on your phone, there's a lot of just like different app blockers, website blockers that you can use for blocking maybe like certain websites or blocking certain apps at certain times of the day. And that's another thing for me is like, really take your time to uncover what your spending triggers are. Kind of thinking about, when do I shop? Like, is there a certain time of day that I typically do a lot of shopping? Is it, I'm like, for me, it was all, it was on my lunch break. I would leave and I would go up to the mall on my lunch break. So I was always shopping on my lunch break. Or maybe for you, it's at night after you've had a hard day and you just kind of want to like curl up in bed with your laptop or your phone and like do some online shopping. How, how are you shopping? Are you shopping on your phone? Are you shopping on your computer? Are you shopping in person? What are you buying? Is there, is there a category of things that you're tending to do a lot of overspending on? But when you can uncover what your spending triggers are, the next step that you can take is use that information to put some boundaries around your consumption habits.

For me, I noticed a couple of years ago that I was doing a lot of shopping on my phone, mostly because of social media, right? The rise of social media. And whenever I would have like some wine at night, I noticed that I tended to do more shopping. So now I've put boundaries in place with my own personal consumption habits where I don't shop on my phone. Like if I, if I want to buy something, I either have to buy it in person or I have to sit down at my desktop computer and go to the website and buy it. Now, I do have a couple exceptions for that. Like I'm not talking about like going on Amazon and like buying more coffee pods. Like I'm not saying that. But it's kind of like, you guys know like the purchases I'm talking about, right? Like when I tell myself I'm not gonna buy anything on my phone, then that takes away a lot of buying stuff on social media, making, you know, like stuff like that. And I also put a boundary in place that I don't buy anything once I've had some wine or any alcohol, for that matter. So once I've had a glass of wine or once I've had like a margarita, I put my phone away and I'm like, okay, like we're, we're not gonna do any shopping doing this. Yeah, after we've had, after so it's like it's uncovering. It's like taking some time to really think about what are the patterns that I'm seeing with my shopping? Are there certain times of day? Are there certain things going on? Like maybe people, are there certain people that I tend to do a lot of shopping with, right? Kind of noticing what those habits and those triggers are. And then maybe thinking to yourself, okay, what are some maybe some boundaries that I can start to put in place to limit my triggers in the beginning as I'm trying to change this behavior?

I love that. Those are some amazing journal prompts, by the way, like being able to understand like your spending triggers. Because as you were talking, I like remember this situation where I usually always park at the specific parking lot at the mall. And every time it would make me go past Rizzoli or is it Abercrombie, Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, like all of these things. And I noticed because I parked there, I'm literally going like seeing my favorite places. So let's just say I was going to the mall for, I don't know, I was going to pick up an order at American Eagle. Now I just park right where that store is. So I do not get tempted to walk through all of these stores because even though I went with the intention of not buying anything, just the the sheer curiosity of going in there will get me. So it was just funny. I was noticing that pattern.

No, and that happens to like so many of us, right? Like even, it doesn't matter if you're talking about going to the mall or going into a Costco or going into Target or wherever. It's just like, we, we often get into this mindset of, well, I'm just gonna go see what they have, right? Like, you, you hear this all the time on social media, right? Where we say this with Target a lot, like, I'm gonna let Target tell me what I need. Kind of like, no, no, no, we tell Target what we need from her, right? Like she doesn't tell us what we need. We tell her what. But we get into this mindset of like, well, I'm just, I'm just gonna see, right? Like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna see what they have. And that's why so many of us like, we go into Target for shampoo, right? Which, you know, if we only get the shampoo, that should have been $10. And then by the time we're checking out, we've spent $250 and we've bought like 10 things that we didn't necessarily plan on buying. And I always say, like, if you go in with no plan, and if you go in with the intention of, I'm just gonna see what they have, it's like, what do you think is gonna happen? Like, of course.

And listen, I'm not saying that that's like, if it's not a problem to you, like if you don't care about that, and that's not a problem to you, and you're not trying to shop less, and you're not trying to spend less, and you don't care, fine. Knock yourself out, right? Like I don't care. But if, if you are someone who you're like, I'm trying to save more, I'm trying to spend less, I'm trying to be more disciplined with my spending, it's even the mindset going into it, right? People are like, how do I just go into a Costco and stick to my list? I'm like, 90% of it happens before you even step foot in the store. It's all about your mindset. Like if you have the mindset going into it of, this is my list, this is all I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get what I came for, and I'm gonna come out, you're much more likely to actually have success than if you're like, I'm just gonna see what they have, right? Like, let's just see, right? Like, yeah, because I mean, of course, it's like, of course, when you go in with that mindset, you're gonna see this over here, and this over here, this over here. And again, it's like, Costco smart. They know, like when you go to Costco for your $5 rotisserie chicken, right? That's like, it, they, they call it like a loss leader. That's a loss leader for them, which is something that they intentionally sell at a loss. And that's why the rotisserie chickens are always in the back, and you have to walk to the very back of the store, and you have to walk through all of this stuff that they know that you're gonna see, and they know you're gonna put it into their, and put into your cart, because they are happy to lose money on the rotisserie chicken that they know that like most people that go to Costco end up picking up one of those. They're happy to lose money on that when they know that through walking like all the way to the back and then all the way back up to the front, you're probably gonna put an extra $20, $30, $50 worth of stuff in your cart that you wouldn't have otherwise.

I haven't been to Costco, so I, I'm actually not a Costco member either. I've just been told this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I totally, like, yeah, I get. Like they, they will get you on that. Even just like the cute, like aesthetic displays will get you. But yeah, what you were saying is like, when you set the intention, like, I'm just gonna see, that's exactly what you're going to do. Like, you're priming your brain to do something, right? But instead of you affirm yourself, this is all that I'm gonna get. Sometimes when I know I'm like, oh, I'm going to Target and I'm not in a good mindset, I will ask my husband, Adam, do you want to come with me? Because I want to get it, I want to get out of there faster. And he'll come with me and we'll just do our grocery shopping together. Uh, and again, that's like a little buffer for me. Oh, it's accountability. It's brilliant. Yeah, exactly too. But yeah, because Target will definitely get you. And sometimes I'll just go with the intention, like I am gonna walk because I want to get more steps in. So I'm going to walk to Target, but I'm not going to buy anything. The purpose of my Target trip is to walk. Yeah, is to walk, is to get the steps in. And that's so I have like a different goal. And so that helps buffer the like, what is it like, the enticing things that it offers, you know?

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I think too, it's like practicing this is like just practicing discipline. Because I think a lot of us, like a big part about spending and discipline with our spending is a lot of us are again, programmed, especially as women, are programmed to think about it like it's just something ingrained in our identity and it's just who we are as a person. So you'll hear hear people say this a lot like, oh, well, I'm just a shopper, right? Like I'm the spender, my husband's the saver, I'm a shopper. Like I once had a client tell me, you don't understand, like shopping is in my DNA. And I'm like, I don't think it is. I don't think so, you know what I mean? But it's like, that's how we're programmed to think about and to talk about shopping. And also discipline, right? Discipline, we talk about discipline like it's a personality trait. Like, hi, I'm Paige, I'm 5'5", I have blue or blue eyes, blonde hair, and I'm disciplined or I'm not disciplined, right? It's like, discipline and your spending habits is actually something that you work on. They're both a skill. Spending is a skill, and discipline is a skill. And so for you, it's like, every time you go to Target and you're like, I'm just gonna walk, I'm not gonna buy anything, every single time that you do that and you're successful in that, it's like, you're proving to yourself, you're like, you're building that spending skill, you're building that disciplined muscle of saying, like, I said I was gonna do this thing and I did it, right? Like giving your brain pieces of evidence that like, I can tell myself that I'm gonna do something, I can decide something ahead of time, and I have the discipline to do that. That's something we have to practice. And it's something that we have to like show ourselves evidence of that we can, that we can do it. So every time you do that, that you're you're practicing that. It's a skill. You have to cultivate that skill. It doesn't just like, okay, I'm done. Right? Habits are endless. There are things that were, they're continuous.

There's this quote from James Clear, and he says like, "Every action you take is a vote for the person you want to become." And that's what I always remind myself. Like, is this action, like, is it going towards the vote of the person that I want to become, or is it going to a past version of myself that I'm, I don't necessarily want to cultivate, you know? And that has helped me. I love that book. Atomic Habits is great. And if you're looking for a good like book on habits, Atomic Habits is is good, right? So yeah, it's just like, it's a skill. It's gonna take time. And especially, like, I call it your spending self-concept, right? It's how you think about yourself in terms of money, wealth, and spending money. And many women, especially those who are struggling with their spending habits, when we really start diving into it, comes out that they have a spending self-concept that's not serving them. Because I'm sure like, you, you know this, and kind of from this, our brains are always working to confirm our beliefs because that's just how our brain is wired to work. Our brain wants to be, our brain craves certainty and it craves being right about things. And so your brain is constantly going to be working to confirm what it believes to be true. So when your brain believes, I'm a shopper, I'm a spender, I always blow it, I can't be trusted with money, I always spend every penny that I make, it's kind of like, well, what do you think is going to happen? Your brain is going to live into that and is going to make it true. Which the tricky part about that is like, that happens, and then when you do that, you're giving your brain more evidence to support the belief. And then your brain's like, see, see, here's all this evidence that confirms my beliefs, belief. And then the belief just becomes even more deeper rooted in us.

And so, you know, I always kind of break my work down into kind of like two areas. We have like the quick fixes, which is a lot of things we talked about today, the things I want to buy list, you know, placing barriers in place to kind of like limit your triggers. And all of those things are great and they're a fantastic place to start. But also like, there's so much mindset work and psychology and like emotional work that has to happen with your spending habits that a lot of us don't even realize it's there. Like we, we don't even realize that like our mindset plays such a huge piece into it, or like our emotions play such a huge piece into it. So there's like the quick fixes, and then there's like the deeper work that ultimately has to be done. And it can be done with a therapist, you know, I can help you with that. But don't just think, I just like always like to kind of put this out there is like, if you try some of the quick fixes and you still find yourself impulse shopping or not nailing it 100% of the time, first of all, that's completely fine and totally normal, right? Progress over perfection, every day of the week. But also just realize that like, there's deeper things going on as well at play with it. Which again, with money, we don't really think about because we're like, it's money, it's math, it's black and white. It's like, no, no, there is, there's so much emotions that are underneath the surface of it all. And it definitely will require some, you know, deeper work. And like you said, seeking help is the best thing that one can do.

I have a final question for you. And that is, what, what do you think is one thing that you wish people would talk about more that isn't talked about enough? Oh my gosh, that's such a good question. Well, I wish that I saw more people talk about on social media just debunking the myth of what we believe is like, more is better. Like the more you have, and the newer it is, and the shinier it is, and that sort of thing, like the happier you'll be, or the more fulfilled, or the more status you'll have, that sort of thing. That's just, it's the fundamental message of consumer culture that we live our lives in, which is more is better. And the reality is is like, all of us, with our spending, our spending is going to have a law of diminishing returns. Which means that your spending, up until a certain point, will increase your levels of happiness and fulfillment because, you know, it's like you're going to use your spending and your money to just like, meet your basic needs, right? Like make sure you have like a roof over your head and clothing and stuff like that. You're gonna buy yourself some wants, and maybe even some luxuries. But spending past that point of enoughness and sufficiency will actually start to bring it back down. And so I think it's just, I wish I saw people talk about more, especially like all the influencers and stuff that you see on social media, who from like, the outside looking in, their lives look so great and so perfect and so aspirational and so beautiful, right? Like, to your point, they have all the organizational bins, or they have all the ice cube trays, and you know, they have 20 different types of ice cubes, and like all this sort of stuff. Just talking more about the message of, I have all this stuff, and from the outside looking in, my life looks pretty amazing, but it's not the stuff that makes me happy. Because I think that's just the, the pit that we've fallen into on social media is like, we see all these people who look so happy and so confident and so fulfilled, and we, um, we automatically assume it's because of all the stuff that they have. And it's not, right? It's just like, the stuff is never going to be able to deliver that to you, ultimately, what you want it to deliver to you. So I wish I just saw more people like being open about that, you know what I mean? Because I think if they did, like, I don't know, I think if they did, it would just save a lot of, a lot of people watching them, a lot of hard. I think we would stop chasing what other people have, and we would definitely practice more gratitude and be more present, right? I think, yeah.

But it's definitely tough because there's so, I mean, you, you mentioned it earlier, there are so many social factors that contribute to why our spending skills are not cultivated or, you know, are taught to do healthier behaviors. Because how can we when we're in a, in a system that literally like thrives on this, like thrives on us, you know, acting the way we're acting and seeing people and, you know, like this. And yeah, that's definitely a, a topic that I would love to continue exploring and it gives me new intention to also be intentional about sharing about those things, the not-so-tangible things that make me happy. Because I don't think we talk about that enough.

Paige, it has been lovely to have you. If someone wants your support, your guidance, where can they find you? Give us all the details.

Thank you for having me. This has been so fun. So on all social media channels, my handle is @overcoming_overspending. So Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. I have a podcast of my own. So if you are looking for a good money podcast where we just solely talk about money in a very like fun, shame-free, judgment-free way, my podcast is called The Money Love Podcast. And then, like I said, I also have a group coaching program that's called Overcoming Overspending. So if this conversation, like resonated with you today, and you're like, yes, this is definitely an area that I need help with, you can join my group coaching program. It's a, it's a membership, so you pay monthly for it. But I kind of say it's kind of like a gym membership, but for your money. And we specifically talk all things about like, okay, once you get the money, from that point forward, right? So we talk about budgeting, debt, we talk about your spending habits. But we also talk a ton and mostly about a lot of like the mindset stuff, the emotional work that we've done today. So if you've tried a lot of things in the past that haven't worked, and you're kind of feeling like, why isn't this working? Things keep falling through the cracks. It could be because you need to touch on that mindset and that emotional piece. So we do group coaching calls every single week. You get private calls with me for one-on-one support. So if you are interested in checking that out and you want to see what it's all about, you can go to overcomingoverspending.com. That'll give you all the details for that.

Thank you so much for being here.

Yeah, so fun. Yeah.