Honestly, I love shopping.

Online. Not in stores. Today, I go to the mall only if I absolutely must (which isn’t a thing) and I hate every minute of it. My 90s gen x self rolls her eyes at this.

But, online shopping? Yes, please! Online shopping is the total experience for this introvert. I can search for what I want. No one asks if they can help me find anything. No one bumps into me. No bright lights. I can choose the brightness of my screen. I didn’t even have to get out of bed. (Gen x me nods seeing my point.) The best part, two-days-from-now-me gets to open a present, that I actually want, and I didn’t have to attend a party to get. It’s just complete.

I’m also aware that, for some irrational reason, online shopping feels like I’ve accomplished something, checked off a to-do. I click that purchase button and I feel, “phew! Glad that’s taken care of.” I have acquired something.

In her book, Loaded: Money, Psychology, and How to Get Ahead Without Leaving Your Values Behind, Dr. Sarah Newcomb writes that there is a “possession-self link.” the things we own feel like a part of our selves. It’s why we feel so violated when someone steals from us. Our “things” become part of our identity, so purchasing things can feel like increasing our sense of identity, especially if we are feeling down or our egos are bruised. We are wired to feel good when we buy stuff. It’s not a character flaw. It’s just being human.

So what’s a girl trying honor her commitment to her Financial Wellness to do? 

1. Don’t shop when you feel down. When we do this, we reinforce shopping as a solution to this particular problem and it’s not. If we are thirsty, we don’t eat rocks. We get some water. Slow down and ask yourself what is really going on. What do these feelings need? A hug? To hear that you are loved, not alone? Offer these things to that feeling.
2. When it is time to shop for something (groceries, clothes, household supplies, makeup), set a budget before you shop, and use cash if possible. By shopping with an amount you decided on when you were rational and connected to your commitment to your Financial Wellness, you are increasing your self-trust and the likelihood that you will do this again, and again.
3. When you add something new to your closet or your home, let go of something you don’t need or use anymore. Donate these things or give them away in a “buy nothing” group. This is a great way to reuse and recycle.
4. Create a go-to list of free feel-good things you can do instead of shop as a social or boredom-buster activity. As women, we can feel a lot of pressure from each other to shop as recreation and social connection. We may feel embarrassed about saying that we don’t have the money to spend that way (or we do, but we don’t want to). It may lead to both friends secretly not wanting to do the thing you are doing! Identify other ways of connecting or enjoying yourself. (Or, spend money, but do it on a shared experience rather than buying more stuff.)
5. Remember to be fluid. Practicing Financial Wellness is not rigid. You can be mindlessly shopping, already made purchases, and stop. Maybe you return them, or maybe you just don’t buy the next thing. Any step toward Financial Wellness is a positive step and we can take that step at any moment of the day. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of progress!

Shopping IS fun. There will never be a time that I don’t enjoy the thrill of the purchase. However, we can give ourselves the chance to know the thrill of the rewards of delayed satisfaction and seeing our debt dwindle and our savings grow.

You’ve got this!

Financial Wellness Tip: 

Get to know what shopping does for you. I love the online shopping experience. You may love everything about going into a store. Whatever your poison, get out your journal and ask yourself the question: 

What do I get out of shopping? 

Write it all down. Once we know consciously what shopping does for us, we can then ask: 

What is shopping doing to me? 

Write it all down. Consciously making the link between the pleasure we get from shopping AND the pain that comes later is important.

Often these parts of ourselves don’t talk to each other, so in the moment, we don’t associate shopping with the pain of violating our own self-trust.

If we have decided that honoring our commitment to ourselves to practice Financial Wellness is our highest value, then we want to make sure our “shopping self” and our “honoring my commitment to myself self” can see and hear each other. Writing your answers to these questions is one way to do this.

It is completely normal to be afraid to see what’s in a box when you’re pretty sure it’s going to be a big, scary mess. 

Behind these fears is a belief that it will be so bad that it isn’t fixable. 

Or, that fixing it is going to be a long, arduous process that we won’t even begin to know how to accomplish. 

We may even hold beliefs that we do not deserve financial wellness and that financial stress and discomfort is, actually, our comfort zone. 

Finally, so many of us have been raised with all sorts of shame around money, that we are afraid we will feel worthless if we truly look at our finances.

Yet, we can’t fix what we can’t see.

Taking stock of our entire financial picture is the first, very critical step toward financial wellness. 

Instead of shame, consider that you are courageous for taking this step. You are loving yourself by taking this step. You are empowering yourself by taking this step.

Here are some steps to tackling taking the hard look a the truth of your financial situation: 

1. Take the time to acknowledge to your fear and decide to treat yourself with compassion. This may mean working through some strategies you’ve had where you beat yourself up to try to make yourself change. This is shame-based, and it doesn’t work. Being kind and gentle creates a safe place where it can be more ok to look at the truth.
2. Get support for this task from someone who sees you compassionately and will not shame you no matter what decisions you’ve made. This may be a friend, family member, or financial coach. Just make sure they understand the importance of compassion and encouragement over shame.
3. Depending on your emotional needs, you may take the “rip the band-aid off” route, or a one-step-at-a-time route. This looks like diving in and getting it all done in a day or weekend. Or, making a list of tasks and only focusing on the one task in front of you, one day or one week at a time. It’s important to do what will be tolerable to you and not shut you down with overwhelm.
4. Join a challenge or community of people who are doing the same thing. Reducing shame, increasing kind accountability, and seeing others succeed will help you make a plan and see it through.
5. Be flexible. When we set up rigid goals and they don’t happen because life does, we are at risk for giving up and deciding we’ve fail. What we really need is a mindset and strategy that says, “of course I’m going to have good days and bad days, I’m human, and because of this, I just get back at it after getting off-track.” 

Removing the shame-factor around money by acknowledging that we’ve made decisions that may not have been in our best financial interest because, at the time, we held some other value, such as wanting to care for or please others, reward ourselves, or life happened and we felt we had no choice. 

When we truly look honestly at our financial lives, we see that they are quite complex, indeed, and that we can see ourselves and our decisions with kindness and compassion as we prepare to make change.

Financial Wellness Tip: 

Remember, whatever you do, time will continue to pass. Six months from now, we can have had six more months of not-knowing, or six months of planned action in the direction of our Financial Wellness!

There is a lot of talk about budgeting, financial management, and things we should do to be “good, responsible” people with our money.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of shame built into conversations about money and we know that shame shuts down, it doesn’t motivate.

We can’t learn in shame. We can’t heal in shame. We can’t care for ourselves and our futures in shame.

Shame does not create wellness around anything, especially money.

Wellness is holistic.

Wellness is balance.

Wellness if fluid.

Wellness is responsive.

Financial Wellness is aligned. 

Financial Wellness is holistic. This means that we look at the whole picture (practical, emotional, and systemic) of a person’s financial life and we consider many factors when identifying financial goals and creating financial behaviors.

Financial Wellness is balance. We consider a variety of needs and values when it comes to money management to develop goals and behaviors that are responsive to individual needs and values.

Financial Wellness is fluid. We need to be in relationship with our money in a way that we can shift and change with the events of life. Goals and strategies that do not incorporate unexpected events and expenses or changes in circumstances and values don’t work over time.

Financial Wellness is responsive. We can live with our money so that it works for us rather than us working for it. We can live with our money in this way no matter our circumstances. It is not about wealth, but health when it comes to effective money management.

Financial Wellness is aligned. When we are clear about our true values, we can shift from fear-based behaviors to empowered behaviors that are aligned with our values.

When we stop thinking about money in shame-based ways, we become free to create a relationship with our money that is focused on achieving Financial Wellness.

Financial Wellness Tip: 

Do you have a shame-based inner dialogue about money? What if you shifted your language from “financial responsibility” to “financial wellness?” What happens in your body when you adopt wellness language? What about “aligned,” “fluid,” or “responsive?” How do these words land in your being? Do any of them create more space?

Whatever word feels best, write down what “financial ____________” means to you. Are you surprised by what you wrote?