Comfort Spending
“Money has never made man happy, nor will it, there is nothing in it’s nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has the more one wants”
When I sat down to think about what I want to manifest in my life and to reflect on where I am at the moment I became very aware that I generally have this feeling of disorganisation running through my life. I can be a bit scatty and a bit all over the place and not really feel a sense of time. I just drift. For whatever reason I have this disorganisation of my house, my routine, my life and the big one is of my finances.
It’s something that I’ve always found challenging to maintain in a healthy position. I get in to these cycles, times where, as my step mum says, money burns a hole in my pocket, where I spend it very quickly and rack up debt and periods where I’m very sensible and get back in control of it and then start the cycle again. For me, money is something I find difficult to talk about, to ask for more of or admit when I’m struggling financially. And I wonder if that’s partly due to shame. Shame can be such a powerful emotion, one of many that can be tied to spending.
I wonder if partly the spending without thinking about consequences is a learnt behaviour form my mum. She had catalogues and could get stuff without dealing with the associated money which was something that my dad then had to do. I know now that there were issues around this but at the time if we wanted something it could just appear without having to work or save towards it. So I don’t think I really learnt the full consequences or value of money.
For me, I am very much a comfort spender and comfort eater. And those two quite often go together in that wanting comforting food is usually not the cheapest way to eat so I end up with a large food bill or dining out or buying junk food (also related to feeling overwhelmed). There are also other ways I comfort spend, for example on magazines. It’s the idea that they will somehow help me to sort my life out and promise me that one thing that will transform everything. Which they don’t. I enjoy reading them but it’s not just about reading a nice article. It’s about putting things in place and actually making changes.
In order to change your life you have to actually change things.
It’s also about wanting to look a certain way or feel comfortable and with the comfort eating my weight fluctuates so I have a lot of clothes that don’t fit and have spent quite a large amount on creating this wardrobe, not even a really expensive or designer wardrobe, but just a lot of clothes. But this is also influenced by mood. If I’m depressed then chores, such as laundry, don’t get done. If I haven’t done laundry then I have a mountain of clothes to wash and nothing to wear. It’s easier to get something new than it is to tackle that pile of clothes. That would be too overwhelming. So I ostrich, I bury my head in the sand. If it’s from a catalogue it’s not really real money.
When I’m in a depressed state, I overspend. I comfort spend. I have taken on debt and really struggle to be left with money at the end of the month let alone to save. I spent a lot of money on studying, which is an investment, but it isn’t balanced out with sensible choices. I often jump into making decisions without actually sitting down and going through the financial implications.
But I’m feeling stressed now about this not sitting down and doing a budget And I can create a budget. I’ve worked in finance, I can do that part of it. But it’s not that easy, is it? It’s the mindset piece. It’s the actually sticking to a budget. And that’s where mood comes in.
When I’m depressed my finances get out of control because I’ve not got the headspace to deal with any of it. I use money as a means to get things to try and boost my mood or to just be able to have some kind of functioning. Then when I come out of a depressive episode I’m left trying to deal with the aftermath. The debt. Not having any savings. Not being where I want to be in life. I’m in a position where we’d like to have our own place, we’d like to start a family. But financially at the moment that’s not achievable because personally I’m struggling to make my end of the finances meet. My partner is much more sensible, much more controlled. Which is fortunate because otherwise we’d be in a much bigger mess.
Just to quickly link back to shame. Do you ever talk honestly about money? About your finances? I believe most people would say no that question, even if their finances are under control. Does my partner know about my money issues? Yes. To an extent. Does he know the full picture? No. Because that shame is so powerful.
Back to my financial situation. I’m trying to launch a business but not having any of my own money to put into it makes that tricky. It’s the chicken and the egg situation. I need to invest to grow, to find clients and to develop but I need clients in order to have money to grow. This past two years I pursued a different business opportunity that wasn’t right for me and took out a business loan to help start that. But that business isn’t covering the loan costs so personally I am covering that as well as my other debts.
Let’s talk about credit for a moment. It’s a tricky situation when you get credit when you’re not in a good headspace. It’s not that you don’t have the capacity to make a decision but I think in some ways your capacity is impaired. I wasn’t in a mindful, present state when I did it. I wasn’t weighing up the conseuqences. I was very much in survival mode and just trying to get through. But that’s not conducive to financial security or being able to achieve your goals.
I racked up debts at university and then entered into a voluntary debt management plan to consolidate them as I wasn’t able to keep up with the repayments as they were. And I paid them off, cleared my debts and I repaired my credit. And then I was able to get more credit. And I guess it coincided with a depressive episode and so I took on more credit, including a loan which partly helped to pay for going travelling, which was definitely worth it as an experience but the implications are ongoing. I got to the point where again I couldn’t afford this credit that I’d taken on when I was in a different headspace. And so I have another debt management plan. This time I was more proactive and entered into an agreement once I realised I wouldn’t be able to cope.
But now I think I have to review this current plan because my working situation is changing so I won’t be able to afford the payments at their current level. I also have this business loan which is an additional debt currently outside of the plan. So it’s a bigger exercise of really sitting down and having a look at my incoming money and my outgoings and being honest, present, really seeing where I can cut down, creating a budget and sticking to it. And that’s hard with the mood thing. When the depression hits it’s tricky.
But I feel I’m at a point where I’m feeling overwhelmed by the lack of finacnial security. It ties to something I said on the podcast about being independent and wanting freedom but because of this lack of control I don’t have freedom because of the lack of financial security. I’m trapped by not having that routine and that structure. So I need to put some in order to achieve some measure of independence and freedom. Which in some ways seems counter intuitive but I think it’s a move that I need to make to put in a daily routine, reflection, affirmations etc. It’s about showing up for myself.
And I think the big thing is understand the emotional aspect of spening. It’s about really looking after my mental wellbeing. Really. And appreciating the role that work plays in that. Giving up the role at the school does mean there is a financial hit which means that I’m now in this position of having to think about my finances and how I’m going to make it work. But it’s necessary for my mental wellbeing because I need to take a step back. I need more down time. I’m feeling stressed, I’m feeling overwhelmed. Things need to change. If I don’t make changes now then it’s going to lead ultimately to another depressive episode or burnout. Which is not what I want. And that would not help with getting my finances under control. So reducing my work (and income) is a necessary evil.
But actually I think the work I’ve been doing on my mindset means I’m in a much more prepared place to really put those structures in place, to be mindful and honest for myself. To think about what works and what’s needed to get to where I want to be in life. I have a clearer sense of where I’m going, which is helpful as I make tough choices and decisions. And I think alongside the mindset work I’ve become more engaged with buddhism and I feel that I’ve become less materialistic, or I’m appreciating how much stuff I have. So hopefully that means I’m less likely to make some of the choices I have done previously, to essentially waste my money on things I don’t need when I have a lot of stuff already.
You need to be in the right headspace to make changes, because change is what is necessary.
If I don’t make some potentially difficult changes then things aren’t going to improve. We’ll never be able to afford a house. I’ll always struggle financially. The stress is going to build up rather than reducing. I need to face up to the reality of the situation. For me that is how much my mood impacts on my spending. The need to identify ways to manage my mood so that I’m in a better place to be able to manage and control my finances. So that the impulsive pattern of spending to boost mood will be less likely as I’ll be in a better place.
So that’s the first big step – understanding the mood element and depressive spending. The next is then really coming to grips with the financial situation. Really sitting down and looking at all of my debts as a whole and looking at consolidating them further. And then really going through my expenditure and seeing where I can make savings, where I am spending beyond my means. And I think a big part of that for me is with meal prep, or grabbing food when out and about. It links back to that preparedness and planning.
So that is the two-pronged approach: mood and money.
The mood piece is about the emotional aspect of spending and understanding patterns to my spending. What are the spending triggers, what is my money going on. Are there other habits or patterns I can develop so that I’m not defaulting to that place.
The money piece is then practically looking at my finances, creating a realistic budget, thinking about the lifestyle changes that need to happen for that to work and possibly making some difficult choices about what life is going to look like.
And going forward with the business as it grows, hopefully it will start to make money. It will be difficult not being able to invest anything and having a DIY approach. Again mood is a big factor in my capacity to really promote and grow the business and produce content on a consistent basis and put it out there. And I think the consistency is really important. Everything is connected isn’t it? As I’m taking this step back and adjusting my work I’m able to look after my mood more, be more recharged and refreshed and have more capacity to create which will hopefully lead to more engagement and business growth and eventually get to a point where I can take a salary. The long term aim is to transition from working for someone else to working for myself.
I suppose this is where it becomes a really, really crucial thing. If my long term goal is to work for myself entirely without the security of a regular paycheck from a corporate company then I need to tighten up the financial control or it’s not going to end well. If I’d like to actually employ people, which I would, then again I need to be able to reliably manage my finances. It needs to be planned, strategic, organised, because then other people will be relying on me for their livelihood. That is the end goal, to be a fully fledged, full time entrepreneur working for myself in a sustainable way. To have our own place that is spacious enough for us and potentially a family and to be able to afford that. It would be nice to be able to afford to have holidays too. It’s not a mega fancy dream, just beyond where we are at the moment.
“I’m not living large; I just want to live comfortably. I wanna have financial stability that is unshakeable.”
When I’ve tried to control my finances before I just wasn’t in the right headspace to really tackle it. I was still so much just trying to get through life. As I’ve said on the podcast before, I wasn’t really ok. Now that I’m in a better headspace I have more capacity to make these changes. And now it’s about actually making the changes, it’s about putting in those strategies to overcome potential barriers or slip ups. It’s about actually having a plan, and a realistic one and not just a budget. I feel like most people could probably draw up a budget but because so much of our spending is mood driven we need to consider that piece of the puzzle too. It’s about being able to follow the budget and understanding why we may not have been able to before.
I’m being open about my financial shambles and what I’m doing moving forward on this blog partly to hold myself accountable, but also to share my experiences as I really try to tackle this and get on top of mood and money and make the necessary changes to get to the place where I want to go. Hopefully other people will find this useful. So stay tuned to see how l get on. If you have any tips, or your own personal experiences you’d like to share, then please do leave a comment!
