3687: Confessions of a (Reformed) Shopaholic by Britt with No Sidebar on Intentional Spending

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[00:00:45] This is Optimal Finance Daily, Confessions of a Reformed Shopaholic by Britt with Nosidebar.com. And I'm Justin Malek. Welcome to one of the only podcasts in the world where articles are narrated to you for free every single day of the year with permission from the authors. So with that, let's get right to it as we optimize your life.

[00:01:12] Confessions of a Reformed Shopaholic by Britt with Nosidebar.com. When you read people's minimalist origin stories, there's often a clear point in their lives that jump-started their journeys down the path to living a simpler life. More often than not, something terrible or profound made them change their lives for the better.

[00:01:35] My story is no different. Up until now, I've only shared snippets of my past as an online compulsive shopper. I've shared how I kicked my habit, but I've never dived deep into my habit and how it jump-started my journey into minimalism. Well, today's the day, friends. My pre-minimalist shopping self.

[00:01:57] It's embarrassing to admit, but back in my compulsive shopping days, the very first thing I would do in the morning was check my favorite sites to see if any good deals had popped up while I had been sleeping. Literally, it was the first thing I would do after opening my eyes. If there was something that was a good deal and in my size, I would probably end up buying it, even if I didn't totally love it or need it. It was on sale. How could I resist?

[00:02:25] If I had to describe my online shopping habits in one word, it would be mindless. That's exactly what it was. The process went a little bit like this. Website, sale section, something in my size, purchased. I never once stopped to think about how my purchases were impacting my finances, negatively if you were wondering, the environment, or my general state of well-being.

[00:02:53] It literally never crossed my mind that this kind of compulsive shopping was detrimental in any way. Shopping is a hobby, a time-honored tradition. What could be harmful about that? Oh, how naive I was. Yoga pants were my kryptonite. Since we're getting into the nitty-gritty back in the day, my number one go-to store was Lululemon. At the time, I had just started getting into yoga.

[00:03:21] I was practicing multiple times a week. I would later become a trained instructor. And I obviously needed all the yoga things. Like, all of them. Or at least, that's what I would tell myself. I couldn't possibly practice in the same pair of pants more than once a week. How embarrassing that would be. I'm not exaggerating when I say I would get a delivery almost every day of something new I'd purchased online. Thinking about it now makes me nauseous.

[00:03:49] That's how I ended up with probably over 50 pairs of yoga pants. I never counted at the beginning of my minimalist purging phase, but at the height of my shopping, I needed an entire closet just to hold my yoga gear. 50 pairs. Last time I checked, I only had two legs. Enter minimalism. Minimalism is one of those things I stumbled upon that made absolute and utter sense

[00:04:17] as soon as I read about it. My first memory of my minimalist journey was when I was doing my BA in 2011. I was surfing Facebook and saw a quote pop up in my feed. We spend all of our time working jobs we hate to buy things we don't need to impress people we don't like. That was my light bulb moment. I realized I didn't need nearly any of the things that I owned.

[00:04:45] But this was especially true for clothes. It wasn't until the last year of my master's degree that I started to act on my minimalist urges. I was so overwhelmed with the amount of stuff I owned that it was starting to affect my mental health. It was like I was drowning underneath everything I owned. I had a perma-suffocated feeling every day. Trigger me happy. Our habits don't exist inside of vacuums.

[00:05:13] And lucky for me, I had a lot of help as an online shopper. Sale emails were probably my number one trigger. They seem like free money delivered right to your inbox. On social media, ads on Instagram are particularly potent. It's harder to tell reality from carefully crafted and paid-for narrative. Being the introvert I am, I hate shopping in brick-and-mortar stores. I am such a millennial, I know.

[00:05:40] So when online shopping exploded in the 2000s, it was basically my dream come true. I never had to leave my house, and beautiful, amazing things I needed were delivered right to my door. That was the dream. Buyer's remorse. You might be surprised to hear this, but I can't think of any single item that was a really bad impulse purchase during my compulsive shopping days.

[00:06:07] While most of my purchases were impulsive, with few exceptions, I wore or used everything I bought online at least once. I then promptly forgot about them and moved on to the next shiny item. What was much worse for me was recognizing the cumulative behavior of compulsive consumption and how it was impacting my daily life. Like being the roommate that got daily packages delivered. Curb your enthusiasm.

[00:06:36] er shopping impulse. The three most important things for dealing with my shopping habit were unfollow, unsubscribe, and delete. I did a huge email and social media purge when I decided to get my shopping habit under control. For starters, I unfollowed all brands on social media, regardless of how much I loved them. I also unsubscribed from 99% of all marketing emails from brands.

[00:07:05] All of the shopping apps on my phone, Amazon, Etsy, eBay, and so on, were deleted. It's amazing how much your mindset changes when you're not being constantly confronted with that kind of information, or have one-touch access to the online shopping world. I also had to replace my first thing in the morning shopping impulse with another behavior. Now, instead of compulsively shopping as soon as I wake up,

[00:07:32] I read blog posts or listen to podcasts from creators I enjoy. My post, minimalist, shopping shelf. Right now, I'm doing a year-long shopping ban, and I'm almost six months in, so my online shopping behavior is great. Up to this point, though, I've become much more mindful of my shopping behavior. I only shop for something when I truly need it, like when something I wear a lot becomes damaged and I cannot repair it.

[00:08:01] And my shopping process is a very long one. Now, when I shop online, my first place to check is secondhand and vintage sites like Etsy and eBay. If I can't find something used, I try to find the item from a Canadian company. I'll consider an item for as long as possible before adding it to my cart. Really considering an item and how it will fit into my day-to-day life has helped me cut down on impulsive purchases I know I will regret.

[00:08:30] So, that's my minimalist origin story. It might not be as dramatic as others or as glamorous, if there's such a thing as a glamorous, life-changing realization. But, it's the truth. Who knew something as innocent as yoga pants would jumpstart this wonderful journey? You just listened to the post titled, Confessions of a Reformed Shopaholic, by Britt with NoSidebar.com.

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[00:11:19] The word she kept coming back to was mindless. And I think that's a big part of it. It wasn't that any single purchase was some huge disaster. It was being on autopilot, like checking the sale sites first thing every morning, or buying something just because it was on sale and in her size. And for years, it never even occurred to her that it might be a problem. Shopping was just a harmless hobby.

[00:11:46] I grew up learning to question a lot of things we're told, which I mostly credit to my sister and my family. And I've come to think that questioning your own assumptions is one of the most useful money skills there is. So much of our spending runs on stories we've never actually examined. We think, this is normal. Everybody does it. I deserve it. And once you're aware of it, the spell kind of breaks.

[00:12:14] I also liked how practical her fix was. She didn't rely on willpower. She just removed the triggers. Unfollow, unsubscribe, and delete. The easiest win is to just not see those things in the first place. And she swapped her morning shopping habit for reading and podcasts instead, which obviously I'm all for. So maybe this week, unsubscribe from a few of those tempting emails

[00:12:42] or unfollow a brand or two. And with that, thank you for being here. I appreciate you being here and listening every day. Have a great rest of your day, and I'll see you tomorrow, where your optimal life awaits. You will see the stars in your mind. Have a great rest of your day. And next week, it's up to the next week, And next week,