Emotional Spending: Buying Love
In this consumer-driven culture, it’s hard to separate what it means to “love and be loved,” apart from buying things (or having them bought for you).
Advertising slogans like “because your worth it!” are etched into our very being.
Valentine’s Day products and advertisements litter stores from New Year’s to mid-February.
Men are told to spend “two months salary” on an engagement ring to demonstrate their love.
And for most of us, it starts before we even speak. Our parents begin buying us things on our special days – birthdays, Christmas, and so on. This ritual continues and is supplemented by the “reward system” as we grow – we can have the Barbie, the new cd, perhaps even a car if we behave and keep our grades up.
Subtly (and not-so-subtly), our conscious and subconscious minds learn to link being loved with being shopped for.
As adults, many of us grab the torch from our parents and further reinforce the lesson. It seems natural to continue to buy ourselves tokens of affection and rewards for good behavior.
Until… we come face to face with the predictable results: Debt. Bills. Financial Stress. Pressure.
Most financial coaches will tell you to track your spending and eliminate purchases that add to consumer debt. This is excellent advice that should be followed. But for many of us, it’s easier said than done. (Or more easily started than followed through with!)
I’m always looking “under the surface” to identify the roots that have grown the trees that are now delivering the bitter fruit we say we don’t want. And trying to change our financial behavior without understanding what’s driving it is no more effective that tearing bad apples off a tree and stapling on oranges in their place. It works great – for a few weeks. But the roots remain unchanged, and the new fruit is soon replaced by the old.
Awareness is the first and most important step to change. Let’s not just look at how much we’re spending or what we’re spending it on. Let’s uncover the root: WHY are we spending!?
We don’t need to spend more money, we need to spend more time and attention with ourselves, our souls…
Now I’m not talking about necessities here, and before you confuse me with a nun who has renounced all worldly pleasures and possessions, let’s not go piling shame on top of bad habits. If you adore your red sports car, save up for it, or work it into your budget. If a day at the spa is your idea of heaven, find ways to occasionally splurge without breaking your piggy bank. If you’ve already overspent, acknowledge the lessons you are learning and move forward from here beginning with: Why do you spend?
The reasons are many. We spend because we’re bored, because we’re conditioned to spend, because our friends spend. We’re wired to spend, raised to spend, trained to spend, and it should come as no surprise that most of us have at least a mild case of entitlement.
We spend because we’re celebrating, we spend because we need a pick-me up, we spend because we want to impress some clients, because we want to spoil ourselves, because it’s a habit, heck, we spend because it’s been a tradition for somebody to buy us something to cheer us up since we were three years old anyways, so why change now!?
It’s time to capture back Loreal’s tagline: “Because You’re Worth It.” Perhaps… we are “worth” more than the collection of small and large impulse items items beckoning to us. What if we’re actually “entitled” to nurture, care for, and love ourselves, not skin deep, but on a soul level? Because you see, ironically…
Spending doesn’t give us the love, satisfaction and fulfillment we really want, which leads to more overspending…
We’ve eaten some fast food, and soon we’re hungry again.
We spend to satisfy unconscious emotional needs, but those needs are still screaming for attention. We must learn to listen to the needs, and find healthier ways of meeting them. And we must become clear that loving ourselves and buying things for ourselves are not the same thing.
We don’t really “need” another outfit, another gadget, 50 more digital cable channels.
As a matter of fact, the thing we might most “need,” on a physical level, is to release ourselves from the burden of the debt that we’ve created, or the pressure of the expenses that must be met each month.
Today, I invite you to listen.
(Shhh….)
Listen carefully. Listen for the sound of your soul, the innermost part of you.
What’s it saying?
Do we truly want another latte, another happy hour drink, another object? Or are we really craving…
A day without our cell phone…
A walk around Greenlake in the sunshine…
A night at home with a good book…
A phone call to a good friend…
A chance to watch the sunset with a loved one…
A long hike through an old growth forest…
A game of cards with an old buddy…
A bubble bath set to the soundtrack of a long lost favorite album.
We don’t need to spend more money, we need to spend more time and attention with ourselves, our souls, and the things and people who remind us who we really are, at our core, not “who we are” as defined by our roles and possessions.
So if your personal spending has led to some personal pain, try these Five Solutions:
1. Get Real about your Expenses
I’ve had biz owners and independent saleswomen tell me that although they “can’t” save for retirement, they “have to” get their nails done and their hair colored (professionally and often), or they “have to” drive a car with a $550/month payment…
Really!? Is this true? (If your clients only work with you because you have leather seats in your new car and great hair, maybe you need new clients!)
2. Get Perspective on the Role of Money in Your Life
You’ve heard the story, “When you’re lying on your deathbed, are you going to wish you had spent more time at the office?” (chorus of “Hell No!’s” please)
I ask an equally important question (considering that time can equate directly to money): “When you’re lying on your deathbed, are you going to wish that you had updated your wardrobe more often, driven a newer car, or regret that you’re going shamefully to your grave with your natural nails, instead of painted acrylics?” (Can I have another chorus of “Hell No!’s”?)
3. Sabotage and Shortcut your Emotional Spending Habits
Make yourself wait 48 hours to buy that blouse you “have to” have. Recycle away all your catalogues (and don’t forget to call and cancel them). Block eBay from your internet. Drive a different way home to avoid a favorite spending stop. Observe the instances each day where you habitually spend out of boredom, habit, or for a pick-me-up, and develop new, healthier habits.
4. Get a Coach
The money you save could more than cover your coaching, and the savings will continue long afterward. And if you absolutely can’t afford a coach, perhaps you know someone in the same boat who will be a committed accountability partner for you. (Don’t even think about trying this alone unless you DID finally lose “those last ten pounds” and get in shape without a trainer or a workout buddy!)
5. Get REALLY Satisfied
Learn to love and nurture yourself without spending. This might come easily for you, or it might require you to re-think many of your assumptions and habits.
(Right about now, the part of you that has love and shopping linked might be getting pretty nervous. It might be warning you that you’ll have to “give up” the things you love – and you might be feeling resistance. It’s ok to feel that way, just don’t let it stop you from trying out new thoughts and habits. You’re actually going to replace emotional spending habits with intentional self-love and self-care. It’s all good.)
Go ahead, make a list. List all of the things you LOVE to do that are free (or nearly free). Then next time you want to go binge on something spendy to calm your nerves, entertain yourself, or appease your inner child begging for attention, look at that list.
Rent that old movie.
Leave a message on your cell and turn it off for a few hours. (I dare you!)
Grab some tealights for a candlelight bubble bath.
Pick up the phone and set a date to meet an old friend for a walk in a park you haven’t been to since… you can’t remember when.
Play with your kids.
Pick some fresh flowers.
Go to a farmer’s market, savor the sights and sounds.
Prove Mick Jagger wrong. Revel in pure, unadulterated, budget-friendly sat-is-fac-tion! Then dance to a bit of James Brown, cause you feeeeel GOOD, just like you knew you would!
Note: This article was re-worked [and portions blatantly copied] from a business article I wrote that was published on Biznik.com in 2008, How Personal Spending Can Impact Your Life (and Your Business)
Kate,
So, you copied your own work, huh? I had to laugh. I do it occasionally, too. As writers, so we don’t feel so bad about it, we call it “repurposing.”
Excellent piece here. Reading it, I couldn’t help but think how much spending is like an addiction. Just switch out “spending” with “lose weight” or stop drinking” and it all still works.
I so like your “substitute another behavior” advice (which also works for addictions). I have a list of “100 Things I Love” on my office wall. When I need a break, I pick one. They range from drawing with a thick black pen and playing with a snow globe to dancing with Nuz, my cat, and listening to 1940s jazz.
Thanks for giving me so much to think about. I love it when that happens.
Thanks Judy! That list sounds valuable… important to remind yourself of those things!
And you only know part of the story about “repurposing” that article… the original Biznik article was adapted from something I wrote that I read at my Living in Abundance Class. It’s a piece I’ve always loved. I found a way to “spin it” for a business audience with the “How Personal Spending Can Affect Your Business (and your Life), and in this article, I give it another spin entirely. But the “core” that has survived (with a few edits and additions) is the idea that what we really want is, ultimately, not consumer purchases, but a deeper satisfaction.