058 - Guilt, Guilt, Guilt, Screw It
You know the person who bottles up their feelings over and over and over, only to eventually explode? I think we can all agree this isn't healthy. Well, there's a financial version of this person. After a fun conversation with a client, we coined it the "guilt, guilt, guilt, screw it" syndrome. We feel guilt so we don't spend....over and over and over.....until we reach a point where we say "screw it" and completely binge on spending. This isn't healthy, but so many of us are dealing with some version of this. In today's episode, host Travis Shelton explains how we got here, why it's not necessarily our fault, and the four very simple things we can do to get better in this area of our money and life.
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Full Transcript:
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Do you have a friend or somebody in your life and this happens to them? Whenever there's conflict or there's a situation, they bottle it up and they never seem to get mad. They just bottle it up and they bottle it up and they bottle it up and they keep it in and seemingly they're great. And then they explode, and it's a disaster now.
Maybe it's too late, but if that person is sitting next to you, don't look at them, don't make this awkward. But I think we all have these friends in our life. I think maybe there's a piece that we have like that in us at times, but it's a thing. And we know this and the reason I'm bringing this up is because we know what this looks like.
We've seen it. We've witnessed it. We might've experienced it first-hand. And both sides of this are unhealthy, the bottling it up in that expressing feelings and the explosion that comes on the backend, both of those are unhealthy. And I think most people would agree with that. People bottling it up. That's not healthy.
That's not productive that doesn't give you resolution and the exploding, well, we know what that looks like. We know what the explosions look like, but there's a financial equivalent of this. And here's what it looks like. We feel guilty about a purchase. So we don't spend, we feel guilty. We don't spend, we feel guilty.
We don't spend, we feel guilty. We don't spend. And then all of a sudden we say screw it. And we go all out and we just go crazy, completely unhinged. We just go wild with our spending and that's the equivalent. We feel the guilt and that's the. Bottling up. And then the screw it part is the explosion.
And so I was meeting with a client today and we were talking about this and she struggles with this and we name it and we kind of laughed about it, but we called it the guilt, guilt, guilt, screw it syndrome. And she really struggles with this.
The feeling guilt and not spending, feeling guilt, not spending, feeling guilt, not spending that is unhealthy, but so is the other side where you say, screw it and you just go crazy and you don't have a plan. You just go with your gut and you just go wild and you spend really impulsively….and she's not alone.
And I don't know if she felt that, but I helped reassure her that she is not alone in it. I would say maybe a quarter of grown adults struggle with this to some level. Now I think she might struggle a little bit more than others, but this is a thing in our society. This is a problem. And again, I'm saying both sides are unhealthy and here's why it's a problem.
Here's why it's become a problem because this is a product of spend shaming in our society. We live in a culture that says saving is good. Giving is awesome. And spending as irresponsible. And that weight gets put on us over and over and over from the time we're a little kid. And I talked about this on a prior episode, we did a whole episode about.
And it's crazy. The number of times a parent will come up to me and they'll say, “Travis, my kids are so good with money. They don't spend anything. But then I have this other kid and all they do is spend they're irresponsible.” They're foolish, they're selfish, they're greedy. And that narrative gets drilled into us over and over and over again from a young age.
It's no wonder why we grow up and we feel guilt in our spending. But it's not supposed to work like this, this isn't how it's supposed to be. Spending should be a good thing. It should be a positive thing. We should be able to spend on something that adds value to our life and just enjoy it and not feel the weight, not feel the guilt of it.
But so many of us struggle with that. I struggle with that at times, then I have to think it through. I have to mentally process this and ask myself, why? Why am I feeling guilty? Why can't I do this? And then we get to the other side, the screw it, and just spend it. And I see this a lot. This is kind of like the people that Yolo themselves into oblivion.
The people that say I could die tomorrow. You got to live for today. I'm not, I can't wait till the future. It's not about that. It's about being intentional. I appreciate it. I love the people that spend….like my wife. She's she's a spender. If I could say there's a spender, my wife Sarah is a spender.
That's not a bad thing. It's not a negative thing. In fact, she brings something out in me and there's a piece of me that has a hard time spending or at least used to, but being married to her, she has helped pull me towards her. Now I've also helped pull her back a little bit towards me, and I think we've pulled each other into probably a healthier middle ground.
So if you struggle with this, and a lot of people that are listening to this do struggle with this, the guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt, screw it syndrome. How do we get this right? How do we get this to go from a negative to a positive? I think there's four things we need to do in these four steps. They're very simple in, and you're going to listen to them and you're going to hear them.
You're going to be like, “Travis, that's not that insightful” Yeah, that's true. I'm not, I'm not a brain surgeon over here. I'm just trying to implement very simple, very repeatable things. None of this stuff is that complicated. I don't want it to be complicated. People always say, “Travis, you make things too simple.”
These things should be simple. If they were simpler, if we made them simpler, if we taught them simpler, then I think we would have more people doing these things in our culture, but we make them complicated and we, we make them confusing and we don't do it in a simple manner and thus, it feels daunting.
And we just say, “forget about this. I'm just going to go do what I want.” And so these are four very simple things I think we can do to help get over the hump. And these are the four things I walked my friend through this morning.
Number one, we need to recognize that we're doing it. If we're not aware that we're doing it, we have no chance of actually making it better.
So we need to have an awareness. And that awareness part of it might be self-perception. But we might need to take part of that and get it from somebody else. We might not know what our weak spots are. Everyone else does. That's the bad part about our weak spots is that even if we don't know what they are, all you have to do is ask and other people will tell you.
If you feel guilt in buying something that you can easily afford, that might be a sign that there's something going on here. If you can't go buy a new pair of shoes, you can't go to the store and buy some clothes. If you can't go out for a nice meal with some friends, then you might have some tie with guilt here that we need to address.
And that's okay. And that's okay. It doesn't mean there's something broken with you. It doesn't mean there's something wrong with you. It means you're human. And it probably means you've been talked down to for so long being told that that saving is good. Giving us awesome. And that spending is irresponsible.
And if that's you, then that's probably a reason. So step one is we recognize that we're doing it. We need to have an awareness. And once we have an awareness, now we can do something about it.
Step two, we need a plan. And in the world of money, that looks like a budget. I know the dreaded B word. But a budget can and should be an enjoyable part of your life. And I always say budgets only suck if we make a sucky budget. So let's not make a sucky budget, let's make a good budget. And when we do this, we need to name the thing that we want to spend on. And we think to ourselves, well, a budget’s to limit you.
Sometimes a budget is to make you spend on something that you want. Name it and put a dollar amount on it. So with my young friend, what we talked about today was going and spending money on clothes. She feels guilt spending money on clothes. And so, all right. Let's, let's put a plan in place, name it, put it on the budget, name, it, put a dollar amount.
There we go. I don't care what it is. And it doesn't even matter. This is your budget. You get to do what you want. And so if this person wants to spend a thousand dollars on clothes, put a thousand dollars in clothes. You want to spend $3,000 on travel? Great. You want to spend $2,000 on dining out? Okay. But put it in the budget, name it, but there's also something else that we need to do.
In this budgeting world and why budgeting is so important, especially for people that feel guilt, is that when we put this category on our budget and we name it, we have to know how it fits in with the rest of our financial life. Because let's just say you're going to spend a couple hundred dollars on clothes and that feels irresponsible to you.
Why? Because you've been told it's irresponsible your whole life. Maybe it is, but it's probably not. And so when we make the budget, we need to figure out how does that $200 fit with everything else in our life? What are our needs? How much debt payment do we have? Hopefully we don't have any, but if we do, name it. How much are we saving?
And so when you see this category in our budget and it's a fun. And you see that, oh, wait, I can spend this amount of money on clothes and I can take care of my needs and I can pay the debt and I can save money and I can give generously joyfully and sacrificially generously, and still do this thing.
It helps the guilt subside because if we can do these things, these fun things, these awesome things, and still achieve the things that we want to do, that's the win. But when we're not budgeting, these things feel heavier. They feel more irresponsible. You feel more guilt. You feel more shame because you don't feel like you can afford it, or you should be able to afford it.
But when you put the plan in place and you have a budget, you look at it and say “this is awesome. I can do it.”
Which gets us to step three. We need to do it. We need to follow through, we need to execute on the plan. You can't just say you're going to spend money on this thing. And then mid-month say, “you know what? I don't know. There are better uses for this money. I should do something else. If I save it, that's more responsible. Yeah, let's do that.” Or, I “feel guilty. I should give more. So I'm not going to, I'm not going to spend it on me. I'm going to spend it on somebody else.”
That's not how this works. When you make your budget and you say, you're going to spend this money, you have to spend it. And it works like that for the good things and the bad things. Budgets go two ways. So when we say we're going to spend $4,000 traveling, well, you should probably buy those tickets.
When you say you're going to spend $2,000 on dining out? Well, you should probably book some reservations and invite some friends. When you say that you're going to spend a couple hundred or $500 on clothes, then we best go to the store and go buy some clothes. That's how it's supposed to work. That's number three.
Number four. This one is very important. We need to find accountability. Now, if you're married, accountability is laying next to you when you wake up in the morning….it's not that hard. And hopefully we're enough of a team with this, that when we agree on a budget, we're going to hold each other accountable. Gosh, I know my wife does.
If I do something totally different than we said in the budget, my wife's going to call me out on it, especially because I'm the one who talks about money all the time and helps people. My wife's going to say, “Hey, what is up with that?” And maybe call me a hypocrite and vice versa. I hold my wife accountable.
When she says, “Hey, Travis, I want to do this and this and this”, I'll say, “well, that's great, but we didn't plan that this month. Can we do it next month? Let's put it in the budget.” And she was like, yeah, let's do that. Perfect. Now we have a lot of young listeners, a lot of young adults. And for many of you, that means you don't wake up staring at your accountability.
You're single. And so this is harder. And this is where my friend is at. My young friend that I met with today. This is where she's at. We need to create accountability. And so when she says she is going to spend this money, now she has me because she pays me as her financial coach.
And I'm going to hold her accountable to this, but that's not enough. That's not enough. In our meeting. I asked her for her permission, if I could text her friend who she said she was going to go shopping with and I asked her, “Hey, can I text your friend and make sure she holds you accountable?” And she goes, “yes, please do.”
So I texted her friend and I said, “Hey, I just met with so-and-so. Her and I put her budget together for the next month. And we decided she will spend this much money on clothes. And I heard that you might go shopping with her. And so this is my request. Can you hold her to it? Get her in the car. You guys go have a fun day, spend this money, enjoy it, get her some awesome clothes that I know she really wants. You know, she really wants that. Go do that with her. Have an awesome day doing it. No guilt, no stress. No remorse.” And she responded back immediately.
I'm excited. And there we go. There's some accountability. So we need that accountability because after all, as we always say, budgeting is not about spending less. It's about spending better. And some of us need to hear this. Some of us need better. We don't need less. We need. And so for some of you, it means spending less in areas that you don't care about so that you get to spend more on the things that you do care about.
And so I hope that helps. Number one, recognize that we're struggling with this. If you feel any sort of guilt or remorse with your spending on good things, having awareness, we need to look at in the mirror. Number two, have a plan. Put that number in the budget, name it, and then see what the rest of the pieces around it look like to see how itd fits. I can do all the things I need to do and enjoy some of the money I've been blessed with. Number three, we need to follow through. We can't change our mind. We have to go to through with it. Because we said we were going to do it. And then number four, find accountability. If you're married, that's probably your spouse. If you're not married, find somebody that will hold you accountable to your finances. And that's not just on the sucky stuff, but it's also in the good stuff. Have them hold you accountable to spending money on awesome things that you really care about. And so if we can do those four things we can do better, we could do better.
We don't need to repeat the guilt, guilt, guilt, guilt, screw it syndrome. We don't need to do that. You deserve better. My friend deserves better. My wife deserves better. I deserve better. So go out there, live with meaning, seek it out in everything that we do. Money's not going to buy happiness, but when we feel guilt and remorse and shame in our spending, it will zap the meaning right out of our lives. And so you deserve better.