Speaker 1: Episode four sixty six, Five Reasons you impulse shop and
Speaker 1: how to resist.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to
Speaker 2: save money, embrace simplicity and life. Here your hosts Jen
Speaker 2: and Jill.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen,
Speaker 1: my name is Jill, and today we are talking about
Speaker 1: the root causes of impulse buying, which is very timely
Speaker 1: for the season that we are in.
Speaker 3: It's not an exhaustive list, but it is the top
Speaker 3: five reasons. It's the most common of the list, and
Speaker 3: so we imagine that you'll probably find yourself somewhere within
Speaker 3: these five, maybe a couple of them. But we've realized
Speaker 3: that if you can identify what your kind of spending
Speaker 3: crypto night is, then you can be better equipped to
Speaker 3: respond to it and kind of nip it in the bud,
Speaker 3: so to speak. Not that we will never ever again
Speaker 3: impulse buy, but if we can understand ourselves better, the
Speaker 3: way that we tick, the ways in which we impulse shop,
Speaker 3: then we're not just throwing spaghetti at a wall and
Speaker 3: see in what sticks. We can be really pointed with
Speaker 3: our efforts of finding new patterns and just choosing more
Speaker 3: beneficial ways with our money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I love that we're doing it right now,
Speaker 1: because this is a great This is the time when
Speaker 1: every single one of these will be at play and
Speaker 1: you'll get to learn a lot about yourself in a
Speaker 1: short period of time, the root causes of why you
Speaker 1: impulse spend, and we hope you'll look at it in
Speaker 1: a non judgmental light and this episode will just help
Speaker 1: you learn more about yourself, plan for these things and
Speaker 1: do better in the near future or in January.
Speaker 3: But first, this episode is brought to you by things
Speaker 3: you can't resist. You don't want to like hot chocolate
Speaker 3: on a cold day, the urge to sneeze, the desire
Speaker 3: to google every medical symptom you ever have, picking up
Speaker 3: tongs and clicking them together the second through tenth and
Speaker 3: beyond chip. There are things in life that are simply irresistible,
Speaker 3: so you might as well just give in, kind of
Speaker 3: like pre ordering our book by what you love without
Speaker 3: going broke. If you're not going to stifle the sneeze
Speaker 3: or keep the tong silent, don't even bother waiting on
Speaker 3: this book either. It's a game changer and it will
Speaker 3: help you manage money better. Spend better for the rest
Speaker 3: of your literal life by what you Love book dot com. Actually,
Speaker 3: we also talk about these reasons for impulse spending in
Speaker 3: the book.
Speaker 1: This episode is content straight from our book. If you've
Speaker 1: never listened to the show before, we go google topics
Speaker 1: and then we'll take results on the first page and
Speaker 1: we'll go through them and tell you what's fluff, what's
Speaker 1: playing the algorithm, and what is actually real life. But
Speaker 1: this particular episode, we are taking what we have learned
Speaker 1: about impulse spending, what we put in our book, and
Speaker 1: we're going to give you a primer on it as
Speaker 1: you await your copy of Buy What you Love to
Speaker 1: come in the mail. And if impulse shopping is something
Speaker 1: that you have found you really need to get a
Speaker 1: handle on. Again, we're not against all impulse shopping. You
Speaker 1: won't be able to plan every single purchase you make
Speaker 1: every day, right, That's what impulse buying is. It's unplanned spending.
Speaker 1: But if you feel like yours has gotten out of control,
Speaker 1: then we have a lot of episodes for you to
Speaker 1: queue up after this one, like episode four thirty four
Speaker 1: Ways online stores get you to impulse buy. So we
Speaker 1: talk about marketing in that one and episode three seventy
Speaker 1: eight cycle logical reasons why we impulse by so we
Speaker 1: go a little bit more deeper into the psychology and
Speaker 1: kind of brain stuff. If you're like a science geek.
Speaker 1: I love that one. So let's get into the first reason.
Speaker 1: And I think this might be my top one. It's
Speaker 1: why I put it first. Maybe it's not yours, but
Speaker 1: for me, habit spending. So this is just mindless spending,
Speaker 1: the spending that maybe at once did have a purpose,
Speaker 1: but time has gone on to where it's just become habit,
Speaker 1: and now you're spending unplanned over and over without fulfilling
Speaker 1: the original reason that that spending may have done it.
Speaker 1: And the reason I say that specifically as we talk
Speaker 1: about our friend page, you might know our overcoming over
Speaker 1: spending on TikTok and Instagram. She's a good friend and
Speaker 1: we interviewed her for the book, and her story is
Speaker 1: that she had a job right out of college and
Speaker 1: she started buying stuff for her new corporate job, a
Speaker 1: new wardrobe, shoes, you know, all the things, and she
Speaker 1: got into the job and realized she didn't love it,
Speaker 1: and so then she started continuing on with this habit
Speaker 1: of buying to escape the job. And so she went
Speaker 1: on this journey to not just get at the root cause,
Speaker 1: because the root cause was her job. But she couldn't
Speaker 1: fix that overnight. But there were things that she could
Speaker 1: do to fix the problem overnight in the meantime.
Speaker 4: And so we go.
Speaker 1: We want to talk about root cause, but we also
Speaker 1: want to talk about in the gap between identifying and
Speaker 1: actually solving the root cause. There's a lot you can do.
Speaker 3: So if this one is you, it's important to be
Speaker 3: able to identify ways to interrupt that habit we talk
Speaker 3: about Q craving reward. This obviously is not our idea.
Speaker 3: Is the habit loop. Plenty of books around atomic habits,
Speaker 3: the power of habit, It's all there. Yeah, And so
Speaker 3: what we ultimately want to identify is what is the queue.
Speaker 3: Sometimes that can be location related, time of day, Certain
Speaker 3: experiences become the queue, which then incite the craving, which
Speaker 3: then causes the action and the reward that we get
Speaker 3: from the thing. And if we can catch habits at
Speaker 3: the queue and shift whatever that is, find new habits
Speaker 3: ways of relating, then we don't find ourselves in the
Speaker 3: coffee line or making these kind of mindless purchases, you know.
Speaker 3: So if it is, let's say, scrolling on your phone
Speaker 3: at night and you are one click buying your shopping,
Speaker 3: then changing up whatever that queue is. So maybe it's
Speaker 3: shifting just being on your phone at night, or maybe
Speaker 3: it's changing the immediate apps that you go to on
Speaker 3: your phone, putting different blockers in place to be able
Speaker 3: to go play a game instead of scrolling Amazon or
Speaker 3: even Instagram. If that's the thing that's causing you to
Speaker 3: want to buy whatever influencers are pedaling that evening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one of my big things that I talk about
Speaker 1: in the book is ending up in the Starbucks drive through.
Speaker 1: For me, that's always been a struggle, Like when I
Speaker 1: was in college and I was heading to like my
Speaker 1: bartending job that I didn't love, or after I had
Speaker 1: my babies and I was just trying to get out
Speaker 1: of the house, I always like revert to ending up
Speaker 1: in the drive through line of some coffee shop. And
Speaker 1: at first these were legitimate things, like a month after
Speaker 1: I had a baby, going escaping just to get a
Speaker 1: coffee was.
Speaker 4: A true treat privilege. Loved it.
Speaker 1: But as my children grew up, it became less of
Speaker 1: an escape and more of a habit. So I had
Speaker 1: to look through my ninety day transaction inventory and identify
Speaker 1: that that actually had become a habit versus an escape
Speaker 1: and a treat. So what I figured out is that
Speaker 1: it was it was a combination of cues, right, So
Speaker 1: if it was, it could have been like preceding events,
Speaker 1: so like my husband gets home from work and I'm
Speaker 1: like out the door the preceding event of him getting home,
Speaker 1: or time of day like when I was heading to
Speaker 1: work in college. So those are the things you kind
Speaker 1: of have to look for, and the ninety day transaction
Speaker 1: inventory will really help you kind of pinpoint those cues
Speaker 1: because you can copy and paste all your transactions into
Speaker 1: a spreadsheet. You can sort it by day that you
Speaker 1: made it, so you can see different times. You can
Speaker 1: sort it by retailer, so if you're seeing, like, you know,
Speaker 1: ten Starbucks transactions in a row, once you've sorted it
Speaker 1: by retailer, and then you can also maybe see a
Speaker 1: connection in the time of day that those transactions were made.
Speaker 1: So it just it can tell you a lot. So
Speaker 1: when I figured that out, I was then able to
Speaker 1: put into place different things to treat myself that didn't
Speaker 1: cost money. So I invested in At first, I invested
Speaker 1: in a pour over coffee thing and that just didn't
Speaker 1: work for me, So it's fine, I can sell it.
Speaker 1: And then I got my single serve, you know, my
Speaker 1: ninja coffee bar that worked better for me. And now
Speaker 1: I get the really nice flavored coffee. So I had
Speaker 1: to also figure out what worked for me that would
Speaker 1: incentivize me to choose the low cost option over Starbucks.
Speaker 3: And helpful caveat here you did kind of explain it
Speaker 3: a little bit. But for those of you who the
Speaker 3: ninety day transaction inventory is a new phrase to you,
Speaker 3: it is something that we talk about in the book.
Speaker 3: We actually as a free resource along with the book
Speaker 3: when you purchase it that we do have a ninety
Speaker 3: day transaction inventory walkthrough, So another reason to pre order
Speaker 3: that book by what youolovebook dot com. But we talk
Speaker 3: about compiling all of your purchases over the last ninety
Speaker 3: days into one spreadsheet because ninety days three months will
Speaker 3: give you a pretty good sense of what you're spending
Speaker 3: money on a snapshot, because month to month things change,
Speaker 3: but that's a really good clump of time that you
Speaker 3: can then look at where am I spending money, and
Speaker 3: it will usually rise to the surface what type of
Speaker 3: impulse spender you primarily are. So that's a reason to
Speaker 3: kind of do this ahead of time, or to be
Speaker 3: able to find out even what kind of impulse spender
Speaker 3: am I. So the second one here that I will
Speaker 3: point out is stress. Stress can be a big reason
Speaker 3: that we impulse buy and we will always in forever
Speaker 3: face stress. This will not go away. So understanding kind
Speaker 3: of our stress response and whether or not it is
Speaker 3: linked to buying things that we weren't intending to buy,
Speaker 3: will be really helpful for the rest of our lives.
Speaker 3: I will also add well, first of all, stress isn't
Speaker 3: entirely bad either. There's a spectrum of stress. Technically, we
Speaker 3: are stressed when we're excited, our levels elevate, but we
Speaker 3: can also experience all sorts of other emotions that could
Speaker 3: cause us to impulse by like happiness, celebration, or sadness exactly,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of just emotions that could lead us
Speaker 3: to want to spend.
Speaker 4: Anticipation like looking forward to something.
Speaker 3: Yeah oh man, ahead of a vacation, we spend so
Speaker 3: many of us spend so much more thinking that we
Speaker 3: need to buy the things for that trip. So this
Speaker 3: would just involve looking at when you're looking at that
Speaker 3: ninety day transaction inventory if you can remember, and you
Speaker 3: won't remember for every single line item, but what was
Speaker 3: the emotions surrounding this, What maybe had happened that day
Speaker 3: that led to this spending. And you may find a
Speaker 3: pattern that, yeah, when I have a really rough day
Speaker 3: at work, I tend to spend more, or some really
Speaker 3: exciting things happened, or I was hanging out with my
Speaker 3: friends a lot, and that I was having a ton
Speaker 3: of fun, and so that led to me spending maybe
Speaker 3: more than I had intended to. And so with any
Speaker 3: of these, it's not about just cutting it out right.
Speaker 3: If we could just stop, then this podcast episode would
Speaker 3: have been done before it started, but replacing it finding alternatives.
Speaker 3: So one of the things that I love to recommend
Speaker 3: with this is to create a list of things to
Speaker 3: do when you're feeling various emotions, because a lot of
Speaker 3: times we'll just reach for the closest thing or the
Speaker 3: thing that worked for us last time, and it might
Speaker 3: be like fitting a square peg into a round hole,
Speaker 3: where that's not the thing that works for us anymore
Speaker 3: because last time we did that, and it did meet
Speaker 3: a relational need, but this time it's an emotional or
Speaker 3: a mental need, and so I need something different. So
Speaker 3: some of this then requires us to even list out mental, physical, emotional, relational.
Speaker 3: What are some common needs that come up for you
Speaker 3: or common emotions that you might feel, and what might
Speaker 3: be something that could meet the needs? And this is
Speaker 3: almost like a dopamine hit list that when we are
Speaker 3: looking for that thing, because usually that's what it is
Speaker 3: when we're feeling various types of emotions, we're looking for
Speaker 3: that high that even the anticipation of spending can bring
Speaker 3: to us. And so that's important to recognize. We don't
Speaker 3: have to avoid dopamine. We can just find other ways
Speaker 3: to get it in ways that are actually going to
Speaker 3: meet our needs. So if we are able to identify,
Speaker 3: you know what, what I'm feeling right now is actually loneliness.
Speaker 3: So maybe I call up a friend, or I write
Speaker 3: a card to a loved one, I plan an opportunity
Speaker 3: to get together and do a potluck with people. These
Speaker 3: could be the actions to go along with a relational need.
Speaker 3: Maybe I'm feeling really sad, but instead of spending, what
Speaker 3: else could I do? What kind of lifts my spirits.
Speaker 3: For me, I know that some fun throwback music can
Speaker 3: really help me when I'm feeling down or trying a
Speaker 3: new recipe, Cooking something that I enjoy can be an
Speaker 3: alternative to me and give me some of that that
Speaker 3: dopamine that I might be looking for instead of buying
Speaker 3: something where inevitably it doesn't actually meet the need.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the biggest thing with stress is that
Speaker 1: we want to hit the cortisol at the root, right,
Speaker 1: And so we studied kind of what in the you know,
Speaker 1: what actions can we do to really dissipate that cortisol
Speaker 1: that is heightened by stress. And so the two best
Speaker 1: things that we found, and this is based on studies
Speaker 1: that we read, are exercise and meditation. So creating some
Speaker 1: kind of room for consistent exercise, whatever that looks like
Speaker 1: for you, and then also consistent meditation. This does not
Speaker 1: have to be every day. Don't want to add things
Speaker 1: to your already full list of things to do, right,
Speaker 1: We almost want to take a subtractive approach versus an additive.
Speaker 1: But I think incorporating these two things in whatever way
Speaker 1: feels right. Like what I said when I was looking
Speaker 1: for a way to get coffee that was more appealing
Speaker 1: than Starbucks. I didn't get it right the first time.
Speaker 1: I did all this research and I was like, this
Speaker 1: is the way I'm going to go, and it just
Speaker 1: didn't work for me. But I got it right the
Speaker 1: second time. So you're going to have to play around
Speaker 1: with these things, but know that meditation and exercise are
Speaker 1: effective in solving the cortisol problem that is, you know,
Speaker 1: leading to stress shopping. And another thing that I got
Speaker 1: an email from a listener once when we were talking
Speaker 1: about stress shopping, and I had mentioned control is a
Speaker 1: big reason why we stress shop. And she felt so
Speaker 1: seen by this, and she gave this great example. So
Speaker 1: a lot of the reasons why we stress shop is
Speaker 1: because things are happening outside of our control that are
Speaker 1: stressing us out right. So we want to hit the cortisol,
Speaker 1: but we also want to recognize that we can't control
Speaker 1: that instead of grasping onto something else that we can control,
Speaker 1: like shopping. And so what she said is when she
Speaker 1: felt stressed, she just got this thing in her head that, oh,
Speaker 1: my gosh, winters three months away, my kids need coats,
Speaker 1: And she immediately went out and bought coats without consulting
Speaker 1: sales without looking secondhand, without doing all the due diligence,
Speaker 1: just because she was stressed. Things were out of her
Speaker 1: control and she latched onto one thing she could have
Speaker 1: control over. And that's not bad. But we just want
Speaker 1: to recognize our need for control and choose something that's
Speaker 1: healthier we can control, kind of like controlling our exercise
Speaker 1: and our meditative activities. So third is shopping as an activity.
Speaker 1: And so when Jill was talking about sometimes the root
Speaker 1: cause of you know, some of our problems loneliness, and
Speaker 1: so how can we meet that? And we sometimes will
Speaker 1: invite friends to shop with us, and this is how
Speaker 1: we kind of meet that need. But there are all
Speaker 1: kinds of like shopping as an activity things. I think
Speaker 1: when I was growing up, we didn't have hobbies or sports,
Speaker 1: really we had shopping. We went shopping every weekend, whether
Speaker 1: it was a big box store or an outlet mall
Speaker 1: or even a farm. So in adulthood that led into
Speaker 1: like farmers' markets and all kinds of things like other
Speaker 1: things for me, So figuring out what can I do
Speaker 1: was an activity that does not cause me to spend money?
Speaker 1: And also what am I trying to get? Really with
Speaker 1: that shopping as an activity. For Page, her spending was
Speaker 1: both habit and activity, and I really think it merged
Speaker 1: from necessity, merged into activity, and then went into habit.
Speaker 1: So how can we figure that out? For Page, she
Speaker 1: just replaced the activity. She didn't deny herself because she
Speaker 1: still wanted to escape that job that she didn't like
Speaker 1: while she was looking for a new job. So instead
Speaker 1: she would take her lunch to the park and she
Speaker 1: would sit in her tree in nice weather and just
Speaker 1: enjoy the outdoors. And so it was still doing an activity,
Speaker 1: but just that activity wasn't shopping.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is something I talked about in the book
Speaker 3: as well, that before Eric and I moved into our RV,
Speaker 3: living in very normal sized apartments, and I really loved
Speaker 3: to go to yard sales and thrift stores. I mean
Speaker 3: I still do, but you'll see why it had to
Speaker 3: shift in a second. So this was something that we
Speaker 3: just did on the weekends. We didn't have a ton
Speaker 3: of money, but we could afford things at yard sales
Speaker 3: and thrift stores, and so it was something just fun
Speaker 3: to do. It was what we did on the weekends
Speaker 3: and collect these things for less than five dollars. But
Speaker 3: then when we moved into our RV, I quickly learned
Speaker 3: that this can't sustain itself. I had to already do
Speaker 3: a big purge of things to downsize into living in
Speaker 3: a vehicle. And initially I did still go to the
Speaker 3: yard sales and the thrift stores, but it didn't feel
Speaker 3: as fun to me because I couldn't actually bring anything home,
Speaker 3: and when I did, well, where am I going to
Speaker 3: put this? What am I going to do with this?
Speaker 3: I don't have this amount of space for things, And
Speaker 3: so I was forced in many ways to then look
Speaker 3: for something different. So I did begin it a little
Speaker 3: bit more begrudgingly, a little less on purpose. But I
Speaker 3: think it helped me to realize, oh, that wasn't actually
Speaker 3: really fulfilling me in the ways in which I thought
Speaker 3: it was. It was fun, I did enjoy it, but
Speaker 3: when I couldn't actually purchase anything, then I realized that
Speaker 3: the things I purchased were just junk that I ended
Speaker 3: up needing to sell or give away. Then what am
Speaker 3: I left with? And finding alternatives to do on the weekends,
Speaker 3: which literally did lead us to hosting more. Even though
Speaker 3: we lived in an RV, it was still very fun
Speaker 3: to have people over for bonfires, or we went on
Speaker 3: more hikes. We also had a lot less to clean,
Speaker 3: so it freed up a whole lot more time to
Speaker 3: connect with people, which is really the main thing that
Speaker 3: we love doing, and that has stuck now because I
Speaker 3: was forced into finding alternatives, and I then was able
Speaker 3: to realize, I actually don't love that thing as much
Speaker 3: as I thought that I did. I do love these
Speaker 3: other things of hanging out with friends and finding free
Speaker 3: activities to do together. So I'm grateful for that kind
Speaker 3: of shove that I got. So maybe not quite as
Speaker 3: easy to implement this if you're not downsizing to a vehicle.
Speaker 3: But the encouragement here is that when you do try
Speaker 3: out different things, you might find something even better. And
Speaker 3: in that way, it's not deprivation, it's just learning more
Speaker 3: about yourself and finding new things you love. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the solution to this, I really love what Jill
Speaker 1: was saying. She took her activity and replaced it with
Speaker 1: a different activity. But not every shopping as an well
Speaker 1: say activity okay, large activity out of the home activity right,
Speaker 1: going thrifting and garage sailing. Replaced it with an activity
Speaker 1: of equal size going hiking, bonfire, but not every shopping
Speaker 1: as an activity is that big. If I'm scrolling Amazon
Speaker 1: in bed and buying stuff impulsively, getting out and going
Speaker 1: for a run is not an equal activity to replace with, right,
Speaker 1: Even though exercise is good, it's just not the same.
Speaker 1: So we break down small, medium, and large activities of
Speaker 1: shopping and corresponding things you could try to replace them
Speaker 1: with of small, medium, and large size, so we don't
Speaker 1: have time to go into all of them. But that
Speaker 1: is a really important distinction that I want to make
Speaker 1: when solving the shopping as an activity problem.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it has to meet it has to
Speaker 3: be grew in. The next thing on here is the
Speaker 3: thrill of the hunt, and this one is also me
Speaker 3: hi hi. I do enjoy shopping as an activity, and
Speaker 3: boy do I love the thrill of the hunt. Those
Speaker 3: red tags, yellow tags, really any color tag that mean
Speaker 3: that the price is lower than the original price. I
Speaker 3: am here for it. And if I had to dig,
Speaker 3: if I had to elbow my way through mounds of
Speaker 3: clothing to find the gem, I feel so great. That
Speaker 3: is a dopamine rush for me. I feel smart, I
Speaker 3: feel like a huntress. I feel on top of the world,
Speaker 3: and boy do I also love to brag to my
Speaker 3: friends about the deals that I got. I started to
Speaker 3: get these reels from people, like on Instagram of the
Speaker 3: people going through their home and talking about how I
Speaker 3: got this for free and I got that for two
Speaker 3: ninety nine, and like they're like, this is you jell me?
Speaker 3: Oh boy, I do have a problem.
Speaker 1: A speaking event and somebody came up to me it
Speaker 1: was like.
Speaker 4: I got the shirt for two ninety nine.
Speaker 1: And I was like a person personally, I'm not there,
Speaker 1: this isn't mine, and I'm like, I don't care.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not here for cheap stuff and I'm
Speaker 3: not here to take advantage of labor by any means.
Speaker 3: But when I get things secondhand and I know what
Speaker 3: they might have cost full price, brand new, it's very thrilling.
Speaker 3: And you know what, I'm just gonna say it, I
Speaker 3: don't think you're ever gonna take the thrill of a
Speaker 3: deal away from me. If I know it's a true deal,
Speaker 3: I'm loving it. But nothing is a deal if you
Speaker 3: don't actually need it. And just getting things for lower
Speaker 3: prices can leave us with a house full of stuff
Speaker 3: that now we just have to dust. And so one
Speaker 3: of the things kind of along with my downsizing, because
Speaker 3: that was part of it. For me. It was both
Speaker 3: shopping as an activity and the thrill of the hunt
Speaker 3: because thrift stores you got to dig. At yard sales,
Speaker 3: you're digging there too. It's all it's all a hunt,
Speaker 3: And so I also then had to find other things
Speaker 3: to replace this. I think that there is something really primal,
Speaker 3: if I can say it in that way, in a
Speaker 3: lot of us. It probably is related to being hunters
Speaker 3: and gatherers that we want we want to look for things,
Speaker 3: we want to find them. We want to pull the
Speaker 3: gem up out of the soil and claim it as
Speaker 3: ours and be so proud of ourselves. But that can't
Speaker 3: be every single time, and it can't be mindlessly when
Speaker 3: it comes to our money. But we can hunt for
Speaker 3: other things. There are other ways that we can kind
Speaker 3: of create this search and challenge for ourselves and a
Speaker 3: feeling of accomplishment, and that can take on the form
Speaker 3: of setting new goals for ourselves that we can challenge
Speaker 3: ourselves with, whether it's setting a new reading goal, or
Speaker 3: picking up a new hobby or re engaging with an
Speaker 3: old hobby, or trying new recipes. I know I mentioned
Speaker 3: that one already because it is something that I really
Speaker 3: enjoy creating these challenges so that we can then accomplish
Speaker 3: them and experience the high that comes with that. You.
Speaker 3: Jen also mentioned something on another podcast that I love
Speaker 3: hunting at the library, which I really do. I haven't
Speaker 3: tried this one, but I do think it would work
Speaker 3: for me going somewhere like a library where the things
Speaker 3: there are free, but you get to hunt around for
Speaker 3: the thing that you're looking for. So I'll take cooking
Speaker 3: again as an example. Let's say you want to look
Speaker 3: for a new recipe, head to the cooking section and hunt,
Speaker 3: not just look, hunt for a book that looks it's
Speaker 3: really interesting to you and maybe shows a skill set
Speaker 3: that you haven't tried before. Rent that puppy out. You
Speaker 3: can also ask the library for what other types of
Speaker 3: things they rent out the library.
Speaker 4: You all know this.
Speaker 3: They do not only rent books. It's not just about
Speaker 3: books at the library. They rent resources of all sorts. Music,
Speaker 3: they rent out museum tickets, local stuff that's happening in
Speaker 3: your area. So treat the library like your own little
Speaker 3: little kit discount. Yeah, there's so much happening.
Speaker 1: It's fantastic, And I would say My charge also is
Speaker 1: to it's kind of like an anti solution. Anti alternative
Speaker 1: is to stop getting the deals. Deals are tools, not trophies.
Speaker 1: So being proud of a deal is it's a marketing
Speaker 1: tactic that businesses use. Would not do sales if it
Speaker 1: was not proven to get you to impulse buy more.
Speaker 1: And we talk about an exact story of j C.
Speaker 1: Penny and this crazy story about how people stop.
Speaker 3: When j C.
Speaker 1: Penny stopped doing sales and just lowered their prices, people
Speaker 1: stopped shopping there, and when they raised the prices and
Speaker 1: brought back the deals, they started again. And it is insane.
Speaker 4: So I would also.
Speaker 1: Challenge you to just shop apart from deals and maybe
Speaker 1: detox yourself off of that.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, and deals are tools.
Speaker 4: Yes, Yes, I love.
Speaker 3: That perspective and that's so so helpful. I also will
Speaker 3: say that I think something that comes along with knowing
Speaker 3: ourselves identifying our impulse spending, It doesn't mean that we
Speaker 3: have to totally abandon an enjoyment of making our money
Speaker 3: go further. So, yes, I love deals, but I'm not
Speaker 3: impulse shopping them anymore. It has more so led to patience,
Speaker 3: knowing what I want, keeping a list, and then I
Speaker 3: am able to take advantage of the deal. So I
Speaker 3: still love them. I can still recognize that many are
Speaker 3: marketing employees. But for instance, just this week, we've been
Speaker 3: in need of a new door that's hurricane glass, an
Speaker 3: exterior door. Eric found one on clearance, an original sixty
Speaker 3: five hundred dollars door, and we got it for a
Speaker 3: thousand so like, and that's not a marketing ploy that's
Speaker 3: home depot who had a return sitting on their shelf
Speaker 3: for three months that nobody else wanted to buy. And
Speaker 3: we've been checking back on this door weekly for months now.
Speaker 3: I am glad that this is over because this has
Speaker 3: taken up too much of our time. Eric's been like
Speaker 3: obsessed with this door because we were able to kind
Speaker 3: of hold it with an open hand, keep an eye
Speaker 3: on it, keep talking to the manager. We got it
Speaker 3: for what kind of discount is that eighty percent less
Speaker 3: than like its actual sticker price. So things like that
Speaker 3: do exist, but you're not going to just get that
Speaker 3: on a whim. Those types of things happen when you
Speaker 3: know what it is that you need. You are setting
Speaker 3: some money aside, you're implementing some patience on it, you
Speaker 3: are looking and sometimes sometimes it goes your way. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So that's that's my that's my other side.
Speaker 1: I'm with you one hundred percent. I'm with you on
Speaker 1: doing it that way because we are the same, we
Speaker 1: are becoming the same We're becoming the same person. It's
Speaker 1: becoming a problem, all right. So the last one we
Speaker 1: will talk about is social influence. So this is something
Speaker 1: that I'm not necessarily social influence in being traditionally influenced
Speaker 1: by user generated content.
Speaker 5: So we.
Speaker 1: Have really seen this trend towards aesthetic and perfectionism, like
Speaker 1: in social media, having these having this aspirational content and
Speaker 1: or even non aspirational content just generalize content in a
Speaker 1: really aesthetic vibe, and that has led to people trying
Speaker 1: to recreate it or feeling inadequate and not bringing people
Speaker 1: into their home because they believe all they're seeing is
Speaker 1: these really aesthetic homes on social media and they believe
Speaker 1: their home is inadequate. And we have found that is
Speaker 1: leading to a lot more impulse spending than somebody doing
Speaker 1: an unboxing video or a paid ad that is clearly
Speaker 1: you know, they're just hawking products for money, right, So
Speaker 1: this is something that's much deeper for me during our
Speaker 1: home renovation.
Speaker 4: We lived in.
Speaker 1: A live in flip for two years, and I followed
Speaker 1: a lot of interior designers because I'm not an interior
Speaker 1: designer by nature, I don't know.
Speaker 4: What looks good.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: And the problem was is that these people have these
Speaker 1: these funds to do this because it's their job, right,
Speaker 1: and then they know what to do.
Speaker 4: I was looking.
Speaker 1: I did not have the funds that they have because
Speaker 1: it is not my job or my gift. And if
Speaker 1: I'm trying to recreate this in a way that is
Speaker 1: affordable for me, just not identical to them. How do
Speaker 1: I know when it's done? How do I know when
Speaker 1: it's enough? And I could just keep buying and buying
Speaker 1: and buying, trying to recreate all these different influencers, you know, tips.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, I had to
Speaker 1: decide when my house was decorated and done and also
Speaker 1: be patient and know that it's done for now. And
Speaker 1: if I see this one thing, then I could add that,
Speaker 1: but like that's finite. It's not like for the rest
Speaker 1: of my life I'll just see things and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: that looks good, I'll add that.
Speaker 4: I have to know what it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Oh, that's interesting. I feel like it kind of
Speaker 3: ties in with a bit of the habit spending loosely,
Speaker 3: in that we may start following an account for a
Speaker 3: certain season to help us in that season, and then
Speaker 3: we keep following them, but now it's no longer serving us.
Speaker 3: It's just making us more envious or thinking that what
Speaker 3: we have isn't enough. And we also have to keep redecorating,
Speaker 3: re renovating, redoing rather than calling it this is a
Speaker 3: good representation of me. I'm done. I no longer need
Speaker 3: to be buying these things anymore. I know we experienced
Speaker 3: that in the midst of our renovation too. We were
Speaker 3: so used to just dropping all this cash that we
Speaker 3: had set aside for the renovation every weekend, going too
Speaker 3: Low's and Home Depot, and then suddenly, when no, we
Speaker 3: are done, the big parts of the renovation are over.
Speaker 3: We really had to identify when that hard stop was,
Speaker 3: when no, now this is no longer a need for
Speaker 3: the renovation anymore. We can be patient for the finishing
Speaker 3: touches that now need to happen. Yeah. I think social
Speaker 3: influence can play into that.
Speaker 1: Same thing happened was closed for me after I had
Speaker 1: my second child, and I was dressing this new postpartum
Speaker 1: body and I wanted to feel good about myself. That
Speaker 1: was a good thing for that season. But then I
Speaker 1: had to once I had bought a few new pieces,
Speaker 1: I had to stop and say, like, Okay, the rest
Speaker 1: of this, I'm going to wait until I find something
Speaker 1: second hand or something you know, Poshmark whatever through the storm.
Speaker 1: So yeah, setting that it is such a balance. Rights
Speaker 1: That's why we say, for me, impulse spending is never
Speaker 1: going to go away, because I have this list in
Speaker 1: the back of my mind of things that I'm willing
Speaker 1: to buy unplanned if I see it available secondhand or
Speaker 1: as a deal. But if it's not on the list,
Speaker 1: it's not it's not getting bought.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And I think that's a good call for
Speaker 3: curating who you follow. It's a good reason to take
Speaker 3: inventory regularly, maybe every few months. Is this still helping me?
Speaker 3: Or is this maybe making me feel discontent like what
Speaker 3: I have isn't enough, maybe prompting me to spend more
Speaker 3: than I want. But also this happens in our own
Speaker 3: communities as well. We see what our neighbors have, we
Speaker 3: see what our friends have, and maybe they're not living
Speaker 3: in this beautifully curated esthetic, but we could see the
Speaker 3: things that they have that are maybe making their lives
Speaker 3: a little bit more efficient, and we want that thing too.
Speaker 3: And that comes down to really understanding our own values
Speaker 3: and our own goals with money so that we can
Speaker 3: say better, yes is easier, knows to these things, that
Speaker 3: the purchasing opportunities that we are presented with every single day,
Speaker 3: that social influence will always be all around us, but
Speaker 3: we will feel more confident in what we say yes
Speaker 3: to when we know what we want to be doing
Speaker 3: with our money.
Speaker 4: You know one thing I want to be doing with
Speaker 4: my time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that I do every week, and I do it intentionally.
Speaker 3: The bill of the week.
Speaker 6: That's right, it's time for the best minute of yourance
Speaker 6: entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name
Speaker 6: is Williams. Maybe you paid off your mortgage, Maybe your
Speaker 6: car died and you're happy to not have to pay
Speaker 6: that bill anymore. Tough bills, Buffalo bills, Bill Clayton, this
Speaker 6: is the bill of the week.
Speaker 5: Hi, jen unjil, This is Holly from Saint George, Utah,
Speaker 5: and I just wanted to share my really exciting bill
Speaker 5: of the week. So we got the notice that our
Speaker 5: car insurance was going to be auto renewing a week
Speaker 5: or so, and it was really expensive, and so I
Speaker 5: started just shopping around for different insurances and by just
Speaker 5: spending a couple of hours looking around, I was able
Speaker 5: to switch car insurances and save my husband and I
Speaker 5: over six hundred dollars. So that is my bill of
Speaker 5: the week.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Yes, Holly, this is your reminder out there if you
Speaker 1: have not shopped your car insurance this year, it's time.
Speaker 1: It's time to do it. Do it this month and
Speaker 1: see what else is out there. They will pro rate.
Speaker 4: And yeah, just do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you don't have to wait until your insurance renews.
Speaker 3: Is something you can do anytime of the year and
Speaker 3: compare and like you said, you know, even get some
Speaker 3: money back even if you've paid in advance. One of
Speaker 3: the resources that we have that we would recommend for
Speaker 3: being able to do this even faster is Policygenius, So
Speaker 3: Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash Policy Genius will help
Speaker 3: you to be able to compare different insurance prices. So
Speaker 3: thank you so much, Holly. What a great reminder. If
Speaker 3: you all are listening to this bill and you have
Speaker 3: a bill about shopping around, negotiating lowering your bills or
Speaker 3: a bill you don't mind paying, or your your bill
Speaker 3: who pays his bills, your bill who doesn't pay his
Speaker 3: billills you just bill live in your bill life.
Speaker 1: Or maybe you want more bills to be able to
Speaker 1: make an impulse buy. Go get less expensive auto insurance
Speaker 1: and use the money you saved to buy yourself something.
Speaker 3: Nice Wow for goal friendspodcast dot com, slash bill, leave
Speaker 3: us your bill, and now it's time for the lightning around.
Speaker 1: All right, When do you allow yourself to make impulse purchases?
Speaker 1: This is our vulnerability round.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: So we've been quite transparent in the fact that we
Speaker 1: make impulse purchases. There is no room for planning one
Speaker 1: hundred percent of your purchases, which is why we don't
Speaker 1: love traditional budgets. We definitely have our own way of
Speaker 1: budgeting or as we say, making a spending plan, which
Speaker 1: we talk about in the book. So I would say again,
Speaker 1: the list, and I know you're gonna do it, Okay,
Speaker 1: I say it. I have the things in the back
Speaker 1: of my head that I know I will spend money
Speaker 1: on if the opportunity rises.
Speaker 4: The list is short, it's very.
Speaker 1: Short, and I keep it short so that I can change,
Speaker 1: like I can reconsider if something should even be on
Speaker 1: the list. I will keep wish lists on Amazon for
Speaker 1: things for a very long time and wait for them
Speaker 1: to go on sale. But very often sales on Amazon
Speaker 1: are not real. It's usually a price increase to show
Speaker 1: a decrease. So yeah, it has. And that's one of
Speaker 1: the there's been such a rise in deceptive sales marketing
Speaker 1: that and I read about it so much that now
Speaker 1: sales infuriate me. And that's one of the reasons that
Speaker 1: I just don't like sales. But I do wait if
Speaker 1: I can get a deal. I know I can get
Speaker 1: a deal, I will wait. So yeah, I just it's
Speaker 1: my list.
Speaker 3: Yeah. For me, there's a couple of things that that
Speaker 3: converge with my impulse spending, and the first is similarly
Speaker 3: my list. I do have to write it down. My
Speaker 3: brain just doesn't doesn't work the way I want it to.
Speaker 3: And I just pulled it up right now to see, Okay,
Speaker 3: what do I have on the list? A TV console table.
Speaker 3: This has been on the list for years. I don't
Speaker 3: think I'm finding it. I should probably, And the reason
Speaker 3: I'm not erasing it is because I actually have the measurements.
Speaker 3: So that's something else I'll do, Like if there's a
Speaker 3: piece of furniture that I want, I will put the
Speaker 3: measurements in the note for like what could fit there.
Speaker 3: So if I am out at a thrift storeyard sale,
Speaker 3: or you know me, and I find something, we also
Speaker 3: keep a tape measurer in our vehicle that I can
Speaker 3: make sure that that thing would would fit for what
Speaker 3: I'm looking for. I haven't found one. We've lived without
Speaker 3: it for years, so I don't know if we're doing.
Speaker 1: I got Travis a tape measure keychain for that very reason.
Speaker 3: Yup, you always need one. Black boots and these have
Speaker 3: been on my list for also over a year, in
Speaker 3: part because I really like the black boots I already have,
Speaker 3: but the heel, the like coating on the heel is
Speaker 3: all like flaking off, And so there is a part
Speaker 3: of me like I've been on the hunt. I cannot
Speaker 3: find anything that I even like, much less than a
Speaker 3: price range that I'm willing to pay. But I love
Speaker 3: the ones I currently have that I'm starting to wonder
Speaker 3: if I just need to take them to a shoe
Speaker 3: repair place and see if they could do something to
Speaker 3: the heel of them. I think they cleather, but then
Speaker 3: the heel is just some sort of like rubber that
Speaker 3: was stuck onto it and is now peeling off, and
Speaker 3: so it's yellow underneath. Like it's not like, oh, it
Speaker 3: peels off, but it's still you know, the black color.
Speaker 3: It's not the case. So yeah, and lip balm and
Speaker 3: greeting cards, so we'll see. They do have greeting cards
Speaker 3: at Walmart, which is normally where I get my groceries,
Speaker 3: but I don't like them, so that they often have
Speaker 3: greeting cards at the thrift store exactly. I will check
Speaker 3: the thrift store as well. Something else I will also
Speaker 3: do is just give myself loose parameters and so like
Speaker 3: that's something that specifically I'll do with my grocery list,
Speaker 3: is right down some sort of category of something, but
Speaker 3: then allow myself the opportunity to see what strikes my
Speaker 3: fancy once I'm there. So I feel like that kind
Speaker 3: of also scratches the itch of wanting to just be
Speaker 3: at my whimsy just by the seat of my pants.
Speaker 3: It'll be like, Okay, I want some sort of frozen
Speaker 3: food option. I don't exactly know what it's gonna be
Speaker 3: I'm gonna let myself decide when I'm there. I want
Speaker 3: two snacks of some sort, Gonna let myself decide what
Speaker 3: those snacks are when I'm there. So that even helps
Speaker 3: to feed a little bit of that desire to just like,
Speaker 3: don't let don't confine me, don't pin me down, let
Speaker 3: me have some choices. But it's still within this.
Speaker 1: But it also keeps you from coming home with like
Speaker 1: six snacks because you didn't give yourself a limit.
Speaker 4: So thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1: We hope that this helped you identify some of the
Speaker 1: impulse spending triggers that you have and can help you
Speaker 1: make one or two changes heading into the new year.
Speaker 1: And if this really helped you, I highly highly encourage
Speaker 1: you to pre order our book. It comes out so soon.
Speaker 1: Buy what you Love without going broke. Buy what you
Speaker 1: lovebook dot com. And also if you already have pre
Speaker 1: ordered the book, leave us a rating and review on
Speaker 1: Apple or Spotify. We love to read them, kind of
Speaker 1: like this one from Raspberry h They say Obsessed happens
Speaker 1: to be five stars. I'm so obsessed with this podcast.
Speaker 1: I listen to every episode even if it doesn't sound
Speaker 1: like something that would interest me, because Jen and Jill
Speaker 1: are just so fun to listen to. It's like chatting
Speaker 1: with some friends. I learned so much about saving money
Speaker 1: and being more conscious of my spending. It's amazing that
Speaker 1: they've done so many episodes and still haven't run out
Speaker 1: of things to talk about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so true, Raspberry h thank you so much for
Speaker 3: your kind words. And I'm so glad that you're listening
Speaker 3: to us every single time, even if it doesn't interest you.
Speaker 3: I'm glad you're here. Hopefully there's still little nuggets for you.
Speaker 3: And no, we're not running out of stuff to talk
Speaker 3: about because we're not running out of stuff to spend on. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so'll be here as long as we keep spending money
Speaker 3: and wondering how can we get food for less expensive?
Speaker 3: Will continue to be here absolutely so.
Speaker 4: Until then, see you next time.
Speaker 3: Leave us a rating and review and buy whatulovebook dot com.
Speaker 1: Bye Gorugal Friends is produced by Eric Sirianni.
Speaker 3: What is the last thing You've you impulse bought?
Speaker 1: Oh at the grocery store show grocery shop online. It
Speaker 1: limits impulse spending, but I have been seeing this uh
Speaker 1: protein bar circulating the built puff, So I ordered that.
Speaker 4: Because I wanted to try it.
Speaker 3: How is it?
Speaker 4: I haven't tried it. Oh, I just picked up my
Speaker 4: groceries yesterday.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I haven't tried it yet, but it was.
Speaker 1: It sat in my cart for a little bit for
Speaker 1: a week, like I add things into the cart and
Speaker 1: then you know, throughout the week and then review it
Speaker 1: before I check out.
Speaker 4: And I still wanted them after a week.
Speaker 3: So I bought them. So nice.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 3: What about you? Potentially would this count? This morning, Eric
Speaker 3: and I were on our way home from an appointment
Speaker 3: and we just decided to stop in at the local
Speaker 3: donut chop and pick up some sausage rolls, which are
Speaker 3: really hot dog hot dogs wrapped in croissan Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: and a donut.
Speaker 1: It's a yeah, it's like a big pig and a blanket.
Speaker 3: And I knew you were going to be here today,
Speaker 3: so I asked if you wanted something, you also want
Speaker 3: the Jalapino sausage roll. The thing about it, I mean,
Speaker 3: this is why it's so kind of Lucy goosey to
Speaker 3: me a little bit is we do have an eating
Speaker 3: out portion of our spending plan, so it does fall
Speaker 3: into that, but it wasn't something that we had plan
Speaker 3: to go stop at the donut shop. So I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think there's so much flexibility with it too, that
Speaker 3: we can even just make room for our impulse spending.
Speaker 3: We're rather than working against ourselves entirely knowing it's going
Speaker 3: to happen and allowing yourselves the freedom to do it.
Speaker 1: Then yeah, you want to a reason, Yeah, do it
Speaker 1: in a more controlled environment that, yeah, involves a little
Speaker 1: sacrifice from maybe the way you were living before, but
Speaker 1: ultimately makes you feel better and is not the deprivation
Speaker 1: that comes with the other extreme.
Speaker 3: Well, I gotta go eat my sausage roll now.
Speaker 4: Go for I already ate mine.
Speaker 3: Yeah,