I used to have two responses when faced with stress: spend more or eat more. I still sometimes struggle with stress-eating, but stress-spending hasn’t been an issue since I started this blog.
My mother’s recent health problems, however, have brought a whole new meaning to the word “stress”. “I can’t believe this makes me so tense,” I told Kris. “I know Mom’s in good hands. She’s going to be fine.”
“It’s understandable,” Kris said.
So I was surprised the other night to find that, for the first time in ages, stress drove me to shopping. After a recent visit to the hospital, I found myself in the middle of a nearby mall. What was I doing there? I hadn’t been to a mall in years, and yet there I was, back in an old familiar place, looking for comfort.
I made a deal with myself. “I cannot use my credit card,” I thought. “Or my debit card. But I can spend whatever cash I have in my pocket.” I opened my wallet to look: I had $17.
I made a bee-line to the Barnes & Noble. I used to visit bookstores once or twice a week (spending money on nearly every trip), but one of my keys to building wealth has been to avoid them completely. If I’m not tempted, I cannot spend.
For fifteen minutes I wandered the store, admiring all the lovely new books: books on personal finance, books on gardening, books on writing. In the end, however, I bought a comic book (of course). I spent $12.99 on The Pride of Baghdad, a graphic novel about lions that escape from the Baghdad Zoo during an American bombing run.
I drove home, read the book, and thought, “I could have borrowed that from the library.”
I’m not sure how I feel about this experience. I’m not mad at myself. “It’s only $12.99,” I keep thinking. Yet I know that’s a slippery slope: spend $12.99 to soothe myself today, and what will I spend tomorrow?
I also know that it’s important not to beat myself up for this choice. One of the keys to my financial turnaround has been learning from my mistakes. Instead of letting a single small error lead to a spiral of failure, I’ve taught myself to accept it and move on. In this case, I recognize that I spent $12.99 to cope with negative emotions, brought another piece of clutter into the house, and bought something I could have borrowed from the library.
There’s no guarantee that I won’t react similarly in the future, but by consciously noting the choice and its implications now, I make it easier to do the right thing in the future.
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Retail therapy is my way to get over hard times. I also spend a lot of money in going out to eat with friends with the caveat of “I’ve had a stressful weekend, you deserve this $40 dinner.”
But other side of that is that I become STRESSED about how I am spending money and that I don’t have any because of it.
So, I am working on cutting out mindless spending and hoping to find a different (affordable) way to handle stress.
Great post!
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Fellow book-addict here! I used to spend a minimum of $60 every time! But it’s a pity you’ve stopped enjoying bookstores. The way I’ve managed to keep enjoying this favorite pasttime is to go to bookstores with a little notebook in hand. I browse to my heart’s content and then write down anything that looks interesting. Then I check out my local public library’s online catalog and order anything that they might have. Usually, between that and the local university library, they have pretty much everything I want to read, maybe with a waiting list at the public library, but anticipation is half the pleasure, isn’t it? Whatever they don’t have, I put on my Amazon wish list for the occasion I get a gift card or cash in my loose change and get one for myself!
Maybe you lapsed because you deprived yourself a little too much of your old pleasures, and that, on top of the stress of your mother’s illness, broke your will.
I empathize with the clutter problem–been working on THAT for a year now, with no end in sight! Without buying anything new, stuff still seems to come out of nowhere!
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JD, I’ve been following your blog for several months now, and have enjoyed every bit of it. I’ve recommended it to friends who follow it now too. What you’re doing here is good, most definitely. Based on all you’ve written and how far you’ve traveled on this journey to Get Rich Slowly, it’s unlikely that your moment of weakness at the bookstore will cause you a relapse of serious unnecessary spending. So cut yourself a break, accept the book as a reward for all you’ve been doing to help your mom and to help the rest of us have a different relationship with our money. Onward!
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Speaking of unnecessary purchases, now I want a copy of that Pink Floyd album – my roommates walked off with mine years ago! It’s not quite up there with their classic 70s work, but much better than Roger Waters thought it was.
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Oh BTW… remember, you can often check out CDs at the public library too. I’ll see what their Floyd selection is like.
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I had a lapse of comfort spending this past week. I love shopping online and can easily spend hours doing it. I have been doing a lot better about since I started reading your site and try to control the spending urges. But the other night I spent several hours shopping online and came away with an Autumn jacket coming to me in the mail. I got it on sale but it was a lapse and I don’t want to slip back into my bad online shopping habits.
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J.D.–I think you might feel better about this one purchase if you didn’t have the purchases from the past still looking at you and taunting you. Remember in purging/decluttering if you look at something and it makes you feel bad in any way, get rid of it. (Why do you want to keep things in your home that make you feel bad?) And, yes, you’ve already spent the money and gotten the pleasure from it and the other comics, so just let them go. Perhaps you could find someone who loves comics as much as you, but has never had resources to be able to indulge. Maybe an aspiring comic artist. Often just the right person presents themself for this type of gift and then letting go of stuff becomes a blessing and the guilt is gone.
Like others said, don’t beat yourself over a pleasurable indulgence. You just needed a break from thinking about your mom’s situation. We almost all do this type of thing in some form or another and like you said, it’s okay unless you see yourself going over the edge … and you’re not.
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Shirley wrote: I think you might feel better about this one purchase if you didn’t have the purchases from the past still looking at you and taunting you.
This is an interesting point.
We spent several more hours down at Mom’s house today, continuing the effort to purge what can be purged. (We’re now down to stuff that she’ll have to decide about.) We rented a frickin’ dumpster for the weekend to get rid of stuff. It’s full.
As we were working through this, I again commented that I wished I could do the same thing with my own Stuff. Why on earth do I have a workshop filled with crap I never use. My workshop is basically a staging ground for all the Stuff I’ve bought but which is no longer useful.
More and more, I think that if I could start over, I’d have a small house (maybe on a big lot) and furnish it sparsely. I have a friend who has chosen to live like that, and everytime I’m at his house, it feels, well, liberating. It’s amazing. I wonder if I can get there myself.
Finally, I want people to know I’m not really beating myself up over this. It was a dumb thing, but it was a small dumb thing. I’m just trying to be aware of my choices…
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I wished I could do the same thing with my own Stuff
But J.D., you can. You probably don’t have the time right now, but if you can go through your mum’s stuff you can go through your own. Having a lot of stuff is overwhelming when you decide to start getting rid of stuff, but it’s not impossible – although you might need help.
Even better, now that you’ve stopped bringing as much stuff into the house, if you let these things go, it won’t fill up again. Of course you’ll be left with quite a lot of house.
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I’m sorry your mom’s health is in crisis. I, too am a member of the buy it/eat it club when faced with emotional issues. What can I say? It’s an ongoing battle to develop healthier responses to stressful situations.
Regarding the book … if seeing or thinking of it leaves you with regret then release it from your life. Thanks for blogging.
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With my mom ill for the past 18 months, better than she was when in hospital and rehab for 7 months but not well – and not getting better- every visit is difficult. I won’t go into the whole psychology issue here but I often feel the need for caffeine and sugar. I try to limit the combo to once each visit(which is about 24-36 hours). I do drink coffee more than once(no sugar) but try to keep my sugar to one candy bar/snack cake and try to keep that for the longish drive home. The shopping I do when I am there is for her needs and that of her caregiver- it causes stress and does not relieve it. I do not feel bad about the coffee/chocolate combo- I do not drink, smoke, use drugs or eat meat so the sugar high at some point after each visit is my medication.
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I know what it is like to do the stress-spending and stress-eating. The way I avoid it now is to remind myself that I will be even more stressed when I again weight and am in debt. In order to avoid this cycle of eating/spending I try to find healthier alternatives like exercising and writing.
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My brother is in the comics business and has acquired thousands of graphic novels, most of which were sent to him free by publishers. At first this seemed like a dream come true because he’s a bibliophile, but now that he’s running out of room for bookcases he’s starting to purge the Stuff. He just told me he’s selling it on eBay through a “We sell your stuff on eBay” store (I didn’t know these things actually existed). They take a cut of the profits, but he just wants the Stuff out of his apartment and if he can get a few bucks for it he’ll be happy. They come to your home and evaluate what they could actually sell, and then they sell it for you. Just an idea.
Also, I follow both this blog and GFS, in part because stress makes me do the worst thing for fitness and finances: when I’m totally stressed out I go buy sweets I can’t afford in a large enough volume to “share with the office”, but then I eat most or all of it. Ugh. My best friend introduced me to the concept of “splurging” on one York peppermint patty, which still feels like an indulgence but is cheap and not _too_ bad, and that’s helped me get away from the big bad splurges most of the time, but it’s a process. Your honesty (and all these comments) is encouraging.
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I think what happened is a great thing, not a mistake. Previously, during sadness or stress you weren’t really aware of your purchases, but you were aware of what little fleeting happiness you gained from the stuff.
Now, you’re more aware of your purchases and how little happiness it brings and how empty you feel – the money/stuff didn’t bring you as much happiness as you felt it did in the past.
It’s like a half-full, half-empty view. Your perspective has changed.
I read a long time ago in the book of virtues a story about a boy who saw a toy drum and wanted it really badly. He spent weeks saving up money and finally bought it only to have it break in one day. He realized it was cheaply made, and in fact found it later for sale for much cheaper than what he’d paid for. Rather than save up and buy the drum again, he took it as a lesson as he grew up. Any time he was faced with a frivolous purchase he’d say “I paid too much for my drum”. I probably butchered this story since I read it about 10 years ago. =)
You can have your own mantra. “I paid too much for my book”.
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$12.99 hardly seems like something worth worrying about. To be honest I think you’ve done much better than most other people under similar pressures.
$12.99 seems like a good investment in reducing stress. Sure you could have borrowed it from the library but it’s healthy to allow yourself a little discretionary spending now and then.
It’s great you have been successful with saving money but don’t be so stingy with money that you don’t afford yourself some small luxury on occasion.
I think it’s good when you say:
“There’s no guarantee that I won’t react similarly in the future, but by consciously noting the choice and its implications now, I make it easier to do the right thing in the future.”
That paragraph shows your high regard for not being wasteful with money. But I’m concerned that your consternation over spending such a small amount of money will lead to a problem with being compulsive with penny pinching. The word to look for is “balance”.
Really, if you can commit yourself to saving a certain amount of money per year then I don’t see the problem in spending such a small amount of money on a luxury now and then.
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I completely understand the concern you have in starting the downward spiral or slipping. It starts with one item but it could continue with more.
I catch myself at the grocery store with a product that I normally don’t use, but convinced I’m going to make that elaborate meal I saw on TV. Two weeks later, I find myself dumping it in the compost pile.
Books or comics do have value. They can be shared, donated or resold for future goodies.
It is learning from the mistake that makes us better.
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I know how you feel. Actually I have no idea how you feel because I’ve never dealt with a parent’s health crisis so I can only imagine.
Stress-spending however is something I can completely commisserate on and the only helpful words I can think of are to realize how much you’ve grown and that you’re more in control of your life than you’ve ever been. It’s okay to not be perfect (as you know) as long as you remember that any mistakes are an opportunity to do better with the next temptation rather than a reason to forget about your resolve and just mope and spend mope and spend-a pattern I’m sure many people here are all too familiar with.
Best of luck, stay strong, and spend $15 on something that will take your mind off your troubles, this too shall pass.
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JD, babysteps.
You did fine, and a little escapism when we’re under stress is maybe not such a bad thing (a LITTLE.) That’s just what you got from the graphic novel, so embrace that, and as others have said–pass it on.
How about a further babystep the next time? Instead of going to the mall, take yourself to a thrift store or a used book store. That way, you’ll spend LESS for your stress relief. It’s a good way to dial down.
I know all about cold turkey. I did it SIX times trying to quit smoking.
(I sucessfully quit, but it took a while!)
~JM
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PS: Best wishes for your mother! I know how stressful that situation must be for you, and I wish you the best.
JM
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