Brought to you by the EveryDaughter app. Start budgeting for free today. I have a spending addiction that I just can't seem to get over. I've been trying to follow the baby steps, but it's really hard for me.
And so I'm just kind of looking for your advice on that. Tell us a little bit more. What is this? What can you, what do you feel comfortable telling us about this particular addiction?
Is it just across the board spending or is it one or two categories or one thing? What is it? Yeah, so it's fast food because I have such a busy schedule that I don't plan for making dinner. So I spend money on fast food.
I spend a lot of money on my daughter. I spend money on other people. And I like at the bottom of the list is splurging on my own stuff. OK, and give us an idea if you've been tracking how much you're spending in all these categories on a monthly basis?
Yeah, I use every dollar. So it's probably about 1,000 to 1,200 a month. And what's your total income for a month? It's about, oh, for a month.
It's probably $4,800. Oh, so ma'am, you don't have the margin to be splurging like this. Right, no. I mean, that's like if you do have a $2,000 a month, that's half your income.
Yeah. Do you have debt as well? I do. I have a total of probably $90,000 debt.
Oh, my god. Whoa. OK, you know, we're going to break this down. Give us the list, smallest of largest.
Yeah, my medical debt is a little over 4,000 credit cards, 9,100, and then personal loans, 51,600. And my student loans are 20,000. Who are these personal loans, too? So before I found you guys, I had a debt consolidation loan.
And then we got pipes on our house back when I was with my ex, and we're still paying that off, and then a car. So if I shoot straight with you, I mean, I'm wondering if I already heard it when you were talking about your ex. What do you think's behind this? Because there's always something behind it.
What's trauma? Definitely trauma. And I'm trying to work through that, but I'm trying to figure out how to stop this overspending while I'm working on my trauma history. When you say working on the trauma history, you see in a professional?
I am, yeah. Great. And you feel like you're making progress? I think so, yeah.
And I've started a couple of groups with some others who've been through the same thing. So I'm thinking through this. I'm trying to be thoughtful here. If it were a spousal situation, and the two were together, and one of them had an addiction, I would say this person doesn't need access to the money.
I'd say the other spouse who's able to take care of the money who can be trusted to take care of the money needs to help. So I'm almost wondering if there's someone in your life who can be that person for you to say, hey, let me walk alongside you to make sure, because with $4,800 and with a daughter and with $90,000 of debt, we cannot keep spending $2,000. Is there someone that you can trust to kind of walk with you and kind of not take you out of it completely, but for them to be more in charge of having that accountability with you? Yeah.
I have a close friend who's actually offered to do that for me. It's just releasing that control of it. That's hard. But here's what we have to ask ourself.
What if we don't? What if you keep bringing this over and over? Where will you, a year from now, you're going to look up and say, OK, am I going to be the same? Am I going to be worse off or am I going to be better?
And right now, if you continue down this path, you're going to be worse off. Yeah. So something has to shake. Yeah, let's OK.
So first of all, can I say something? You're amazingly brave to call in on a video call and go, hey, I'm spending addiction. So I want to tell you something because I think you need to hear it. You're way tougher than a lot of people.
So I want you to harness that. Now, I'm a big fan of therapy. I am no therapist nor have I played one on TV, nor am I going to try to be one. But I would love to know, what has your therapist said to you and that you're comfortable sharing as it relates to tools or some type of process that they're probably giving you when you get to an emotional place, and let's say we're driving home.
And you know you've got an old pot roast in the fridge, but you really want to pull over to your favorite place and get a combo, taste good, feels good, all the things. What has been shared, if any, from your therapist on tools or how we're processing? Because I'm going somewhere with the answer. What can you share?
So I'm an MDR therapy, and she recently worked on this where you kind of go and play from the beginning of the scenario like I'm driving home and then play through the scenario. What would happen if I were to go drive to this fast food place and get a burger and then drive home? And then there's that meat in the fridge that's almost ready to expire. So kind of walking through it and then reshaping it in your head what it would look like if you were to just drive home and use the food.
And has that been helpful? I haven't really used it yet because it was just this last week. OK, great. So when was the last time, and so you're being real with us, when was the last time that you spent in one of those categories that you led the call off with that was the addictive stuff?
When was the last time? Probably last week. OK, good. OK.
So the reason I went to this is I love what you said, Jay. I think in this situation, you have got to get to a place where while you're getting the help and the therapy and you're dealing with the trauma, you've got to find something to replace that band-aid spin. And you've got to find something that goes, I've got to look at something else. And instead of something that makes me feel good, I would start thinking about something that makes me feel really bad.
Attached to said spending, right? So if I'm tempted to buy something from my daughter because I show her love, and by the way, I've been guilty of this. And you're smiling. It makes you feel good.
So you feel bad about yourself a lot, don't you? I do, yeah. So when you buy something for your daughter, it makes you feel really good. And the endorphins release, and there's dopamine.
And you're like, OK, I feel really crappy. Let me go buy something for my daughter. What I think you've got to start doing is I feel crappy. How do I process these emotions?
What are the tools my therapist has given me? That's first. Second, if it were me, Jay, I would go to if I buy something for my daughter that I cannot afford to make myself feel good because she shows me love and happiness, I am further penalizing her and me and putting me further in a hole. And that's what I mean by going to the negative consequence of the addictive spending.
I think you've got to spend more time there to go, oh, the pain of that is far greater than the pain of feeling because what somebody did to you and said to you. What are your thoughts on that? I mean, I think that's all valid. I go to the practicality of it.
I go to James Clear, and I think about systems and putting those systems in place so you can actually win. That's why I mentioned what I mentioned earlier. If I were in your shoes, I think it would take an incredible amount of willpower. But I think I would go tonight.
And I would set up everything on automation. And I would say, when I get paid on these days, my bills get paid automatically. And do you want to know what I would do? I think that I would cut up my cards for awhile.
Oh, yeah. Do you have them close by? Because here's the thing, if you need money, you can walk into a bank, you can withdraw it. That requires a lot more work.
It requires a lot more thought. But in that time, that also gives you the time that if you're feeling that way, you can call your buddy up and say, hey, remember, I told you about this thing? I need you right now. Because I'm about to go in here and make a withdrawal slip so that I can go buy myself a burger so I can go buy my daughter something.
And so now we put another level of friction in between you and doing the thing that you know you shouldn't be doing. And I'm no therapist. I can't even pretend to be one. But that's just something on the practical level that could help you today.
All right, speaking of practical, are your credit cards close by? No, I don't know, they're across the room. Okay, if we were to give you an opportunity, say to walk across the room and get those cards and bring them back on camera, would you cut them up right now? You called, wait a second, you called.
You called us and you said, I need help with the dick to spending. I think Jade makes a good point. I think we cut them up now. You give yourself a certain amount of money.
Today's the day. You any groceries? Let your buddy hold it? You in or not?
We're not gonna force it. You in or not? You want freedom? So my debit cards to my bank account.
You wanna cut them up? Oh, I already cut out the credit cards. She cut them up. I would have let the debit ones go too.
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