105. Guilt Free Spending Dilemma

In this episode of the Women & Money Cafe podcast, hosts Julie and Emily challenge conventional wisdom when it comes to spending money. They dive into the idea that you should only buy something when you have saved up for it, and explore the continuum of spending and saving.

Here are some key points covered in the episode:

- Julie and Emily share their personal experiences with spending money they don't have yet
- Emily discusses her recent home office renovations and the dilemma she faced when deciding to make additional purchases for her business
- They explore the concept of aligning spending with personal values and finding joy in certain purchases, like Julie's love for books
- We also explore the idea of making conscious buying decisions and setting guidelines to avoid impulsive purchases


Diary of a CEO

YOUR HOST

Julie Flynn is an experienced independent financial adviser and financial coach. Justice and equality drive Julie. Which is why she’s spent years studying and researching how stress affects our financial decision making.

Julie is best known for her work with women who have lost their partner and coaching financial services business who want to implement fair and transparent charges.
Ebb & Flow Financial Coaching | Bree Wealth & Tax | Instagram


CO-HOSTS
Emily Pool is a Financial Planner and Will Writer. She is passionate about empowering people to invest their wealth (pensions and savings) sustainably and in line with their personal values.

Michelle Lambell  started her career in financial services as a Stockbroker in 1999 undertaking both advisory and discretionary investment management. Today she is a Chartered Financial Planner, specialising in retirement planning advice, pensions and investments and a Certified Financial Coach.

Sara Walker is a financial planner and financial coach with 33 years’ experience in financial services. She wants all women to feel financially confident and uses her professional and life experiences to support and educate women over 40 so they in turn feel able to support and be role models for the younger women in their lives.

Jennifer O'Neil is a mortgage and protection specialist and director of Athena Mortgages. Having been in the industry since 2014 Jennifer decided to set up a company in 2020 that suited her core values as a broker – integrity, service, honesty and continuous improvement.
LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

Transcript

Julie [00:01:10]:

Welcome back to this episode of the Women and Money Cafe podcast cast with myself and Emily today. Now I'm going to be honest with you. Okay? We normally have a good idea of where the episode is going to end up. Today, not so much. Emily and I are going to have a chat about something. And what we want to do is we're going to be this through real time with you because we want to challenge some conventional wisdom. And that is, it's generally perceived that the sensible thing is that you don't buy something until you have saved up and you've got the money for it. And I know that you're all sitting there nodding your head.

Julie [00:01:49]:

Well, yeah, uh-huh, that is absolutely the best way to do it. You never spend money that you don't have yet. But what Emily and I are going to what we're going to do is we're going to work through whether that is always the case. Because if you think about it, it's a continuum. Because most people, Myself included. I know you have for a fact, Emily. I spent a shed load of money that we don't have. That's called a mortgage.

Emily [00:02:14]:

Mhmm.

Julie [00:02:15]:

So it's this idea where do we get these ideas that you have to save up and you can't spend the money faster, invest, or what have you? Just want to talk it through as an idea, so that's what you're going to get from us over the next 15 minutes or so. So, Emily, this was your bright idea. So it was. Tell me a little bit more about what made this pop into your head.

Emily [00:02:35]:

Okay. So actually, I will just tell you that, fairly recently, I've started to, and nearly completed, actually, renovate my home office. As you can see, it's looking a little bit more glamorous these days. Sorry. You can't see if you're listening on this podcast, I can see listeners.

Julie [00:02:56]:

for the listeners, it's a really lovely shade of green. It's the same green as my living room. I can see in the background, we've got a frame up on the wall, and it's got the Happy Planet logo in it as well. I can see a microphone with a sock on it. Don't ask. And I can see the flowers in the background, so it is. It's looking very picturesque, Emily.

Emily [00:03:13]:

It is looking good, and the additions I've made to it very recently were a glass Table with a couple of chairs. A nice rug. Hopefully, you'll find that the acoustics are a little bit better now in here. I've also bought a really cool filing cabinet in which I've now got my printer instead of one horrible table in the corner. So you see, the aesthetics of this room are now really working for me. Okay? But the reason why this idea for the podcast Popped into my head because a few weeks ago, I was I've so I'm taking on a whole load of new clients. All very exciting. Yes.

Emily [00:03:54]:

Okay. But I have a few of these clients who live quite far away, and, they insisted on coming to see me, and I panicked. And I thought, well, you know, you haven't signed on the dotted line yet. I'm not really that happy about renting an office. You know, I am. So I thought, well, I'll see if they want to come to my home office. And I haven't had clients in in here before because I didn't think it was Nice enough. Yeah.

Emily [00:04:20]:

So I thought, gosh. I'm going to have the clients in here now, so I need to finish off a few things. And I Totted, and I did a bit of online shopping. I totted it all up, and I scratched my head. And I thought, I didn't really budget for that this month. And I thought, well, these clients are coming whether I like it or not. And is it better that there's a nice rug on the floor and somewhere nice to put my printer, etcetera? You know, you can talk yourself into anything, can't you, basically, when you want something enough. But actually, this wasn't for me.

Emily [00:04:51]:

This is for the business, so it's fine. And I in the end, I thought, well, isn't that what credit card is for? Stick it on the credit card and worry about it later. So I challenge you, Julie. You're shaking your head at me. What is wrong with that?

Julie [00:05:07]:

I don't know what makes you think there's something wrong with it, Emily.

Emily [00:05:10]:

Because you're laughing at me.

Julie [00:05:15]:

Okay. So I know that one of the things that I do with some clients, not all clients. I've got a couple of clients that have a track record of making big significant impulse purchases. And so one of the things that we put in place for them was, a decision making process So the next time they felt the urge to go and buy a bloody big shed or no. It wasn't a shed. It was a garage. Then they can refer back to these kinds of rules that they put in place for how they would spend money. Because what's interesting is and sometimes we feel guilty for spending money that we don't actually have to feel guilty about.

Julie [00:06:00]:

And that's what I'm wondering if this is one of those for you. So will give you a good example of this. So I am a good example of this. I used to feel guilty about how much money I spend on books. Mhmm. I spent a lot of money on books, and I always feel a little bit ashamed about it. But then I worked through what my values are, What's really important to me? The things that bring me joy, the things that improve my life, and what are the things that are just a waste of my money. Books positively contribute in so many good ways to my life, and it's in line with my values.

Julie [00:06:32]:

So now I have a budget I can spend on books each month because that's one of the things that fills me up with joy. So I spent years feeling guilty about how much I spent on books. And now can go and buy all the books so on. I don't have to feel bad because I know that that's proper me, that is. So what I'm wondering is the purchases for the office, It's having to think about which of your boxes did it tick.

Emily [00:06:59]:

Well, it meant I could finish the room because it wasn't finished before. And whilst I was extremely happy to be in my new home office when I finished the painting and done you know, had the wallpaper done, etcetera, and it looked reasonably good. It wasn't finished. And so it took only a few weeks for me to start looking around and going, oh, I'm not happy with that. I'm not happy and I do think and I actually heard this on a podcast recently. I think it was, the diary of the CEO, with a with a neuroscientist. Look up that episode. It's brilliant.

Emily [00:07:36]:

But she said aesthetics are important. Actually and I must say That I listened to this podcast after I'd made these buying decisions, but I thought, thank you. You've just justified

Julie [00:07:48]:

my best. Confirmation bias. Thank you very much.

Emily [00:07:50]:

Yes. Thank you. That another bit of confirmation bias. But yeah. So it is important that the environment that you're in a lot of the time, that it's working for you, that it makes you feel good. And, also, I was very conscious of the fact that I wanted to make my new clients feel good. I didn't want them to come and think, oh, she could have made a bit more effort.

Julie [00:08:13]:

Alright. Hang on a second. Putting the clients aside For a second, you were saying the neuroscientist was saying that aesthetics are important. It's important for us to have a nice working environment.

Emily [00:08:22]:

Yes.

Julie [00:08:22]:

K. So that's what the neuroscientist said. So to varying degrees, that will be true for everybody. Some Mhmm. For some people, it will be a little bit true. For some people, it will be very true. Yeah. But I'm wondering how important is it to you to have a pleasing working environment?

Emily [00:08:40]:

I think very. Yeah.

Julie [00:08:42]:

Tell me more about that.

Emily [00:08:43]:

Isn't it for you? Oh, gosh. You're being all coach y on me now. Before you get coachy, can I ask you a question? Because I had a question when you were talking about books. And you're very good at getting in there with another question, so I can't ask My question to you

Julie [00:08:59]:

Cool.

Emily [00:08:59]:

All these books that you buy, do you read them?

Julie [00:09:03]:

Yeah.

Emily [00:09:04]:

All of them?

Julie [00:09:05]:

I divide all of them.

Emily [00:09:06]:

From cover to cover. Okay.

Julie [00:09:08]:

Yeah. Uh-huh. Okay. I'm not one of those people that buys a book because you're meant to have read it. Yeah. And it doesn't read out.

Emily [00:09:15]:

No. I'm probably one of those people.

Julie [00:09:17]:

Yeah. No. So it's that neuroscientist is I think it's Amy Brown. I've got a couple of her books, and she's really good. So, yeah, I buy the I buy the boring books, and I read the boring books.

Emily [00:09:28]:

Okay. That's fine. I'll allow you that. But are you allowing me this? Because it sounds like you're really challenging me on it, and wasn't it was it the wrong thing to do then to spend the money before I'd earned it?

Julie [00:09:40]:

No. There is zero judgment here for me. There's zero judgment. I think it's trying to understand what drove the decision. It's I'm help I'm trying to help you figure out what is satisfying you to do that So the because I think you've brought this up because there is a tiny bit of, like, maybe I shouldn't have done that. So what I want to do is work through with you till you get to the point where either you're like, you know what? This categorically was the right thing for me to do or for you to go, what I'm going to be going to do next time is I'm going to notice when this happens. So no judgment from me. There is 1 thing I'm going to say actually, Emily, and it's just because somebody mentioned it to me.

Julie [00:10:20]:

It was Yesterday, I was sitting out on a chat with someone. They were asking, what's your favourite app at the moment? And it's Payoff Debt app, by the way, everybody. I've been having a play with that because I love playing with the Now the same here, so I've got my mortgage. I've got my car loan. Just cleared my car loan. Very happy about that. And I've got my credit card. This woman's face lit up.

Julie [00:10:39]:

Like, okay. What's that all about? She goes, oh, it's just so nice to hear that financial adviser has a credit card. No. I've got got a 0% balance that is getting cleared off. So no. I'm not clearing that one off. Cleared off the car loan because that's in got interest. So I think people find it really reassuring when they find out I'd be here that we use credit cards and we have balances and

Emily [00:11:00]:

Oh my god.

Julie [00:11:01]:

Uh-huh. So

Emily [00:11:02]:

There's no can we just put it out there? There is no Shame in having debt. Even if it's a huge amount of debt, which some people do have, Let's not say that that's going to affect who you are as a person. You're not a bad person for having it.

Julie [00:11:19]:

No.

Emily [00:11:19]:

Just where you've got to at that point in time.

Julie [00:11:23]:

Yeah.

Emily [00:11:24]:

And it just it's just about putting the steps in place to get it a bit more manageable, but it's nothing to be ashamed of.

Julie [00:11:30]:

Now so question number 1 for you, will you be able to clear the credit card?

Emily [00:11:35]:

Yes. I will.

Julie [00:11:36]:

Okay. So uh-huh. So what we've done is we've just not waited 30 days or something to get a thing? Okay. Yeah. So then it's going back to, Like, how does it make you feel to be sitting in the office now in comparison to how it was before?

Emily [00:11:58]:

I love it. Do you know what I didn't realize how cold my feet were getting not having a rub on the floor. And, You know, looking up and seeing a very ugly desk that I have the printer on was making me feel, That's not right in this room. I've spent a lot of time and effort trying to make it lovely. That does not that's not right. So, yeah, it's made me feel good. So what

Julie [00:12:24]:

do you think stopped you from doing it before?

Emily [00:12:29]:

Because I've spent a lot of money on the room already, and I thought, oh goodness. Better stop for a bit. Yeah.

Julie [00:12:38]:

What made you think that you had to stop?

Emily [00:12:43]:

Oh god. You're getting deep now. You know, maybe I'm just one of those people that don't you don't I'm not great I'm not Great finisher, Julie.

Julie [00:12:56]:

Great. That's interesting.

Emily [00:13:00]:

Okay. Now I've finished it. Yay.

Julie [00:13:04]:

Alright. So do you what do you think is The bigger driver here or the more the things that play most is the fact that you've finished it or the fact that you spent money Or something else?

Emily [00:13:20]:

Do you know what? For me, the money is not a thing. Not really.

Julie [00:13:26]:

And I

Emily [00:13:27]:

think it's taking a long time to get to that point, and I I'd encourage all listeners to really you know, just do what we always talk about, to explore your relationship with money, because, Yeah. It's not a good idea to get into a loss of debt and put yourself into a situation where it's going to be difficult to get yourself out, etcetera, etcetera. But I do think that sometimes we deny ourselves things that we don't have to deny ourselves. I mean, the answer was, yeah, put it on a credit card, and pay it off. It wasn't sit here and complain about the fact your room is not finished.

Julie [00:14:10]:

Right. Now I'm not saying this is true of you. But with other people that I've worked with, One of the things that I've noticed is in similar sir similar circumstances, first of all, they'll go through a phase where they won't spend money on themselves. Then they will spend money on themselves, but they'll feel bad about it afterwards. Mhmm. And that can be masked in lots of different ways. When we do the digging, what we quite often find is these are people who are normally quite good at spending money on their children. Okay? They're not only quite good at spending money with friends, but they really struggle with spending money on themselves.

Julie [00:14:54]:

And I don't know if any of that resonates with you.

Emily [00:14:58]:

Yeah. A bit.

Julie [00:14:59]:

Yeah. And I know that from the people that I've worked with, it comes back to, Although they get that they're as deserving as anybody else, of course, they should you know, they could have nice things. They can afford nice things, but it just feels really uncomfortable when they get nice things for themselves. It's like but it's like a little bit of them doesn't believe they deserve it. And it can even be it'll only show up in certain aspects of life. So they can go and spend a lot of money on a holiday for the family. Mhmm.

Emily [00:15:30]:

And that's okay because the family are coming too, and it's yeah.

Julie [00:15:35]:

The children are all dressed really nicely, Sleep, but maybe they buy their clothes from supermarkets in Primark. That's one I see a lot, by the way. So I don't know if Any of that echoes or resonates with you in any way? Clearly, you don't shop in Primark. Alright?

Emily [00:15:49]:

You

Julie [00:15:49]:

are looking lovely today. Do you

Emily [00:15:52]:

know what? I'm not against the idea. I've got a lot of who keep saying, oh, do you like this? I got it from, you know, Tui or no. Not Tui. No. 2.

Julie [00:16:00]:

Same thing for us. Either. Did you think maybe it's the fact it's you and your business that you're investing in that's making you feel a little bit, I did this. I don't know if it was a good idea. I don't know if it was the right thing to do.

Emily [00:16:16]:

Yeah. I do, actually. Maybe I should extend it out to myself When I finished investing in the business

Julie [00:16:26]:

Yeah.

Emily [00:16:26]:

Well, don't worry. When I when I can, I'm going to go and spend a lot of money on a lot of clothes. Nice clothes. Anyway, I don't I'm not suggesting that the listeners go and do that, put it on a credit And, you know, you've got you've got to know how you're going to repay it, I think, is where I started from in this because I think that some people are motivated to pay off debt better than they are motivated to save.

Julie [00:17:01]:

Alright. Okay. Talk to me more about this because I think this is really interesting, this whole saving, paying off debt dynamic.

Emily [00:17:07]:

Because nobody wants to have a lot of debt hanging around, do they?

Julie [00:17:14]:

Now it looks like they were going to just clear the car loan.

Emily [00:17:16]:

No. No. Of course not. So imagine you've just cleaned yourself out by way really working hard to clear this car loan. But something comes up. An opportunity, for example, comes up. You know, maybe it's to go on holiday with some friends that you haven't seen for a long time or anyway, it's not something frivolous. It's something that really means something to you, that sits with your values because you're rebonding with friends, etcetera.

Emily [00:17:44]:

Something that you feel you know would be really good for you, But it's going to cost you money. And, unfortunately, for whatever reason, you just don't have that money in the right place at the right time, But you can see into the future that you've got this happening, that happening, that happening, you know, you that the money will be there at some point. Well, What is wrong with just spreading out the cost of that? And I'm not saying hit the button every time you purchase something. I think that this way of thinking has got to be quite selective. It's got to be not hugely significant in terms of, what your earning power is. And I think it has to also really resonate with your values Because last thing you want is to put yourself into debt for something that you look back at and go, why did I do that?

Julie [00:18:42]:

Right. I get, you know so, obviously, we're not advocating irresponsible spending and building up debt, folks. You know that. But I think you're making an interesting in point there. And it's not even really about debt or about spending because it money doesn't have to be involved. I think it's how often do we deny ourselves things that would make us happy because we think we shouldn't do it.

Emily [00:19:04]:

And I think sometimes we put our we put all sorts of Excuses in the way, don't we? And I think sometimes, let's admit, some of us will say I can't afford it. I can't afford that. Well, actually, stop thinking about it. Do your sums. Work out if there's a way. If it's something you really want to do, When do you find a way of affording it?

Julie [00:19:28]:

Alright. Tell you what. I'm going to come clean on the credit card balance, everybody. Yay. Okay. So I got, what it was, one of those 0% ones. That's how I paid for the flights for Florida. So we went to Florida earlier on a year where I had to rustle up by £1,000 really quickly to go on holiday.

Julie [00:19:47]:

I put the flights on some of the flights on the credit card, and I thought, well, I'll just pay them off over the 12 months at this interest rate. So is that not the same as what you've done with your office?

Emily [00:19:56]:

Exactly.

Julie [00:19:57]:

Right. It's responsible use of credit we're talking about, isn't it? Yeah. No.

Emily [00:20:02]:

But it is responsible. Yeah. It's not going out and having whatever you want without thinking about how the hell you're going to pay off. And I know things are difficult. I'm I mean, I was reading earlier about how some people are having to put the weekly food shop on credit cards and things like that, and that's not ideal, and I think that that that unfortunately where we are in those times now that a lot of people are having to do that. But what we are talking about is, you know, that additional lumpy is item that you didn't quite budget for, but there's that opportunity that's there now. And to deny yourself it self that may not be the right decision. May maybe it's to jump at

Julie [00:20:51]:

it. Calculating this I think we've touched on this in a previous So I can't remember the number. It was I'm not an emotional spender. Help me. Ah. And it is because you get people like me who aren't very good at spending money on themselves.

Emily [00:21:06]:

Yes. So you're guilty as guilty as I am sometimes.

Julie [00:21:09]:

Well, I'm a reformed, Not emotional spender. And I know that so if anybody's listened to this and you're thinking, actually, I find it quite difficult to spend money by myself. What we've talked about in the past is about building up a window of tolerance with it. It's starting with small things, And then you just get better at it. But I think it's looking it's looking back at past purchases when you've had that sense, I shouldn't be doing this. I don't deserve it when it feels a little bit naughty. I was just having a look at, right, well, what was the thing, and how did you feel during and after it? And did it satisfy was it filling something up in your soul? And it's your kind of retraining your brain to look at things differently and give yourself the evidence that you know, that these are good things I'd serve and they're enjoyable, let's do it.

Emily [00:22:01]:

Yeah. And there's got to be an element of forward planning, really. I mean, if it's a if it's a surprise sort of, oh, do you want to come on holiday kind of thing, I still don't think you should just necessarily jump Pat it. If it's a surprise, I think people should go away and think about it before chucking

Julie [00:22:22]:

Yeah.

Emily [00:22:22]:

The credit card.

Julie [00:22:23]:

I think as well I don't know about anybody else, but one of the things I've observed as well is the bigger the spend, the more emotionally charged people become.

Emily [00:22:35]:

Yeah.

Julie [00:22:36]:

And that's been really having this kind of almost like decision making framework where you can step back and just sit down and go through a couple of questions to ask yourself. Diffuse some of that emotional charge. Just give your chat your front your pre prefrontal cortex a chance to come back online and make rational decisions and choices. Alright. So what other plans do you have for your home office, Emily? And will we get a tour One episode of the Women and Money Cafe podcast.

Emily [00:23:11]:

I have to say, I did say it before it was finished, but it's not entirely, and that's only because we need the window replaced.

Julie [00:23:20]:

Alright. Okay.

Emily [00:23:21]:

So that is one more thing going to happen. So you won't get the tour until I've got the window replaced, and I've got my new curtains up and maybe some shutters. And my goodness. This is going to be the best thing in the house. My husband has let me free have free rein on 1 room in our house, and it's the downstairs loo. And it is the best room in the house. It has the most amazing Isabelle voxel wallpaper, pink with vibrant parrots. I mean, honestly, I could sit on that loo for hours.

Julie [00:23:58]:

Right. Daisy's calling out to be Instagramable. Your toilet your toilet needs to make it onto Instagram.

Emily [00:24:04]:

Do have an Instagramable downstairs, Lou, and that is how my office is going to be as well when it's done. It's going to be Instagramable.

Julie [00:24:12]:

Alright. Well, I can't wait to see it. Alright.

Emily [00:24:16]:

If anyone wants to follow me, I'm on at happy planet f p on Instagram. You'll see my blue.

Julie [00:24:26]:

There you go. I'm happy planner f p if you want to go and Echo Emily's, Lou, and maybe get the occasional update on how the home office is progressing. So as we kind of we've kind of explored then this whole idea of, you know, the way we think about when we're spending on credit and the challenges that we have around spending on ourselves sometimes. Is there any sort of final thoughts that you want to share?

Emily [00:24:53]:

Well, 2 things. I think every time you just I'd like to put something on credit. I would say, first of all, you know, Am I doing this on a whim? Am I ever going to regret this later? And also, how am I going to pay it off?

Julie [00:25:20]:

Oh, yeah. Have an

Emily [00:25:21]:

extra strategy. Yeah. You need the answer to both of those questions. Yeah. And if and if the answer is good For both of those questions, I think, yeah, do it. Not all debt is bad debt.

Julie [00:25:36]:

No. It's not. Okay. Well, that's been a bit of a fireside chat, Emily. Yeah. Oh, then thank you. That was that was really interesting. I cannot wait to see how the home office develops.

Julie [00:25:47]:

I will be waiting for toilet updates as well, if I'm honest. Okay? That sounds weird, but I am. Alright. Okay. Thank you for that, Emily.

Emily [00:25:56]:

That's a pleasure.

Julie [00:25:57]:

Alright. Listen.

Emily [00:25:58]:

To chat.

Julie [00:25:59]:

Alright. Listeners, thank you very much to you for listening, and until next time. Please do take care of yourselves.