You Shouldn’t Feel Bad About Spending Money — Here’s How To Avoid the Guilt
You Shouldn’t Feel Bad About Spending Money — Here’s How To Avoid the Guilt
Last updated: Oct. 19, 2021 By Gabrielle Olya
You’ve worked hard for your money — so you should enjoy it. In today’s “Financially Savvy Female” column, we’re chatting with Dani Pascarella, CFP, co-founder of the financial wellness platform OneEleven, about how you can avoid feeling guilty when spending money.
Do a Spending Evaluation
“Start by understanding how previous purchases make you feel and why,” Pascarella said. “This is key to building your financial foundation.”
For her clients who struggle with budgeting, Pascarella recommends that they review everything they spend money on over the course of a week and rate how happy each purchase makes them.
“The goal here is to identify the types of purchases that cause guilt, unhappiness or any other negative feelings, and then understand why,” she said. “Once you have this knowledge, it’s much easier to eliminate these types of purchases and focus on spending your dollars in an intentional way that makes you happy.”
Plan Future Purchases and Avoid Random Spending
“When you plan to buy something and then do, it feels different than when you make an impulse purchase,” Pascarella said.
Impulse purchases often cause guilt because you may be buying something that doesn’t align with your values.
“The reason why impulse spending is so dangerous is that we buy before we ask ourselves, ‘How does this relate to the person I want to be?'” Pascarella said. “So what should you do? Know your triggers. People tend to impulse spend in certain situations and on certain things. When we take a deep dive into a client’s impulse spending, we typically notice strong behavioral patterns (example — a stressful day at work [leads to] online shopping).”
Pascarella recommends replacing your responses to known triggers with healthier habits that are better for you long term.
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