The emotional hangover after big spending

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcast audio

Have you ever bought something in the spur of the moment and felt amazing, and then 24 hours later you think, why do I feel sick when I think about spending that much money? Today we’re gonna talk about what is the spending emotional hangover, why you get it, and how you can stop the spend guilt cycle for once and for all.

Just a quick note before we dive in. Everything I share on this podcast is general in nature and does not take your personal circumstances into account. I’m not a licensed financial advisor, and nothing you hear on this podcast should be taken as personalized, financial, business, taxation or investment advice.

Before you make any financial decisions, please seek guidance from your accountant or a qualified licensed financial advisor who understands your specific situation.

So what exactly is an emotional hangover? I like to think of it a bit like a hangover. So think about it like if you’re drinking, you basically have a high, and then there’s the low afterwards as the chemicals leave your body, you feel like crack. And when you spend big, you get that buzz, that high, it feels naughty, but so good at the same time.

And then afterwards, the come down. You look at your bank statement and feel sick, did I really need to buy a new phone or that new outfit? What was I thinking? I should be better with money by now. The emotional hangover isn’t just about spending the money. It’s a mismatch between the high, feeling the buzz that you get afterwards and actually what it is that you are planning to do.

Because think about it, when you’ve been working towards a goal for months or years, something that you really wanna buy, and you finally get there. You don’t feel like deep sense of shame afterwards as compared to when you do one of those spur of the moment spends. So what I wanna challenge you to do right now is have a think about what your binge spend areas are, because when I talk about that binge shop or that shame shopping, I don’t just mean clothes shopping.

Take a moment and think about where you tend to spend without intending to. Sorry to Dobber in, but my mom is addicted to Bunnings. Me and my siblings always joke that she must have shares in Bunnings for those outside Australia. Bunnings is a huge hardware store and every time my mom goes there, she cannot leave without spending a couple of hundred dollars.

Now, I know for me, one of my areas that I tend to overspend is at Priceline. So again, if you’re outside Australia, Priceline is, it’s basically like a big chemist, but it has all other, it has cosmetics, it has haircare products, and every time that I go in there to buy one little thing, I end up grabbing a few other bits of makeup or toiletries, things like that.

End up costing me more than I’d intended. So have a think, what’s your guilty pleasure? What’s the thing that you tend to spend on at the last minute without much intention?

Maybe your last minute guilty pleasure is Uber Eats or booking holidays. You see a special, and next thing you’ve booked a trip without really thinking about it or budgeting for it. So next I want you to think about what are your triggers. So maybe it’s going to these places that you love to spend money, or maybe you tend to online shop when you’re stressed, you’re bored.

Maybe you find that when you’re out shopping with other people, you tend to spend more than when you shop on your own. Or perhaps it’s the emails. You see a sale come up and next thing you know you’re filling up your cart. Maybe it’s when you are doom scrolling or mindlessly scrolling on TikTok and suddenly you see someone talking about the latest skincare products and you think I need that right now.

And you find yourself spending money. So here’s what I believe. I think that impulse spending isn’t about wanting the thing necessarily. It’s about wanting to feel different. So when you are finding yourself in that impulse shopping mode, quickly putting things in the cart, I want you to pause and really start to identify what is the core

feeling that I am chasing behind this? Is it that I’m wanting to feel good enough? Is it I’m wanting to look better? Is it that I’m wanting to look successful? Am I wanting relief? ’cause I’ve had a stressful day? Am I you wanting to reward yourself because you’ve had a tough week?

I want you to realize that money is a mood changer and a mood change that we have easy access to. So what you might find that you’re doing is using spending as emotional regulation. So if this is all true, how do you actually stop the emotional hangover? The first thing that you do is that you shop with intention, not restriction.

So I spoke about this in the episode about building a budget that you can actually stick to. This doesn’t mean never buy nice things. What this is about is deciding before the dopamine hits. So what this means for you when you are actually setting your household money plan or setting your budget, is to actually set fun money aside. Set aside money to spend at Bunnings or on clothes, and when you are spending it, spend it guilt free because you know that was in your plan.

But what you wanna do is decide in advance what categories you allow indulgence in. Because if it’s planned, you don’t get that emotional hangover. It’s because the unplanned spending does. Okay, the next thing that you wanna do is identify your danger zones. So if you know that walking into price line is your kryptonite, don’t just pop in there.

If you know that as soon as you open the email because your favorite shoe store is on sale, unsubscribe, recognize what your danger zones are and either avoid them or limit them. Come up with a strategy around it, because if you keep walking into temptation, you’re gonna keep getting tempted.

The next thing that you wanna do is put some things in place to slow the decision down. We live in a day and age where we are chasing dopamine hits. Everything is so fast. Quick. And we love it. I love the experience when I go to book or pay for something and I can pay with Apple Pay.

I don’t even need to get my credit card out anymore. But here’s the thing. When you are making a fast decision, you aren’t making time for conscious decision around your spending. So slow the decision down. Maybe you need to remove ApplePay or your credit card from Google Pay so that you can’t just quickly hit the checkout now button.

Why don’t, if you’re looking at something rather than straightaway, go put it in the part and purchase it, screenshot it, put it in a to-buy-later folder in your phone, and it’s incredible what that pause does. Taking a bit of time sometimes realize, I didn’t really need that thing. I don’t actually even want that thing.

I’m glad that I slowed down. Another strategy that I’ve heard that people use is to actually. Freeze their physical credit cards, so put them in the freezer covered with water and anytime that you wanna make a decision to purchase, you have to take it outta the freezer and wait for the ice to physically defrost before you can go and make that purchase decision.

It just buys you a bit of time. You can also lower the limits on your credit cards or your spending cards. You can even set up a separate account so that each month you have a bank card and you only put a limited amount of money into your clothes spending account, for example. And then once you’ve spent it, there’s nothing left to spend.

Dopamine hates delays. That’s the point in slowing the decision down is that we’re not chasing that dopamine. We are making an educated and informed spending decision. The last tip that I have to make sure that you’re not gonna be getting that emotional hangover is to get accountability. This is one of my favorite tools to use is run it past someone else.

A lot of times, even just saying it out loud kills the impulse. So for me, when I go and get excited in an online sale, put things in my cart before I check out, I say to my husband, can you come and have a look at this? Gimme a bit of a sense check on this. And sometimes you’ve already got a black bag that looks exactly like that one.

I’m like, yep, good point. Bouncing it off someone else really helps you to have that external accountability. Sometimes even just saying it out loud kills the impulse. I know sometimes my husband asks me, should I get this? And just my look. As soon as he said it out loud, he is actually, no, I don’t need that right now.

Here’s the thing, and I know I’m gonna sound like a broken record saying this on the Intentional Money Show, but you don’t need more discipline. You just need better systems. Your money should support your dream life. Be making you feel like crap. And once you fix the emotional charge around money, your numbers will get a lot easier.

It’ll be easy to manage them, easy to look at them. Now, if you know that overspending or the emotional hangover is something that you experienced and you’d some help with managing your money, I’d love to help. So reach out via my Instagram or the link in the show notes for today’s episode on my website, and I can share how I can support you.

But for now, what I want you to do is start to notice, be aware of the emotional hangovers if you do overspend, and start to work on reducing the triggers so that this doesn’t become something that you are dealing with. Thank you for tuning into the Intentional Money Show with Clare Wood. Have a beautiful week and I will chat to you again next week.

* Transcript created by AI – may contain errors or omissions from original podcas