WI don’t exactly remember how I stumbled upon the Financial Feminist podcast but I can say with certainty that it has changed my life and how I think and feel about money. In the first months that I discovered the series, I would listen hour after hour, often pausing mid-task in awe of ideas the host Tori Dunlap discussed, and other times I would find myself sobbing or crying silent tears as I unlocked my own broken beliefs that I understood as truths and held be down. My fierce independence was born from necessity and without any kind of support to fall back I developed a talent for saving money. Back in my early 20’s it was a literal shoe box of white envelopes, each with handwritten categories with amounts next to the name. Every Sunday after my string of shifts for the week as waitress at various jobs, I’d sit down and count my money, carefully doling out the cash called out for each envelope. I lived this way for years, and looking back I don’t recall ever feeling lack. I shopped, I ate out all the time, I went to bars. I’d go on trips with my friends, go to nice dinners. By the time I was 28 I had saved enough money to buy a one way ticket and left the country with no plan to return. I traveled for 9 months. And even though I carefully tracked every dollar that I spent on the trip, I don’t think it was the same feeling about money that I’ve dealt with in the last 10 or so years.
I’ve had a few profound realizations from this podcast. First, that I had become someone who was saving money for savings sake. I had been working myself to the bone and hoarding my money, dreading social engagements with friends because of the cost, lamenting birthdays and christmas due to their costly nature, and denying myself some very basic joys despite working two jobs and working 70 hours a week. Being so busy I thought I didn’t have time to spend the money I was earning, but I soon realized that the stress of all the work had me regularly indulging in late night amazon and target orders, buying whatever sweatpant or tote bag caught my eye. I was amassing so much useless stuff that boxes would pile up, and I wouldn’t even bother to open them. I would glance at the padded envelopes and boxes and not open them for weeks. Somehow it was the thrill of ordering the items, but i guess deep inside I didn’t really care about actually having them. Yet I couldn’t stop doing it. I loved the shopping, and I still do! But what that fateful episode taught me was that I hadn’t set my sights on an actual goal for my savings. It made the pursuit of money empty and meaningless, and thus I ended up just wasting it on useless crap I’d enjoy for a week and then quickly forget about.