Ep 451: The Anti-Shopping Show
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Everyone, i'm gene chat sky. Thank you so much for joining me today on her money. The old days when they are right around the corner, which means shopping season is in full swing, your email box, your text change, they are all overloaded.

And while you all know I love a good bargain, nothing is Better than a good bargain on just about everything. Today, I want to flip the script because and hear me out when I say something that maybe painfully obvious, we actually score the best deals when we don't buy anything, when we don't buy that thing in the first place. One of my money rules for my twenty twelve book, the one that my husband votes back to me more than any other, is if it's fifty percent off, it's still fifty percent on.

In other words, a deal is only a deal if you really need or really want and can afford the thing that you are thinking about buying. And we are tackling this topic today not just because it's a holiday time, not just because there are ads glory on the internet and in your mailbox and on the streets. We're we're tackling IT because amErica has a bit of A A shopping problem, a bit of a holiday shopping problem, and it's become a debt problem.

A recent report from nerd village showed that roughly twenty eight percent. So a little more than a quarter of all holiday shoppers who used credit cards to buy gifts last year still have not paid those gifts off. In other words, we're still paying interest for those presence that we put under the tree in twenty twenty three.

That is well, that's kind of a horrifying actually. So today we are going to explore how to stop ourselves from buying that thing before we buy that thing, and how to get maybe creative with gift giving, with heart felt items that will mean in a heck of a lot more to the recipient than something shiny and expensive that'll be out of style. And six months, we're doing IT with shera.

Gl sha is an expert on minimalism, on intentional shopping. I want to unpack that term on living your values over the past, jackie. She's help thousands of people around the world reduce cluster and create more space for what matters share is such a pleasure to meet you. Welcome to the show.

I will thank you so much. I'm so excited about this conversation. My favorite topic.

you good at the beginning of your book, lifestyle. Do you say we need a new definition of minimalism? How do you define IT?

yeah. So I love redefining minimum ism, because its a terminate makes most people square. When I tell people i'm a minimal alist, I send him, see people literally take a step backwards as if IT might be catching.

So I define minimalism as being radically intentional, not just with the things you own, but with how you spend your time, your resources and your energy. So ultimately, it's about clarifying what's important to you and cutting the clutter and distraction that stands in the way. The big thing I want to drive home is minimalism, to me, is not about restriction, it's about freedom.

Unpack that for me. How is minimalism? And by the way, I think I kind of get IT because when I go through the exercise of cleaning a closet, like really pairing down, get rid of some of the clutter and some of the junk and some of the unnecessary things, I feel like I can breathe. And that, to me, says freedom.

exactly. yeah. So there are so many ways in which minimalism has created freedom in my life, personally. And the thing that I think about the most is how time is our only resource that's not renewable.

So everyone I know once more time, right? And by living intentionally with less stuff and even sometimes is doing less in your life, it's one of the only way I know to create more time. And so in my life, i'm a mom, I have two teenagers, I have a dog, I have a husband, i'm running a business, i'm writing books.

They're so much clamoring for my attention. And so the way I think about IT is in a world where there are so few things that we have control over, we do control the volume of things that come through the front door. And for me, the less that I have physically in my home to manage, the more time I have, the more space and freedom I have to do things that I enjoy and the more money. So it's like win upon win upon win.

When you think about time and money as sort of the flip sides of things that you can often trade for one another, how do you decide when to save time and went to save money?

I love that question. So I have a very values based approach, both to home organizing and just to living.

So in exercise, I do always asking, what do you really want at the end of the day? What are you hungry for in your life? What do you want your life to look like? And then from there, once you have that clarity and that big compelling, yes, of this is what I want, IT becomes remarkably easy to say no to other things that don't aid in that vision, add value towards that goal.

So a simple example is, I love travel. I live for travel, and as a mom with a dog in all the responsibility lii E S, it's hard to travel. So I think okay in my home.

And this was years and years ago when we really didn't have the budget to travel, I thought if I could curate a really minimum home that felt like a bootee hotel we could rented out on airbnb. We could do housework, PS with people. And so literally, by owning less stuff, I could maximize my life.

I could take my kids to paris or tokyo. And we did this on like a shoestring budget. So it's all about thinking, what are those things that you want, those big gains, those big juicy goals, and then do the things that use around yourselves with help you get closer to that, or create cluster and distraction and a time suck and an energy suck.

I love that. I remember, gosh, I don't even remember what book I was writing at the time, but I I was working on a book and was digging into this idea that having a lot of stuff actually does cost you time and came up with this ridiculous statistic about how much time we spend just getting dressed. And why, using myself just a little research as an example, why do I spend so much time getting dressed? Because I too many choices.

And that I actually did that six items or less experiment about a decade ago, where for a month I wore six things, not counting underwear and shoes. By the way, that was IT those six things. I got dressed in about thirty seconds right there.

There was nothing to choose shop now. I did not wear any of those clothes ever again. They all got retired very, very quickly. But it's proved a point, your point, that sometimes when you have too much choice, you spend too much time choosing.

If I no I mean, what i've seen, it's so interesting because i've seen every type of house and every type of family. And the big thing that I see is that most people really are drowning in clutter. And IT has an emotional cast. IT has a physical cast. IT has a relationship cost.

I've had people tell me that by declaring and organizing their homes, they've saved their marriage because there was just so much stress in the home, managing all of the things, making all of those decisions constantly, that I think by stripping away, like even in your example of the wardrobe, such an extreme example. But my brother, where's the same thing every day? And so easier, maybe for a man rate, but he wears a black t shirt and black jeans every single day.

And what he said that it's done is it's enable to him to get up almost like a monastic practice where he just puts on his uniform and it's two seconds he never have to think. And so that has freed up so much time and energy. He is one of the most dynamic lives of anyone I know. I really do think part of IT is that commitment to simplifying his life where he can. And gosh, h, if I think about if I were the exact same thing every day, how much money I would save on close, it's kind of unbelievable, right?

yeah. IT IT really is alright. So if we're trying to think about getting to this point where we know what we value so that then we can put our time and money there, how do we best get a sense of what we truly value?

yeah. So I think IT starts with some very intentional questions that most people Frankly, don't have the time we're banned with to slow down and ask. But I think even if you just slow down for ten minutes and ask yourself, I have three prompts.

One is, what's being neglected that you care about deeply? The second one is, what new results do you want to create? And the third one is two parts.

What do you want more of in your life and what do you want less of in your life? And I think even if you just take literally five minutes and kind of give your brain the chance to come up with those answers, I always ask these questions to my clients, and it's really fascinating to see what they come up with because sometimes it's as simple as I just want to be able to curl up in a corner and read on a sunday. And I feel like my life is so overstuffed that I can even do that.

And so then it's thinking, okay, how can I enable myself to carve out that time with a book? And what's interesting to me about these questions is nobody ever really says the missing link in their life is more stuff or like a bigger house or a fancy your car. It's always about the real things that bring us fulfillment, like more meaningful relationships, more time with our loved ones, even more time to pursue a creative goal or a career goal.

But what I found, you know, just anecdotally in my work over the past fifteen plus years is we think and were sold this world of goods, that the things that we should want that will make us happy are more things. And it's so easy to fell proud of that, because those messages are literally everywhere they are telling us will feel Better, will feel happier. And what we know from science and research is that the things that make us happier are meaningful connections with other human beings, work that is fulfilling and satisfying and contribution to something bigger than ourselves. And that's the real meet of what that means to be a human being. I think right.

And this season, right holiday season, we are often, I mean, all right, look, i've like the rest of you indulge a little, buy something for someone else, buy something for me. But if we're not doing the me part right now for doing the. Someone else part.

There's a lot of research that shows the giving to others makes us happy. That actually is good for the soul. Whether you're giving a gift, whether you're giving cash, what just the act of giving. So how do we line up that sort of spending with our values, with our budget so that we don't get into a jam this holiday season?

yeah. So I think it's all about starting with the intentionality of I always like to make a list like a who are the people I want to give to this season, and just making the list of all the people and that could include, like the teachers at your kids school or your therapies.

I mean, I could be literally anybody, right? And after I have that list, I look at my budget, I look at how much money do I have to spend this season without getting into debt, without pinching myself for my family. And based on that amount, I then get scrappy.

So I love how made gift. I love an experiential gift. One of the coolest gifts i've ever heard of is I had a good friend who was diagnosed with cancer at eight months pregnant with her third daughter, man. And I know, and her friends and colleagues got together and they said we wanted give, you would get IT done today. And we're going to show up with Oliver skills and Oliver random talents, a bucket of paint, a donation bag, a hammer and nails, and we just wants to help you with anything you need to help with.

And so during that day, they just give of the myself was raided, didn't cost them any money, and he told me they helped her with these like projects that had taken her forever, that SHE hadn't gotten around to, like hanging art, setting up the nursery for her new daughter, getting donations out the door, baking a caso. So SHE had food in the fridge, and at the end of the day, they all had a beer in a pizza together. And he said, not only was that the most incredible thing for her, but as you said, IT feels so good to give and give in a way that really does feel meaningful.

And they all started saying we should do this for each other. There doesn't have to be an emergency, right, to just show up a difference house and say, hey, you've got me for a few hours. How can I help? Can I make you dinner? Can I watch the kids s and to me, that's so much more valuable than a bath bomb or sweater.

So I think, well, there maybe some people in your life who you know really love a bath bomb or a sweater, and you want to allocate your budget to that. I love thinking about what are the creative gifts that we can give that will be so much more memorable, ultimately and meaningful and heart felt. And so I like thinking about what are the things you're good at and how can you help someone else and bring joy to their holiday season?

Ah I love that. I mean, I think that's an amazing that's an amazing gift, right? Just to yeah show up and hang artwork.

I've got art work that would be good. I started the show talking about that and IT. It's really upsetting the degree to which uh, we've piled on a lot of debt in in especially the past year.

I look I understand IT inflation has taken a bite out of a lot of people's data day budgets, but the fact that we spent money last holiday season in the quarter of us still haven't paid off is a problem. The fact that so many more people over the age of sixty are Carrying that is a problem. What are some values based month as that we can Carry around with us? They can help us start to pair this dead back.

So in terms of values based month as, I think getting back to thinking about the reason most of us spend money is because of how we think that will make us feel. And ultimately, we're all wanting to feel Better in some way. The women that i've worked with IT, who have debt when we really unpacked, most of them were trying to fill some sort of whole avoided in their life.

IT was never about this stuff, right? yeah. And so to me, the most important thing is to ask, what's the real need here? What am I trying to fill by buying the things? And how can I fill that without buying a thing? this? So a few quick examples.

Like I had one woman who was just kind of recklessly buying and shopping all the time and got herself into a huge amount of consumer debt, which, of course, did the opposite of making her feel Better because I had such a cost in her life. And when we really slow down and asked, what's the real desire here? What do you need? SHE identified SHE had been an attorney y and then SHE had had three kids and kind of put her career on the back burner.

And SHE just felt empty. SHE felt like he didn't have an identity anymore. And so once we figure that out, SHE realized he wanted to go back to school, and SHE wanted to become of landscape architect.

And all of a sudden he was like, i'm getting this made, met of, like a new identity, a passion, a skill I don't even think about shopping anymore. So I always think it's really about getting to the root cause of why are you spending in the first place beyond a certain amount of things that we all need to run our lives. Most of us don't need to recreationally shop all the time.

And so for me, I know I shop when i'm bored or i'm sad or i'm anxious. There's always some sort of like whole in trying to fill because I don't need another handbag, but I will find myself surfing for another handbag on the internet one in the morning when i'm feeling stressed out. To me, the most helpful thing has been to ask that question, what's the real need under the buying? And how can I need IT in a different way that has nothing to do with spending money?

Love IT. I've got more questions. I've sure you've got more answers.

We're gonna take a very quick break. Then we will talk more about, oh, those holidays coming up. Be up. I'm talking about black friday and liber monday.

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So in these holidays for rung quote, holidays have become as big as halloween and mother's day, black friday, cyber monday, giving tuesday. I'm a fan of giving tuesday small business, also a fan of small business saturday, but you you get my drift without a home weekend devoted to watching your money walk out the door. What are your thoughts about these events and how do we navigate them?

yes. So i'm really with you on of course, I like to support small businesses and giving back black friday is not one that I choose to support. And I think because i've been in so many people's houses for the aftermath of black friday, I can tell you that it's win.

A lot of impulse purchasing have and a lot of intention goes out the window. A lot of things seem really important because their time limited and designed to make us feel kind of frantic. And the scarcity of what if IT goes away or what if I miss out on this deal.

So I boycott black friday. I spend black friday with my family, taking a hike and spending the day and nature, and then we go see a movie. And that has made my life a lot easier.

I encourage others to, if you do on a party in black friday, you've got to to have a list of specific gifts you're looking for. You've got to a have a budget for each one so you can really stay focused and grounded and not by anything that's not on that list. I always think like a sale is not really a good deal if you don't need the thing in the first place, right? agree.

And all of the deals ultimately have a cost if you're bringing home more than you actually need or can manage. And somebody said to me something that that really struck me. They said all of those piles of things used to be time and money.

And so that's like a quick hack I like to use for myself. If i'm feeling like who I really want that deal, I think, would I rather have the thing, or would I rather have the time in the money? And for me, I think because I value you travel so much, I love to eat out.

There's plenty of things I love to do that cost money. I am always doing the tradeoff of would I rather have the thing? Or would I rather put IT towards an experience that i'm so excited about?

IT? I think IT helps to do that sort of a mental exercise and convert the thing in two hours of your time. I often have encouraged people to try to take the object, take the thing and translate into, translated into actual hours of their time.

And i'm surprised that there are people who have never done the calculation to figure out what an hour of their time is worth. The easiest suited to this is to lap of the last three zeros and divide by two. So you're making eighty thousand dollars a year.

You lop off those zeroes, you divide by two year, forty dollars an hour. So forty dollars an hour. But you can decide, do you want that thing or do you not want that thing? It's just a good uu brick to have in your back pocket. The other thing I think about, and I granted, and i've been thinking about IT because as my listeners know, we lost my mom this year and I am just coming through the other side of clearing out her apartment. And oh my gosh, I mean, SHE just saved SHE wasn't a order, but boy, SHE was the family memory bank and SHE saved everything and there was so much.

And I do sometimes think about if you saw things, if you have extra things and you're thinking about not getting yourself into financial trouble for the holidays, what could you get rid of in order to fund your adventure? right? It's a little bit of a play on your sw passes.

What are other ways that you could? What are other ways that you could find what's going on in your life? How do you talk to people about this idea of declaring, getting rid of stuff, maybe making a little money while they are add IT?

yeah. So, so again, IT goes back to what is the life you want and what are the things that you need to enable that life? So for me, it's so funny because I run this organizing business and I write books, and I realized all I really need is a computer and my brain, right?

So I used to have a whole office, and then my, I have two daughters. They wrote a very convincing essay, and why they each needed their own room. So a few years ago, I gave up my office and I had everything.

I had paperwork and violent cabinets and gear. And in that process of kind of middling down to now working at the dining room table, I realized, in fact, in order to run this creative business that I love, all I need is what's right in front of me. So I have my microphone and my head phones, my laptop and my brain.

And so i'd like to ask people, like, if you think about the life that you want and the career one, what are the things, what are the physical items that you need in order to be able to facility those things? And it's a shocking exercise because it's usually far less than you might think, even for something like people who want to host and have beautiful dinner parties. Maybe it's having a handful of platters and some nice wine glasses, but it's typically so much less than we actually owner without buying anything or adding anything to the table. So I love to start with that with people is what are the things that you want in your life and what do you need to do them? And people are just stunned how little that actually is.

Yeah, it's amazing. I I don't have an office either. I work all over my house, but I I don't really have a separate place where I where I park myself every day that's freeing in and of itself because I have what you've got. I've got a microphone. I have A P up.

So yeah, business in a box. exactly.

This has been an amazing conversation if you were to leave us with three tips for getting through this holiday season without stress, without debt and happier on the other side.

what would they be? So I would see, number one, make your list and make your budget. Who do you want to give to and why do you like your reasons? And how much do you wanna spend that you can spend without going into debt?

Number two, I would see, make a mission statement for your holiday season. And i'd like to do this with my family. So I sit down with my husband, my girl, and I say, what is everybody hungering for this season?

What do we all really want individually and as a family so often will decide we just want to take a family trip. This year, we're taking a road trip to L A. And we're going to see movies and go see friends.

And we're doing that instead of the traditional present under the tree because that's what we all agreed on. So I would say both individually and as a family decide what's our mission statement for this holiday season, what are we hungering for and how are we going to create IT. And the third thing I would just see, explore experiential gifts.

My favorite gifts i've ever received have been edible experiential. Somebody once shipped me ice cream and dry ice from medicine. Wisconsin in gold belly is my favorite resource for the holidays.

You can send someone a deep dish pizza from chicago or a bagel and cream chees from new york. So whatever your or their favorite comfort food is, to me, there's no Better gift to really thinking outside of the gifting box. What can you do that skill based or experience based, or consumable in some way that sure to delete the people in your lives and probably will cost a worthless st.

money? I love IT, although when i'm sending ice cream, I am sending rad's ice cream from since adi, because the chips are the size of a small child's fist in the chip, the chip and the dark Cherry chip and the black rasberry chip. It's off the hook.

sure. A gl, thank you so much for a great conversation. Happy holidays to you and enjoy. L A, sounds amazing.

Thank you so much. This was such a tree.

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and knew you were going to ask me that. So I would say my list is a hundred percent complete in that I know what I want to get for the people in my life that I want to get gifts for. Is that one hundred percent complete in the sense that I have everything yet? No, because I waited for some deals to drop. What about you, jen?

I've been waiting for some deals to drop as well. I do think that this concept of declaring before you shop is something that I have bought into more and more lately.

And I gotto tell you, elliot, I spent the past couple of weeks really with my brothers and my sister, not only cleaning out my mother's apartment because it's so faster than any of us expected IT to sell, there is a lot to be said for declaring, if not for yourself, then for the people that you leave behind. I mean, I was actually thrilled to find some of this stuff. My father was an only child, and I think because my dad was an only child after he died, and after my grandparents died, my mother became a repository for everything.

So there was okay. Two, two kind of amazing things there was in in an important papers file, and he had an important papers file for everybody, but in in the important papers file for abe. My father's father was, if thank you, note from jackie Kennedy, no, yes.

White.

yes. There is a thank you note from jackie canal.

Are you going to frame .

IT that I think I might. I have the, I think i've told you this story before. I have the note that chill.

Biden wrote me when elliot and I got married. I just arrived one day out of the blue. She'd watched me on the today show, saw in the new york times that we got married.

Drop me a note. So I think I might have to frame them both. Yes, yes, you do.

That is art. Yeah, I think so. I interviewed job net, the White house.

When I was working for the today show, he invited me to interview him about taxes. At tax time. One year he was vice president.

And when we were done, he wrote notes to both of my kids on his personal stationary. And I did frame, I frame those for them. They both have them.

So I found that. I found telegrams, western union telegrams, that my parents had received when they got married, like, people actually send telegram. S.

know how? M, S.

yeah. I found birth certificate. So my parents lived across the country from their family. Their family I spoke, lived in philly. My ann mel lived in philly, and they had Young children at the time.

And I think whenever the kids were getting up to no good, my ann must have said, sit down and write a letter to your anti lane and uncle truck. And so there were all of these letters from my cousins when they were little. And my cousin, I lean in first grade, and then I will stop and we can answer some questions.

My cousin lean in first grade. SHE wrote a story about the milk that would not pour, and SHE went the story about the milk that would not poor. And the the up shut of this story was, I decided to have a glass .

of juice and the climate.

But we put this out. We're like, where i've mean, we're crying, we're laughing. We read the story and we come home and we call the lean, and we said, do you remember the story of the milk that would not pour? And he said, oh yes.

it's A N, it's a core memory for I am. What I like I have to know was IT bad, was what we don't know, what we don't know, why that we know, could IT por? What a mystery. You didn't .

want to poor. So I wouldn't tell SHE was in first grade. Evidently, the reason that was such a core memory is because the school, they thought this was a remarkable story from the first greater. And they made her, they made her read IT to the entire school at assembly.

What is the metaphor for the milk that will poor? Like IT is kind of genius. And I think we need to, I think we need to do a throw analysis of IT today. This is amazing. I leam but .

go through stuff that are not stories about the milk that would not pour, not letters from jack Kennedy, and maybe pair down a little bit so that you can stand up to do IT all.

yes, or gift those gems. There are some amazing allows and memories to keep going, at least the ones, at least the ones that you picked out. Well, that is fabulous, please.

If you find any other stories like this one. I think i'm curious to get the collection for my lean myself, so please do share. We have a few questions to answer from our listeners.

Ers, let's do IT. Our first question comes from kim SHE writes, I have a variety of personal finance spooks that i've read and reread over the past twenty years. Now i'm staring retirement in the face, and i'm wondering if you have any recommendations on retirement specific books.

Yeah, you should pick up Christine benz's new book. We've been talking about IT a lot on this show. It's called how to retire.

IT is really well done. It's getting a remarkable response. So I would pick that up. The other book is not exactly retirement specific is the psychology of money. I don't know if you've read the psychology of money.

It's written by a guy named Morgan council, used to be a reporter for the wall street journal. IT is fabulous. I think the lessons and there are terrific.

And i'm working on a retirement book. So just keep your eyes and ears open for that. It's about how to make your money last as long as you do.

So I will keep telling you more about that as IT comes along. And if you missed episode four forty one with Christine bds, we also did a male bag with her. Make sure you tune into that. Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention our book out of money. If you've got any teenagers in the house, late high school heading off to college, I would say how the money is a really great place to start educating them about money.

wonderful. And our next question comes from genome. SHE is asking, you have paying down a credit card? He writes hygd, i've been following your work for quite some time, and your insights have been incredibly useful.

I retired in twenty twenty two sixty four because of health concerns, and I had several outstanding debts. Now i'm receiving social security, and with my savings, I can cover my rent, my living expenses, and i've continued making payments on my deaths. I have a rough iar ray from which I took a one time distribution this year, and I am aware that I will need to pay taxes on IT.

At present, I have a bank loan with an outstanding baLance of fourteen thousand dollars, which requires a monthly payment of three hundred and forty dollars I completed in eleven thousand baLances, transfer to a credit card offering zero percent apr for fourteen months. This promotional period ends in march of twenty twenty five next year, and I have a remaining baLance of eight thousand dollars. On which interest will a crew? My question, should I consider paying off the eight thousand with a baLances transfer to a different card? If I can secure another zero percent A P. R, my concern is running out of funds because the loan payment, combined with the monthly interest payment on the eight thousand, may exceed what I can afford. I don't know what else to do.

So a couple of things to know. First of all, I hope that you are feeling Better. I hope that your health has made A A turn for the Better. You mention that you have a rough I from what you took a one time distribution this year. I don't think you necessarily will have to pay taxes on IT.

The benefit of money in a roth is that you don't have to pay taxes unless that money has been in that account for a very short time, in which case you may have to pay taxes on the gains. But I don't know why you're suspecting that if there's something else happening in the background, make sure that you double check that with your account. I would absolutely look for another baLances transfer card.

As long as you've kept up your credit score, you should be able to get one. You will have to likely pay a baLance transfer fee on that new card when you roll your money into IT, typically about three percent. So we're looking at a little under two hundred and fifty lars in fees.

But I would a try to come up with a plan that allows you to knock off a significant additional chunk of that debt wallets under baLance transfer and then maybe even do another baLances transfer car to wipe out the rest. This seems to be working for you pretty well. There's nothing wrong with baLances transfer cards.

Sometimes people get worried that because they're opening one card after another, their credit score is likely to go down. I would just try to make sure that you are closing cards that you're not using after you've vote. The baLance clean, don't close them at once, that building your school a little bit and check your credit and your credit scores regularly to make sure that you are keeping them in really good shape.

Other than that, IT sounds like you are one plan to get rid of this dead in about two, two and a half years, living the way that you're living. I think that's fine. And the only other thing that I would suggest is that if your health concerns have a bated and you're feeling like get out into the world again, you may want to think about picking up a small part time job, a small side gig and using that additional money to wipe the debt clean faster. Otherwise, i'd say just keep on keeping on, and I hope that's helpful.

Thanks, gene, and thank you to know her writing. And that will do for our questions.

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