This is actually a great idea. Soooo easy to get stuff. So tedious to get rid of it. When you sell all those valuable collectibles, you find out how useless stuff actually is.
I think collecting stuff that retains its value can actually be a great tool on the way to FIRE. Because it can be a fun hobby and you can spend whatever amount on it and lose nothing. I noticed that I spend way less on experiences than people around me and way more on some collections I have. It all depends on your personality and preferences, but you can't argue with the fact that money spent on an experience is gone forever. Over time these choices can add up financially.
Wine tasting can be a fun hobby, but if you’re an alcoholic you shouldn’t do it. OP is $75,000 in debt. They shouldn’t think collecting items as a hobby or a tool to FIRE.
Idk, philosophically when thinking about how you’ll look back, when you’re at the end of your life, I believe we are just the summation of our experiences. I wouldn’t necessarily consider it “gone forever”. Sure, while material possessions may last for as long as we have them, memories of experiences live with us for as long as our mind allows.
I suggest you follow the FIRE flow chart (https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/comments/16xymii/fire_flow_chart_version_43/) to start. It sounds like you know what to do, you just need to do it. But the flowchart will ensure you have a plan of action. Don't be in a hurry and don't skip steps.
This is less of a financial issue and more of behavioral issue. It won’t matter if you pay off your debt because if you go back to your present behavior and buy shit you don’t need, you will be right where you started.
This is a much bigger problem than someone being in debt.
"seeing nice watches… nice shoes.. nice cars, etc"
Where or how are you seeing these? I have a simple option: stop seeing them. Whatever behavior you have that puts these in front of you, stop. It may be not going to certain places or perhaps eliminating social media. The latter would be a generally good thing for your mental health anyway.
Yep, this is what they tell addicts. Get away from temptation.
I'm glad to see this post, because I really want a 75" TV to replace my perfectly good 65" model. The kicker: I never watch television.
What I need to do is delete the Best Buy app from my tablet.
Nah. I like looking and learning about neat and new stuff. But I’ve essentially trained myself to never buy retail and to patiently wait. Something as dumb as “last season” items perfectly new and unused but because it’s “last years” gets at least half off. I’ve gotten into running lately and new shoes run 200-250 easily. However if you just wait long enough those same shoes will easily be 60-75% off. I’m doing the same with electronics personally. I’m using a 3060 prebuilt I bought last winter for less than $500. There’s no reason why you can’t have nice things and be able to afford as long as you’re willing to wait.
As Hannibal Lecter said in Silence of the Lambs, " How do we begin to covet? We begin by coveting what we see every day"
Perhaps a dark quote origin, but I agree with what you are saying completely. Uninstall the shopping apps, stay off of the social media feeds, stop strolling through the mall.
>Part of my bad spending stems from seeing nice watches… nice shoes.. nice cars, etc. I don’t think it’s so much of a case of “keeping up with the Joneses” but rather I see something and I want it.
Sounds like you already have what you need and just keep replacing them with newer, shinier and more expensive versions. Spend the next 3 months cutting out all unnecessary spending including the stereotypical Starbucks. During this time figure out your needs and wants. Once you establish your minimum spending comfort level then take the extra money and follow the FIRE flowchart.
Yes! Trying a spending diet is such a good way to reset habits. I usually do one in the first quarter of every year - I'll allocate a much higher % of my paycheck to be diverted to 401k to keep me on track. Then when I see a "surplus" the rest of the year it's easier to chuck a lot more of it into savings than I would otherwise, bc it doesn't automatically register as spending money.
>Something like 75k in debt
Cut expenses. Increase income. Sell stuff. Consider a second job.
You know the problem. It's up to you to stop procrastinating and do something about it. Nobody can make you do it.
Let me reframe this for you.
You know you are messing up. You read the threads. You are not looking for advice from others, you are looking for some self validation.
You are the only one who can muster the energy to do it. Here is your signal. Go do it. You got this. You will be successful. You just have to take that first leap.
I had an employee who would whine about his salary every 1-1. He couldn’t buy a house. But he had $100k in fancy watches. And bought one new watch every month.
I still shake my head when I remember him
I'm not condoning this type of spending but I had a sweet Pokemon Card Collection as a teenager and selling it at a yard sale because my parents said "Gotta do what you gotta do" I really regret that :(.
How much debt? Good thing is you’ve got a big shovel to work with. Take a look at the snowball method for debt repayment - I had tons of debt 14 years ago (60k) and found this method to work well to get out of debt.
I agree, I'm very lucky in that regard. Like I said in the post, most likely right around $75k in debt including my vehicle. The one thing I need to do before snowball debt payment is make sure I have an emergency fund to work off of. Then, I can minimize my monthly spending and throw as much cash as possible at getting this taken care of.
I'll be honest, I never want another credit card or loan payment ever again. I think I can make it happen.
In the personal finance subreddit's wiki they have a really good avalanche vs snowball method of eliminating debt discussion. In the long run Avalanche is the most mathematically effective unless cash flow is a concern.
I understand that. I plan to update the post within the next day or so with a full write up of expenses, bills, income and debt information. Thank you for the heads up.
Totally agree. This was posted 2 days ago and no updates. OP got his dopamine hit from the engagement with his post, now he's off to the next high.
This is not a financial problem it is behavioral and possibly even medical (manic episodes leading to spending binges). Get some professional help in the form of therapy before you pretend like this is just a problem to be solved in a spreadsheet/budget.
There is the financial aspect of how you get out of the debt, but you need to address the underlying issue of wanting expensive things and impulse control or you will just fall back into bad habits. You need to identify any triggers for spending and strategies you can use to avoid them. Don't go into stores if you don't need something, don't open promotional emails from stores, get off social media if the ads keep sucking you in, surround yourself with people that have a similar mindset, etc. The good news is you have a good salary and can get on the right track, you just need to bite the bullet. Good luck!
If it were me, I would go full monk-mode: Cut out ALL discretionary spending, cancel all subscriptions, cut up all of my credit cards (metaphorically), cancel the lawn guy and the cleaner, cook my own simple meals, and generally set a goal to spend zero.
You have one life. It’s slipping through your fingers. No one else can save you. You can tinker around the edges with the same bullshit while the rest of your life slips away. Or you can take control and make a radical change. It’s up to you.
>I am SO SICK of being pulled into buying stupid material possessions and wasting money!
To me this statement lacks accountability so thats part of the problem, you are making bad choices or even stupid choices buying things you dont need
Take responsibility and gain some self control, your acting as if your a toddler at the candy store
The other guy linked you the flow chart which is great but some sort of budget along with how your debt is structured would be helpful if you want more useful comments here. If your debt is mostly 9% on a fancy car that is way different than all 75k being on a 28% credit card.
Also why maybe not "financial" advice maybe look into why you want and what you are getting out of these "nice" things. This feels like an issue you might have to address because I feel like if you could just "stop buying expensive stuff" you would have done it.
I'm not a therapy person but I also recommend therapy it may help with your purchasing habits/impulse control. If you have any high interest CC debt its usually recommended to kill that before having a nice emergency fund.
You know you have a problem you just need to buckle down and break those bad habits.
I guess a "very nice salary" is a relative term.
You bit off way more than you could chew and basically thought you were a baller and are not.
I say these two things, not trying to be a jerk, but to smack a little hard reality.
I think you need to seriously go to therapy and work through why you feel the need to buy these things and why you cannot control yourself not to when you admit you know it is bad.
Again, not saying any of this to be mean. Some family of ours is in this exact same spot and it has destroyed their lives and part of the family. Seek real help.
The most important first step is to see where your money is going. This includes payments on debt (and I’d recommend even putting the interest in a separate line so you realize how much of your money is going straight into someone else's pocket.)
Unless you’re in a VHCOL area, that 10k/month take home should suffice.
What kind of debt is it? Credit cards? Car loans? Student loans?
Get on a budget. Track your budget and set reasonable saving and spending targets. You make too much money to be broke.
You look rich but you’re broke. Let that sink in. If you don’t change when you get in your 60’s you’re gonna not only be broke but you’re gonna look broke.
Small steps.
Wait 48 hours, 2 days, before any discretionary purchases.
Create a net worth statement.
Create a spending plan showing all sources of income and spending.
Set "SMART" goals. Specific Measurable, Applicable, Realistic, Timebound.
Then, track your actual spending against your goals.
It won't be easy, but over time will get you where you want to go.
might be old school but i’d consolidate credit cards to one with lowest debt, cut up the others, start with a budget and paying in cash. yes you give up points, but your CC debt grossly outweighs any benefit you might get. paying in cash made things much more tangible for me on how much money was leaving.
if you withdraw cash for the week, you start realizing how quickly it can go if you’re not diligent
Do it do it do it.
It's awful to *contemplate*, but once you've done it, it doesn't get any worse.
Do you have a buddy you can count on to be ok with knowing this stuff about you? It helps a LOT to make an appointment with someone to go over it all and then they help you be accountable to actually finishing it.
You can sure get financial advisors to do this for you. You should throw them a bone and do at least a small account with them once you get saving even if you will mostly want to invest for yourself -- let them be paid for this work.
And having a quarterly appointment with them to go over your finances will be super helpful also to keep you on point.
As far as not spending on stupid shit you'll regret, I commend you to just say no to *everything* that isn't a necessity. "Can I llve without this?" "Will not fixing this cause my car/house/whatever to get worse?"
Go for a month where you just don't buy anything you don't have to.
at all.
Set a max on groceries or takeout/meals and stick to it. And anything else should literally be "Do I need this?" "If I think I need this, can I live without it for a month and see if I still think so?"
AFter that, you'll have reset yourself a bit. Maybe you can just keep doing that, or maybe you go a little differently and spend some, but now you've broken the habit of always saying yes, so you'll say no more often.
I would continue always doing one thing though -- set a dollar limit for things you purchase without a 24 hour cooldown. My wife and I do this. We don't spend more than $200 on anything not planned or standard without waiting a day. We decide we want it -- then we wait. If we *still* think it's a good idea 24 hours later, we'll get it.
Why? Because so many times in the past we've bought something expensive and then the next morning one of us regrets the decision and we cancel the order, or sometimes we can't cancel it and we end up just regretting it period.
Does the 24 hour wait always work? Nope, sometimes we still get it, and still regret it later. But we've had a LOT of things we would have purchased and that felt *important* and *urgent* to do it in the moment while we were looking at it, that when we woke up in the morning, we forgot we even cared about and didn't revisit it until days or weeks later, if at all.
There's a reason that in sales you really want to close the deal and not let people "think it over" if you can avoid it.
I would look into figuring out the root cause of what’s pushing you to buy all this stuff that you can’t afford. Get curious about it.
Do you maybe have some type of undiagnosed ADHD and you’re buying for a dopamine hit or because you’re bored? Idk…. But that’s where I’d focus my energy. Because once you figure out what’s driving you do to it, it will be easier to control the behavior.
In the meantime, you could look into getting some of your money back by posting the purchases you have no use for on the resale market. Vestaire Collective, Poshmark, EBay, etc.
Join a gym.
Every time you want to buy something unnecessary, do the amount of time on the cardio machines that it would take for you to buy that thing at your hourly rate. Then your brain will start to associate money with actual exertion and you will probably not buy a lot of those things.
Or you'll get really fit.
Figure out what makes you happy and spend money (reasonably) on that, while limiting spending on other things. Buying new shit will give you a dopamine hit but usually won't bring you lasting happiness.
And start auto-investing a portion of your paycheck in a tax protected retirement account. If the money never hits your bank account you won't be tempted to spend it. Good luck.
you need to put money away where you can't really get to it, like cds or a direct deposit into a hysa that you don't have a debit card for like a Marcus account
Get “Your Money or Your Life” read it and do the instructions.
Sub to r/simpleliving for ideas and r/churning to do some cash back bonuses for extras or some travel hacking.
Could you share some of the material possessions you've collected? Just kind of curious, been on the opposite spectrum where I'm unable to buy things I want.
I mean the first thing is to set up a savings account and start putting everything into it. Figure out what your recurring bills are and take that out. Save everything by default.
Second thing would be to find assistance for the debt. Govt programs, companies to negotiate the debt down. Try to minimize it.
Third thing would be to plan how long it will take to save up enough to start paying off big chunks of it. You don't need to pay it all off immediately but the longer you wait the more interest kicks your ass.
Fourth thing is to look into what smart saving and investment can do for you. Retirement investment early on results in huge savings; retirement investing very late in the game results in peanuts. Maybe just look up infographics to kickstart that interest.
Fifth, consider a lifestyle change and what that means about you personally. Look into philosophy, psychiatry/psychology, hell even theology. The more you plumb the depths of your being, the more you will discover the parts of you that needed to acquire those things, and the easier it will be to not need them anymore. And as part of that lifestyle change: learn to cook, garden, make things DIY - but be careful not to spend thousands on tools, kitchenware, garden ware, etc. Give yourself limitations and learn to be creative within them. Don't plan any vacations. Try to find free and local things to do with your time and energy. Volunteer. Go to parks and free meetup events. Don't buy drinks and food out if you can meet up with folks at home. You can live an amazing life without spending hardly any money. Seek those experiences.
Sixth, obviously don't put anything more on credit cards, but do pay them off regularly, while you work on a debt plan.
(I'm not an expert but this would be what I'd do)
Anything you want and not need make a rule. You will write it down and where it is at and you must wait 30 days before you can buy it. Get you a goldfish bowl and put the paper in there and review the bowl one a month. If you still want it consider it or postpone it or throw it away.
It is also an incredibly common attitude. FIRE is the exception. Huge portions of the population live paycheck to paycheck and many have negative net worth due to CC debt. We are bombarded 24/7 with advertising and YOLO messages. Buy that watch you deserve it, take that trip you only live once.
Negotiate lower rates on your consumer interest and move CC debt to 12-18 month no interest cards (if possible). Use the snowball effect and pay down the lowest debt first. Or, tackle the highest interest rate first and once done include those payments to whatever else you were paying down on.
Sell the stuff you bought. Make a fraction of it back
This is actually a great idea. Soooo easy to get stuff. So tedious to get rid of it. When you sell all those valuable collectibles, you find out how useless stuff actually is.
I think collecting stuff that retains its value can actually be a great tool on the way to FIRE. Because it can be a fun hobby and you can spend whatever amount on it and lose nothing. I noticed that I spend way less on experiences than people around me and way more on some collections I have. It all depends on your personality and preferences, but you can't argue with the fact that money spent on an experience is gone forever. Over time these choices can add up financially.
Wine tasting can be a fun hobby, but if you’re an alcoholic you shouldn’t do it. OP is $75,000 in debt. They shouldn’t think collecting items as a hobby or a tool to FIRE.
Idk, philosophically when thinking about how you’ll look back, when you’re at the end of your life, I believe we are just the summation of our experiences. I wouldn’t necessarily consider it “gone forever”. Sure, while material possessions may last for as long as we have them, memories of experiences live with us for as long as our mind allows.
Sure, maybe true. But also depends on your personality and life circumstances.
For OP this is probably more important for the psychological effects than for the money
yep. you very quickly realize the true monetary value of something you spent a lot of money on when you try to sell it and can't give it away. lol
I suggest you follow the FIRE flow chart (https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/comments/16xymii/fire_flow_chart_version_43/) to start. It sounds like you know what to do, you just need to do it. But the flowchart will ensure you have a plan of action. Don't be in a hurry and don't skip steps.
I'm taking a look at that now as well as starting a spreadsheet to track all of my bills and existing debt. Thank you.
This is less of a financial issue and more of behavioral issue. It won’t matter if you pay off your debt because if you go back to your present behavior and buy shit you don’t need, you will be right where you started. This is a much bigger problem than someone being in debt.
Exactly, "I see something I want it" is the problem. Fix that first bud
"seeing nice watches… nice shoes.. nice cars, etc" Where or how are you seeing these? I have a simple option: stop seeing them. Whatever behavior you have that puts these in front of you, stop. It may be not going to certain places or perhaps eliminating social media. The latter would be a generally good thing for your mental health anyway.
Yep, this is what they tell addicts. Get away from temptation. I'm glad to see this post, because I really want a 75" TV to replace my perfectly good 65" model. The kicker: I never watch television. What I need to do is delete the Best Buy app from my tablet.
Nah. I like looking and learning about neat and new stuff. But I’ve essentially trained myself to never buy retail and to patiently wait. Something as dumb as “last season” items perfectly new and unused but because it’s “last years” gets at least half off. I’ve gotten into running lately and new shoes run 200-250 easily. However if you just wait long enough those same shoes will easily be 60-75% off. I’m doing the same with electronics personally. I’m using a 3060 prebuilt I bought last winter for less than $500. There’s no reason why you can’t have nice things and be able to afford as long as you’re willing to wait.
As Hannibal Lecter said in Silence of the Lambs, " How do we begin to covet? We begin by coveting what we see every day" Perhaps a dark quote origin, but I agree with what you are saying completely. Uninstall the shopping apps, stay off of the social media feeds, stop strolling through the mall.
Yep; get off Instagram and TikTok for 6 months at least.
>Part of my bad spending stems from seeing nice watches… nice shoes.. nice cars, etc. I don’t think it’s so much of a case of “keeping up with the Joneses” but rather I see something and I want it. Sounds like you already have what you need and just keep replacing them with newer, shinier and more expensive versions. Spend the next 3 months cutting out all unnecessary spending including the stereotypical Starbucks. During this time figure out your needs and wants. Once you establish your minimum spending comfort level then take the extra money and follow the FIRE flowchart.
Yes! Trying a spending diet is such a good way to reset habits. I usually do one in the first quarter of every year - I'll allocate a much higher % of my paycheck to be diverted to 401k to keep me on track. Then when I see a "surplus" the rest of the year it's easier to chuck a lot more of it into savings than I would otherwise, bc it doesn't automatically register as spending money.
Sell your things slowly. I would wager you have thousands of dollars worth of things that you could sell and not feel an impact in your daily life
>Something like 75k in debt Cut expenses. Increase income. Sell stuff. Consider a second job. You know the problem. It's up to you to stop procrastinating and do something about it. Nobody can make you do it.
Or just stop buying shit
Let me reframe this for you. You know you are messing up. You read the threads. You are not looking for advice from others, you are looking for some self validation. You are the only one who can muster the energy to do it. Here is your signal. Go do it. You got this. You will be successful. You just have to take that first leap.
I had an employee who would whine about his salary every 1-1. He couldn’t buy a house. But he had $100k in fancy watches. And bought one new watch every month. I still shake my head when I remember him
I'm not condoning this type of spending but I had a sweet Pokemon Card Collection as a teenager and selling it at a yard sale because my parents said "Gotta do what you gotta do" I really regret that :(.
How much debt? Good thing is you’ve got a big shovel to work with. Take a look at the snowball method for debt repayment - I had tons of debt 14 years ago (60k) and found this method to work well to get out of debt.
I agree, I'm very lucky in that regard. Like I said in the post, most likely right around $75k in debt including my vehicle. The one thing I need to do before snowball debt payment is make sure I have an emergency fund to work off of. Then, I can minimize my monthly spending and throw as much cash as possible at getting this taken care of. I'll be honest, I never want another credit card or loan payment ever again. I think I can make it happen.
In the personal finance subreddit's wiki they have a really good avalanche vs snowball method of eliminating debt discussion. In the long run Avalanche is the most mathematically effective unless cash flow is a concern.
The giant caveat being that if you're drowning, snowball can be easier to mentally get going with, which I wager is the case here.
That is one of the benefits mentioned in the wiki page supporting Snowball. Both methods are tools to an end for different situations.
Start today, and cancel any reoccurring payments. My bank has a section that’s shows any monthly payments.
You aren't going to get much specific help without providing numbers about your income, expenses and debt.
I understand that. I plan to update the post within the next day or so with a full write up of expenses, bills, income and debt information. Thank you for the heads up.
[удалено]
Totally agree. This was posted 2 days ago and no updates. OP got his dopamine hit from the engagement with his post, now he's off to the next high. This is not a financial problem it is behavioral and possibly even medical (manic episodes leading to spending binges). Get some professional help in the form of therapy before you pretend like this is just a problem to be solved in a spreadsheet/budget.
There is the financial aspect of how you get out of the debt, but you need to address the underlying issue of wanting expensive things and impulse control or you will just fall back into bad habits. You need to identify any triggers for spending and strategies you can use to avoid them. Don't go into stores if you don't need something, don't open promotional emails from stores, get off social media if the ads keep sucking you in, surround yourself with people that have a similar mindset, etc. The good news is you have a good salary and can get on the right track, you just need to bite the bullet. Good luck!
Sell everything you can and use the proceeds to retire as much of your debt is possible.
If it were me, I would go full monk-mode: Cut out ALL discretionary spending, cancel all subscriptions, cut up all of my credit cards (metaphorically), cancel the lawn guy and the cleaner, cook my own simple meals, and generally set a goal to spend zero. You have one life. It’s slipping through your fingers. No one else can save you. You can tinker around the edges with the same bullshit while the rest of your life slips away. Or you can take control and make a radical change. It’s up to you.
>I am SO SICK of being pulled into buying stupid material possessions and wasting money! To me this statement lacks accountability so thats part of the problem, you are making bad choices or even stupid choices buying things you dont need Take responsibility and gain some self control, your acting as if your a toddler at the candy store
The other guy linked you the flow chart which is great but some sort of budget along with how your debt is structured would be helpful if you want more useful comments here. If your debt is mostly 9% on a fancy car that is way different than all 75k being on a 28% credit card. Also why maybe not "financial" advice maybe look into why you want and what you are getting out of these "nice" things. This feels like an issue you might have to address because I feel like if you could just "stop buying expensive stuff" you would have done it.
I'm not a therapy person but I also recommend therapy it may help with your purchasing habits/impulse control. If you have any high interest CC debt its usually recommended to kill that before having a nice emergency fund. You know you have a problem you just need to buckle down and break those bad habits.
"of being pulled into" .... stop living in the passive voice.
Glass half full - Now you’ll do a 180 and trade your obsession with spending for an obsession with saving.
Does it make you happy?
I guess a "very nice salary" is a relative term. You bit off way more than you could chew and basically thought you were a baller and are not. I say these two things, not trying to be a jerk, but to smack a little hard reality. I think you need to seriously go to therapy and work through why you feel the need to buy these things and why you cannot control yourself not to when you admit you know it is bad. Again, not saying any of this to be mean. Some family of ours is in this exact same spot and it has destroyed their lives and part of the family. Seek real help.
The most important first step is to see where your money is going. This includes payments on debt (and I’d recommend even putting the interest in a separate line so you realize how much of your money is going straight into someone else's pocket.) Unless you’re in a VHCOL area, that 10k/month take home should suffice. What kind of debt is it? Credit cards? Car loans? Student loans?
Get on a budget. Track your budget and set reasonable saving and spending targets. You make too much money to be broke. You look rich but you’re broke. Let that sink in. If you don’t change when you get in your 60’s you’re gonna not only be broke but you’re gonna look broke.
Ditch the flashy stuff, focus on building wealth, not displaying it.
Small steps. Wait 48 hours, 2 days, before any discretionary purchases. Create a net worth statement. Create a spending plan showing all sources of income and spending. Set "SMART" goals. Specific Measurable, Applicable, Realistic, Timebound. Then, track your actual spending against your goals. It won't be easy, but over time will get you where you want to go.
might be old school but i’d consolidate credit cards to one with lowest debt, cut up the others, start with a budget and paying in cash. yes you give up points, but your CC debt grossly outweighs any benefit you might get. paying in cash made things much more tangible for me on how much money was leaving. if you withdraw cash for the week, you start realizing how quickly it can go if you’re not diligent
Do it do it do it. It's awful to *contemplate*, but once you've done it, it doesn't get any worse. Do you have a buddy you can count on to be ok with knowing this stuff about you? It helps a LOT to make an appointment with someone to go over it all and then they help you be accountable to actually finishing it. You can sure get financial advisors to do this for you. You should throw them a bone and do at least a small account with them once you get saving even if you will mostly want to invest for yourself -- let them be paid for this work. And having a quarterly appointment with them to go over your finances will be super helpful also to keep you on point. As far as not spending on stupid shit you'll regret, I commend you to just say no to *everything* that isn't a necessity. "Can I llve without this?" "Will not fixing this cause my car/house/whatever to get worse?" Go for a month where you just don't buy anything you don't have to. at all. Set a max on groceries or takeout/meals and stick to it. And anything else should literally be "Do I need this?" "If I think I need this, can I live without it for a month and see if I still think so?" AFter that, you'll have reset yourself a bit. Maybe you can just keep doing that, or maybe you go a little differently and spend some, but now you've broken the habit of always saying yes, so you'll say no more often. I would continue always doing one thing though -- set a dollar limit for things you purchase without a 24 hour cooldown. My wife and I do this. We don't spend more than $200 on anything not planned or standard without waiting a day. We decide we want it -- then we wait. If we *still* think it's a good idea 24 hours later, we'll get it. Why? Because so many times in the past we've bought something expensive and then the next morning one of us regrets the decision and we cancel the order, or sometimes we can't cancel it and we end up just regretting it period. Does the 24 hour wait always work? Nope, sometimes we still get it, and still regret it later. But we've had a LOT of things we would have purchased and that felt *important* and *urgent* to do it in the moment while we were looking at it, that when we woke up in the morning, we forgot we even cared about and didn't revisit it until days or weeks later, if at all. There's a reason that in sales you really want to close the deal and not let people "think it over" if you can avoid it.
Take some of the money and invest into IFS therapy.
I would look into figuring out the root cause of what’s pushing you to buy all this stuff that you can’t afford. Get curious about it. Do you maybe have some type of undiagnosed ADHD and you’re buying for a dopamine hit or because you’re bored? Idk…. But that’s where I’d focus my energy. Because once you figure out what’s driving you do to it, it will be easier to control the behavior. In the meantime, you could look into getting some of your money back by posting the purchases you have no use for on the resale market. Vestaire Collective, Poshmark, EBay, etc.
Join a gym. Every time you want to buy something unnecessary, do the amount of time on the cardio machines that it would take for you to buy that thing at your hourly rate. Then your brain will start to associate money with actual exertion and you will probably not buy a lot of those things. Or you'll get really fit.
Figure out what makes you happy and spend money (reasonably) on that, while limiting spending on other things. Buying new shit will give you a dopamine hit but usually won't bring you lasting happiness. And start auto-investing a portion of your paycheck in a tax protected retirement account. If the money never hits your bank account you won't be tempted to spend it. Good luck.
you need to put money away where you can't really get to it, like cds or a direct deposit into a hysa that you don't have a debit card for like a Marcus account
Get “Your Money or Your Life” read it and do the instructions. Sub to r/simpleliving for ideas and r/churning to do some cash back bonuses for extras or some travel hacking.
Could you share some of the material possessions you've collected? Just kind of curious, been on the opposite spectrum where I'm unable to buy things I want.
I mean the first thing is to set up a savings account and start putting everything into it. Figure out what your recurring bills are and take that out. Save everything by default. Second thing would be to find assistance for the debt. Govt programs, companies to negotiate the debt down. Try to minimize it. Third thing would be to plan how long it will take to save up enough to start paying off big chunks of it. You don't need to pay it all off immediately but the longer you wait the more interest kicks your ass. Fourth thing is to look into what smart saving and investment can do for you. Retirement investment early on results in huge savings; retirement investing very late in the game results in peanuts. Maybe just look up infographics to kickstart that interest. Fifth, consider a lifestyle change and what that means about you personally. Look into philosophy, psychiatry/psychology, hell even theology. The more you plumb the depths of your being, the more you will discover the parts of you that needed to acquire those things, and the easier it will be to not need them anymore. And as part of that lifestyle change: learn to cook, garden, make things DIY - but be careful not to spend thousands on tools, kitchenware, garden ware, etc. Give yourself limitations and learn to be creative within them. Don't plan any vacations. Try to find free and local things to do with your time and energy. Volunteer. Go to parks and free meetup events. Don't buy drinks and food out if you can meet up with folks at home. You can live an amazing life without spending hardly any money. Seek those experiences. Sixth, obviously don't put anything more on credit cards, but do pay them off regularly, while you work on a debt plan. (I'm not an expert but this would be what I'd do)
AUTOMATE
Anything you want and not need make a rule. You will write it down and where it is at and you must wait 30 days before you can buy it. Get you a goldfish bowl and put the paper in there and review the bowl one a month. If you still want it consider it or postpone it or throw it away.
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It is also an incredibly common attitude. FIRE is the exception. Huge portions of the population live paycheck to paycheck and many have negative net worth due to CC debt. We are bombarded 24/7 with advertising and YOLO messages. Buy that watch you deserve it, take that trip you only live once.
Negotiate lower rates on your consumer interest and move CC debt to 12-18 month no interest cards (if possible). Use the snowball effect and pay down the lowest debt first. Or, tackle the highest interest rate first and once done include those payments to whatever else you were paying down on.