I am so excited to announce

the launch of Financial Sobriety School!  

My mission is, is to help people stop overspending stop impulse spending stop addictively spending money on stuff that they don't need, and starting to build daily habits, starting to build systems, and being able to come to a place where you're making clear sober decisions with your money. This is Financial Sobriety.

One of the key foundations is sober spending. And what does that look like? What I think sober spending is, is making clear, aligned, conscious decisions. My story is that I was completely addicted to spending money. And I was obsessed with being able to buy things. I thought credit cards were my money, I thought that the limit on my credit card was permission to buy whatever I wanted and I had no consciousness about it. I just went for it. And I know that there's a lot of us out there who struggle with the addiction of spending money, the obsession, the impulses, the compulsion to spend money...

I am in recovery from an addiction to spending money.

I am in recovery from addiction to alcohol.

When I first got sober from alcohol my addiction to spending money got out of control.

I almost lost my home because of my spending addiction. That was my rock bottom.

The impulses I felt about drinking had now manifested into overspending.

The parallels between sobriety and money is fascinating to me and see it in women every day.

When we are active in our addiction it is often us trying to cope with an internal struggle with external things.

My drinking was fueled by anxiety, stress, overwhelm, burnout and so many other things.

Getting sober my spending was fueled by all the same things. When I was stressed (and all the other feelings), I went to the store to purchase things to make me feel better. Even when I felt happy, it was an excuse to go spend money.

When we are in recovery there is a term called addiction transference. What this means is that you can transfer your...

Ok, I know what you are thinking. What is a spending plan? It is a term I use instead of saying budget. I don’t love the word budget as it feels kinda icky to me. It feels like a term I used to use when I tried to get my money figured out and I always failed at it.  If you love the word budget, please use it! I want you to use the term that works best for you.

Term’s like, “it’s not in my budget”, “just did my budget and I won’t have any money this month”, “we can’t afford that, it’s not in the budget” were things I sometimes heard growing up and even said myself as an adult.

I like to refer to it as a spending plan because my thinking has turned around to “I get to CHOOSE what I spend my money on”, as opposed to “My budget is so depressing, I have to spend too much money”. Sometimes the difference in how we perceive things can make such a HUGE difference.

First and foremost,...

Overspending is defined as spending more money than you can afford.

Does this sound familiar?

You are not alone. I used to be addicted to spending money. I was an overspender.

Would be in the midst of doing something and something would come to mind that I thought I “needed”, I looked it up online, one click I would buy it and wouldn’t even care when it showed up on my doorstep.

Would be having a bad day, feeling stressed, sad and I would find myself driving to my favourite store and buying things to make me feel better.

Would be having a great day, happy and I would find myself driving to a store to celebrate how I was feeling.

The list goes on and on about how I found myself pulling out my credit card to change how I was feeling. It worked, but only for a moment. I would get the dopamine hit. It was lovely. Then it left and I wanted more.

I would get a statements from the credit cards I used and often would have to take from a retirement account to pay the...