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,...