Why Overspending Keeps Happening Even When You Try to Budget With Katy Wells | 498

0:00Katy Wells:Dopamine is the motivation molecule and it drives us to seek rewards, not just feel them. That's why adding to cart feels good even before we actually buy the thing. And here's the thing. I used to think I was a failure for wanting to add to cart. I'm like, why does this feel good? If I'm simplifying my life, shouldn't I not feel this anymore? Shouldn't I not have that driver in me? It doesn't go away just because all of a sudden you decide to have a budget or declutter your home. because we get dopamine from the anticipation of buying something new. This is literally how we are wired. Do you make good money but have nothing to show for it?

0:37Are you tired of living paycheck to paycheck? Do you have big dreams for your financial future? Do you want to get debt-free but you don't want to live on beans and rice? Or you don't want to give up those pumpkin spice lattes? Hey, it's okay if you don't already know how to budget or if you're using credit cards to get through the month. Hey, it's okay if you want to seem like you have your finances all together or you're not on the same page with your spouse when it comes to finances. We know what you're doing probably isn't working, but guess what? You're in the right place. We're Shana and Vanessa.

1:07We're best friends, business partners, and master financial coaches trained by Dave Ramsey. We've been in business since 2019, helping hundreds of amazing people like you create budgets, get out of debt, stop living paycheck to paycheck, and know exactly what to do with their money. In this podcast, we'll share with you everything we know plus everything we're working on with our clients so that you have the best chance at reaching your financial goals. We want to help you take the guesswork out of your budget, improve your marriages, and even bring your kids in on the conversation. We can help you no matter where you're at, whether you're the single mom who's never had$500 in her savings account or the millionaire who's paid off four real estate mortgages.

1:43And we're not going to shy away from the tough love. We'll tell you what you need to hear and encourage you at the same time. This is the Financial Coaching for Women podcast. we're excited to bring you a fun conversation we had with our friend katie wealth yes katie lives eats and breathes decluttering and loves everything simplifying but before her top ring podcast best-selling courses and now her book she was anxious overwhelmed and a mom drowning in chores and clutter resenting her family for making all of this mess yeah i love how she describes herself as this stuff, official stuff manager, right?

2:19So, but one day her husband and her two boys were in a serious head-on collision. And that was the moment that helped her become crystal clear that all of that stuff was just really distracting her from what really mattered. And it's led her to the journey where she's on, that she's on now. Yeah. And now she helps women who feel buried by the clutter, take back their homes and their peace. And she has already helped over 250 ,000 families turn their homes into happy places by solving the real clutter problems beneath all of it. This conversation was so good. We loved how Katie connected your stuff story to your spending and talked about the dopamine hit of online shopping.

2:58Yeah. And she gave us a little hack. So you have to listen to hear that. And she also gave others super simple ideas like clutter audits, donation stations, and then her 48 hour rule for impulse buys. I thought that was helpful. Yeah. And so if you ever felt like your home was stressing you out or you want your space to match the calm you're trying to create with your budget, you're going to love this one. Yeah. So let's dive into our conversation with Katie Wells. Katie Wells, we are so excited to have you on Financial Coaching for Women. Welcome.

3:26Katy Wells:Thank you. Oh my gosh. I'm so stoked to be here. I love chatting with you girls. I could talk to you all day. So let's do it. Yeah. We had so much fun on your podcast. So it just seems a perfect match for you to come on and, and, you know, give you a little bit of your wisdom to our audience as well. Yeah. So we're, we know who you are. We've heard it in the intro, but just give us a little, your version of the rundown before we get into it. We have a lot to get to today. A lot of fun stuff. I think that's really helpful for our audience, but give us a little bit of the rundown from your, from you.

3:54Katy Wells:Yeah. So you said such a nice intro already. I'm Katie Wells. I wasn't born organized and boy, did I have to go through a lot to come up with my own methods. And I know your stories similar, right? And help families make home, make their homes their happy place, which ends up being the title of my book, which I absolutely love. And really at the end of the day, I feel like so much declutter advice out there treats like clutter as just some superficial thing. Follow this checklist and then you'll see results. Follow this course and then you'll see results. And it's like chopping weeds off at ground level.

4:31Katy Wells:Like your garden looks good for a day. We've all tried the rainbow organizing and buying more bins and all those things can be helpful. But then we know how Monday starts. It's the piles, the chaos, the clutter is back. And so I developed methods over the years when I was struggling with my own clutter. And I had two young kids at the time. They're now nine and 10 that really help get to the root of clutter. And that is where my heart is and where we look at the kind of emotional archaeology that can be so fruitful when it comes to our spending, the things we're bringing into our home and also helps us let go of clutter.

5:03Katy Wells:So that way we see long-term sustainable results, right? Which is so often missed in this niche of mine. And I know you guys appreciate that. I think it's so important too, because I don't think people realize just kind of like the financial stress, that stress in your home, how much it affects other areas of your life, not, but it just does. And I just know like when things start creeping up for me, I can, I can just feel it like right here in my soul. And it just, it bothers me. Yeah. I think, I think what's funny about what you said is, you know, and we, we kind of do the same thing. Like, let's see what, what, what happened to you before that made you this way about money, right?

5:42Like what's going on in your brain? I have the opposite story. There was never a drop of clutter in my parents' house. We call her mom the scrubbing bubble. Like she just cleans stuff as she goes. She's actually here helping right now. And she and I, so I never had it, but in my room, yeah, it was a different story. So I have no excuse, but I do feel like you, like, it took me a minute to figure out what works for me and what works for my family. And we were military. So one thing that helped really helped me is just don't have a lot of stuff. And I remember seeing the name of your podcast a long time ago.

6:14And I was like, that's it. Like, you know, in the Maximize Middle East, like there is a balance there. There is like, I love the name of your book, a happy home or make my home happy or I'm sorry, you'll have to say it again. But I love that. That's exactly what it is. Not this like all or nothing black or white. What works for you?

6:31Katy Wells:Yes. Amen to that. I find it so true. I think we're all tired of the, I used to say one size fits all, but it feels like one size fits no one. It's better. The oversimplification and just do it. It's really easy. And it's like, I'm looking around. How is everyone? I'm the failure. I'm smart, but what's wrong with me? Why can't I figure this out? Much like a lot of your students. And I felt this way with budgeting too. Why is everyone else figuring this out? What's the secret? What am I missing? When really, I think the solutions were being sold. Not only are they oversimplified, but they don't get to the root of it.

7:03Katy Wells:And so I'm excited to have this discussion with you. And related to what you talked about, one thing that I realized that helped me, that was like a jumpstart to my own methods, which I call holistic decluttering, which we need to look at. It's like looking at the full picture, is that we all have a stuff story. And some of that we inherited from who we were raised by, right? I know so many people who have grown up military and you'd think someone might go, oh, they must be like really good at letting stuff go. But then someone else who grew up in this other military family took that experience and said, I'm not, I'm tired of living out of a box and I'm never letting anything go.

7:39Katy Wells:So it can be interesting how we all have similar experiences, but how that shifts into how we view things, what we buy. So there are three kind of main pillars to this stuff story. And really, it's just about becoming curious. It's not about placing blame on your parents for being the way they are. But there's the historical aspects. So these are your caregivers, how they viewed stuff, how they kept a tidy home, how they prioritize that. Then there's your personal experiences. So this could be like, maybe money has been tight for you. Maybe you lost a job. And ever since then, you feel the need to cling to more stuff or to act a certain way with your things.

8:15Katy Wells:And then there is the cultural aspect, which is huge. I know we talked about that on my show, but it's gosh, most of us are on social media to a certain extent, whether it's for business or personal, and it's all hop on there. And immediately it's I feel like I'm my most emotional, psychological things are exploited right away. Oh, maybe I'm not organized. This woman just baked like a souffle with her eight children, and they're all happy. And they all have matching outfits. I need to go I need to go get her cookbook and get my stuff together. Like it happens in the blink of an eye and it's our stuff story speaking to the root of that.

8:51Katy Wells:This root is deep. It's 12 feet underground, girl. We got to do a little bit of digging, but it is so fruitful to just bring awareness to that stuff story because when we have that awareness, it does a couple of things. It normalizes it. Everyone has a stuff story. Most people aren't just automatically great at decluttering and letting go. Although I'm really good at letting go of my husband's stuff. Isn't that funny? And my kids stuff because it's not mine. Right. And when we can normalize the struggle, we don't feel so alone, so isolated. And we step when we're stepping out of that shame, what's wrong with me?

9:28Katy Wells:Why can't I just do this? What like, why do I always fail? Why does the clutter come back? That shame means there's no hope. And when there's no hope, why take action? Why not just say forget it? I'm just never going to be organized. I'll wait till my kids grow up and move out. Then I'll work on decluttering because methods sell us this, like you said, all or nothing. Here's how you want to do it. If you want to do it, step one, take everything out of your closet. Talk about immediate overwhelm, which by the way, I did an instant regret. But we learned from our mistakes. And I get it. Like, it's kind of like we're promised this solution is like this HGTV show, like home makeover.

10:06Katy Wells:and but it's the reality is we don't have six hours in a day to declutter these things we don't have a weekend and when we do give up those weekends which by the way i used to consistently we become resentful i'll speak for myself i became super resentful my husband got to have fun with the kids while i reorganized the toys for the 18th time that month it's just not fun and so i was like we need better ways for busy women who don't want to have to bend over backwards to try to fit these methods and systems into their lives. We need to integrate clutter, decluttering, maintaining a home, all these different things into our busy lives, and we can still make progress and forward momentum and have long-term sustainable change, which means not only a tidier, easier to clean home, those are all great things, and I think that's why a lot of us start decluttering, but once we feel the impact, like you said, all the ways clutter is impacting us, our money, I started saving more money.

11:02Katy Wells:That meant we could take more trips or save for the Disney trip. That meant my husband and I were arguing less over whose turn it was to pick up the toys because instead of taking 30 minutes, it took five. In all these different ways, I was so much less depressed, so much less anxious in my home environment. I think what most of us don't realize is our environments subconsciously influence us in so many ways that affects our emotions, our thoughts, our choices, and moods, our stress levels, and all these things. And the good news is for everyone listening, and you might be being like, I'm not going to feel better until my home is completely decluttered.

11:38Katy Wells:Literally, we've all had that feeling where we like drop something off at the donation center or spend five minutes clearing off counters. And maybe it's not even decluttering. Maybe it's just resetting your home back to its baseline. I call that a reset. And we feel better. You feel that soul crushing that you talked about, right? It starts to lighten. And then we think, oh, I can do this. There is hope. I can do this. And in a world where we're so out of control, oh my gosh, the world is crazy, right? That's probably never going to change. I want your listeners to understand that even if you have a messy family, a messy partner, and messy kids who don't seem to care maybe at all about a tidier home, you do have control under your roof and within your walls.

12:21Katy Wells:And I'm super excited to talk about more ways we can do that on this show with you today. I want to get to those, all of that, because I have three kids and I'm really ready. I'm ready to take and learn and take notes. I want to back up really quick because this is very parallel to what we see with money, the clutter and society, well, you write the cultural drivers. And I was thinking this morning, I was listening to a podcast and the word overwhelm just keeps coming up over and over. And isn't it funny how we have everything so much easier than our parents or grandparents ever do? Everything comes easier.

12:52We have more money, even though it feels like it not right now, right? We have everything we could want. And we have access to more help. Yeah. And we are all so much more overwhelmed. There's so much more clutter. I was thinking, you know, what we say is your finances are more cluttered. There's more things going on. But I was also thinking, my kids, you know, my parents didn't have to scramble for five days of spirit week, okay, which is what I'm doing. And then what the clutter that may result from that, right? Like, or all the things that come home. No, my mom, like that one. And if there was anything that ever came home from school, it went straight to the trash.

13:22And I know that that applies everywhere. So I just think as a cultural problem or a cultural thing, there's so much flying at you in every arena of your life that, of course, it feels cluttered. Of course, it feels overwhelmed. And it's a different beast. That's why it may seem silly that we have to really, or not silly, but it kind of could seem silly that we have to really dive in and learn this stuff. But it's because everything is new. Everything is different now. And there's so much more coming at us. We can't use, you know, what our parents did to keep the house tidy or whatever, because it's not the same world that we're living in.

13:51Well, and I also think that as, as we're listening to you and realizing how much it pertains to our, our clients as well, as I think it bleeds. And this is, you know, when we used to have a life coaching studio before, when we did different types of coaching, it was the same problem, whether it's your health, whether it's your home, whether it's your finances, whether it's your business, this overwhelm, this clutter. And like you said, it comes from past experiences. It comes from your childhood. it comes from culture. All of that is affecting your decisions and it's bleeding over into all these different areas of your life.

14:20So no wonder you feel overwhelmed because none of them feel in order. So you're just super stressed.

14:26Katy Wells:Yeah, a hundred percent. And it's been interesting too, once I started decluttering and using these methods, I always love to call myself out because I'm, I was like, unbeknownst to me, my own, like I was making my progress with decluttering and simplifying my life so much harder because I started with the obvious, which was the clutter. when I also knew I needed to work on my shopping. And I'll never forget years ago, it was like maybe a year into my declutter journey and I was making progress, feeling better, all these things. But this was a moment where I was like, I would always pray like the UPS driver didn't come when my husband was home because it was that bad.

15:03Katy Wells:I was probably, I was constantly perusing to distract myself and, oh, I earned these treats and all these things. I didn't spend handbags, luxury items. Those aren't my thing. It would be like 20 bucks here, 15 bucks here. You've heard the story time and time again. It doesn't feel like much. I think my threshold was like$45. If it were$45 or more, I'd remember what it was. But anything under$45, forget it. I'd buy it, get the dopamine hit. And one day, Andrew opened the credit card bill and I was at the kitchen table and his jaw dropped. And I was like, this is the moment. It just immediately burst out in tears.

15:35And he was like, where'd the money go?

15:38Katy Wells:How is our bill this high? And I was like, I don't know, like I have a shopping problem. I'm sorry. And I was like, looking back, I started with the easy, what felt like the easiest thing, which is again, the clutter, but we have to get to the heart of it. And yeah, part of that is the way we view things, our relationship with stuff. But I had so many triggers I wasn't aware of, like emotional triggers that were causing me to shop. And I really had to take some time and reflection. It didn't even take like years of therapy. I thought it would. I was like, okay, I need some serious help. But just a little reflection and awareness and just some practical things I implemented made such a radical difference and continue to to this day.

16:18Katy Wells:It's like one of those things, and just like you all teach, the things, the systems we put in place now, the habits, how we rewrite these things now continue to have this massive impact on our return of investment. And that is same with decluttering. It saves time, energy, all these things, and all the tools you guys talk about when it comes to finances. And it just feeling that time and time again, and the benefits of that has been wildly impactful for me. All right, budget besties, it's time for some real talk. You don't need another budget. You need a budget system. Our simplified budget system is what you've been looking for.

16:57It's going to allow you to be bougie on a budget. You'll be able to easily set up a system that runs automatically and shows you exactly where your money is going. And it's going to give you permission to spend. Everybody loves that. Yeah. It's straightforward, pretty, and packed with walkthrough videos that break down the exact methods we use with our clients to get out of debt, set up a bills account, separate spending, build savings buckets, and end the paycheck to paycheck feel. If you're new to budgeting, this is the perfect way to jump in. And if you're already a budget nerd like us, you're about to meet your new obsession.

17:31This is the upgrade to your finances that you need right now. Yeah. So head on over to budgetbesties.com forward slash budget and grab yours. Now back to today's show. So we're going to get, we have a couple other things that we want to hit, but I want to get for me. I'm selfish. Okay, Katie. I have a 17 year old. She has a 17 year old. She has a six, a 15 year old, sorry, a third and a 10 year old. And then we have husbands. She has a lot of animals. I just have one. And then we have ourselves. Okay. Let's be honest. We also have Amazon app. Okay. So what are some of the strategies that you alluded to or the tips or tricks that you said that maybe we could take a couple today and implement them or think about implementing them.

18:10So whether it's - Yeah. Okay.

18:12Katy Wells:I just want to tee up before I get to the practical stuff because I think context matters, right? And that is, for me, budgeting wasn't working because it was, like you have said, it can look really great on paper, but then like my actions were like not aligning with that and I couldn't understand why. And then I realized, again, I tend to look at just like what's natural human behavior like how are we wired because i think it's so important we normalize this struggle and this experience so dopamine if we can nerd out for just a second i'm obsessed with dr andrew huberman in a like a good like a normal way my husband also named andrew knows this okay and he puts out so much great content right on the human body and all these things so dopamine is the motivation molecule and it drives us to seek rewards not just feel them.

18:59Katy Wells:That's why adding to cart feels good even before we actually buy the thing. And here's the thing. I used to think I was a failure for wanting to add to cart. I'm like, why does this feel good? If I'm simplifying my life, shouldn't I not feel this anymore? Shouldn't I not have that driver in me? It doesn't go away just because all of a sudden you decide to have a budget or declutter your home. Because we get dopamine from the anticipation of buying something new. This is literally how we are wired. This is for our survival. Here's the thing. Marketers, influencers, anyone trying to sell something out there, right, they know this.

19:34Katy Wells:And FOMO messaging, we're all familiar with like fear of missing out. The more you spend, the more you save. All these different messages, comparison culture on social media, like we talked about, it feeds this dopamine loop, which if we're, depending on where we're spending our time, it triggers us to want to buy more become more. And when we're buying products, we're not just buying things. When I was scrolling, nursing a baby on the couch and I was exhausted, I was touched out, end of my day, this was my emotional trigger, right? Do something while the baby's nursing. I can't do anything else anyway.

20:09Katy Wells:Hop on Amazon or usually for me, it was Instagram at the time. And I'd see a influencer who was aspirational to me. She was like a great chef. She had this tidy, beautiful white kitchen. I didn't have 350K to pump into a kitchen renovation or buy a new home, but I could buy her cookbook, right? And feel more put together. I could buy the planner she was selling me because, wow, she's really got it organized. Look at her kids. Like, look how happy they are. I could buy her chore list. I could buy all these things to make me feel better about like I'm getting closer to the version of myself I am.

20:43Katy Wells:And that I think is such an important piece of the conversation we are buying thoughts feeling emotions you can't really take that out of someone just because we're on a budget or decluttering and so starting with normalizing it and also going back to that self-awareness piece and creating space between the feeling and the action so for me that was like noticing the trigger or the cue right how habits like you guys talk about this habit formation so what are you feeling when you're tempted to like hop on Amazon or when you're buying from the same influencer on Instagram over and over again. Are you bored?

21:21Katy Wells:Are you anxious? I think for a lot of us too, we've heard like we buy when we're stressed and we're bored. I used to too. For me, I think, and a lot of other people don't realize that it's like, it's a need. It feels like it satisfies a subconscious need to control. the world is chaos I got spirit week next week I got a plan for I got 18 emails coming in from school reminding me to put blue dye in my kids hair like all these different that were overwhelmed like so much input I can't control that what can I control I can control like getting that dopamine hit and I want to feel good I want to feel whatever what am I trying to achieve through that so just bringing awareness into that can be so helpful and deciding okay what void am I actually trying to fill.