Two Easy Steps to Overcome Your Fear of Spending

Key Highlights:

·         The guilt of spending comes from fear. Saving money becomes security to prevent “feeling poor.”

·         You can reframe how you think about your fear by acknowledging your fear, challenging your fear, and visualizing a more realistic outcome.

·         Time is just as important as money. Change your life habits by listing out your “fun” bucket list and run a time audit on your daily activities to see what needs to be changed.

You make hundreds of thousands a year, max out your retirement accounts and still feel guilty paying $200 for a cleaner even though you just worked a 12-hour shift. You understand delayed gratification too well from years of school and training. Now that you are attending, you go through the internal guilt of spending your money. Here is a two-step process to fight back the fear of spending money and get back time and energy in your life. 

Step 1: Prove to Your Brain That You Are Financially Safe

The guilt of spending comes from fear. You know how it is to feel poor in med school and training while your non-physician friends were making good salaries and going on nice trips. Saving money becomes security to prevent that from happening again.

I had a crippling fear that if I lost my job, I would have to live with my parents. I worked longer hours or would stay at home to save money. I feel like I lost out on some life experiences even though I had the money to do them. After trying for many years, I've developed a system to counter this fear by doing this:

Try this system:

1.      Acknowledge my fear

2.      Challenge my fear

3.      Visualize a more realistic outcome

Here is an example of my own fear:

1.      Acknowledge fear: I need to save every penny because if I lose my job, I will live with my parents.

2.      Challenge fear: I have an emergency fund and investments to use if I lose my job. I'm well covered if it takes me six months to find a new job.

3.      Visualize reality: Losing my job would suck, and it might set my income back a little, but I don't need to save every penny to prepare for this. 

Here is another example (common in immigrant families like mine):

1.      Acknowledge fear: I need to save every penny because my family suffered to give me an education.

2.      Challenge fear: Honoring my family’s sacrifice does not require recreating their suffering in my own life.

3.      Visualize Reality: I can express gratitude by supporting them responsibly, spending time with them and building a stable life, not by feeling guilty every time I spend money

 Challenging your fears helps you step out of your box, to look at yourself from a more realistic view. Your fears and mindset likely take time to change, but hopefully it will eventually give you back more control in your life. 

Step 2: Understanding that Time is a Currency

A 35-year-old attending has roughly 2,000 weekends before age 75. But many of those weekends will include being on call, charting, being with family or recovering from the week. You may feel your career just started, but your healthy, flexible time is limited.

You've trained yourself to delay gratification for most of your life. First until medical school is over. Then residency. Then fellowship. Then boards. Now that you earn a higher attending wage, delaying gratification may be more of a habit that you’ve formed over the years. You don’t want to be like my younger self and miss out on life experiences. So how do you change this habit of over-delayed gratification?

First, list out the top three bucket list goals you’ve been wanting to do. Only fun stuff. And if they are things that you've been repeatedly postponing, that should be on the list.

My top three fun bucket list items:

·         Travel - see every national park in the US

·         Skills - Get better at Snowboarding

·         Experience - Buy an Air Fryer

Here are some other examples:

·         Visit aging parents more often

·         Cut back on clinical hours

·         Return to a hobby abandoned during training

·         Pay for childcare that protects time with your spouse

Doing fun things takes away time and energy from making money. I feel it is actually harder to make intentional decisions that balances between saving money and spending money. The delayed gratification rabbit hole actually is easier when making decisions: just save every penny. No decisions needed. You need to figure out what is more important to you, being able to spend the money you have now, or accumulate wealth for the future? You should be and can be doing both!

Before you walk the path towards fulfilling you “fun” bucket list, you need to know what current activities you are doing now. Let’s run a time audit, like looking at your screentime on your phone.

How am I spending my free time?

·         Chores

·         Commuting

·         Friends

·         Hobbies

·         Family

Which one makes you grumpy or makes you anxious thinking about it? Those are the first ones to think about delegating. Maybe you hate cleaning, and procrastinate until the spiderwebs in your bedroom become roommates. Paying for a cleaner twice a month might cost more money, but it could return several hours a month of your previous time to do things you actually want to do.

Next Steps

Here are your next steps: write down your fears of spending money, challenge it, and visualize a more realistic outcome. List out the top three fun bucket list things that you've been wanting to do, but have been procrastinating for too long. Do a time audit and see what activities you can delegate.