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The Golden Rule With Money – Ep. 151
Do you ever hit “checkout” on a shopping spree and instantly feel a pang of guilt? You’re not alone! We live in a world of temptation – that “Buy Now” button can be hard to resist. But what if I told you there’s a golden rule for guilt-free impulse spending? Let’s talk about it and tune into the episode. Let’s go!
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Podcast Key Points:
0:00 – Episode Overview
1:29 – Good vs Bad With Money
2:30 – 2 Types of Impulse Spending
4:06 – The 24 Hour Rule
8:12 – Exception to the 24 Hour Rule
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The Golden Rule With Money
The golden rule when it comes to your money, we’re talking today. This is the third episode in our series on guilt free impulse spending. But we’re talking today about the tool that kind of feels just like the golden rule when it comes to your money, super simple but so powerful. Let’s get to it!
This is the Your Money Your Life podcast. I’m your host, Aimee Cerka, a money confidence coach for female entrepreneurs on the path to six figures. After over 10 years in the personal finance industry and multiple personal financial and medical crisis.
I was fed up with the lies that are being shouted from the rooftops by the Gurus and the media said I help you simplify, solidify and scale your money. By blending tactile money strategies with mindset work, you can create unstoppable finances together, you’ll finally figure out the money thing. So you can make more money in less time without living off of beans and rice, or sacrificing your lifestyle.
Episodes here on the podcast are short and sweet. Being married, having four kids at home, homeschooling being the CEO running the household, I’m kind of busy. And I know you are too. So let’s keep it simple and get to the point. Welcome. I’m so glad you’re here!
Welcome back to another episode of the Your Money Your Life podcast. I’m your host, Aimee Cerka. We are talking about guilt-free impulse sending. This is our third episode in a five-episode series. So you’re still here. So congratulations, yay, kudos, super excited.
It might not seem like a big deal. But prioritizing yourself and your money consistently is not necessarily an easy thing. And you’re here doing it.
Let’s quickly recap what we’ve talked about the first episode was on what impulse spending is and why we do it. And then the second input second episode, we were talking about what you need to stop doing. So we needed to stop spending haphazardly without a budget tool systems in place.
This wasn’t like a good versus bad. This is like the lens we have to remove here because so much of this is about like emotions, feelings, thoughts. There’s not a good versus bad, we’ve removed that. Okay. This is just about being better in continuing to improve.
Okay, so the tool today that we get to talk about the kind of feels like the golden rule, like when it comes to your money is the 24-hour rule. Now the best thing is the 24-hour rule doesn’t cost you anything, it actually saves you money.
The Two Types of Impulse Spending
But before I can get into that and explain really what the 24-hour rule is, we have to talk about the two main types of impulse spending. First one big ticket impulse spending, so you’re not the one that goes by the grocery checkout line and picks up like the candy bar or whatever. But you’ll come home with a new vehicle or a four wheeler or fun toy, you’ll buy luxury massage, the big ticket items, okay?
Or the other side. It’s like the little things, you avoid the big things, you’re doing great. But you will end up buying something at the gas station, or you’re making a target trip. Sorry, I’m not a target person. But I know a lot of people are or the impulse Starbucks run, which again, we’re not having to cut all of them. This is just about putting tools in place.
Late Night Amazon purchases. I know this one got me a lot. I had to exclusively pump for Wyatt, my second son, those late night pumping sessions, I bought way too much on Amazon. Or this also could be like takeout impulse takeout.
Navigating Big Ticket Items
Okay, so you avoid the big things, but we kind of like nickel and dime $20 here, not that big of a deal, right. So the 24-hour rule really helps more with the big ticket impulse spending. Depending on the dollar amount that you set, it could help you with the little nickel and dime impulse spending. But this is definitely geared towards the big ticket.
Okay. So first off, you’re going to talk to your significant other, your spouse, hopefully they’re on board and come up with a number to gather. But if we’re not, you still can set us up for you if you’re taking action and make smarter choices is very powerful, and don’t want you to get discouraged, just because you’re not on the same spot. And we’re actually going to talk tomorrow or next time with the tools that like how to use lot if your spouse is a spender and you need them not to overspend money like that.
Setting Limits with the 24-Hour Rule
Okay, so what is the 24-hour rule? How does it work? You’re going to set a limit. For this example, let’s use $100. Now $100 could be too much for your limit, or it could be nothing and that really depends on your personal situation.
Really, if we’ve got the budget set in place again, we’re gonna get into that more in the next episodes in the series like what That actually looks like and how you need to have that. But we’re going to set the limit, okay? $100.
If you’re pushing towards like a hard goal, you want to do something, maybe you’re looking to buy a house, maybe you’re really are trying to knock out some of the debt, I would probably lower this to like 50. But again, it’s your decision, just setting the limit. And again, the tool system that we’re going to talk about next time around is going to help with happily helping you to figure out the limit really pulls a lot of it together for you.
So you got your dollar limit, we’re using $100. For our example, this is not including groceries. Now I feel like I have to put a caveat on this shop. When you shop for groceries shop your grocery list, if you are somebody who buys a lot more that’s on your list and you end up blowing $102 or 100 $200 more than you plan to on the groceries, then we need to kind of apply the 24-hour rule here as well or be more strategic and limiting how you’re shopping.
Something, okay. doesn’t include grocery, those are all budgeted purchases. We’re not including money that you’ve already set aside like pre-plan for a designated thing. Maybe it’s like back-to-back to school shopping, maybe you’ve got a repair that you have to do around the house, and you’ve planned ahead for it, you’ve set the money aside, you know that you’re working into this, okay.
But you’re going shopping, you’re at the store, and you found this item that you want to purchase. That’s $150. So let’s see, what can we buy? What can $150 Buy you nowadays? Maybe it’s a new tablet, I don’t know where you’re gonna find a tablet for $150. But sure, maybe it’s a $200 tablet, and it’s on sale for $100 and said, there we go round numbers.
Exercising Patience for Smarter Choices
Well, whatever that limit is that you’ve said, you find something that’s above the limit. What the 24-hour rule means is you have to wait 24 hours before you purchase it. Even if it means the sales ending. Even if it’s like limited stock and your concern we’re going to run out, that could be the case with a vehicle.
Okay, there’s just the one vehicle that you’ve been looking for. What waiting the 24 hours allows you to do is to make that unemotional decision, you let the emotion settle. Because when we’re in the moment, and you find the thing that’s on sale, and you really want it like that dopamine purchase dopamine hit, it’s right there and you’re stuck like in the high of the emotions. But when you wait 24 hours, you’re able to see objectively like is it something you actually still want?
Or was it just something that you wanted in the moment, and if you do still want it 24 hours later, you can go back and get it. And if it was on sale, and it’s no longer on sale, and it’s not an urgent thing. Personally, what I do is I just watch for it to go on sale again. But you can still purchase it just waiting the 24 hours so that you know that like this is something that you actually want.
Exceptional Circumstances
This wasn’t just like an impulse purchase that’s going to sit and gather dust, right? What you’re going to discover, or you’ll discover is something you really need or want. So here’s the exception for this. If you set the intention beforehand, you have this strategy here is a great one to use when shopping for the holidays, when we have a big sales coming out Black Friday, Prime Day deals, all of those things.
There was a couple years ago, I wanted an airfryer slash Instant Pot. We knew ahead of time. We had already planned for it. And the Prime Day deal showed up that it was on sale for whatever it was 50% off or something we had already planned that we were purchasing that it wasn’t truly an impulse spending, because it was already something we had planned to purchase.
It just went on sale. So then we purchased it then came, the amount that you’re setting is whatever you’re comfortable spending. So don’t set something that you’re not comfortable with spending like through big ticket items that are kind of like a lot to spend in your budget, you definitely need to be waiting at least 24 hours and this is designed even for the things that are just kind of like, “oh, it’d be okay.”
All right. That’s the 24-hour rule. You wait 24 hours to make the decision even if it’s on sale even if there’s a limited stock even if it’s something you really really feel like you want in the moment. We’re waiting for it and removing that emotion and seeing if you truly want it and then if you do want it great go back and get it if not, you’ll be able to tell within that 24 hours.
Taking Action
All right, your action step for today. Send me a message on Instagram. Let me know what kind of impulse spender you are. Are you big ticket item impulse spender, nickel and dime little thing impulse bender?
And then of course have you heard of the 24-hour rule? Did you already have a limit set? Are you working on one? Can’t wait to hear from you send me a message on Instagram and we’ll see you next time for the fourth part in our guilt free impulse spending serious bye for now.
Act Now to Transform Your Finances
If you’re struggling with shame and guilt around your finances, whether it’s debt impulse spending mistakes from the past, or the fact that you still haven’t hit your income goals, and it’s time for you to work with me. There are different levels of support and price points that you can use on the path to removing that guilt and shame so you can step into your unstoppable life. After all, your finances are unique to you, and your support should be too good to workwithaimee.com to get started with one of my most popular programs, or you can book a q&a call with me. We’ll figure out what your next step should be. And of course, all those links are hanging out in the show notes as well.
