"I want to stop buying things I don't need." I hear some version of this every week from women I work with. Sometimes it's said like a goal... or sometimes it's said like an apology (after describing a purchase they're clearly excited about). Either way, it's usually said with the same hope underneath it... If I can just get better at only buying what I need, I'll FINALLY have my shopping under control. Buuuut I want to gently push back on that, because after overcoming my compulsive shopping...
21 days ago • 4 min read
At the start of this year, I set 2 rules for buying clothes: No more than 12 brand new pieces.Max $500 on secondhand pieces. Why? Because last December, I looked at alllll the purchases I made in 2025 and didn't love how many there were. Although I was super happy with my spending (85% less than I used to spend on clothes) I felt like I didn't need 33 items in one year. I also wished I had put a little more thought into a couple of those purchases... a mistake I knew I could solve if I...
27 days ago • 5 min read
In 2022, I spent $22,000 on clothes. That’s roughly $1,800 a month (the same as my rent at the time). How do I know that number? Because I meticulously tracked my spending in a spreadsheet for years thinking that was the key to solving my overspending problem. Clearly, it didn't help. Not even a little. But today (half way through 2026) I’m currently at $1,100... meaning I'm on track to spend 90% less than I used to spend on clothes (while being more satisfied with my closet & style than I...
about 2 months ago • 6 min read
This goes against everything you have been telling yourself recently... but your shopping isn’t the problem. I know that might sound strange coming from someone who overcame a shopping addiction, left her corporate job in fashion marketing, and built an entire program around helping women shop less... but the #1 mistake I see women make is focusing too much on shopping less and not enough on addressing the things that make them shop. Overshopping doesn't just happen out of nowhere. It happens...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
When I was buying new clothes every single week with $25,000 of credit card debt, I genuinely believed that buying more was the path to personal style. More options, more newness, the next piece that would finally help my achieve the style I wanted to have. Surely if I just kept trying, kept buying, kept refining… eventually I’d land on “my style” and everything would click. What actually happened was the opposite. Although I loved fashion and was the person my girlfriends came to for outfit...
2 months ago • 3 min read
When impulse buying starts to feel like an out-of-control pattern, most women tell themselves they just need to make more money, figure out their personal style, or wait for willpower to kick in. The reality? Willpower is unreliable. Impulse purchases sabotage personal style. And for shopaholics... more money just means more spending. But after helping 150+ women shift their relationship with shopping from impulsive to intentional through The Shopping Shift, I've noticed this... Impulse...
2 months ago • 4 min read
You want to get your shopping under control... but what does that even look like? For the longest time, I wanted to be more "intentional." I wanted to be someone who felt calm and in control around clothes, who didn't overspend, who opened her closet and felt satisfied with what was there. I wanted the benefits of intentional shopping without really understanding what intentional shopping actually was. So I'd tell myself I was going to "shop less" and "be more mindful." And then I'd find...
3 months ago • 5 min read
After dinner, Annabelle went outside and sat in her backyard. The sun was still out. It was quiet. One of those small, ordinary moments that feels strangely fulfilling. Something suddenly occurred to her... shopping was taking up zero space in that moment. No desire for anything new. Not a care in the world about what she was wearing. This, she realized, is what I’ve been looking for this whole time. I’ve been thinking about this story from a TSS student all week since she shared it in one of...
3 months ago • 3 min read
There's one thing that no personal finance guru is going to tell you: budgeting doesn't work to fix your overspending. That's not because you're bad at math, lack willpower, or haven’t found the right spreadsheet yet. It's because budgets solve money problems, but buying too many clothes is not a money problem. From the outside, overspending on clothes looks like a financial issue. I work with fashion-loving women every day who are spending more than they earn, not hitting their savings...
3 months ago • 4 min read