“Technically, we’ve made it — we’re making way more than we made when we first got married — but we haven’t,” Elizabeth said on the podcast. “We’re still in the same place that we were 13 years ago, but worse, actually, because we’re so much in debt.”

The couple has around $152,000 in debt between their mortgage, auto loans, student loans, credit cards and medical debt. 

It’s not the worst debt situation Sethi has seen on the show. But Elizabeth and Jon earn just under $89,000 a year combined, making it difficult to keep up with their debt payments on top of normal living expenses for themselves and their daughter.

Their fixed costs, including debt payments, groceries, gas and other necessities are equal to, if not higher, than their monthly income. The month before the podcast recording, they spent an estimated $350 on clothes and $920 on groceries. 

While clothes and groceries may be necessities, the couple admits a lot of their spending is impulsive. They’ll go to Walmart or Target for a few things they need and leave with a cartful of things they just want.

Sethi emphasized that there are underlying emotional issues leading to the spending problem, and encouraged Elizabeth to work with a therapist.

As for their shopping habits, he laid out three tips anyone can use to start getting their spending under control.

If you want your money to do something specific, like give you a safety net for emergencies or help you be prepared for retirement, your spending choices should be aligned with that goal, Sethi said.

He asked Elizabeth and Jon to think about what they would want to do with their money if they weren’t worried about the bills and debt piling up.

Elizabeth immediately said she would want to build up their savings — which were $0 at the time of the podcast recording — and invest more for the future. But that would mean cutting back on shopping.

“You are not in alignment,” Sethi said on the podcast.

The couple wants to stop worrying about money, but their current spending habits will not help them achieve that, Sethi told them. While impulse purchases might make Elizabeth feel better in the moment, they aren’t aligned with the greater vision she has for her family, which is to financially stable and able to afford the occasional splurge.

Automating financial tasks like retirement and savings account contributions makes it harder for you to spend that money on impulse purchases. And it’s fairly to set up, either through payroll deductions or automatic withdrawals from your bank.

“If you want your money to go somewhere, you need to make it automatic,” Sethi said. “Whatever is left, you’re going to spend it.”

Jon and Elizabeth say they’ve struggled to build up savings because something always comes up. They’d save $100 and then have a $100 expense — whether it was a need or a want — and the $100 would be gone again.

But despite having no cash savings, the couple does have around $38,000 invested for retirement, thanks to automatic contributions to post-tax accounts.

“That’s the only reason we have anything invested,” Elizabeth said.

You may be able to bring down your monthly costs by unsubscribing from unused streaming services, memberships or other commitments. But another kind of subscription could also lead to overspending: mailing lists.

Sethi asked Elizabeth to look at her email inbox and tell him who sent the first five messages. She listed off several retailers.

“You have basically told every company out there, ‘I give you permission to flood me with highly engineered material to get me to buy stuff,'” he said.

You might not buy something every time you see an ad, but allowing the temptation to continue pestering you is setting yourself up for failure, Sethi said. 

If every time you check your inbox or scroll through Instagram you’re seeing ads and influencers telling you that you need to buy a new gadget or clothes to follow a trend, there’s a good chance you’re going to fall into a spending trap at some point.

“Unsubscribe. Do it right now,” Sethi said. “Buying random items that some marketing manager fed you is not your rich life.”

Listen to parts one and two of the podcast here.

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