Welcome to Money As If, a personal finance newsletter for anyone who's ever paid Google $1.99 a month for storage after failing to clean out their inbox for years and years. (Not a true story; doesn't matter.)

Today’s messages:

• The keys to unlocking guilt-free spending

• Recognizing subscription creep

• Memento mori

— Jeanine

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IN THESE, OUR (POSSIBLE) END TIMES

Do we really need rules for splurging?

I write a lot about spending because I think everyone should be able to do it — and generally more than they currently do.

If that sounds odd coming from someone who writes a money newsletter, it’s probably because personal finance content, pretty much since its inception, has focused on deprivation: Cut more, more, more from your budget, and those savings shall set you free.

That’s never felt right to me. Life without everything — takeout, streaming, hobbies, wrapping paper, cleaning supplies, and, yes, avocado toast — sounds miserable and, quite frankly, unfair. So I was psyched to chat with Dana Miranda, personal finance journalist and Certified Educator in Personal Finance (CEPF), about different ways to approach spending.

Miranda is the author of “You Don’t Need a Budget,” a new book that challenges what she’s termed “budget culture,” a toxic set of prevailing beliefs around money that reward restriction and ignore systemic issues that keep us from building wealth (like, say, stagnant wages, exorbitant housing costs, and relentless inflation).

Questioning our (de)faults

We spoke about splurging, but Miranda’s book challenges lots of conventional money wisdom, like keeping an emergency fund, having investment accounts, and avoiding or paying off debt at all costs.

An overarching theme is that we shouldn’t view our inability to do any or all of the above as some sort of abject moral failure or a reason to feel shame.

That’s unfortunately become a predisposition for many of us, brought on by years and years of getting yelled at by self-appointed financial gurus, an individualistic approach to money, and a distinctly American kink for pain.

“We fetishize suffering,” Miranda says. “Deprivation becomes the only solution to a problem.”

Spending without shame

Having a healthier relationship with spending in particular, she argues, involves identifying and eschewing other traditional personal finance constructs that aren’t as helpful as they seem.

Case in point: Classifying things as either a want or a need.

"It just adds judgment to the decision-making process," Miranda says. It also gets tough to do. "You need to eat, but at what point does the food you're buying become a luxury?," she adds.

The word "splurge," too, is imperfect in that what constitutes one will differ for everyone, depending on their finances and viewpoints. It also has a negative connotation, implying that we've overstepped some boundary.

“It’s not really fair that because of the circumstances you were born into you have to be into a higher level of restriction,” Miranda said when I mentioned that I had recently spent $200 at the Louis Vuitton Cafe even though, you know, I’m not a rich person.

Processing big purchases

None of that is to say we all wouldn't benefit from some guardrails when it comes to spending. (No one is advocating for overindulgence here.) It just suggests that we recognize the ones imposed upon us — and feel free to question, reject, and replace them with our own strategies as we deem fit.

To that end, here's an alternative, let's say, framework to consider when it comes to big spending based on Miranda's book, our conversation, and some of my learnings as a pro- (but-still-relatively) disciplined spender.

Write

Miranda (obviously) doesn’t advocate for having a formal budget, but she does suggest keeping a short-term spending journal for a week or month, particularly if you feel disconnected from your financial habits. “See where your money actually is going,” she says, then take time to …

Reflect

Include in your journal how you felt during and after the purchase. Record, too, how it impacted your financial life, Miranda says. This exercise can give you perspective on what drives your financial decision-making, what purchases are worth it to you, and what purchases actually just make you miserable.

Double-click on your regrets

Do you feel buyer’s remorse because you think you should or because the purchase was truly out of line with your goals and values? For instance, I felt real bad about visiting the Louis Vuitton cafe for about a week or so before ultimately realizing that a big chunk of guilt was tied to the fact that I shared the receipt — and expected, rightly or wrongly, to be judged on the amount — vs. the actual splurge itself.

Forgive yourself

If you decide a purchase was out-of-pocket, avoid the urge to shame yourself. Unless you can leverage a return policy, you can’t undo the spend.

"You have to look forward," Miranda says. In lieu of harping on the past, ask yourself, “Is this something you have to change in the future?"

Make space

Prepare for a splurge by spending less on the stuff you don't care about. One of the things Miranda and I realized we had in common during our chat is that we're both generally minimalists — and, as a result, are more comfortable when it comes to spending on the items we've deemed important.

So, for example, she’s frugal around groceries so she has more money to put toward housing whereas I’ll only buy clothes that are on sale so I can go low-stakes gamble at my local tricky tray.

Spend consciously

The ultimate aim of all this inner money work is to develop an internal compass of sorts that guides your money management, keeps your spending in line with your values, and prevents overconsumption — which, in turn, prevents financial havoc and the guilt that tends to come with it.

Miranda calls this "conscious spending" and explains it much better (and in much greater detail) in her book, along with other novel approaches to personal finance, so I highly encourage you to read it. You can also subscribe to her newsletter, "Healthy Rich."

And, if you have your own go-to methods for splurging or spending without guilt, please share them by emailing [email protected]. I may round up reader tips for a future issue.

PRICE TAGS

Subscription edition

Just got an email that my Book of the Month is getting more expensive; decided to check in on other popular memberships.

🎶 $143.88

What you’ll pay for an Individual Spotify Premium account in your second year of membership. New members currently get three months free, then pay $11.99 a month for a total of $107.91 their first year. Spotify has a free version (with ads).

🛒 $179.88 

What an Amazon Prime subscription sets you back a year if you pay the $14.99 monthly price. It costs $139 if paid upfront. Prime cost $79 annually when it launched in 2005 but only came with two-day shipping.

🎬 $215.88

The annual cost of a Standard Netflix subscription with no ads ($17.99 per month). Netflix’s first Streaming Only plan cost $7.99 a month ($95.88 a year), though, at the time, a lot of content was still only available on DVD.

👩‍💼 $479.88

The annual cost of a LinkedIn Premium Career subscription when you opt to pay $39.99 each month. You can currently save 50% if you opt for annual billing. LinkedIn’s first foray into premium accounts cost $15 to $50 a month or $180 to $600 a year.

👗 $1,368.50

What you’ll pay for the first year of a five-item-per-month Rent the Runway subscription. Each shipment costs $119, but you get a 50% discount your first month.

🚲 $1,973

The upfront cost of the Peloton experience. That’s $1,445 for the signature Peloton bike and $44 a month ($528 a year) for its required All-Access Membership. If you opt for the fancier Bike+, you’ll pay $3,023 for your first year of pedaling.

CHEAT SHEET

FRESH GREEN

Nowadays, most financial takes are boilerplate. These aren't.

• Behold the latest in recession indicators: home gardens, an uptick in law school applications, increasingly nihilistic marketing campaigns, and Leslie Odom, Jr. reprising the role of Aaron Burr in “Hamilton.”

• A good explainer of what went down in the bond market last week — and what it means for the average investor’s portfolio. (Spoiler alert: Not all that much right now.)

• This one’s for my fellow Xennials (and millennials or Gen Xers): Personal finance lessons from ‘90s-era TV shows. To be honest, the lessons are kinda basic, but it was fun to remember “The One Where Joey Got His First Credit Card Bill.”

THIRST TRAP

And, finally, today, in things I would buy my husband if I could just buy my husband things — and, you know, I was married to Beetlejuice …

Memento Mori

A $428 skull umbrella from Italian designer il Marchesato. Made from the finest polyester (akin to satin) and hundreds of Swarovski crystals. Gold or silver plating and bespoke embroidery are available at an upcharge ($34 each).

For showtime, natch.

Got questions, comments, receipts, tips, thirst traps, etc. you’d like to share? Send them to [email protected].

_{This article is for educational purposes only. We don’t recommend or advise individuals to buy, not buy, sell, or not sell particular investments or other assets, as everyone’s circumstances are different. Also, it’s your money and ultimately up to you to decide the best use for it.}