4 Influencers Who Want You to Spend Less: Paige Pritchard

This is the last installment of a four-part series in which NerdWallet Canada profiles social media influencers who use their clout to help people spend less.

Paige Pritchard’s social media handle (@overcoming_overpending on IG and Tiktok) tells you all you need to know about her personal finance journey.

Fresh out of college and earning real money for the first time, the Dallas-based influencer and life coach made short work of her paycheques.

“I pretty much blew through my entire first year salary on anything I could wear or put on my body — clothes, accessories, handbags,” she says.

“I was lucky to have my wake-up moment at a relatively young age. I basically realized I can’t keep spending my money like this or I’m going to be broke for the rest of my life.”

Pritchard is a fountain of practical advice today, but it took her years, and no shortage of self-excavation, to take charge of her finances.

In her view, it’s not enough to simply make a budget or identify needless spending; to shake a nasty shopping habit you must uncover and address the emotions that fuel it.

Shopping as a symptom

There’s nothing inherently wrong with shopping. But like any activity that becomes excessive, compulsive shopping may indicate stress, feelings of inadequacy or an emotional void that needs to be filled.

“It’s more of a symptom of something deeper going on, whether it’s your mindset around money or your mindset around yourself,” Pritchard says.

Even though shopping can provide a release, reward or much needed distraction, Pritchard says it rarely counteracts the feelings — stress, loneliness, insecurity — it’s meant to soothe.

“Normally the shopping and the overspending will ultimately just end up creating more of the emotion that you’re trying to numb and escape,” she says.

Once that cycle starts, breaking free can be a frustrating and demoralizing process. One reason it’s so challenging is because many overspenders have been persuaded to think shopping pairs well with any life experience.

“Everywhere you turn, it’s like, ‘You’ve had a bad day — shop.’ ‘Something good happens — go shop.’ It’s like the solution to anything, to any emotional state, is shopping,” Pritchard says.

Piece by piece

Getting to the emotional root of a shopping habit can take time, patience and guidance.

Pritchard feels it’s best for overspenders to start simply and work their way to financial stability one step at a time.

One early-stage move she suggests is creating a “money map”, a rebrand of “budget” for those who associate the term with stodgy or condescending financial advice.

“Having some sort of roadmap for your money — knowing what’s coming in and where it’s going and having some sort of tracking system — is essential,” she says.

She also recommends a social media audit to identify the content or creators that stimulate the urge to shop.

“Whatever it is, set firm boundaries in place to limit your exposure.”

Pritchard says it’s also important for social media users to understand that when they’re in a consumer environment — which is what most social media platforms have become — they’re exposing themselves to the same messages that underpinned magazine, television and radio ads for decades.

“A big one in consumer culture is this notion that you’re inherently broken, and you need to fix yourself with stuff,” she says.

Helping her followers become more aware — of the messaging they encounter, of their shopping triggers, of their unexplored emotions — is a crucial part of Pritchard’s “overcoming overspending” approach.

“You can’t win a war you don’t even realize you’re fighting, right?”

Who can you trust?

With thousands of financial influencers vying for your attention, it’s important to separate those with a thirst for helping from those who are just thirsty.

“I think it takes a certain level of social media literacy to suss that out,” says Toronto-based influencer Christina Mychaskiw, who was profiled earlier in this series. “But there are definitely legitimate financial experts online, and I’ve personally learned a lot from them.”

Brennan Coker, a sustainability influencer in West Florida, typically follows finfluencers with a working class background. Their struggles and successes are easier for her to relate to than gaudy displays of wealth or finance bro tales of market domination.

“I think it really comes down to the feeling that a creator does not take money for granted,” Coker says. “It’s very easy for me to tell when somebody’s financial advice online is coming from a place of ‘I’ve always had this. I’ve always known this.’”

“Personal finance is so personal, and I think that what works for one person probably won’t work for the next person,” Pritchard says, comparing the abundance of financial advice available online to a buffet.

“Take what you like from certain people, leave what you don’t, but really take ownership and autonomy over putting together a system that works for you.”

Paige Pritchard’s finfluencer red flags to watch out for:

“My way or the highway” types. An influencer won’t know the details of your financial situation, so telling you there’s only one way to reach a particular financial goal is unreasonable and suspicious.
No record of success. It’s hard to take advice from someone who can’t explain how their strategies have improved their own finances or those of their followers.
No accreditation. Be highly skeptical of investment advice from influencers who aren’t professionally certified.

Photo by Victoria Saperstein Photography