Melissa Browne

So there are

I talk about research that's been done on other addictive disorders and I talk about from a shopping point of view, what are the different steps to look for to know if this is something potentially you're at risk of and then to seek help.

Because, you know, there's books like Shopaholic and movies of the same name and they make it seem cute and funny, but it's actually not.

And there's a difference between bringing...

bags home and hiding them from your partner or having a flutter at the racer and addiction.

So I really wanted to make sure that there was a chapter on it in the book and to acknowledge it.

This is a real thing that we need people to get help for.

And it's certainly something that I've sought help for in my own life, which is what I acknowledge in the book.

And I think that's the part of putting myself in the book.

that I really struggled with but I thought if I am telling people to share their money stories, if I'm talking about addictions and compulsions and stress and sabotage and money types, you can talk about it from an intellectual point of view but unless I tell my story and my experience, then I feel like it's theory versus the transformational change that hopefully it will have.

Absolutely.

I don't think there's many finance books that quote Carl Jung or that start with a Brene Brown quote around what we know matters, but who we are matters more.

So you've absolutely hit the nail on the head.

And I think part of it is we might be feeling shame for behaviour when we actually don't realise that modern society is preying on the tendencies that we have and our lack of self-control and our money stories.

And there's no greater example of that than currently with digitised payments, where the one thing we have seen, a micro trend as a result of COVID, is the explosion of buy now, pay later.

More people using credit and people reluctant to use cash because, or shops unwilling to take cash because they're worried the virus will transmit.

And what we know is that digitized payments and credit do not activate the pain region in our brain in the same way that cash does.

It doesn't have that sensory reaction.

So research shows that we spend up to and exceeding more than 100% more when we use credit.

And my suspicion is we buy now, pay later.