I realized I had spent the first 29 years of my life doing and buying whatever I could to be someone I thought I should be.

I’d catch myself dancing in the kitchen as I waited for my coffee to brew. I sat a little taller at my desk, while I worked to cross off every last task from my to-do list. With my shoulders back, I took deeper breaths that filled my lungs and my body with hope. The end was near and I could finally breathe again.

compulsive shopper. I was a compulsive binge consumer of everything, really, including food and alcohol. I didn’t even know how to stop myself from binging on television for hours on end, something I wasted all the rest of my time in my 20s doing when I wasn’t out actually getting wasted.

Shouldn’t I have been cured? I could’ve let the shame set in, felt like a failure, and given up on the shopping ban altogether. But slipping up didn’t make me a bad person. I was not bad. What I did wasn’t bad. I had just slipped up. And I knew I didn’t want to relapse and repeat the cycle of self-loathing. It always led to trouble. The only way to

This was not a diet. I didn’t want to lose weight or change anything about my body. I simply wanted to feel better. It seemed the healthiest thing I could do was be aware of how foods made me feel, and eat less of what made me feel sick and more of what gave me good energy.

people I spent more when I could have spent less. Even though

However, I decided to also set a stretch goal for myself. Stretch goals were something I had first learned about through reading personal finance blogs. People set them to challenge themselves to accomplish something even faster than they thought they could—by stretching their limits, so to speak. I had set stretch goals to pay off my debt sooner.

before getting into my car for long periods of time, I would fill my water bottle and travel coffee mug and take them with me. After I did these things enough times, they became new habits. By mid-August, I was feeling good about the changes I was making.

Every purchase I make is carefully considered, not done on impulse.