Prime Day prep and the online shopping experience

Ten days since Prime Day, much-anticipated shopping days for Amazon Prime members. There were sales at competing websites too, so whether or not you’re a Prime member, if you shop online you can relate to this post. How do you approach your shopping on big sale days? Are you an impulse buyer, or a careful planner?

I once scored a 3.5 out of 5 on a Wing It/Plan It Scale personality quiz, where 1 was Wing It and 5 was Plan It. But my planning for Prime Day this year was “on 11.” I spent 2 days planning for it, reading reviews from a wide variety of sites from c|net to SELF Magazine .com to NY Mag’s the Strategist. I was researching household necessities, like a new vacuum cleaner. By the time Prime Day was over, I was pleased with the experience, but felt like my brain was about to burst haha!

From my UX design studies (slow going now with 2020 screen fatigue), I learned something new about online shopping. Have you ever heard of sustainable UX or green UX? Neither had I! It’s talking about trimming down websites with a lot of data that take up a lot of time and energy to search through. After the info overload of Prime Day (try searching for an ingredients list on a product and see how many clicks and how long it takes), I experienced the need for it firsthand. Not to pick on Amazon though, my least favorite shopping experience is on Target .com. There’s soooo much information to wade through, I always try to do it on a device with a bigger screen.

Though I was happy with the outcome of Prime Day, I did have some financial anxiety leading up to it. Right now I’m reading The Financial Anxiety Solution by Lindsay Bryan-Podvin. I love her approach in the book and her podcast, Mind Money Balance. I’ll share my impressions in future posts.

So what do you think, is online shopping enjoyable for you, or stressful?

Hope you and your family are well.

Day by day

The world is in a battle now, saving lives and fighting disease. I am tearfully humbled by the sacrifices of the essential workers, from doctor to cashier. I’m among those isolating, doing our part to flatten the curve as they say but feeling like I’m not really doing anything, and having a weird survivor guilt about it. No monetary donation seems to be enough to cover it.

Besides donations, I am so not caring right now about gold can stay, despite constant headlines about recession in my feed. I appreciate all the acts of kindness and how people are trying to help out in whatever way they can. Urban balcony scenes of entire neighborhoods clapping to thank health care workers, and people making music to cheer others on are so inspiring. Small things help too, like a professional gave me a free 2-week trial of her online courses because she felt it was something she could contribute.

I got some help with the survivor guilt from a podcast, Episode 1024 of So Money with Farnoosh Torabi. The episode was about managing financial stress in a relationship, not where I’d expect to hear about guilt, but it touched on guilt some people feel because their businesses are surviving while others were financially hurt by the downturn. They had guilty feelings about earning money/ charging for their services. Sounds like survivor guilt to me. So it's not just me.

 

TL;DR I’m feeling short on social currency right now, in this new virtual world where it feels like everything. If you see a cute video in your feed of a cute family doing a #stayhome dance challenge, that’s not me. Here’s where I stand in the media world. I write this blog for myself, but try to make it helpful like a real blog haha even though I hid it in Blogger to be anonymous. I mostly use a private Instagram with 60-70 close friends, WhatsApp and Houseparty. Sometimes I make special Instagram accounts for a project/side hustle. Apps I don’t use include Tiktok, Snapchat, Marco Polo, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. My LinkedIn has 30+ followers, and my YouTube channel has one tutorial my friends helped me film. Before this crisis (and now when I can) I was studying to be a UX Designer and designing my own AR app. I admire YouTubers who enrich my life with travel videos, skin care tips, product reviews and helpful DIYs, and part of me really wants to join them, but I feel too private to put myself out there.

Social currency is not about numbers though. It’s about meaningful connection.

How do you feel about it? Would you say social currency is the new gold can stay?

Love to all and hopes for your safety.

Writing for a Friend

So we left off with me taking a break from writing to focus on a career pivot into UX Design. I was considering getting a FinLit credential to educate myself and then help others to avoid money mistakes like mine. But I realized I was more interested in money psychology and the social issues around money than in the nuts-and-bolts of numbers and budgeting. Telling my story didn’t really seem like enough.

My last post talked about a big money mistake I made, cashing out a retirement account. Back then I had no concept of my future self. There are studies that show that the more real our future selves feel to us, the greater our ability to save money will be. If the future seems far away and our future self feels like a stranger, we’re less motivated to take care of it. (https://youtu.be/V5BXuZL1HAg, Kelly McGonigal: “The Willpower Instinct” 23:50; https://youtu.be/lw3YTbubyjI, Keith Chen: Could your language affect your ability to save money?) Dr. McGonigal’s video talked about an experiment where college students interacted with a computer model of themselves with virtual age-progression. Those students saved more. Why do I bring this up?

A close friend of mine just told me yesterday that she’s planning to take out a loan against her 401k for the down payment for a house. She is caring for her elderly parents and has taken on a lot of responsibility for them. I had a moment of panic, picturing her future self trapped and burnt out in her high-stress job, but unable to get out because of the loan. But I remembered how much financial education has helped me, and started to text her information I thought would be helpful. There’s a detailed list of alternative ways of home financing here: https://www.marieclaire.com/home/a30433304/can-i-afford-home/ (also click on link to your state’s housing finance agency).

So now I'm motivated to post again. Thinking about my friend and her family, why do very generous people sometimes have a tough time with financial self-care? Have you ever noticed this? More to come...

Woah, did I really make that money mistake?

I’m decluttering on this beautiful fall day and getting ready for the shred truck to come by my house next week. But I had to stop and write this in the moment.

Revealing yet another dumb decision from my financial train wreck past, I found paperwork this morning from a retirement account I cashed out over 12 years ago. What a shock, I completely forgot about that! There was a decent amount in it, too, considering I only worked there for 3 years (one of the many pivots in my adolescent-20s). Right now I feel like somebody punched me in the stomach.

I’d like to get into financial education, first by educating myself and then by helping others to avoid mistakes like mine. In a hands-on way, not just in a share-my-journey kind of way. Is there a fast track to do this?

Reality check, I’m taking an Intro to UX Design course and absolutely love it, and don’t have the bandwidth for a FinLit credential right now. Also looking at this blog, I’m more interested in money psychology than in the nuts-and-bolts of numbers and budgeting.

What money mistake are you regretting? How are you moving past it?