Well, hello there and welcome back. My name is Stephanie Safarian and you're listening to episode 205 of the Sustainable Minimalist podcast, a show about intentional, eco-friendly, and minimalist living.

On today's show, we are discussing how to right size your budget,

how to reduce impulse purchases,

how to get debt under control,

and how to still have fun and enjoy life while you're at it.

Today I am speaking with Erica Young. Erica is a financial coach and best-selling author and

she's here to help us consciously not keep up with the

Joneses in a culture that glorifies spending more than we have. Now I should say if after you listen to this episode you feel empowered and

excited to trim the fat from your household budget so to speak. Please listen to the end of the show,

the outro because I'm offering up exactly

how my husband and I seek to keep our budget under control month after month.

Erica, I am so thrilled to speak to you today. How are you? I am

good. Thank you so much for having me. Well again I should say I'm super

excited to talk to you and that's because my listener's right to me all the time about

raining in impulse purchases getting finances under control etc etc in a culture that

glorifies spending and makes impulse purchases so darn easy.

So we're going to talk about right sizing our budget, but before we do, I have to know what does it mean to you to right size a household budget?

Well, that's a really good way to put it. Right sizing implies that we're probably doing it wrong, right?

Like, so right sizing means making sure that you're doing it right from here forward and what I would say

to that is make certain that you know what is right for you. Don't compare

yourself to other people.

Don't look at what other folks are doing.

...