A recovering overspender explains how she makes a game out of having a 'no-spend day' to break bad habits and get her finances back on track

Rebecca Sowden makes TikToks about money-management strategies. Beyond practical strategies such as creating budgets, she said that she cares about the psychology of spending.

Emma Sowden

• Rebecca Sowden explains "no-spend days" and shares money-management strategies on TikTok. 
• "No-spend days" involve training your financial habits so that you can meet goals and pay off debt. 
• The trend comes as Americans are spending more and accruing more debt. 

When Rebecca Sowden got her first job working at the retailer Anthropologie, she learned that a dollar didn't go as far as she had thought. 

Sowden, 26, told Insider that it was a big departure from how she'd treated money growing up. She said her family wasn't "superrich," but that if she did well in school or if she practiced her baton twirling, her family would reward her with shopping. 

"When I graduated, I realized I didn't know anything about personal finance," she said. "I knew savings were important, and that you should save more than you spend. But I didn't have any hobbies other than shopping." 

She describes herself as "a recovering chronic overspender." 

But Sowden, who now works as a commissions analyst at a media-buying company, has reoriented her relationship with money. She makes TikToks about money-management strategies, and beyond practical strategies such as creating budgets, she said that she cares about the psychology of spending. 

"I make content that focuses on making good financial decisions when your instincts go against all of them," she said. "It's kind of like life hacking around habits that are just ingrained in you." 

Sowden said that for her, recalibrating how she treated spending during the early days of the pandemic was a major shift. Americans' spending increased overall when they had more stimulus cash on hand, though high inflation eventually curbed that. Plus, the trend underscores that younger adults — namely Gen Zers and millennials in their 20s — are dealing with a lot of debt, with millennials currently taking on debt faster than any other age group.

Sowden said her recent marriage was another contributing factor to her recent shift in financial decision-making. "My husband is a super saver, and I didn't want to be the weak link in that pairing." 

'No-spend days' can really add up

One trend she's promoted is the "no-spend day" challenge. It's one that's sweeping TikTok, with videos under the hashtag generating about 1.7 million total views. 

It's exactly what it sounds like: working toward a financial goal by designating one day a week to not spend any money. 

"A 'no-spend day' sounds really easy, but it's not. Not when you're first starting, because you get bored, because being alive and doing things costs money, and it gives you a feeling of an accomplishment," she said. "People like it because it's a game." 

Sowden said that she tries to up the ante for herself, seeing if she can get away with spending no money three or four days a week. 

"Usually when you look at what you spend in a day, you're like, lunch is $10, coffee is $3 — so three days of that is $45, and it does add up in a way you wouldn't expect," she said. "Some people do 'no spend' for pitfall items across months — like for me, it's clothes." 

That's in addition to getting into other habits, such as not carrying around a credit card, she said. 

Sowden acknowledged that credit cards can be a better way of spending money for many people, but that not keeping them on her person helps her save money. 

"That was a game changer for me," she said, adding that she also deleted shopping apps off of her phone. 

One TikTok user, @thesavvysagittarius, set a goal of doing as many no-spend days as she can until she pays off her debts, which she said adds up to about $13,000. 

"We are looking at spending as a behavior, not a math problem," she said in one video, even challenging herself to do a "no-spend April" that involves no coffee, no restaurants, and no Amazon items, among other nonessential purchases.

"We're really experiencing the opposite of it," Sowden said of spending during peak COVID. "We're left with these habits that we got used to, these activities that include spending money that's really not sustainable. We really can't do it anymore. We don't have to completely stop, but we have to be more mindful because money doesn't go as far these days." 

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