She Makes Money Moves is a new podcast from Glamour and iHeartRadio. Hosted by Glamour editor-in-chief Samantha Barry, the podcast shares intimate, unscripted stories from women across the country along with advice from financial experts to help guide those women—and women everywhere—forward. Download a new episode every Tuesday, then visit glamour.com/money for an article like this, with more insights from that week’s expert.
Look, we’re totally on board with shopping. If you’ve made room in your budget for a new pair of shoes, you shouldn’t feel guilty about buying them. It’s the splurges that you didn’t plan for that are a problem: The book that you one-click ordered when a stranger at a bar recommended it in the bathroom line. The bag that Instagram dropped in your feed as a #sponsored ad when you were mindlessly scrolling before bed.
Though the guest on the first episode of the podcast—Confessions of a Real-Life Shopaholic—was never diagnosed as a compulsive shopper, the signs were there: She bought things she didn’t need, even when she couldn’t afford them. She shopped impulsively. And she hid her habits. To help her—and any woman hoping to shop smarter—Barry welcomed to the podcast financial expert Farnoosh Torabi. Here, she shares her best advice for resisting the urge to splurge.
Smash that unsubscribe button
Avoid getting more emails that will encourage you to spend. Your web browser—as well as social media sites—are constantly sending you targeted ads based on your browser history—what you’ve been searching for or liking. Targeted ads can really trigger people to spend when they weren’t planning to. So on top of targeted ads, you don’t also need marketing emails from your favorite retailers enticing you to “add to cart.” The next time you see one (or 20) in your inbox, go ahead and click unsubscribe.
Get off social media
Stop scrolling the ‘gram: Instagram can be a wonderful source of inspiration, but it can also send you down a rabbit hole where you’re looking at post after post of other people’s wonderful, beautiful, filtered lives. It can leave you feeling less-than—and to fill that void, you might turn to a quick fix, which is buying something that you don’t really need.
Use the 24-hour rule
Put items in your cart and wait 24 hours to see if you still want them. Studies show that distancing yourself from a purchase for a short while will lower dopamine levels, and you can make a more rational purchasing decision. You may realize you really don’t need it—or even want it all that badly.
Be honest with yourself and others
If you do struggle with compulsive shopping, let the people close to you know your struggles and enlist their help and encouragement. You need accountability to get through any of life’s challenges, including this one.
According to a survey by Fidelity, the sponsor of She Makes Money Moves, 80 percent of women aren’t talking about money with the people closest to them. Today, Glamour invites you to the conversation: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts in the iHeart app, or whoever you listen to podcasts, and join us, as we help women raise their voices and make money moves.
The red carpet might last an hour before an awards show, but those perfectly done-up, put-together looks are the result of weeks, sometimes months, of preparation. The day of an event, a celebrity and her glam team might spend hours making sure every eyelash, zipper, and button is where it’s supposed to be. You see some of it on the ‘gram: of celebrities idly waiting in their cars for their turn on the red carpet, laying fully horizontal to not crease their clothes (Naomi Harris at the 2017 Golden Globes); of them arriving in large vans to accommodate chiffon trains (J.Lo at the premiere of Second Act); of them carefully layering shapewear underneath it all (Rachel Bloom and her “Sexy Golden Globey Song.”) A lot of these moments are specific to the red carpet, but there are plenty of hacks that Hollywood stylists employ to get celebrities ready for any big event: A special lotion to make heels less uncomfortable, on-the-fly solutions to zippers that will not budge… They’ve got all the answers.
“I like to MacGyver a situation,” says stylist Erica Cloud, whose clients include Sophia Bush, Kacey Musgraves, and Christina Ricci. “You’ve gotta Project Runway it—I have A, B, and C, let’s figure out how it will be good.”
“Most people will have two or three hours [getting ready]—that’s the hair, makeup, manicure, everything,” says Sophie Lopez, Kate Hudson’s longtime stylist who’s now working with Yalitza Aparicio and Marina de Tavira, the stars of Roma. “That always runs late, and the stylist gets 15 minutes.”
Yalitza Aparicio and Marina de Tavira.
Sure, these professionals come prepared. They’ll pre-spray the chiffon and silk with Static Guard, or bring invisible thread in case a zipper malfunction requires them to sew someone into a dress (that’s happened to Lopez). But even so, they have to be ready for a wrench to be thrown into the plan.
Allison Janey.
Axelle/Bauer-Griffin
Tara Swennen styles Allison Janney, who she describes as “almost six feet one inches—she’s a very, very tall drink of water.” For high-profile events, they lean on custom garments, like the off-the-shoulder Christian Siriano gown Janney wore to the Golden Globes. “Christian posted it on his Instagram—I literally sent the screenshot to him and his team and was like, ‘What is this? I’m done. Hold it for me,’” she remembers.
For the accessories, “I wanted a little something unique,” especially given the turquoise shade of the fabric. “We found that David Webb piece and just thought it was divine—but then, I was on vacation with my family and David Webb called me and was like, ‘We hate to do this but we sold the necklace.’ I asked kindly, because obviously this was a very expensive piece, if, you know, that person would want [their necklace] to be worn by the current Oscar holder. And she replied, so it was really, really nice.”
D’arcy Carden.
VALERIE MACON
Sometimes, these decisions happen mere hours before celebrities are set to walk a carpet. Cloud didn’t finalize D’Arcy Carden’s Golden Globes look until 1 A.M. the day of the event, after a flight delay pushed their final fitting: “I had pre-pulled jewelry because I knew it was going to be a tight turnaround—and of course it was a Sunday and nobody is open on Sunday. I just had to guesstimate.”
It was The Good Place star’s first Globes, and she walked the carpet in a bold, tiered Rosie Assoulin gown, an Edie Parker box clutch in a matching shade of orange, and contrasting green hoop earrings from Irene Neuwirth. “To me, it felt really fresh and different,” says Cloud. “On the whole, I think we all are kind of looking to be inspired.”
These might be #HollywoodProblems, but there are certain issues that come up simply because you’re a person wearing a piece of clothing: The neckline is slipping, the strap sits uncomfortably, that sweat stain under your arm only keeps growing… Over time, a lot of the insider must-haves in case of an emergency—like the fashion tape and sweat protectors that stylists carry in their kits—have become available to the public, thanks to brands like Hollywood Fashion Secrets. But stylists have a few more tricks to solve common fashion woes.
Kristen Stewart and Allison Janney.
Cloud, Lopez, and Swennen shared the secrets that can make getting dressed that much easier—whether you have the golden ticket to the Oscars or not.
Try CBD to ease the pain of uncomfortable shoes. The CBD beauty trend might be the best thing that’s ever happened to red-carpet dressing. Cloud always brings Lord Jones’ High CBD Formula body lotion when she’s getting a client ready for an event, specifically for their feet.
“It’s a great thing to put on the ball of your foot or even your heel or the tops of your toes, [as] kind of numbing agent,” she says. “I usually do it about five minutes before we put the shoes on—not too early, so that it has the most lasting effect.” (Actress Laura Harrier swears by this one. “It works,” she told Glamour at the Critics’ Choice Awards. “And CBD won’t get you high just from your feet—can I say that?”)
A brand called PreHeels also makes a blister-prevention spray that serves that same purpose. Swennen’s a fan: “It’s almost like a band-aid, before even putting on the shoe. If you think it’s going to rub or it’s going to irritate you in any way, shape, or form, you literally have this clear film on your foot or ankle.”
Photograph yourself in the look ahead of time. When you put a lot of time and energy into planning an outfit, you don’t want to be surprised by how something looked after the fact when you check Instagram—or, in the case of celebrities, when a photo is published all over the Internet. That’s why stylists take photos of their clients fully dressed, from every angle, to make sure everything from the slouch of the sleeve to the fall of the skirt is how they pictured it (and that bright lights don’t turn a garment suddenly sheer). Swennen does this process twice: “Before they leave, so that you can really gauge what it’s going to look like,” and again with a Polaroid or another type of strong flash, which “gives you the best idea of what the light is going to be.”
Aparicio.
Steve Granitz
Check the zipper before you get dressed. Usually, stylists will have at least one fitting with a client ahead of a big event, where she’ll try on the garment and assess whether alterations need to be made. This is the time to troubleshoot any potential problem areas.
Swennen always looks at the zippers, specifically ones at the seams. “They’re the first things to give,” she says. “Our worst nightmare is someone sitting down and the zipper popping.” Once you’ve landed on what you’re wearing, check the zippers before putting it on, to avoid a rip or getting stuck. Speaking of…
Turn to soap to move a stubborn zipper. Normally, the zippers on formal wear are extremely delicate (you don’t want a big, plastic clasp visible on the back of a gown). The downside: That can make them hard to open and close. When they get stuck on a seam, the answer is never to pull harder. According to Lopez, this fix might be sitting by your sink. “When the zipper is really tight and you can’t get it over a seam, you can rub a bar of soap onto the area where the friction is,” she says. “It kind of lubricates it and then you can pull the zipper up.” Swennen notes that the wax of a crayon or a banana peel can help unjam a zipper, too.
Remember, there’s no disaster a black bodysuit can’t fix. So, you spilled something on yourself right before you have A Thing. It’s a situation that happens far too often—so much so that Swennen brings a plain black bodysuit in her kit, to swap for a blouse or wear as a camisole when disaster strikes. “Those actually really come in handy,” she says. “God forbid there’s an accident, like they get some avocado on their shirt during a press day, it’s an easy, quick switch.” They’re so versatile, you don’t have to worry about your Plan B clashing with your original outfit—a tell-tale sign that something happened. Swennen’s partial to Wolford’s styles.
Kacey Musgraves.
Pacific Press
Don’t be afraid to improvise with scissors. Getting a celebrity dressed for a red carpet is normally a race against the clock, but it forces stylists to get creative with problem-solving. Often, that leads to game-changing revelations, many of which are the direct result of having faith in your scissor-wielding skills. That’s how Cloud discovered that nipple covers make for good blister pads in a pinch.
“One time, the moleskin [of the foot pad] was too thick, and I need to figure out what to do—I had nipple covers and was like, ‘I’m cutting these up right now.’ They’re really thin, made of fabric, and have little paddings on it. Stick it either on yourself or on the shoe. It’s a great buffer.”
This kind of on-the-fly thinking also led Cloud to find a solution when looking for something Mickey Sumner could wear underneath the sheer, netted Rachel Comey top for a Golden Globes after party.
“We tried it with a white bandeau, which seemed to break up the look too much, so we went with nude—but I looked at the camisoles, and they’re all so sheer, not tight or transparent enough,” she says. She did like the look of a Commando slip dress they had tried on earlier, “so I just cut the bottom and turned it into a camisole.”
Mickey Sumner.
Swennen recalls once cutting up socks to fashion some sleeves for a client. “Let’s say a girl is wearing like a short-sleeve shirt and a jacket, but we wanted to sort of elongate the sleeve,” she says. “Maybe it was altered too short—we just cut the end of a sock and use it almost as if it were a sweater coming down.” Simple as that.
Use a scarf to avoid makeup stains—and for a satisfying reveal. Cloud keeps a scarf in her kit at all times, not for accessorizing, but to keep the garment makeup stain-free. “I put it over the person’s head when they put their dress on, so they don’t get makeup on it,” she says. It’s a practical, for preserving the glam and the clothes. But it’s also one that adds an element of surprise to that final moment. Once the look’s been zipped and buttoned, Cloud will pull off the scarf. “It’s like a reveal,” she says.
Follow the two-tug rule. Lopez sees her clients off with a list of reminders (“They’re usually forgotten by the time they arrive,” she says)—one of which is applicable to anyone who might be sitting down in between getting dressed and arriving to their final destination: “When they get out of the car, I tell them to do two strong tugs down,” she explains. This will help move any fabric that’s moved upwards in the seat back where it’s supposed to, which smooths out a skirt. Voilà.
Ana Colón is a fashion editor at Glamour. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @anavcolon.
I’ll be the first to admit it, 2018 wasn’t my best year when it came to saving money. Every time Trump tweeted, or I got an alarming CNN alert, I found myself thinking, “the world is a trash fire, so why can’t I treat myself and buy that sweater dress, or take an Uber home instead of the subway?” And while I personally don’t have any regrets, my credit card statement tells a different tale. My “self-care” indulgences like daily Arnold Palmers, splurging on that bottle of Rose from Provence instead of Napa, and my propensity for accent shoes left me with more debt in 2018 than I care to admit.
But it’s a new year. A time for a fresh start. To do it all right. And while I have no real intention of giving up my black iced tea with lemonade habit (they’re addicting!), I realize that I need to find a way to better balance my budget and cut out some other costs. So I spoke to financial experts, female founders, and writers about their tips and tricks for splurging while saving. So come Marie Kondo your spending with me, and try some of their hacks for getting your finances in check.
Think About Your Money In Terms of Buckets
We all have a hierarchy of spending. We need to use some of our money to pay our rent or mortgage each month, our insurance, cell phone bill, etc. We want to take some of the pie and put it towards our Netflix subscription, a new Marvel movie, and so on. Alexa Von Tobel, founder of LearnVest.com, believes that being conscious of these different forms of spending is the first step to being smarter with your money. She calls this her “50/20/30 method” where you split your take-home pay into three categories: 50 percent for essential costs, 20 percent towards financial goals, and 30 percent for lifestyle costs. “Essential costs are things like rent, mortgage payments, utilities, car payments, public transportation or groceries—anything that covers your basics,” she says. “Financial goals is the part of your budget that is really about helping you secure your financial foundation. This goes toward emergency savings, retirement, home down payment fund, etc.” Whereas lifestyle costs include eating out, concert tickets, and those fabulous new shoes you’ve had your eye on.”
If the 50/20/30 method sounds like too many numbers for you, Ashley Feinstein Gerstley, author of The 30-Day Money Cleanse, suggests a bullet journaling, approach: like Put pen to paper when thinking about your money buckets. “Keeping a money journal where you write down everything you spend or look at a recent bank statement,” she says. “Next, take this beautiful list you’ve created and put each expense into one of three buckets: (1) needs, (2) frivolous and (3) not sure. Let go of all spending in the frivolous bucket for seven days and see what you actually miss.”
Detox Yourself From Spending
How many times have you read an article suggesting that you should try a cleanse? You know, take a few days to subside on nothing but water with lemon and cayenne, or celery juice. This year, instead of depriving yourself of food (because it’s delicious and necessary for survival), consider a spending detox. Shannon McLay, CEO and Founder of The Financial Gym recommends, “scheduling ‘no spend days.’ Just like you’d schedule a workout class, plan two to three no spend days where you will not use any cash or credit for the entire day.” Make your meals out of what you already have in the fridge, try to just use the gas you already have in your car or carpool, and say no to that Starbucks. Your bank account will thank you for the break.
Trick Yourself Into Saving More
Whenever I get my paycheck I have such a hard time hitting the button that transfers even the tiniest amount from my checking account to my savings. I mean, I busted my butt all month for this cash—I deserve to spend it! The key is to not get the full thing in the first place. Eurie Kim, general partner at Forerunner Ventures, has a trick for this: Set up automatic transfers. “I select a specified amount of money—whether it’s $20, $50, $100, etc. and have it go into an entirely different bank account. It feels like you never had that money to spend in the first place, so you get used budgeting off the smaller amount, and saving as a result,” she says. You can set up your automatic deposit from your company to go to two or more accounts (checking and savings, for example). Or, like everything else in life, there’s an app that can help. Charlotte Cowles, who writes the “With Interest” newsletter for the business section of the New York Times loves Digit. “The app hooks up to your checking account and pulls out small amounts of money automatically, like a little savings elf,” she says. “You can set it to be more or less aggressive if you want, and its algorithm tracks your spending patterns so it won’t pull out too much. Since that money is out of sight, out of mind, its always a pleasant surprise when I see what Digit has squirreled away while I wasn’t paying attention.” Consider it your money fairy godmother.
Be Kind to Yourself
A full 81.5 percent of millennials are in debt. And experts say taking a cold hard look at your finances can lead to feelings of guilt or shame, about your spending habits, financial decisions, employment status and more—so some people avoid doing so at all. Sounds hard to believe, I know. But Iva Pawling, CEO and co-founder of Richer Poorer recommends a step-by-step approach rather than an all-at-once overhaul. Start by being realistic with your budgeting. “Everyone would love to spend less,” she says, but slash your budge too much and you set yourself up for failure every month. “That just feels terrible. So instead of trying to fix all of my finances I zero in on the areas where I have a tendency to overspend. I only really pay attention to those few categories, and check in on those a few times each month to see if I’m on track.” Hone in on the areas that matter to you (my 2019 goal is to waste less money on takeout), and work on those goals.
It’s kind of like all the diet and exercise advice we hear: Go too extreme and you’ll just crash and burn. Practice moderation, and you’ll stick with it. And making lasting changes is what’s important to your health. That’s especially true with money, since time can be one of your greatest assets, allowing you to ride out the ups and downs of the markets and benefit from compounding interest and market growth. I know I’m not going to suddenly save three quarters of my paycheck, but I can pull out a small amount each month, as Pawling recommends. Slow and steady wins the race.
