#4: What I Spent During Grief — And Why I Don’t Regret It

In this raw and real episode of Rebuilding Bougie, I’m sharing the emotional (and financial) aftermath of losing my husband Alden in 2023 — and how grief quietly wreaked havoc on my bank account. From takeout dinners I didn’t eat to late-night Amazon sprees and Target runs for “comfort,” I open up about how emotional spending became a form of survival.

If you’ve ever found yourself eating cereal on the couch with the TV on at 2am, wondering where your money went — this one’s for you.

We’re talking about:

• Why budgets fly out the window when you’re grieving
• How spending became my emotional outlet
• What helped me finally feel safe again financially
• Why there is no shame in how you survived
• And how mystery shopping reminded me I still had options

I also share gentle tips on how to start rebuilding your finances after loss — no guilt, no shame, just grace and small steps.

So grab your comfort snack, your favorite blanket, and come sit with me for this heart-to-heart. If you’re in the fog right now, I want you to know: you are not alone. We’re doing this together — one bougie receipt at a time.

Transcript

Hey, budget divas, it's your girl Jen here and welcome to another episode of this series, Rebuilding Bougie. This episode is called Retail Therapy, Takeout and Tears, What Grief Did to My Bank Account. Today we're talking about the quiet chaos grief creates in your finances and how emotional spending becomes survival, how budgets go out the window, and most importantly, why we do not shame ourselves for it.

Because let's be real, when you're grieving, brushing your teeth is a victory. Opening a budgeting app, you might as well be climbing Everest. So grab your iced coffee or your comfort snack of choice and get comfy because we are diving deep today.

So if you're new here, if this is the first episode that you're listening to, welcome. I'm so glad you're here. I just want to do a quick recap and rewind to the night that everything changed my life. It was November, 2023, a few days before Thanksgiving on a Monday night. I remember Alden had been feeling off the whole day, just tired, he said, and he wanted to go lie down.

I remember thinking, that's weird, like he never sleeps this early, like it's only eight o'clock at night. But we were both busy juggling life, parenting and work, so I didn't push it. And the next morning on Tuesday, he was gone before I even woke up. He left so quietly for work, which was really odd because usually he'll tell me goodbye, he'll kiss me goodbye or, you know, have a good day.

but nothing like that, just the sound of the door. And I didn't know that would be the last time he'd walk out of our home. Later that morning, I remember I called to check in and he said he was still not feeling great, but I'll see you later. And I remember getting annoyed, like, why are you pushing through this? Like, just go to the doctor. It's okay if you have to leave work. They will handle it. They don't need you.

all that much and your health comes first. But I remember he got upset and was like, I'll just see you at home. Like, okay. And I didn't know that will be the last time I'd hear his voice. That night he had collapsed. That night, my whole world cracked open. And in the next couple of days after everything became a blur of

tests, decisions, monitors, and heartbreak. I wasn't at all thinking about money. I was just thinking about how to stay standing.

So after Alden passed, I couldn't even cook. mean, literally, I could not even turn on the stove. The kitchen felt too heavy. His coffee mug, the mug that he made for me that had some really beautiful words on the inside, the spot where he'd sit and eat his snacks. And I opened the pantry and see

all of the canned goods and all of the snacks that he'd like and I just break down. During this time, I was so fortunate to have friends and family who put a meal train together. One person was so kind to give us a door dash ⁓ gift card that really, really helped. So Brandon and I started ordering takeout.

and DoorDash knew me better than my friends. I wasn't even checking the prices. I'd spend so much on food just to make me happy. And you know what? Sometimes I wouldn't even eat it. It was just going through the motions of I need to have something in my stomach, but once it came to the door, I didn't feel hungry anymore.

Then came the shopping runs. I'd walk in the store and buy everything that I wanted. Not everything that I just needed, but everything that I'd wanted. Leave with, you know, three candles, a throw blanket, a mug that said, you've got this, and a new set of PJs. Because in my brain, comfort was the goal. And shopping gave me control, even if it was temporary.

And this is the hidden cost of grief that no one talks about the cost of trying to feel normal again and not knowing what normal looks like. You know, when we were going through COVID, everyone was talking about a new normal, a new normal. And I hated that phrase. But when I was in my grief, that's all I said to myself is how do I proceed?

with this new normal.

Grief does not budget. For six months, I slept on the couch with the TV on, with the lights on. I just couldn't be in our room alone. And I remember just going through the motions like I wasn't even watching anything on TV. I would put reruns of my favorite show on just because it gave me a sense of comfort. But then I

quickly would turn it off because I remember Alden and I watching that show together. And it was just this mess of couch surfing and watching shows that I've never heard of and then watching comfort shows and just toggling back and forth, just trying to get into a new routine, a new habit, a new normal.

and I did not know how to feel normal anymore. I couldn't even open the door to his office without sobbing. Like every drawer, every book, every little note that he scribbled made me crumble. I'd binge Netflix, I'd scroll on Instagram and be posting stuff about us or how I was feeling, ordering things at midnight off of Amazon. It was like I was trying to buy my way out of feeling numb.

And I know I'm not alone. Grief does not care how responsible you are. It doesn't care how many Dave Ramsey books you read. It will steamroll your systems, your habits, your meals, your goals. Because you know what? You're just trying to survive. In my old budget, I could not even look at it without feeling like a failure. So you know what I did? I didn't budget. Or I would try to. I would...

put in my income, I would put in the money that I received and the bills that had to be paid out. But everything else, tracking my expenses, tracking things that I spent on a daily basis, nope, I was just not having it. And the worst part wasn't the spending, it was the shame that came after it.

I'd see my account balance and cry. Unfortunately, guys, like once Alden and I got married, we decided immediately that we were going to get life insurance. And so this podcast is not going to be a commercial on life insurance, but just do your research. And that was the one thing that I will say that

really stuck in my brain once we started to do the Dave Ramsey plan. Dave says, even if you're in debt, even if you have mounds of debt, make sure that your family is taken care of. And so that's the one thing that Alden and I did for ourselves. Like we made sure that we had life insurance on each other just in case something happened.

And so I did have the life insurance money, but I was not spending it wisely. I planned not to invest it. I plan to just keep it in my bank account until I felt better because I knew that if I let that money go and I really needed it, I wouldn't be able to take it out because it's been invested. But instead of just sitting in my bank account,

I spent that money. I didn't spend all of it but I spent most of the things that I spent it on. I can't even tell you right now what it was other than memorable trips. I probably bought a lot of things that I cannot tell you what I spent it on in all of 2024.

So I remember thinking, how could I let it get this bad? And how am I supposed to do this alone? And Alden would be so disappointed in me. But then one day I'll never forget that I looked at my Amazon cart and realized I wasn't spending to be irresponsible. I was just spending to feel safe, to create some sense of softness in a world that felt brutal.

I was buying band-aids, not solutions. And at that realization shifted something. I stopped judging myself and started getting curious. Guys, I was spending so much on Amazon that when I finally realized what I was doing, I think the UPS girls at the store saw me more than my own friends because I just started returning everything that I was buying. I just had remorse about it. I would...

by return, by return. And I really needed to get out of this habit and really get to a feeling safe again.

If you're in that place, the fog, the frenzy, the fatigue of Greece, I want you to hear this loud and clear. There is no shame in how you survive. Because grief just makes your brain weird. It rewires everything. You forget things, you crave things that you wouldn't before, and you spend without realizing. You either sleep too much or you don't sleep at all. And those behaviors, they're just coping mechanisms, not character flaws.

You are not a bad person and I knew I wasn't a bad person for buying six hotties in the middle of the night. You're just a hurting human. So give yourself grace because we don't budget from a place of punishment. We budget from a place of love, safe understanding and wanting to feel normal again. Whatever that looks like, what is that new normal that's going to be for you?

So eventually when I started feeling better, I started checking my account again and really focusing on my financial goals, really focusing on things that were important to me, doing my budget, tracking my expenses, tracking my savings, really analyzing why I was spending money. And this is another reason why

I feel that budgeting is so important because you can look at your past months of budgeting, what you spent on your tracking expenditures and see exactly like where it went high, where it went low, months that you spent more than you should have, months that maybe you spent more because things happened, things out of your control happened. But just know that

It's okay because you can always get back on track. And that's really what I want to focus on these next episodes in the podcast is after something big happens, after you've been through trauma or just a life changing event, how do you get back on track? Because all of 2024 was such a blur to me that in 2025, I really

felt safe again. And I'm going talk about how I started feeling safe again in future episodes. But I started to feel safe again. And at that point was when I realized that I can budget again. I can do this. I can get back on track.

So when I started checking my account again and tracking my expenses one category at a time, I started tracking everything that I was spending and just evaluating the reasons why I bought this thing or I spent money on this. Not with judgment, but just with curiosity. Like that was a big week for Uber Eats. Like what happened emotionally?

I didn't cut everything out. didn't do a no-spend month. I just started asking, what do I actually need to feel safe and supported this week? And slowly, I started to feel stronger. I meal prepped. I shopped more intentionally. I took inventory of everything that I had in my kitchen, in my freezer, my fridge, and my pantry.

I stopped clicking buy now and started asking why now? And guess what helped me the most? Mystery shopping. The tiny act of getting free food or reimbursed for my coffee or my Panda Express runs. It reminded me that I still had options and I still had power. And it gave me a sense of belonging. It gave me a sense of feeling like my old self again.

And now I'm going through a new financial normal. Grief has definitely changed me and it has definitely changed my money and my mindset around money. It taught me that life is short and budgets need a lot of breathing room. It taught me that sometimes you'll overspend and sometimes you'll pull it together. But most important thing is to remember not to quit on yourself. So now,

I budget with way more grace than I did prior to everything happening. I have more flexibility, more real life built in. I still like takeout. I plan for it and on the times that I don't, I know that I have money in account for just because expenses. I still love shopping, but now I wait 24 hours before hitting purchase.

or waiting a little longer if that expense is going to be more than I want to spend. I know now not to punish myself, I parent myself gently and I so want that for you too.

So how to heal while your bank account.

So how to heal your bank account after loss. If you're listening to this and thinking, yep, that's me. My finances are a mess right now and I am so ashamed. Here's what I want you to do. Start with honesty, not judgment. Be curious about your expenses. Look at your spending like a detective, not a critic. Just go through your current expenses as well as your past expense.

expenses spending.

Look at your spending like a detective, not a critic. You might want to go through your bank statements if you don't have a budget together already. Just to see in the few months before, why did your grocery bill skyrocket? Why did you have so many purchase on Amazon? Was it a need? Was it a necessity? Or was there something emotional going on that

had you shopping on Amazon in the middle of the night, just waiting to feel better. And then you want to choose one area to focus on. Maybe it's food, maybe it's Amazon, maybe it's Target. Just start small. Also create grief room in your budget. Yes, actually name it that. $100 for comfort or chaos or coping. That way it's planned and it's not shameful.

Like I mentioned earlier, I have a just because category. So even if I have a month full of food at home and my pantry and my freezer and my refrigerator is fully stacked, but I wanna do takeout and I didn't plan for it in my current budget, guess what? I have a category where I can just take out money.

just because, just because I don't feel like cooking, just because I don't feel like eating anything in the fridge, but at least it's planned and it's not going to ruin my budget.

Also, track your wins, not just your spending. Did you eat at home three times this week? That's a win. Did you make your own coffee? That's a win. Did you put everything in your Amazon cart and then click the save for later button? That is a win. And lastly, get support. A friend, a coach, this podcast, if you're listening and it helps you and you can relate to my story,

I'd love to be your support because you are not meant to rebuild alone.

So let me just end with this. Losing Alden shattered me. But it wasn't the end of me. And even in the messiest moments, the overspending, the sobbing in the Target parking lot, the couch sleeping in cereal for dinner nights, I was still worthy of love, grace, and healing. And so are you. You're not behind, you're not broken, you are becoming. And your bank account, even if it's taking a hit right now, it will recover. But right now,

All I want you to do is just breathe. Because you made it through another day, and that's the real win.

So as I wrap up this episode today, I know this episode was raw, but these are the conversations that we need to have. And honestly, it's taken me almost two years to have these conversations with you. So thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for being here, for listening to my story. If you can relate, I would love to hear from you. You can email me at jennifer at budgetdivas.com.

I read every email that I received and I'll see you in the next podcast episode. If you're ready to start rebuilding your finances with grace and not guilt, come join me over at Budget Divas. We can do this together. I will be sharing some resources shortly that I will have for you and we can do this together. Also,

If this resonated with you, please send it to a friend who's in the thick of grief. Let her know she's not alone. Alright, so until next time, budget divas, be gentle with your money and even gentler with your heart.