In the process, she saved over $36,000, paid off $22,000 in debt, reclaimed her time, and discovered a creativity and connectedness she hadn't felt in years. Her book, No New Things: A Radically Simple 30-Day Guide to Saving Money, the Planet, and Your Sanity, guides readers through the same challenge.

The conversation starts where it needs to, with why. Ashlee was a political strategist who had started to notice herself buying things she didn't need to soothe work stress. Sequined pillows. Clothes that never left the closet. She recognized it as a habit forming and she decided to try turning it off.

What she discovered is at the heart of this episode: we don't shop the way we do because of weak willpower. We shop this way because an entire post-WWII industrial and advertising complex spent decades reprogramming us to. Ashlee calls it conditioned consumerism, the shift from resourceful people who repaired, borrowed, and made do, into reflexive buyers who fire up Amazon the second something feels off. She traces it back to the factories that had to pivot from wartime goods after 1945, the advertising industry that targeted women in the new suburbs, and the marketing machines that have only gotten more sophisticated since.

This history is not just interesting. It's clarifying. Once you understand that the clutter in your home and the spending in your budget are symptoms of something intentionally engineered, the self-blame starts to lift.

• The post-WWII history of conditioned consumerism and why it explains your buying habits better than willpower ever could

• The SUPER System: five no-new-things-approved ways to get your needs met (secondhand, upcycling, paying nothing, experiences, and renting or borrowing)

• How to use a trigger-tracking journal to identify the specific emotions and physical states that make you most likely to buy something impulsively

• The 2-7 minute rule: buying urges only last two to seven minutes, and retailers know it. That's why abandoned cart emails exist.

• Why women are the world's most powerful purchasing cohort and what that means for how much control you actually have over your household's consumption

• How borrowing from neighbors and joining Buy Nothing groups builds real community connection in an era of epidemic loneliness

I didn't do a formal 30-day challenge after recording this episode. But I paid attention for about 60 days, which is its own kind of experiment.

I learned something I didn't expect. My biggest purchasing trigger is mom guilt.

I bought birthday decorations my daughter didn't ask for because I felt like she deserved a beautiful birthday and buying things felt like how to make that happen. That is exactly what Ashlee talks about in the trigger-tracking section of her book. You think you want the object. But what you actually want is to feel like a good mom, or less stressed, or more put together. The thing is a stand-in for the feeling.

The win of this season has been deciding to refinish our outdoor table instead of buying a new one. It is still in progress and it is going to take time. But I will be so proud when it is done. We are also making the cushions ourselves, reusing the old foam and zippers.

Small moves. Real ones. If any of this resonates, pick up the book.