I'm a shopaholic who had 85 designer bags and $91K in credit card debt. A month in an RV changed how I think about money.

Courtesy of Zee Gustafson This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Zee Gustafson Bowen, a 37-year-old fashion and finance content creator and freelance celebrity hair and makeup stylist. It has been edited for length and clarity.As a celebrity hair and makeup stylist, I spent much of my early career surrounded by media personalities, lights, and glamour in the heart of New York City. I loved it and am grateful for the profession I had worked hard to enter. Somewhere along the way, though, my lifestyle habits changed. I left the busy city to move out west to Bend, Oregon, a small mountain town, to settle with my husband during the height of the pandemic.We raised our child there, but we also raised something else: Our credit card debt.Together, we make around $400,000 a year. I'm a freelance stylist, bringing in about $100,000, and I also earn roughly $50,000 creating social media content. My husband earns about $250,000 a year in passive income from his family's real-estate business.In Bend, I was spending compulsively.At our worst, I was shelling out an average of $14,000 a month on material items I didn't need, like clothes, luxury goods, and home items. For a long time, I told myself I just loved fashion and nice things. Therapy helped me see that shopping had become a coping mechanism: I was unhappy, in debt, and buying things to create an image of the person I wanted others to think I was. Once I admitted there was a problem, my husband and I moved to Chicago, where I'm originally from, and began changing how we spent, saved, and talked about money.I escaped the mountains through shopping Zee Gustafson worked as a celebrity hair and makeup stylist in New York City for more than a decade. Courtesy of Zee Gustafson My husband and I moved to Bend during the pandemic because we wanted a slower, outdoorsier life. We quickly realized it wasn't for us.We missed our support system, being far from our work, and I was dealing with postpartum sadness. But instead of getting help, I went shopping.I was buying anything and everything: Luxury bags, clothes, jewelry, home goods, and beauty products. When I was growing up, my family loved collecting, so having beautiful things around has always felt normal.At its height, I had about 85 designer bags — including a $12,000 Hermès bag — clothes spread across multiple closets, coats in basement bins, and enough shampoo that I had 12 bottles at one point. My credit card debt was climbing near six figures.I started therapy after having my daughter. Over time, I came to see that shopping was a way to cope with my unhappy feelings and a source of validation. I was buying items for a quick dopamine hit, only to realize I already had more than I could use in my closet.By December 2024, I told my husband we needed to leave Bend. We moved back to Chicago in April 2025.A cross-country RV trip made me confront my shopaholic habits Zee Gustafson has said that she shifted her shopping mindset to buying only items that benefit her in the moment, not for the future. Courtesy of Zee Gustafson That summer, we took a monthlong RV trip that included Bend, Sun Valley, Idaho, and the drive to Chicago. I had to fit clothing for several different climates and activities into a tiny RV, plan our food around a small refrigerator, and account for every dollar we spent on gas, lodging, and activities.I had never budgeted that way before. I had to get granular because I wanted the trip to work. It made me realize I could manage money if I stopped treating it as something scary or shameful.During the trip, I read a personal-finance book by Mrs. Dow Jones that pushed me to think about how my family had handled money. It also helped me see debt as a number I could work through, not proof that I was a bad person.By the time we got home, I had spent a month living with far less than I owned — and I loved it.When I got home, I started decluttering my closet first, then my finances Zee Gustafson is open about her shopping and personal finance journey on her social media accounts. She said that sort of transparency is something her audience values. Courtesy of Zee Gustafson I began decluttering in the closet I had built in my sunroom. I had spent money making it look beautiful and used it as a place to shoot content, but it had become overwhelming.I worked in small sections instead of trying to clear everything at once. For each item, I asked myself why I had bought it. If it was because I wanted someone else to think it was cool but never wore it, it was gone.I sent sellable pieces to consignment or The RealReal, used textile-recycling bags for worn-out items, and gave other belongings away through a local Buy Nothing group. I got rid of at least half of my clothing.Selling items sometimes brought in $1,000 here or there, but the bigger benefit was seeing my closet shrink without being upset about it, and knowing that my items were now in the homes of more grateful owners.Here's my debt-payoff plan Despite a combined $400k in income, Zee had no savings and was nearly six figures in debt. Courtesy of Zee Gustafson As of August 2026, we had about $91,000 in credit card debt — meaning we were still spending well outside our means, despite a $400k income.I used a debt-payoff spreadsheet to stop keeping everything in my head and started attacking the cards with the highest interest rates first.I'm putting as much extra money as I can toward the cards, but I'm also building an emergency fund so I don't have to rely on credit when something breaks.My six-month emergency-fund goal is about $118,000, and I'm taking advantage of a high-yield savings account. I had about $10,000 saved when I started this plan and hope to have it fully funded in about 18 months.I also contribute $100 a week to Acorns, a micro-investing app. I used to think luxury goods could double as investments. I would tell myself a bag, a diamond, or a piece of jewelry was worth buying because I could always resell it later.Now, I separate enjoying something from investing in it. I can still want a beautiful bag, but it's not my retirement plan, and I'm building financial security for the money I may need in the next three to five years — not just the money I need now or decades from now. Read next Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know Tristin Hoffman is a Life Fellow on Business Insider’s Editorial Partnerships team. Her reporting focuses on retail, travel, business, and more through a visual storytelling and lifestyle lens. She has previously reported on Oregon’s economy for The Oregonian and Pennsylvania litigation for Law.com. Her stories have inspired policy changes, shed light on public officials’ misconduct, and gained national awards. She graduated from the University of Oregon, where she studied journalism and law while serving as editor-in-chief of The Daily Emerald. Shopping Luxury