Madison Hayes - St. Louis, MO I've been in a full-blown "revenge saving" era this past year. During the pandemic and the real estate boom that followed, I was extremely focused on business growth and completely ignored my personal finances. I was constantly on the go. I was always ordering Uber Eats, signing up for new subscription boxes, and paying for social memberships I never had time to use. By the end of last year, I realized how much money I allowed to slip away. I canceled every recurring payment that didn't serve me, and that one decision snowballed into a full personal finance reset. Now I'm saving 48% of my income year-to-date. I treat saving like a competition with my past self. I run a real estate business, so expenses can fluctuate, but I've made a few tweaks so I don't have to think about saving. I keep four months of expenses in my operating account. One for the current month, and three months as a cushion. At the end of each month, anything above that reserve automatically transfers to a high-yield savings account. It's simple, but it's changed everything. I just set an automatic transfer rule in my bank account dashboard so that anything in excess of my reserve amount gets taken out of my account on the last day of the month. The reason I'm saving so aggressively now is really personal. I'm on track to pay off my mom's mortgage next year for her 75th birthday. She's retired and has always been my biggest supporter. My #1 fan, my biggest advocate, and my life coach. After all the years she's spent cheering me on, I can't wait to hand her the letter showing her house is officially paid off.
I appreciate what you're working on, but I need to be transparent--this question isn't in my wheelhouse as an OB-GYN. My expertise is in women's reproductive health, not personal finance strategies. That said, I can speak to what I see clinically: financial stress absolutely impacts my patients' health decisions. Women delay fertility treatments, skip preventive care, or put off addressing painful conditions like endometriosis because of cost concerns. I've had patients tell me they're "saving aggressively" just to afford IVF--sometimes $15,000+ per cycle here in Honolulu--which means cutting every discretionary expense for years. From the practice ownership side, I've learned that aggressive saving during my hospital years (2011-2022) made opening Wellness OBGYN possible in 2022. I was deliberate about building reserves because I knew the capital requirements for equipment like our da Vinci(r) surgical system and the Starformer Chair--Hawaii's first. But that's business planning, not the personal finance angle you need. You'd be better served finding someone who's actually living this "revenge saving" phenomenon in their personal budget. Good luck with the NerdWallet piece--it sounds like an important story about how people are responding to economic uncertainty.
I've seen "revenge saving" play out differently than you might expect--it's not always about past overspending. After covering the LA wildfires for ModernMom earlier this year, I watched families who lost everything shift into hyper-saving mode out of pure fear. One colleague went from saving 10% to 40% of her income because she realized her emergency fund wouldn't have covered even two months of displacement costs. The most aggressive savers I'm seeing right now? Parents who watched egg prices jump and Waffle House add surcharges (I wrote about this recently--eggs spiking 4.8%, cookies over 5%). They're now stockpiling 6-12 months of expenses instead of the traditional 3-6 months because inflation made them realize how quickly "comfortable" can become "struggling." What's interesting from my wealth management background: revenge saving often backfires if you're sacrificing retirement contributions or paying down high-interest debt. I had a client cut her 401(k) to build cash after pandemic job scares--she "saved" $15,000 but lost $40,000+ in employer match and market growth over three years. If you want someone living this, look for parents who experienced supply chain issues or job instability in 2020-2022. They're the ones now keeping $20K in checking accounts "just in case" even though their situations have stabilized.
I did the opposite of revenge saving during my drinking years--I revenge *spent*. I'd book exotic holidays impulsively, not because I wanted adventure but because I'd done something so embarrassing while drunk that I needed to flee. Those last-minute flights to "exotic destinations" weren't spontaneous joy--they were expensive geographic escape plans from shame. When I got sober nine years ago, I had massive rehab debt hanging over me. I'd borrowed a significant amount to fund four weeks at the Haynes Clinic because I literally had no other option--it was rehab or death. That debt became my revenge saving trigger, but mine was fueled by gratitude rather than fear. Every dollar I put toward paying it off reminded me I was alive and present for my daughters. The most aggressive shift? I went from buying takeout pizza almost nightly (because I was too drunk to cook) to meal planning and actually using my kitchen. My youngest used to call her nan because I'd passed out before feeding them dinner. Now I'm present for every meal, and the money I once poured into wine bottles and embarrassment-fueled holidays goes toward building The Freedom Room Foundation--my residential healing centre dream. What people don't realize about addiction recovery: you're not just saving money by not buying substances. You're reclaiming the thousands spent on covering up your behavior, the productivity you lost, the relationships you almost destroyed. My "revenge" is proving I can build something meaningful with money that used to fund my self-destruction.
I'm not personally engaging in "revenge saving," but as a CPA and managing partner of a commercial real estate firm since 1987, I've seen this behavior destroy investments more than help them. Here's what I mean by that. The worst "revenge savers" I encounter are 1031 exchange buyers who are so desperate to avoid paying capital gains taxes that they'll overpay $200K-$300K on a replacement property rather than write the IRS a $75K check. I literally wrote about this as "being a 1031 Rambo" - my mom's advice applies here: "Don't cut off your nose to spite your face." The math is simple: call your accountant, find out your exact tax number, and never pay more than that amount extra for a property. I've also seen investors panic-hoard cash after getting burned once, then miss obvious opportunities because they're paralyzed by fear. One client got hit with an unexpected HVAC replacement right after acquisition and now keeps 40% of deal proceeds in reserve - which sounds smart until you realize he's earning 4% on cash while missing 12% returns on quality assets. The real lesson isn't to save aggressively out of revenge; it's to do proper due diligence upfront and maintain a realistic cash reserve plan before problems hit.
I'm not revenge saving myself, but I saw the opposite pattern coming out of Afghanistan--six years of forced saving with nowhere to spend money, then blowing through cash in my first year home because I finally *could*. Started my pest control business on graph paper and cash-only payments because I was terrified of overhead after watching what debt did to other vets. The biggest shift came when I added digital payments in year three. Customers said it was their favorite upgrade I made, but the real win was for me--suddenly I could see exactly where money was moving instead of reconciling crumpled checks. I went from "I think we're okay" to tracking every dollar, which let me hire my first employee without the panic I expected. What I tell other new business owners now: your first year of revenue doesn't mean anything if you can't see it clearly. I spent $200 on proper accounting software when I was still working jobs solo, and that expense saved me from the feast-or-famine cycle that kills most service businesses in years 2-3. You can't save aggressively if you don't know what you actually have. The scholarship program we run now--awarded three instead of our planned one in 2022--that only happened because I finally had visibility into what we could actually afford to give back. Can't be generous or strategic when you're operating blind.