I didn’t start out here. Like many women, I had my own struggles with money behaviors. Those struggles led me to fix my own credit, and once I did, I started helping other women do the same. I became a Certified Credit Counselor because I wanted to serve women at a deeper level - to give them the tools and knowledge I had to fight for on my own.
But something was missing.
One day, a colleague in the medical field said something that shifted everything: “I know you’re helping women with their credit, but if you really want to help them, you need to look into a deeper problem - shopping addiction.”
I had never thought about it that way. So I did my research. I dug in. And that’s when I found Carrie Rattle, a Financial Therapist who continues to carry on Dr. April Benson’s legacy - the psychologist and pioneer of compulsive spending counseling. What Dr. Benson taught Carrie, Carrie taught me.
That was my moment. I finally found a way to combine the two things I love: health education and helping women with their money behaviors. I shifted my business from offering credit counseling to developing Mending Spending because I knew I could take what I learned, combine it with my natural gift for connecting with people, and help women at a level they weren’t finding anywhere else.
But over time, as I continued working in the behavioral health and mental health space (where I’ve spent over 15 years), I began to see something missing in how shopping addiction was being addressed. Most coaches and programs focus on the overspending or the compulsive buying - the surface behaviors. But I wasn’t seeing the connection between neuroscience and the root cause offered in programs. That’s when I realized: this work requires BOTH. The science AND the soul.
"Shopping addiction is hidden because people keep treating it like a budgeting problem instead of what it really is - an addiction that requires clinical, root-level intervention- Janera Harvey"
I bridge the gap between neuroscience and the root. I understand how your brain is wired to seek dopamine through spending, AND I help you uncover the emotional void that’s driving the compulsion. I don’t just teach you how to stop overspending. I help you understand WHY you can’t stop - and then we do the deep work to begin healing it.
This isn’t about budgets or debt payoff plans. This is behavioral health work. And it’s customized to you - because no two women show up the same way.
Mending Spending is a safe, judgment-free space where you’re seen and heard. I’ve had my own money behavior struggles. I understand what it’s like to feel ashamed, to hide, to want something different but not know how to get there. That’s why I show up for my clients the way I needed someone to show up for me.
Once we begin this work together, you don’t walk it alone.
