forget about hot girl summer. you need a hot girl philosophy

on rebranding your life and why summer keeps catching you off guard | fhg #98

Happy Sunday, financial hotties! It’s been a few weeks of catching up on ‘normal’ life since being back from Latin America, and one of the first things I’ve done is decide I’m rebranding my life. Everyone around me is planning their next holiday, curating their summer wardrobe and rotating in their summer salad recipes at home.

Working through this rebrand has reminded me of what it actually means to have a life philosophy. The baseline that stays constant regardless of what season you’re in, what’s happening around you, or what everyone else seems to be doing. It’s the foundation that all your seasons get to sit on top of. It means I’m not reinventing myself every year only to be chasing my tail.

It’s exactly what most people skip when summer arrives, opting to maximise a season instead of living out their life philosophy. Instead of summer being one part of a life they’ve already designed, it becomes the whole big thing: three months of trying to feel like a person that doesn’t exist normally. The wardrobe, spending habits, the body, the holiday, the energy.

All of it assembled quickly, from scratch, because there’s nothing underneath holding it together. This week, I want to talk about what that something underneath actually looks like.

𝜗ৎ In this issue:

• What’s wrong with hot girl summer

• The whole point of having a philosophy

• One thing to develop your philosophy

✦ The problem with hot girl summer

The problem I have with a hot girl summer is basically what follows the hot girl summer. Summer as a season is something that comes and goes, and when it comes to identity and the behaviours that follow, it could mean three months of feeling good about yourself and then just not in October.

I used to do it. Every summer, I’d buy new clothes (bought on a credit card I was ignoring the balance on). A holiday booked because everyone else was going somewhere. An attempt to eat as little as possible so I could look the way I thought I was supposed to look (in the things I’d just bought).

Considering I live in Edinburgh, host city to the world’s largest performing arts festival, I should’ve been paid for this spectacular performance I was putting on every year.

And then September would come, and my bank account would reflect the reality of June and July. I’d freak out about what I’d done, tell myself I’d sort it out before Christmas, and then I would repeat the behaviour but in an Autumn-coded way, and then it was a New Year thing, and then before I knew it, it was June again.

That is the hot girl summer cycle that I see so many people live through, which thankfully means it’s definitely not a you problem. It’s a problem that exists because there is no structure underneath for how you actually want to live your life and so it’s easy to just repeat the cycle.

⟡ The whole point of having a philosophy

Having a philosophy means arriving at summer already knowing who you are, so you can actually enjoy it instead of spending three months trying to earn the right to.

A philosophy, in the way that I live as a Financial Hot Girl, is:

• an identity that runs all year (it doesn't need a cultural calendar, or a moment, to tell it when to switch on)

• a set of decisions you've already made, so you're never starting or spending or saving from scratch (i.e. Deciding Once)

• what's left when my motivation runs out (my baseline)

The three things my Financial Hot Girl philosophy runs on:

Money. You know what’s coming in, what’s going out, and roughly where you’re heading. You’re not anxiously doing mental maths in restaurants or during a holiday. You’ve already accounted for summer because it’s just a season.

Body. You have a relationship with your body that doesn’t need a holiday to kick it into action. Your movement habits exist in November, but they just look different in July. You feel okay in your body because you’ve been looking after it all year.

Mind. You’re not spending because everyone else is. You’re not booking trips out of FOMO or buying outfits to feel like a person who uses summer as a verb (even if that’s the goal!). You know who you are, summer just gives you more hours of daylight to be that person.

Taking an example from my life: my philosophy includes running twice a week for heart health and mental health. This means my runs don’t stop in summer, they just get to move outside. My philosophy is spending in line with my values, which means my budget doesn’t disappear because it’s warm, I have a line in it for holidays and more social events.

A philosophy for me is just a lot of up-front decision making, Deciding Once who I am and then just dialling it up based on the season.

꩜ One thing to develop your philosophy

Before you spend anything summer-related this week, ask yourself:

Am I doing this because I want to, or because it’s June?

When you think about your summer plans, how many of them are things you actually want, versus things that just feel like what summer is supposed to look like?

If the answer is “I want to”, that’s a green flag to me, because a Financial Hot Girl spends on things that matter to her. She knows the difference between wanting something and performing wanting it (mimetic desire).

Until next week,

— Dev xo

P.S. being able to develop a philosophy for life involves being honest and up-front with yourself about what you want vs don’t want (or have pretended to want). This kind of self-reflection could mean breaking up with things, people, or habits that no longer serve you. It sometimes isn’t a pretty process!