Tori Spelling says she and Dean McDermott have money problems

(UPI) -- Tori Spelling has made a post-acting career out of reality shows and memoir writing.

But now that she's in between television shows, the 40-year-old mother of four has told People that she and her husband, Dean McDermott, are nearly broke.

"I haven't bought a purse in three years. And it's fine. I look back on that girl who shopped at Gucci in my 20s, and I can't even relate," Spelling, whose father is "90210" creator Aaron Spelling, told the mag while promoting her new book "Spelling it like it is."

Spelling and McDermott have starred in a series of reality shows about their home life with their four children and McDermott's son from a previous relationship. But Spelling said that when Oxygen canceled the show, they had to cut down on their expenses.

In one instance, their business manager advised McDermott that they didn't have enough money for him to get a vasectomy.

"We don't have a series on the air right now, so we have to be more restrictive of what we can spend, just like anyone who doesn't currently have a steady job," she said.

They are waiting for another series to hit HGTV, "Tori & Dean: Cabin Fever," in 2014. "Even when I try to embrace a simpler lifestyle, I can't seem to let go of my expensive tastes. And then there's my shopping problem. I've bought ridiculous amounts of stuff for the kids, clothing, toys, crafts," she said.

Spelling also writes in her latest memoir that her real estate buying habits contributed to their downfall.

“After selling our Encino house at a loss, we were hoping to make a bit of the money back on Malibu,” she writes in the book. “We’d sunk a lot of money into it … But our [Malibu] house took a few months to sell, and when it did, it was for two hundred thousand dolls less than we had paid. You heard of those people who flip houses to make money? We were the opposite: flippers who lost major sums of money on every transaction. My restlessness would be our financial ruin.”