Have you stared at the receipt in your hand and wondered how you could have spent so much? Have you told yourself that bills might go unpaid if you made a purchase and bought it anyway? Shopaholics experience a lot of shame and constantly review the illogical nature of their compulsion. Unfortunately, shaming and logic… Continue reading 5 Ways to Beat Your Shopping Addiction
Category: Money Behaviors
How your Wallet is Stressing You Out
By the time we’re financially independent, we’ve had or witnessed numerous testimonies to the stress-inducing nature of money. Memories of parents arguing over money or a lost job often give us deep, even subconscious, associations that cause us to act irrationally when it comes to money. Early life experiences form a negative thought process called… Continue reading How your Wallet is Stressing You Out
Women Who Hide their Shopping Addiction from their Husbands
Shopping addiction is not a problem isolated to this side of the Atlantic. Buckinghamshire psychologist Nadine Field treats an average of six women a week who have been spending behind their partners’ backs. Thirty-three-year-old Elenor Smith has been spending money she and her husband don’t have for the past three years. She’s been piling up… Continue reading Women Who Hide their Shopping Addiction from their Husbands
Loneliness Making You Take Financial Risks?
Most people need some “me time” at least occasionally, but a new study shows that being alone prompts people to take bigger risks with their money. Published in the Journal of Consumer Research, the study put participants through situations in which they were made to feel a sense of exclusion. They were then asked to… Continue reading Loneliness Making You Take Financial Risks?
Fashion Blogs May Be a Hazard to Your Health… Especially If You’re a Celebrity Worshiper!
We’ve all had a “celebrity crush”, and “Celebrity Worship, Materialism, Compulsive Buying, and the Empty Self” reveals what can happen when that “crush” turns into an obsession. Celebrity worship is associated with “The Empty Self Theory.” a theory that suggests that someone with an empty self “is plagued by a loss of a shared sense… Continue reading Fashion Blogs May Be a Hazard to Your Health… Especially If You’re a Celebrity Worshiper!
Buzz Bissinger’s Shopping Addiction Creates Lots of Buzz
Buzz Bizzinger created a lot of it this week with his tell-all story in the April issue of GQ, a confessional about his shopping and sex addictions. A sportswriter who’s best known for his book Friday Night Lights, subsequently made into a film and a TV series, Bissinger grew up financially privileged, but he was… Continue reading Buzz Bissinger’s Shopping Addiction Creates Lots of Buzz
A Day in the Life of a Shopaholic
If just reading Elizabeth Hartney’s fictional account of “the day to day experience of shopping addiction” on about.com leaves you feeling exhausted, try to imagine what it’s like to really have a shopping problem. Here’s a sample of what Hartney describes: Wake up and make yourself two cups of coffee in your expensive new coffee… Continue reading A Day in the Life of a Shopaholic
Retail Therapy Is Not Helping
Blogger Amy Hoover dates the rise of shopping addictions to the 1990s. It’s no coincidence that this is the same time the internet made shopping a 24/7 possibility. Society has long encouraged “keeping up with the Jones,” and commercials try to convince us that we are only as good as our shoes or purses and… Continue reading Retail Therapy Is Not Helping
You’ve Stopped Overshopping…Now What?
Today I’d like to focus on a topic that can cause real anxiety in people who are addicted to shopping: what to do when you stop. If you shop to ease anxiety or soothe grief, what will you do when you feel down if that outlet is no longer available to you? If you shop… Continue reading You’ve Stopped Overshopping…Now What?
Partners in Crime: How Who You Shop With Affects Your Shopping Behavior
It’s interesting to note that who you shop with can affect how you shop. Jill Chivers, a recovering shopaholic, recently experienced first hand how a friend can affect shopping behavior and why. She and her friend, who is currently dealing with a shopping problem, had gone to lunch and afterward her friend expressed a desire… Continue reading Partners in Crime: How Who You Shop With Affects Your Shopping Behavior