Category: Blog

Not everyone is a year-round shopaholic. For many people, this addiction only comes along during the holidays as an emotional response to seasonal loneliness or anxiety. Shopping desires are triggered by an increased influx of commercials and advertisements in the mail, on walls, on television and the radio. Additionally, the holiday season can feel like… Continue reading Seasonal Shopaholic?

A question I’m asked regularly is about the relationship between compulsive buying disorder and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and it’s just been researched for the first time by a team headed by Dr. Donald Black of the Department of Psychiatry, University of Iowa College of Medicine. Results suggested that compulsive buyers as compared with… Continue reading Compulsive Buying Disorder and ADHD

In today’s culture, there is a mindset more strongly geared towards spending than saving. While our parents and grandparents regularly saved for a rainy day fund, many Americans now would have trouble coming up with $1,000 in the event of an emergency. No matter how good your current situation is, you never know what might… Continue reading How to Start Saving for a Rainy Day

If your New Year’s Resolution this year is to finally get a hold on your debt, you can make this your year of living a balanced financial life. Find all your bills, everything documenting what you owe, and get it all in one place. List your debts and minimum payments, and set your sights on… Continue reading Become a Debt Destroyer!

This article written by a credit expert, John Ulzheimer, suggests three financially-related safeguards we should all consider before the end of the year. First, we should check our credit report by obtaining the free copies that each of us is allowed to receive annually. These free reports do not accumulate, so he thinks we should… Continue reading Three Credit Moves to Make Before December 31st

  More than ever before, shopping related apps have been appearing like mushrooms after a rain, with promises of making our shopping experiences faster, easier, cheaper, and more satisfying. Beware. You can find yourself spending more time, energy, and money than you ever intended. Alternatively, you can save, time, energy, and money. In order to separate… Continue reading Shopping Apps–Friend or Foe? How do you know?

The Brookhaven Retreat, which treats women with substance abuse issues, recognizes Buy Nothing Day on November 24 as a way of shining a spotlight on the harm shopping addiction causes in women’s lives. In a culture of materialism where consumption and ownership have been equated with happiness, it is important to focus on the way some… Continue reading Brookhaven Retreat Recognizes Importance of Buy Nothing Day

2008 Media Coverage of Compulsive Buying nePsy.com (December 2008): Compulsive shopping: disorder or disease? NOW Magazine (December 29, 2008): http://www.nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=166605 Divorce360 (December 15, 2008): Married to a Shopaholic? Holidays Can Be Tough for your Marriage Wall St. Journal (December 14, 2008): This Year, More Than Ever, It’s Tough to Be a Compulsive Shopper. Adbusters Magazine… Continue reading Related Blogs / Articles / 2008 / 2007

A Financial Highway blogger compares two scenarios using the Toronto market as an example. Two similar condos are compared, one as a rental and one for sale. Playing out the numbers, renting costs much less monthly, but over the long term you come out ahead as a homeowner. Three things to keep in mind as… Continue reading Rent vs. Buy

The team at DailyWorth tells us that Apple, IBM, Dell and other major computer companies all sell refurbished computers that can often be a great deal, both from a financial and a quality perspective. When computers are returned, they might be “repaired, upgraded, cleaned, or simply tested and repackaged…,” and very few are found to… Continue reading The Case for Buying Refurbished Computers