Thanks to google alerts, I stumbled upon 12-Year Old Shopaholic and Other Big Spending Kids, an eye-opening and shudder-worthy British documentary, that aired this past June. Glorifying over-the-top spending, this 3-part series profiles four kids, ages 9 to 15 and their well-meaning, but confused and overindulgent parents whose own unresolved issues result in massive overspending, their financial fog so thick that even the one that blankets London can’t compete.
As a psychologist who specializes in the study and treatment of shopping addiction, I found the documentary disturbing, selling, as it does, a bill of goods that proclaims, “whoever said money doesn’t buy happiness simply didn’t know where to shop.” My course of action was to offer a different, more cautionary analysis of these haphazard spending sprees and attitudes to as many people as I could, and what better place than Huffington Post.
To read my post on 12-Year Old Shopaholic and Other Big Spending Kids, click here.
Carrie Rattle is a Principal at BehavioralCents.com, a website for women focused on mind and money behaviors. She has worked in the financial services industry for 20+ years and hopes to inspire women to better prepare themselves for financial independence.