Why am I addicted to shopping and how can I stop?

Toto

Hi Emma, I'm a mum to a very disabled 11 year old girl. So I understand how tough things are for you. My situation is different in that Amber has a genetic condition as well as severe autism etc etc.

When Amber was first diagnosed I felt like an utter faliure. I had always wanted to give my kids the best I could, give them all the opportunities to do whatever they wanted in life, but, I ended up giving my daughter something which would rob her of any chance of an independant life. I felt sad, guilty and angry with myself. Of course I know now that it wasn't my fault but looking back I realise those feelings were always there under the surface.

I still wanted to give her everything I could and in hindsight I can see that I transferred that into dressing her in beautiful clothes, feeding her the best of the best, the child was weaned on cottage pie made with filet steak for gods sake I remember taking her to an opportunity class (a pre school for disabled babies and toddlers) and every time she went she wore a brand new outfit. She was such an angelic looking blonde haired blue eyed little doll, people were always saying how well cared for she looked. So, I felt I was being a good mum after all.

To cut a very long story short I realise now that I was trying to compensate for all of the things that I wasn't able to do for her. I couldn't teach her to walk or talk, I couldn't potty train her. I couldn't take her swimming or for walks in the park, so many things scared her rigid. But I could shower her with clothes and toys. The funny thing was, she had every toy imaginable but the day she had to go to hospital to have a brain scan under general anaesthetic she chose to take a bottle of tomato ketchup with her (which was her obsession at the time) all of the other kids had their teddies and dolls, my Amber had her ketchup.

I'm rambling again, but I identified with loads of things you have said. I think the bereavement counselling is a superb idea. You are absolutely dealing with the loss of your son, I saw my little girl slip away day by day as the autism took over and it's heartbreaking. I can not begin to imagine how you have coped with your situation, but I know I take my hat off to you.

Your life will never be the same again and you are dealing with that loss too. Parents like us will always be the parents to small children, no matter how old those kids get and that needs to be recognised. It's much easier for the kids, they don't know any different, we feel our loss and theirs. Not a day goes by when I don't look at Amber and wonder what she might have been able to do, the places she might have gone and the experiences she might have had. of course that's pointless but i guess that's just what mums do.

The number one thing you can do for your son is find peace and happiness for you. The spending is almost a side issue. Finding things which give you a release, some fun, some time which isn't being someones mum and carer is so important. School activities are great but you will end up talking about the kids especially if the school is a special needs one.

You have had some great suggestions here for dealing with the spending so i won't go into those. I will just say, be kind to yourself. With kids like ours every day is a challenge and honestly, if you can deal with what you have dealt with so far the rest is easy.

Toto

Toni_Broke wrote: »

Hi Emma,

You're getting some great advice on here and you sound a bit more focused now, just like to pick on the point you made of needing bereavement councelling and wondered if any one has told you about 'Welcome to Holland'? Someone showed it to me when i had my son and its so true and i've never forgotten it. Just google it and see what you think!

Tonixx

I've just read this for the first time, made me just a little tearful it's lovely, thanks for posting.

Emmaizzy

Answers to Jenna below:

Right - apologies in advance for the decimation of your budget... ! :rolleyes: It's meant in a good / helpful way, honest!

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 2
Number of cars owned.................... 1You say hubbie works very close to home, could you consider selling the car and he could use public transport/walk/cycle esp. now it's getting warmer? - Although he is only 10 mins drive from home the bus network in Jersey is a nightmare - my hubbie has a scooter which we got because it was costing £100 a month to park so it paid for itself within 10 months. The insurance is £60 a year and it costs about a £10 a month in petrol. The car is essential because my son is disabled, it is a good 20 min drive to school and there is no direct bus. We did try the school bus for a while which would pick DS up from home and take him to school but the trip was then 1 and a half hours due to the number of pick ups. With DS being easily confused, blind and disabled he found this too distressing. The buses also stop to where we live at 2.45pm. Also not sure how I would do the shopping, take the kids out etc.




Monthly Expense Details
Rent................................ 746
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 350
Council tax............................. none in jersey
Electricity............................. 100 This is high, is it on DD or taken off actual meter readings (meter readings are the best way to go IMO)? Read the article on the main site and check you're getting the best deal. Turn everything off at the switch when you're not using it and get kids and hubbie involved. Jersey has only one electricty supplier and the cost of electricy went up by 24% on the 1 January. I feel the cost of £100 a month is too high but they won't accept anything less. We are currently using 23 units a day but they assume we will use 35 based on the previous occupants as we have only just moved we have to wait 3 months to be reassessed.

Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 70 As per electricity We are not sure how much the oil is going to be - currently we have no heating as oil is so expensive - however it has been really cold lately so I am going to have to order some. This is what we were using in our old house but our electricity was only £50 at the time but we now have to use the immersion of heating so perhaps we will use less oil but have kept this in as don't want to underestimate. I will be shopping around but last time I checked there was only 2p difference between the two suppliers.

Water rates............................. 30
Telephone & Internet (land line)................... 70 This is also very high, have you looked at deals from Sky/Virgin for an all-inclusive package with landline, TV and internet included? I know the telephone bill is quite high - unfortunately Jersey isn't able to take advantage of any of the combined deals and there are only three suppliers - all cost the same! I'm on the phone a lot with family and also in relation to DS's court case, agencies etc etc. We thought about investing in a skype phone which will no doubt decrease the cost of our calls.

Mobile phone............................ 50 Could you consider reducing your package or even (horror of horrors!) getting rid of this? I got a brand new phone at Christmas and even with 600 mins, 200 texts and unlimited data it costs me £35 / month - We don't have the competition that is available on the mainland. I am thinking of cancelling my contract and going over to PAYG but I love my blackberry and it makes keeping on top of everything so much easier with appointments for DS, being able to respond to the millions of emails flying about etc without having to log on. I'll call them today.


TV Licence.............................. 5 This seems low and should be about £10-£11 / month? Make sure you're not under paying by accident or you could get fined - as DS is blind our tv license is 50% of the normal cost.

Satellite/Cable TV...................... 55 See comment on landline phone - as above
Internet Services....................... 0 See comment on landline phone see above
Groceries etc. ......................... 600 You can make some SERIOUS savings here. Check out the Old Style board, consider using Freecycle (do you have this in Jersey?) to obtain a bread maker and/or slow cooker - This is a difficult area for a few reasons - food in Jersey is very very expensive. A pint of milk costs £1 average loaf of bread £1.90!!!!! Food in the UK does not have VAT on it (for the most part) but we have a 3% tax on ours so we generally pay more because of import costs and then an additional 3% on top of that. I do a menu every week and only ever buy what was on the list: Last week our menu was: Baked Pots with Tuna and Salad, Stir fry veg and noodles, frozen fish, chips and peas, pizza and salad (co-op pizzas), Pork chops and mash, Fish Curry, Lamb Meatballs and cous cous. Hubbie takes sandwiches as does DS I tend to have can of soup or sandwich and daughter eats with me. This food with no luxuries except two bottles of wine and 12 cans of co-op cat food came to £157!!!!! So as you can see we are not goiing crazy. We never eat out. I make a cake or gingerbread men every week with the kids so we don't by sweets - although usually get them whatever is cheapest in chocolate for the week to share. Puddings are Jelly or cheapo ice cream and fruit. A previous poster suggested coming to the UK for stuff but it would cost in the region of £250 for a return car journey (again only one ferry supplier) so I would never recoup the cost.

Clothing................................ 100 Is this accurate? Take a guesstimate of your annual spend and divide by 12. If this is accurate e.g. you're spending this EVERY month then it's extremely high. Try eBay, always buy in the sales, etc It is high but I have been a bit lazy here - I estimate I spend about £100 a month on things like clothes, toiiletries, nappies (nighttime only), the old thing here and there. I used to buy lots of stuff on ebay but have found lately its not been as good - also been ripped off a far few times so have lost my faith in it a bit. I do put stuff on ebay but find it takes ages so tend to save it up for seasonal stuff and then spend a week getting it sorted. When I do buy things for the kids it does tend to be in the sales. A previous poster suggested coming to the UK - when we come over to see family I raid H&M as I can usually get an entire wardrobe for both kids for £100.

Petrol/diesel........................... 50
Road tax................................ don't have in jersey - included in petrol
Car Insurance........................... 24 When this comes up for renewal make sure you go through Quidco or similar to get some cashback if possible. Also read the article on the main site for lots of premium-lowering tips again can't use mainland suppliers for Jersey car insurance due to our different rules about MOT's and road tax - we do have the lowest rate I always check it when it is up for renewal. The cost is £240 a year for our Honda (3 years old this year) fully comp with no excess which I think is pretty low.
.
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 12 (no MOT's £240 fixed service) Does this mean you don't have to MOT your car in Jersey? I'm confused easily We don't have MOT's in Jersey but because it is new we are obliged to have it serviced every year to ensure we keep it within warranty - the cost is £240 a year.
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 150 What is this? Daughter attends nursery 2 mornings a week each month plus a few additional mornings to cover meetings I have to go to with or for son - hubbie already gets a fair few mornings bits here and there paid to help out and as employment law is very new and not great here we have to be careful otherwse he will be docked pay. Also we like to have time off altogether even if its just to stay at home so we have to be careful with holiday - I have to take my son back to the UK for hospital appointments I can't take both kids as jersey will only pay for me and son so hubbie has to take day off to look after daughter. She is not old enough to qualify for a free nursery place until September this year.
Other child related expenses............ 20 What is this? Swimming membership for family, fencing lessons for son - these are both to help with son's physio, ot and general recovery.
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0 Do you need to add anything into your budget here? Or do you do everything on the NHS? It's better to budget even a tenner a month and then at least you have something when the bills come in! Prescriptions are free and dental services for children are also free - we don't bother. Because you have to pay to go to the doctors we never go we go to the chemist instead - if it was something really serious then we would touch wood we are all healthy. Hubbie also has private health care through work. Because of son's condition we have regular meetings at the hospital so no need to take him to doctors. I wouldn't bother taking them to the GP anyway because in my experience they just tell you to give them calpol and take them home. If either were seriously ill I would take them to hospital.
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 30 See comments on car ins re insurance - shopped about these are the best deals we've found in jersey.
Contents insurance...................... 10 See comments on car ins
Life assurance ......................... 25 See comments on car ins & bear in mind if this is the policy your mortgage provider offers there's almost certainly a better deal out there
Other insurance......................... 28 What is this? re-build insurance for the house.
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 20 Is this an accurate figure? You can look into ways to boost your income if you like. For example Pigsback, Toluna, Mystery Shopping etc. And read the "Boost Your Income" article on the main site (I think there's a board dedicated to this too) I'd love to do mystery shopping I reckon I'd be great at it - unfortunately not really happening in Jersey. I have investigated the sites you've suggested but again they only interested only in Mainland consumers.
Haircuts................................ 20 Could you consider going to a local student/training college? These are often much cheaper. College only offers cuts during college hours - how crazy is that and to be honest the prices are not that great! Time would be an issue here - it's not worth paying £20 to put daughter in nursery for a morning to get my hair cut.
Entertainment........................... 15 What does this include, maybe there are ways to do the same thing cheaper? This is Lovefilm which works out about £3.50 a week - which I don't think is excessive. We tend to get a kid's film for the weekend and have popcorn (homemade). We have annual passes for the zoo (birthday present), annual pass to heritage sites who run loads of kids days which are free to season ticket holders and we also go geocaching which is great fun and free once you've bought your GPS receiver and great fun. We use our swimming pass to take the kids swimming on family fun mornings. So we really are very economical in this area.
Holiday................................. 0 Appreciably you may not be planning on going away whilst in debt? But if you are intending to go at some point then it's better to save monthly and take a budget holiday than have a last minute panic or resort to CCs etc. You could use some of what you save on the food budget maybe? I'm yet to be convinced I can save anything as I have really cut back on the shopping. As we live on an island surrounded by beaches we tend to be pretty happy to stay here. Twice a year we go back to the UK but these trips are paid by family in UK as birthday pressies rather than buying us stuff we don't need so this tends to be our holiday as well.
Emergency fund.......................... 0

The £4,000 is the what's outstanding on our car loan - just before son's incident we bought a new car as had baby on the way - we have kept hold of it and we need a decent size car for wheelchair.

Think that that!

frenchconnection200

I really feel for you Emmaizzy you've had and are having a tough time.
I just wanted to say this thread is everything MSE is about, someone needing help and advice, loads of people giving that help and advice and you Emmaizzy taking on board everything that people are saying.
I'm not surprised you like shopping so much it's obviously an outlet for you but as long as you keep listening to all the great advice you've been given I'm quite sure you'll sort yourself out.
GOOD LUCK.

Jenna

Hey,

Good that you're looking into these things but rubbish how expensive it all is my OH is currently out of work so we are really cutting back, I just did a month's food shopping for (just) under £70 for the 2 of us plus household/cleaning goods. Admittedly it is all staple foods e.g. flour/sugar/butter but we also got some meat and different odds and ends e.g. cheese, cous cous, rice, cream and so on. How do they expect people to afford to eat with those prices?! :rolleyes:

I guess the re-build insurance for the house isn't covered by the buildings insurance (I actually thought these were the same, in my ignorance!)

I am not sure what else to suggest yet sorry; unless you decide to set up your own sewing group (with sewing machines from Freecycle!) and charge everyone else £117 to join?!

I hope things with you are okay & hubbie is being supportive.

Take care xx