Reformed shopaholic? please can you give me the benefit of your advice

debidoodle

Kaz2904 wrote: »

For those of you who are thinking about doing a stck check of your wardrobe- DO IT! If you think you'll be too weak willed to get rid of everything then you may need to enlist a friend. If you do, get one who will be harsh enough to fight you for that pair of jeans that you don't want to get rid of but they have a hole in them.


That is so true Kaz, when my parents downgraded from their 4 bed house to a 1 bed my mum had wardrobes full of unworn clothes. Every wardrobe, chest of drawers in all the bedrooms was full of clothes still with price tags on unworn, I helped her clear them as my dad would have gone up the wall if he had known what she had bought.

I remember the charity shop at the time saying they could not take anymore and could I leave it for a few weeks before I took more. There were 11 different styles of leather jackets half of them unworn with tags, my mum had at least 70 different styles of coats, macs & jackets. It was just a pity none of it fitted me as my mum had great style and had some lovely pieces from coast, next, principles etc.

She would go to town every week and buy clothes, I think a lot of it stemmed from boredom when she retired, she seemed to settle down after she decided to go back to work 2 days a week.

debidoodle

sportbeth wrote: »

Hi all,

I haven't had time to read all of the threads in this one as I'm speedreading in my lunchbreak. Have any of you thought of having a swap party? I had one last year at work before christmas and it was brilliant. Get together with a few mates and some drinks and nibbles, pledge to bring along around 5 items that are in great condition that you have barely used but bought in haste and swap. You could all agree to bring along different categories, i.e. 1 skincare, 1 top, 1 handbag, one household item. That way you can have fun, get something new and give away something that someone else might find useful that you've bought and regretted.

It cured my pre-xmas shopping urges as I walked away with 5 fab new things and I didn't spend anything:j

That sounds like a great idea for updating your wardrobe at no cost

debidoodle

CompletelyLost wrote: »

I think so too.

I started off with the easier task - the shoes and boots (I don't have hundreds of pairs as I take a size 9.5 in shoes, but considering my shoes size, I have quite a few pairs). So, I wear 17% of my shoes. But more shocking is the fact that 24% of them have never been worn, not even once

CL have you thought about Ebaying them and then treat yourself to something special.

Babafette

salesaddict wrote: »

If I ever buy another thing, shoot me. I have spent all day trying to put away the stash of toiletries that I spent all last night getting out to photograph for the toiletries thread. I can't fit the bl**dy stuff back from the very same cupboard (that leads to Narnia) that it all came out of in the first place. So then I thought I would swap my handbags over from a sort of display unit that I have in one wardrobe to the toiletries cupboard. Then put the toiletries in the display unit. Are you still with me? I just have too much stuff and I never want to shop again.

I'm sorry you are feeling so bad salesaddict, but it can surely only get better from here on? You need to harness these feelings and use them whenever your resolve weakens. Next time you get the tingle of excitement to shop for bargains, try and remember clearly exactly how you felt a) when you saw everything laid bare on your kitchen table b) when you tried to cram it all back in again and c) when you posted the above. The picture on your mobile phone should be a great help too.

I am not trying to put you on a downer so I'm sorry if it reads that way. What I am trying (probably badly) to say is that instead of associating shopping with feelings of excitement and happiness, try to associate it with the feelings you have experienced over the weekend. So instead of seeing shopping as a joy, it simply becomes a mundane activity to replace necessities like food.

You can do this!!

NGlady

Im going into town now. £10 with me no debit cards, wish me luck.. im even walking the 1.5 miles to town to save £1.30 so I can buy a magazine, now thats effective money spending me thinks! lol.

Babafette

NGlady wrote: »

Im going into town now. £10 with me no debit cards, wish me luck.. im even walking the 1.5 miles to town to save £1.30 so I can buy a magazine, now thats effective money spending me thinks! lol.

Good luck, you can do it. Maybe you won't even need to spend the £10.....

morocha

i already have a walk in wardrobe.... and only 4 handbags 4 * of boots, 1 pair of trainers, 3*high heels and 3 * sandals.... i did it like a month ago.... so not much...
my wardrobe.. i can see all what i got as i have everything in rails... only 2 of those single rails from Argos ? so , it is not that much....:D

debtdesperado

One thing I have started doing to stop myself making loads of small purchases is to keep the money - so if I want a magazine, I think, do I really want it, and if not, when I get home I put the actual £3 into a pot. It's amazing how quickly it mounts up...within two weeks I had nearly £100:eek:. All from not buying coffees, mags, an extra pair of tights, a lipstick etc....

Then I think about what I really want/need, and then buy it, at full price. The only rule is that it has to be a single item (eg I won't let myself go to Boots and waste it on bottles and jars of stuff). I treated myself to a lovely real pashmina which I appreciate every time I put it on. It was surprisingly difficult to make myself think, plan and buy it - it was such a lot of money to spend on a scarf (which is crazy when you think that I would have spent that money on a load of rubbish to either be binned or stuffed into a cupboard )

I also had a thing about scented candles... I used to buy loads of cheap ones, which either smelt of nothing or were really strong and horrible. They would just get stashed in all sorts of places. Now I buy ONE good quality candle, burn it all the way to nothing, and then buy another one. this way, every time I light it, I think ooh what a treat, rather than eugh...I wonder how I can get the smell of that horrible candle out of my flat? :rotfl:

joesaunt

My compulsive buying and shopping started when I met ex-husband nearly 8 years ago. He made me feel so inadequate, I felt I had to buy nice clothes, shoes, handbags, makeup, toiletries etc etc to make myself "worth something" to him. In all the 8 years he was getting nastier and nastier and being hateful to my son, eventually ending up with him trying to choke my son and me calling the police.

When I moved out from him in August, I had so many clothes etc I had no where to put them and the toiletries amounted to 3 suitcases full. I have no money for anything other than feeding me and ds (who is 16) and paying my bills. There is nothing left after this, but we are safe.

I feel better now and stronger, using up all my toiletries made me realise what a waste of money they were just sitting there, and today I have bought a shower gel and foot cream, because by the end of the week I will need them, not to make me prove a point.

All the clothes I had, I was very ruthless with, I sorted them out into 4 piles, one to wear and keep, one for the car boot sale, one for the charity shop and one to ebay. I did the car boot sale yesterday, I think there was about £800 worth of clothes and shoes, I sold them for £70! This has also made me realise what a fool I have been with my shopping habits. The stuff which has gone to the charity shop totalled over £300 too.

I only ever bought something reduced, very rarely paying full price for them, but needed a complete outfit eg shoes bag etc. I never felt too bad as they were reduced, but never wore most of them.

As in previous posts, the biggest hurdle is admitting it and I have. I will never let myself get it in that state again.

My debts are not as bad as some peoples, I owe about £10, 000. Half of that is a loan and the other half are 3 0% interest credit cards. Any extra money I have, eg from the car boot sale will be split on the cards, NOT treating myself.

It hasn't been very easy over the last 6 months, but the posts on this site have made me realise I am not the only one and all the support is fantastic.

I am hoping when "our marital" home sells, I will have enough to pay off my debts, as the house had been remortgaged, so there won't be as much as there could be.

That's better got it off my chest. :rotfl:

NGlady

Debtdesperado - I know the feeling about buying those lovely glossies!

Well I came into town - I walked in, and I have a ticket left over from the other day. So effectively, this could have been a NSD - but oh no, closer magazine £1.30 - bottle of Fanta £0.90p and some YumYums £1.30 - total spend that I could have avoided? £3.50, (I know I keep banging on about my skirt lol but that is effectively 1/9th of what I spent on this investment skirt and 1/18th it will cost to have my hair done next month) Stupid really!

JoSaunt - I know exactly what you mean about sale purchases, when you can go buy it in the sale, it just feels like a bargain and your not actually spending much because oh gosh you can get this big bag of stuff for the price of one item normally. So I didn't used to feel such a rush to return it if it wasnt right.

I've been thinking about this, and im going to seperate my money a little more.

I am going to have a purse which is for my living money, so all my bus fares etc goes out of that.

Then, I have a little purse I keep all my vouchers etc in, what im going to do is christen this my "shopping purse" In this shopping purse I keep all my extra funds which I can afford to spend on clothes, if there isnt the money in this purse, I don't buy that item! I have quite a lot of things that needs returning to Debenhams, so what im going to do, as an extra motivator to return things for cash instead of exchanges lol, is for every £15 of items I return, i'm going to put a £5 into my shopping purse.. end of every week the money i've got left over after putting money into my money tins etc, I will put in my "shopping purse"

Also all items I wont wear or use when brought are still going back, irrelivent if ill get stuck in the "sorry madam we can only give a gift voucher" trap - ok gift voucher, put it in my xmas tin perhaps for xmas pressies! Or if its from the clothes purse in there i will go.

Wonder if that will work lol.