shopaholic and cant stop

suesi1

My story is i cant stop shopping, mainly clothes, but i am have got myself into debt with the constant shopping and now i have started to miss paying my bills because of it and i would like some advice how i can beat this. I know most of you will probably think "oh my god just dont buy it" but it's not as simple as that i wish it was. Please help, some good advice would be greatly appreciated.:o

Anne42

Hi
you have made the first step and acknowledged you have a problem. That is something. I would suggest the very first thing you do is cut up all your credit and store cards. Don't take any spare cash or your debit card with you when you go out (i.e lunch breaks). Just leave the cards at home. If you haven't got any money on you/ no way of getting to your money you cannot spend any.
More knowledgeable people will be along to help you with advice on how to start clearing your debt. In the meantime just have a look at other posts and you will be sure to find some useful tips.
Good luck and make sure to destroy your credit and store cards today.

Hermia

As Anne42 you need to take practical steps such as not taking your credit cards out with you. Also, just don't go to the shops! E.g. Take a lunch with you to work so you have no excuse for going out on the high street. Start getting your food shopping from the smallest supermarket near you that doesn't sell clothes etc. If you go shopping at the weekend as a leisure activity find something else to do. I think one of the worst things to happen to this country is the fact that shopping has become seen as a hobby/leisure activity.

You also need to work out why you are spending if you want to stop yourself? Do you have friends who are competitive and very into their appearance? Are you shopping to make up for some big hole in your life? Do you believe the adverts? I honestly don't believe that people can truly overcome an addiction to shopping unless they work out why they are doing it.

As you presumably have more clothes than you need can you sell some and use the money to pay off some of your debts?

bargainbetty

What need does the shopping fulfill? If you are doing something to fill a gap in your life and it is a destructive thing, then you need to look at the problems behind it. The practical things like leaving your cards at home etc will help, but it's no good if you go home and run up bills using online shopping instead. Hermia is right - unless you figure out why you do it, and find another way to control that aspect of your life, you run the risk of relapsing (done it) picking up another bad or expensive habit (yep, done that too) and it will be a slippery slope from there.

Go through your wardrobe and see if there are things that can be returned (I used to do it, and found things still with labels on). If you can, return them. If not, try selling things on ebay.

Set yourself a manageable budget for treats - for every £50 you make on ebay, £35 goes to your debts and the rest can be used as you please, until you get the spending under control?

Good luck x

kittypimms

You need to work out *why* you go shopping - are you bored, is there nothing else to do? Or is it a need to buy something to make you feel happy? the last one was my problem - I felt down if I hadn't bought something. And then got shoppers remorse afterwards!!

I started doing volunteer work at weekends (dog walking for a rescue), so I wouldn't have time to go shopping. At lunchbreaks in work I would read or go for a walk instead of going to town, and spend more time socialising with my friends at the house, or small coffee shops away from shopping centres.
Good luck - small changes of habit can make large differences in your pocket!

squidlegs

Agree with all the previous posters. Figure out why you need to shop, take your cards out of your purse and leave them at home. The need to shop might be stress related (do you feel a huge sense of release when that new item is in the bag?), figure out what is stressing you out. Do you feel neglected, and the shopping is a little treat for yourself?

Spend some time going through your wardrobes - add up the cost of the contents to show how much of your income is going on clothes. Work out how long it will take you to wear out the clothes you already own. Try to find some sort of activity to replace the time spent shopping and spending - tidying the house and garden, getting fit (jogging and walking are free), visiting the library, volunteer work. Having a big clear out in the house might make your home environment feel more ordered and organised, and selling a few bits might help you over your cash flow problems. Just keep busy busy busy so you can break the shopping addiction. Hope it helps.

chestnut1304

Hi I am an Undergraduate Psychology student, in my last year. For my dissertation I'm focussing on the effects of the internet and how individuals can become addicted to online shopping.

Below is my email address, please email me if you wish to take part and I will send you the web link to the questionnaire. It is completely confidential. However, if you chose to leave your email address I will email you the general feedback of the study. I would greatly appreciate anyone answering my survey.


Thank you

Zoe Taylor [EMAIL="zoe.taylor@northumbria.ac.uk"]zoe.taylor@northumbria.ac.uk[/EMAIL]

andrea1968_2

I too was and still am a shopaholic. It does sound pathetic but I like the whole shopping experience - I like the shops themselves, how they're laid out, touching the fabrics as I walk past (even if its not something I'm going to buy i love stroking sleeves!!!!! ) the colours even the sodding carrier bags...... it landed me in a world of the brown stuff and I realised that I couldn't carry on like it anymore.

I now try and not go shopping in shopping centres or the city centre itself because I know that my resistance is still fairly weak, so if I need toiletries I'll buy them while I'm doing the big food shop, otherwise one minute I'm in Boots the next I'm in River Island - and last time I checked they didn't sell shampoo.

My tips are basic but they did work for me -

Never ever ever take your credit card out with you, your willpower will disappear and you'll come back carrier bags a plenty.

Don't even have your bank card in your purse, literally take what you know you will need and nothing else, ie busfare

Do not think you can window shop - they have special hidden magnets behind them that magically place you in the queue with jeans and tops and bags and beads and everything you've already got a home but you think you need more of.

Get a serious goal to aim for, for me it was sitting down and getting every single credit card statement out in front of me and realising just how much I owed, and realising it needed paying back. Getting one bill here and one bill there didn't really register with me, but seeing them all together with massive totals scared the life out of me.

Come on this board every day, you don't always have to post but just keeping this site in your head and reading the other posts will soon get you thinking straight and it does get to be a bit of an obsession it itself - luckily this one's free.

As of 4 days ago I am now debt free and I have no intentions of going back to how I was, but I know that I can just as easily fall back off the wagon again and undo all the hard work its taken to get me to where I am.

Its not easy but its completely and utterley brilliant when you get there, but I'm not so stupid as to think the hardest part has just started.

Good luck

chanie

I think you need to find out what your triggers are in terms of shopping. I remember once being in a job I hated and I used to treat myself at lunch to make myself feel better. I moved jobs - ended up gettinga job in the middle of nowhere so that stopped my spending......

I used to go to the regional shopping Centre (Lakeside in Essex) most weekends. It was normally because I was bored and it gave me something to do.

I now have a mortgage and a baby so I don't really have the time or money like I used to, so I've got myself some hobbies to occupy what spare time I have:

1) I've started knitting again and I plan on crafting for Xmas
2) I've become a MSE fan. I hate paying full price for anything, so I hunt around for bargains and check on line before making any purchases
3) I set myself a budget of £10 a week for unnecessary spends. I try and bring my lunch in to work to save this money for treats. Once I've spent it, thats it.

humblepii

Hi Suesi

You've received lots of brilliant advice here already, and I just wanted to echo it all and say you CAN beat this. Acknowledging the problem is a step towards the solution, and nobody here will judge you. In fact, lots of us have been in the same boat.

In my case, I spent money to feel powerful. I was going through a really hard time and my self-esteem was on the floor. For some reason, buying clothes eased the pain, if only momentarily - kind of like binge eaters say. It filled a hole. It made me feel special - not even because I could look nice, but because I could walk around a shop and pick up anything I wanted and really feel like 'someone'. Sad but true.

I had a wake-up call before my debts got too out of hand, fortunately, but this site keeps me on the straight and narrow. Now I'm as obsessive seeing my debt come down as I once was making sure I had something new to 'cheer me up'. You can make the decision today to do exactly the same.

((((HUGS))))

Pink-Angel

All the above posts are excellent. I totally agree you need to figure out what your trigger is. I've got into serious debt through shopping (amoung other things) and I've now just started a DMP to sort out my debts. I was a shopaholic until January, whene I had my LBM and realised I had to sort myself out. Since then I haven't gone near a shop, other than to buy essentials like food. At lunchtime I go to the library or just for a walk, this has helped as I always used to shop in my lunch breaks. I have also identiifed my trigger and realise why I did it, and that has helped a lot.

As lots of others have said, it can be beaten. Good luck :-)