6. Compulsive Spending

Compulsive spending is an addiction to spending money.

For many people, shopping means a trip to the market, new clothes for work or school or maybe needed household goods. For others, shopping can become an addiction and result in a financial nightmare for the shopper and their friends and family
 

Signs and symptoms of compulsive spending

• Emotional Spending – Shopping or spending money as a result of feeling angry, depressed, anxious, or lonely
• Having arguments – With others about your shopping habits
• Feeling lost without credit cards – Actually going into withdrawal without them
• Covering your tracks – Spending a lot of time juggling accounts or bills to accommodate spending
• Buying items on credit – Rather than with cash
• Feeling guilt – Feeling ashamed, or embarrassed after a spending spree
• Lying – About how much money you spend or owning up to buying something, but lying about how much it actually cost
• Feeling a rush – Or a feeling of euphoria with spending
• Obsessing – Thinking obsessively about money
• Going over your budget – Consistently creating financial strain as you spend above your income
• Compulsive buying – You may go to buy one shirt, but you end up with six of them
• Chronic problem – A continuous problem that gets worse over time
• Hiding – Hiding purchases as if hiding shame and even opening secret credit card accounts
• Returns – You return purchases due to guilt and shame, but once back in the shopping environment you end up on another shopping spree
• Relationships suffer –  As you spend more and more time shopping, you create more and more debt, and cover up debt with lies and isolate yourself

If you think you may have a compulsive shopping problem, you should also speak with your healthcare provider and your friends and family about your issue. Recognizing a problem and taking the first step to seek help is often the first step to recovery.   Visit http://www.shopaholicsanonymous.org/  for more information.