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.