Are the bills piling up? Are your credit card dues increasing every month? Does it feel like you’re living through one paycheck at a time? If you spend all your income paying your credit card dues, you might want to take a long hard look at what is in those statements. What are you spending on that causes your credit card debt to grow?
Before you consider a debt consolidation program in North Bay or other cities, the first thing you have to do is admit that you have a shopping addiction. You do not have a medical emergency. You are not paying for your sibling’s tuition with your credit card. And yet, here you are with tens of thousands of credit card transactions.
What’s up with that? You might not know it, but you’re suffering from a form of shopping addiction. You are not alone. Studies suggest that up to 15% of the population is addicted to the feelings they experience after shopping. Endorphins and dopamine produce these feelings, both widely considered to be the “happy hormones.”
Compulsive Shopaholics
When you are emotionally distressed, do you feel the need to purchase something? It doesn’t matter if you lost a job, a loved one, or you’re coming from a bad breakup, shopping makes you happy. You indulge in it because it takes you out of that emotional slump. That’s why you can’t recover from your debts. If you are going to indulge yourself every time something terrible happens, you’ll never catch up with your payments.
Trophy Shopaholics
Once you see an item that’s so functional, you can’t help but buy it. Yes, even if you don’t need it. You feel a rush when you get something that’s “perfect.” You don’t need to need these items. You might not even use them. They’re not expensive. You just feel the need to own something this “perfect.”
Bargain Hunters
These kinds of shopaholics are irrational. They buy the items because they are on sale, and they get the thrill of purchasing something that is valued more than the amount they spent on it. The bad thing about bargain hunters is that they don’t exactly need these bargain items. They just feel the need to buy a carton of diapers even if they don’t have a baby in the house.
Flashy Spenders
Some people love spending on big items, even if they cannot afford them. They buy luxurious handbags and shoes without even thinking of how they are going to pay for these items. They keep on flashing their credit cards with nary a thought to what this means for their credit history. People like these will post these items on social media to get validation from their peers.
Collectors
This kind of shopaholics can’t feel complete unless they complete their collections. Whether or not the collections have any real value doesn’t matter. They have this urge to get all colors of the same item or all the items in a set. They don’t want to stop shopping until their collection is complete. But the problem here is their concept of complete will keep changing.
An addiction to shopping is as real and problematic as drug addiction. Addictions can cause emotional and financial stress. Thankfully, like any kind of addiction, you can seek professional help if you think that you have problems with your shopping.