Shopping addiction, also often called "compulsive shopping", can have serious negative consequences on personal life, career and even economically. Since shopping is so ingrained in Western capitalist culture, it can be hard to tell when you cross the line. This article helps you recognize the typical signs of such addiction, provides advice on changing your shopping habits and possibly seeking medical attention if necessary.
Steps
Part 1 of 3: Learning about Shopping Addiction
Step 1. Recognize the problem
Like most psychological addictions, admitting the behavior and realizing it's a real hindrance in everyday life is half the way. Check the list of symptoms listed below and use it to assess the severity of your situation. This is an important way to accurately quantify how much you need to reduce your purchases - whether you just need to moderate how much you buy or you need to stop altogether.
- Go shopping or spend money when you feel agitated, angry, lonely, or anxious
- Give reasons in front of other people to justify the behavior;
- You feel lost or alone without your credit card;
- You tend to make more purchases with a credit card than with cash;
- You feel particularly elated or experience a deep sense of enthusiasm while shopping;
- When finished, you feel a sense of guilt, shame, or embarrassment for spending too much;
- You lie about your shopping habits or the price of certain items;
- You have obsessive thoughts about money;
- You spend a lot of time trying to manage your money and bills in order to satisfy the shopping.
Step 2. Look critically at your shopping habits
Write down what you buy within 2-4 weeks, including the prices. Ask yourself the following questions to better define when and how you shop. Also keep track of the exact amount of money you spend over the allotted time, so that you become more aware of how serious the addiction is.
Step 3. Identify your form of shopping addiction
According to experts, it can manifest itself in different ways; knowing the type can help you better understand the problem and intervene in the most effective way. You can recognize your behaviors in the list proposed below or use the notes you wrote about shoppping to understand which category you fall into.
- Buyers who are drawn to purchases due to emotional distress;
- Shopaholics who are constantly on the lookout for the perfect item;
- Buyers who like flashy items and like to feel like high spending consumers;
- Bargain "hunters" who buy things just because they are on offer;
- "Bulimic" shoppers who find themselves caught up in a vicious cycle of purchases, returns and other subsequent purchases;
- Collectors looking for a feeling of completeness by buying every single element of an entire collection or the same object in all its variants (color, style, etc.).
Step 4. Know the long-term effects of this addiction
While they can be positive in the short run, like a sense of happiness after the shopping spree, many of them in the long run are overwhelmingly negative. Understanding these effects is a good way to address the reality of an excessive shopping trend.
- Spending over budget and finding yourself with big financial problems;
- Make compulsive purchases that go beyond actual needs (for example, walking into a store to buy a sweatshirt and leaving with ten);
- Hide or keep the problem secret to avoid criticism;
- Feeling a sense of powerlessness due to the vicious circle that has been triggered: the sense of guilt that one feels after shopping leads to make further purchases;
- Deteriorated social relationships from lying about debts or keeping them secret, as well as physical isolation as concern for purchases increases.
Step 5. Recognize that the need for excessive shopping often comes from emotional causes
For many people, shopping is a way to rein in negative emotions and escape them. Like most addictions that offer a "quick fix" to problems that have deep psychological roots, compulsive shopping can also help you feel complete and able to maintain a false image of happiness and security. Make an effort to understand if shopping is for you an attempt to fill a void in life that could be solved in other ways with a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle.
Part 2 of 3: Making Lifestyle Changes to Reduce Shopping Addiction
Step 1. Recognize your triggers
It is something that makes you want to shop. Keep a diary always with you for at least a week and every time you feel the desire to buy, write down everything that mentally stimulated your desire to buy. This could be a specific environment, friends, advertisements, or feelings (such as anger, shame, or boredom). Identifying your triggers is extremely important because it allows you to avoid the things that make you want to shop during the "detox" process.
- For example, you may find that you feel a frenzy of shopping every time you have to attend a formal meeting; you may be tempted to purchase all sorts of innovative clothes, cosmetics, or other products that boost your self-confidence and make you feel ready for the event.
- When you understand this phenomenon, you can have a special plan to better manage invitations to big meetings; for example, you might want to avoid making event-related purchases altogether and force yourself to spend an hour in front of the closet to find something suitable that you already own.
Step 2. Cut down on purchases
The best way to limit shopping without having to give it up altogether is to become more aware of how much you can realistically spend on top of basic necessities. Keep an eye on your financial availability and indulge in shopping only when the budget of the month (or even the week) allows it. This way, you can still make occasional purchases, but avoid creating big economic problems that could arise with a constant habit.
- When you go shopping, take only the amount of cash you can spend with you and leave your credit card at home to avoid the temptation to exceed the limit.
- You can also take an inventory of the things you already own and a list of the things you really want. Looking at the list allows you to keep "your feet on the ground" and understand when you want to buy something you actually already have in abundance or to differentiate the items that you are surely tempted to buy from those you don't want so much.
- Wait at least 20 minutes before making a purchase. Don't be so sure you need to buy something; wait and spend time pondering why you should or shouldn't go shopping.
- If you know that there is a specific shop where you are tempted to spend a lot, go there only on special occasions or when you are with friends who can control your purchases; if it is an online virtual store, do not bookmark it in your browser.
Step 3. Suddenly stop making unnecessary purchases
If your shopping addiction is very severe, you can alternatively limit yourself to buying only the essentials. Be very careful when shopping and make a list to stick to. Avoid the temptation of discounted and cheap items you find in discount stores, and if you have to go to one of these stores, only provide a certain amount of cash. The more the rules are well defined, the better. For example, instead of simply setting out to shop for groceries and hygiene products, make a specific list of body care products (like toothpaste, toothbrush, and so on) and don't buy anything else that isn't listed.
- Change payment methods, destroy or cancel all credit cards. If you feel the need to keep an emergency one, ask a loved one to keep it for you. This is particularly important, as people generally tend to spend twice as much when shopping with a credit card rather than cash.
- Do some market research before you leave the house. Since getting carried away while going to the shops inexorably leads to useless purchases, establish precisely the brand and the type of object to buy that is described in the list; in this way, you still get the pleasure of shopping, but avoid the need to wander too much.
- Forgo all loyalty cards you don't use for the basic necessities that often make it onto your shopping list.
Step 4. Don't shop alone
In most cases, compulsive shopping occurs when one is alone; if you are with other people, you are more likely not to spend too much. This is an advantage of group conditioning; learn and follow the moderate buying habits of people whose judgment you trust.
It may also be necessary to completely hand over your financial assets into the hands of a person whom you have the utmost confidence in
Step 5. Engage in other activities
Find more meaningful ways to spend your time. When trying to change a compulsive behavior, it is essential to replace it with another rewarding and satisfying (but still sustainable) commitment.
- People feel happy when they engage in activities that make them feel fully engaged and that allow them to lose all sense of time. Learn new things, complete a project that you have set aside for a long time, or improve yourself in some other way. It doesn't matter if it's reading, running, cooking or playing an instrument, as long as it makes you feel fully involved.
- When you exercise or take a walk, you put at your disposal a continuous source of happiness; these are activities that are a particularly valuable alternative when you are trying to escape the lust for shopping.
Step 6. Track your progress
Don't forget to give yourself plenty of rewards and encouragement on the path of giving up on compulsive shopping. It is important to take credit for the improvements, as getting rid of an addiction is extremely difficult. Objectively observing the successes you have achieved prevents you from becoming depressed in times of difficulty and self-doubt, which are inevitable.
Write down the amount of money you spend in a spreadsheet; pay attention to how many times you go to stores (or your favorite shopping website) by marking them on a calendar
Step 7. Make a list of the environments you need to avoid
Create a "forbidden" zone - the environments that you know will induce you to shop. These are most likely spaces such as shopping malls, some specific shops or large open spaces dedicated to shopping. You have to define clear and precise rules to avoid convincing yourself that you can go to these places, even if just to wander around for a while. List such places and steer clear of them as much as possible, until the need for shopping has dissipated significantly. When you find yourself in a particularly delicate moment of the "detoxification" path from addiction, re-read the list of triggers, so as not to find yourself in places or situations at risk.
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You will probably not be able to avoid such environments in the long run and this can in fact be a very difficult undertaking, also due to the constant presence of advertising and buying opportunities.
In particular, if you are just trying to limit compulsive shopping and not eliminate it altogether, you can simply reduce the number of occasions you go to these places. Set a schedule for when you can go to your favorite stores and make sure you stick to it
Step 8. Stay in your area
At least during the early days when you want to lessen your addiction to buying, avoid traveling; in this way, you do not expose yourself to the temptation to shop that could easily arise when you go to new or unknown places. People tend to shop more easily when they are out of their environment.
Keep in mind that "remote shopping" through TV shopping channels and some online pages creates the same feeling of a new environment - making it another temptation you have to resist
Step 9. Manage your mail
Make sure your home address and e-mail address are secure. Unsubscribe from promotional pages and / or catalogs that are sent from your favorite stores.
Prevent the possibility of receiving unwanted offers of new credit cards or other advertising mailings. The privacy law provides for the right to have one's personal data deleted from the databases of commercial activities (companies, online sites, banks, etc.), so as to no longer receive any form of advertising
Step 10. Set up Parental Controls on your computer
Since the internet is one of the most popular ways to shop nowadays, remember that your computer must also be just as "sober" as the outside world; avoid e-commerce sites by setting a block on your favorites.
- Download a good program to block personalized advertisements.
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1-click shopping sites are particularly dangerous. Make online purchases more difficult by deleting the credit card number from the personal page of certain sites where you have registered; do so even if you have blocked such commercial pages.
This allows you to set up a double safety barrier; if you have found a way to justify accessing that site to yourself, you still have time to reassess the decision to make a few single purchases
Part 3 of 3: Getting Outside Help
Step 1. Rely on the support of friends and family
Keeping addiction hidden is one of the main aspects of compulsive shopping (and most addictions, generally). Therefore, you need not be afraid to disclose the problem; talk to friends and loved ones about what's going on and ask them to help you buy only the things you need - at least in the first phase of the "detox" journey, when temptations are still very strong.
Talk about the problem only with loved ones who you trust and who are able to support you in your endeavors
Step 2. See a therapist
It can help you understand some of the possible problems underlying addiction, such as depression; Although there are no unique treatments for this problem, your doctor may prescribe antidepressants, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).
- One of the most frequently used methods of treating addictions is cognitive-behavioral therapy (TCC); it is an approach that helps to recognize and address some of the thoughts associated with shopping.
- Therapy also helps to place less value on extrinsic motivating factors, such as the desire to appear wealthy and successful, and instead place more value on intrinsic factors, such as being comfortable in one's shoes and maintaining enriching relationships with loved ones.
Step 3. Find a group
Compulsive shopping group therapy is a valuable and widespread resource. Being able to share advice and feelings with other people experiencing similar problems can sometimes mean the difference between sobriety and relapsing into old, unhealthy habits.
- Turn to groups, such as "Debtors Anonymous", who have 12-step programs that help manage this addiction on an ongoing basis.
- Search their site to find the center closest to you.
Step 4. Contact a credit counselor
If your compulsive shopping has led to a serious financial situation and you are unable to deal with it on your own, turn to this professional figure, who can help you manage the debt accumulated due to addiction.
