Shopaholics: Are you one?

Background: I live in a city with ATLEAST 15 HUGE malls in it. I have developed bad shopping habits, which made me find myself broke at the end of EVERY month. I have a decent job that pays fairly well (alhamdullilah), I have no bills to pay since I live with parents, have no responsibilities towards parents family or anything, so my pay check is entirely mine to spend on whatever I want.

So where is my money going? I have tried remembering what I spent and write them down as an attempt to try understand what is happening. I tried earlier putting a certain budget and trying to stick to it… never worked! I went around and asked my friends… MAN WHERE is all this money going? With a laugh everyone says heyyy join the club. Whether they were males or females, I seriously got the same response, and it seems like a real problem around. “Oh my God” I say to myself. Do I have issues? One day (hopefully) I would be responsible of a home and family and would have to know how to manage my own home.

Am I going to be a good housewife, one just like my mom? A woman who can run a family well and knows where when and how to spend? One that would bare her husband’s financial situation and live with it no matter what they were. My dad was commenting that day about the way I spend and was telling me that I should be careful with where this is going and that I buy useless stuff at many times. He said a sentence that hit me right into he brain “ You can work now, you can afford all the stuff you THINK you need right now, but one day maybe you wont even have the health to work and maybe at some time you wont have anyone around you to help you out, so start thinking about your life.” Ever since then and I have been trying to manage my money, and hey it is working. From a person who had NOTHING at the end of every month now I actually SAVE money. I’m so proud of me J

I can’t say I used to be a shopaholic, since I wasn’t very extreme, but it always starts somewhere. I hope no one has this problem, but it is a trend. Marketing, advertising, credit cards, lifestyle, boredom, loneliness, anger, materialism, stress, depression, and many many other reasons behind shopaholics. It is interesting to know that 90% of shopaholics are women. Men, on the other hand, are not excluded. Who needs a playstation1, Playstation 2, X-box, and X-box 360 IN THE SAME HOUSE! Girls: we really DON’T need 7 black pairs of shoes and 3 browns, 2 whites, and OTHER J. Part of curing yourself is realizing you have a problem.

Here are some links to interesting readings on the topic I have came across.

http://money.cnn.com/2003/10/31/pf/shopaholics/

http://web.mit.edu/cultureshock/fa2003/essays/prachi.html

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2000/05/shopaholic.html

http://www.carolthecoach.com/articles/addiction/shopaholism.htm

Love,

Ramroom