Have you ever met a friend or maybe your loved ones who shops a lot? Its not uncommon to see many women who shop every week. The shopaholic syndrome these days is the most common among women.
According to Wikipedia, a shopaholic is someone with a shopping addiction. This is an informal term for someone with a compulsive buying disorder.
This excessive habit of shopping spree can stress out their men partner or people around them. Thus, the awareness when this toxic habit is above the limit should quickly be made aware it is too late when huge amounts of overdue credit card bills come.
In order for us to solve and cure this toxic shopaholic habit, we first need to know the signs of the serious shopaholic syndrome.
Signs of the Shopaholic Syndrome
1. Shopping When Feeling Stress
In life, all of us face stressful moments. We release stress in different ways. Some of us would play games, exercise, play with our pets or sleep to release the tension.
For shopaholics, they tend to start shopping impulsively when they feel stress. This uncontrollable behavior is very difficult to shake off.
This is because this is their habit of releasing stress. A habit is hard to break. For the shopaholics, when buying things, it gave them a sense of fulfillment for the difficult times they face.
This means, they think by rewarding themselves by buying something they see and like. It could offset the bad events that causes stress in their life.
The self-reward system by shopping seems to cheer them up, thus they get addicted to shopping. Plus, with the current online shopping platform which is a easily available made this habit even worse. It is so convenient with just a few click via your smartphone.
2. High Frequency in Shopping Non-basic necessities
Shopping for basic things for living like groceries for cooking, household items etc. is not an issue if it is done frequently. However, shopping for clothes and designer handbags are not basic needs to live. These are luxuries and should not be cultivated in high frequency if you are just a middle-class earner.
Middle class earners who shopped this way end up with piled up credit cards debt. The shopping spree only gives them temporary happiness. Later on, it adds them financial stress which is detrimental in many aspects.
3. Problem paying Debts on time
The common signs if you have a close relative or friend with this shopaholic syndrome is they have problems meeting the credit cards due dates. They will get panic during the due date period and start regretting for the shopping spree they did.
The cycle pay repeat after paying off the credit card debts, thus it’s an addiction or habit important to shake off the soonest possible.
4. Rather Spend Money on Shopping instead of Meals
A shopaholic would rather spend money on materials items as compared to experiences and food. This is because they receive a sense of rewarding when physical items come to their hands.
It is a type of feeling they feel addicted too when adding items to their shopping cart. When shopping online, they get excited when the postman arrives. The process gets more exciting when they get to unbox their parcels in a weekly basis.
Tips to Cure Shopaholic Syndrome
1. Ask yourself the 3 Questions
A shopaholic has a compulsive shopping disorder which make them never think properly before purchasing items. The 3 important questions to make them realize if they are over buying is.
Those questions are: “Do you need this to live?”. “Have you already had one of these at Home?” and “What is the Usefulness of this item?”
These questions should be reminded multiple times during the first phase of change to shake off the impulsive buying. The sudden realization will naturally wake them up.
It will take time but taking a small step of change could create a mountain of effect time after time. Be patient and trust the process, do not give up.
2. Knowing the Root cause
According to surveys, many shopaholics had revealed the root cause of the behavior is they feel a sense of “Something was missing in their life”. For example, some of them mentioned they felt lonely, unhappy in a current relationship they were in.
Thus, they are trying to find a hit of happiness at the bottom of a shopping bag. There will always be a never-ending shopping list. They got addicted to the feeling of after purchasing the must-have item, makes them happy
3. Stop the Credit Card service permanently
Those with really bad money spending habits should opt for only debit card. This mode of payment is much safer during the recovery stage to shake off the overspending habits.
Credit card is causing a lot of debts to people with serious shopaholic syndrome. Money is not owed yet but spent via a loan from banks. Using debit cards will help to give them a realization that they only have this allocated sum to spend and should not exceed the expense.
Debit card could help in the control of the urge, as compared to credit card which gives false impression that we have more money in hand.
4. Declutter your Closet
One important step to realize that a shopaholic had too many duplicate items is to have decluttering session. In this process, they will then notice how much excess or damage done to their money pockets.
If you notice, how much extras you have in hand. You need to consistently remind yourself that you have enough and quit shopping the duplicates.
5. Swap the Toxic Habit with Something Else
In the process to cure this toxic shopaholic habit, we need to divert our brain’s attention to some other activity. Since this habit is a habit to relieve stress, lets opt for something healthier each time we tend to shop.
For example, we can swap this shopping habit by spending time by playing with our pet dog, workout in the park, playing video games or anything else that do not involve money to relieve your stress.
A healthy replacement hobby would be hard at the initial stage of change but starting the small steps would lead to great change to cure your shopaholic habit.
6. Have a Big Goal to Motivate You to Save More
Many of this shopaholic have simple mindset with no big goals. They maybe lack motivation to save money thus, by providing a goal and vision which could motivate them to save money could cure them.
For example, young ladies could be motivated by saving money for their future wedding or future entrepreneurial business plan. Their closed ones should start giving them more talks and advise of a possible future for them to look forward.
This method would be effective because they lack motivation and goal. That is why, having a big goal set for them is important as it could really help them to stay motivated and stay in control.
Be sure to set realistic huge goals that do not disappoint as false hopes are not going to work. If they found out they were deceived, the impulsive buying will come back and could even come back ten times worse than before.
Bottom Line
The shopaholic syndrome is very common mostly among women but also do happen to some men. We should all be aware on ourselves and loved ones if any who is suffering from this syndrome.
Do not scold them for being this way, it is very uncontrollable. They just need another way to vent their stress. Be patient and considerate with someone who is facing this issue.
After all, among all the options to cure the shopaholic syndrome, self awareness and strong determination to change does matter!
