If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Read the community guidelines before posting ✨
Options
i think i have a problem...
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
a shopping problem that is. I'm serious...i cant keep hold of any money!!! How can i stop or fix this, i dont know what to say about it or even what to do about it....i just realised yesterday (when i was looking at my paypal records) that i have spent idiotic amounts of money. And thats without the money i spend it real life!!! In the past month i have spent £5,000 in real life and i feel so shit about it....now.
Oh and i thought this was about the best place to put this as its sort of an addiction...feel free to move it if its in the wrong place.
Oh and i thought this was about the best place to put this as its sort of an addiction...feel free to move it if its in the wrong place.
0
Comments
You can't just "force" yourself to not buy, that will work for a bit of time, but then you will go back to it. That's like trying not to pocket that shiny silverware if you are a cleptomanic. Maybe it works a few times, but then you give in to your greed, because you are not comfortable with the situation of not buying and there is a tension there.
You first have to believe and realize you don't need the shit you are buying, then go on from there.
Thanks for the advice strubble
What do you spend it on? I agree with getting a job, certainly makes you appreciate money when you have to work for it.
Usually when people go on shopping binges it's to compensate for underlying problems, maybe you want to address those first.
:yes: I did that for a year to get me out of real trouble - worked brilliantly and I even managed to save £200 by sticking each weeks leftover cash in a savings account
Try limiting yourself for one week on what you buy. Write everything you buy down, and write the reason you really need it. Anything that can wait until next week, put it off. Then do the same next week. Hopefully that way you'll end up buying things you need rather than just impulse shopping.
Having said that, I'm quite frugal, and if you can afford it theres no reason you can't spend some money on treating yourself. But maybe justify yourself.
Friday
Beauty salon - not spent more than £500 this week
or something like that.
The added bonus of writing it down as well is that at the end of the week you can look back and tally it up, and see what you spent where. If you're spending £1000s on clothes for example, then the next week you could make buying no or only completely necessary clothes your target.
Anyway, it's good that you want to change your spending habits - whether you can afford it or not it's always good to be sensible with money as it's a habit any kids you have eventually will pick up too. Some people really don't have a sense of how much money is worth because their parents threw cash at them - so to them you just swipe the magic card and it's yours.
You have no idea how lucky you are.
:yes:
I quite likw this idea.
I agree with Blagsta on this one
It sounds like there are other things to sort out, not just how much money you spend.
I can be a bit like this, but on a much smaller scale. If I have money I feel the need to spend it, I like to have nice things and I enjoy it, but I feel bad afterwards.
I just read a book, called Love is not enough: the smart woman's guide to making and keeping money
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Not-Enough-Womans-Keeping/dp/0007235186
I totally recommend it, it's changed the way I look at things.
There are so many things you could be using your money for.
I can understand if you don't want or feel the need to get a job, but you could find other ways to spend your time and maybe satisfy you (in ways that don't involve money)
Is that maybe the problem Amira ? You're bored at home all day so shop online for something to do ? I know i've gone over the shops and bought something before just for something to do.
How about some charity work ? Even if it's just helping make the teas at a drop in centre or something, it'll get you out the house and be a help to the local community.
Your sitting at home all day - failing to get pregnant (Or so you think) - feeling like a failure (which you really aren't) and then spending money to make yourself feel better and less bored.
I think whilst for some women taking time off from a stressful job in order to get pregnant may be the best thing but for you your job is to get pregnant and I think your getting overly stressed about it which is actually making your body less likely to get pregnant.
I think that you really need to do something else to occupy your time - voluntary work is a really excellent idea if you dont' want/need a job. Could you do some volunteering with children or something else your interested in.
Or alternatively how about doing some more studying - maybe an interior design course for the beautiful house your going to build.
I get how your feeling - its a kind of an indescribable - yucky this is all I've done and is not eactly bad but its not very productive but I can't quite put my finger on it - you really need to get out of the house and away from the shops/internet!
Well its a good thing i don't need your sympathy isn't it.
Apart from that i have been limitting my spending, i saw a gorgeous dress (cost about 700quid) but i stopped myself and went for something A LOT cheaper. I haven't bought anything online since posting this, except for last night (and i told my husband before i made the order) when i bought some books and DVDs. I found some money i can use to pay back half of what i used through paypal and will be depositting that in the next few days.
I am going to start a make up course which will take up a week of my mornings and i'm also going to sign up for a scuba diving course to get my PADI license, which should also take up at least a week. At least that way i will be waking up in the mornings and (hopefully) sleeping at night, which is the worst time for me and my online shopping.
I have been considering volunteer work or working from home, as well as getting another degree and after reading this i am really liking the idea of an interior design course. The only reason i havent started any volunteer work is because all of the places i can volunteer are beginning to end, places like Brownies, Rainbows, Scouts etc. But i will definitely be doing this in September when they all start up again.
Also, we've been talking and il hubby was thinking maybe instead of us blowing cash on eating out and stuff like that throughout the month we could really limit ourselves and then organise weekend breaks to places we love, like Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and other places which arent too far away. So hopefully that will keep me on track and help me to limit my spending.
Thank you to everyone who has replied positively and not judged me on this, i really appreciate it. I think actually posting this helped considerably and made me realise how bad my spending really is...which on its own has decreased my spending by a hell of a lot.
that sounds good, watch out on the diving thing, if you fall pregnant though, I have something in the back of my mind that says one shouldn't dive if pregnant. I am sure someone can google this, I can't be bothered at the mo.
I used to have a similar type of issue with money - not the same amounts though. I tried to hide it (like for a couple of years), but eventually, the only option was to talk to my wife about it. it was one of the hardest few weeks I have been through, but we have sorted it now and are much more open about spending.
p.s. it seems wrong talking about pregnancy now this is in the money section, but as Wyetry said, try to relax and not try too hard - in my experience trying too hard only made it more stressful and meant further to fall when it didn't happen or all went wrong.
Lots of those and other youth type things do things in the summer though to entertain children whilst their parents are at work - so i would look into that. Plus scouts go camping - eerr well maybe not in the desert though.
So true. If you had any idea what that kind of money means to other people, I would hope that you would act differently. You have no idea how hard some people work to earn what you happily fritter away inside a month.
If you say your husband has no idea- I would strongly advise that you face up to it sooner rather than later and tell him. I don't know who this money belongs to, but presumably it's not all yours as you don't earn it, I personally think he has a right to know.
Not wanting to sound too harsh, perhaps if you feel a real need to piss money, why not give some to charity? Either that, or send it this way!
what if it was a drunk or drink problem? would you be so harsh?
the fact is she has a problem/addiction, REGARDLESS of what it is
she wanted support and advice, not slagging off...she realises what she is doing is wrong...hence her post
to the OP.... if you are serious about volunterring....go here http://www.do-it.org.uk/
:yes:
I hope you manage to sort it out Amira. You might not be in debt yet, but with that sort of spending its not something most people can maintain.
I know its easy to spend online without realising, but you need to try and get some self control, and if you cant help buying things, then dont go on shopping sites at all.
I'm the same. However, because of the £200 limit per day that I can take from my bank account and the fact that I've put all but £200 into a savings account has stopped me going out and drawing loads of money to sepnd on stuff that I don't need.
I hope I havent overstepped the mark by mentioning this. Of course youre lucky to have the money to buy things like that, but if none of those things that money can buy are what you REALLY want to make you happy then its just going to be neverending.
Abbie x
Work out how much money you actually NEED to spend, on essentials like food, travel, rent if you pay it, etc. Then give youself half that again for nonessentials like clothes and books.
Set up two bank accounts, one where all your money is, and then a trickle-through account which has your budgeted amount of money coming into it on a weekly basis. Only have a card for your trickle account and only use that one. Then if there's an emergency or something you really really want (as in REALLY want, not just kind of fancy because you're bored), you can dip into the main account.
It's how I budget at uni and it works really well, because you kind of forget that the big account is there.