The modern day world is busy with constant pressures, challenges and even chaos. To many of us, facing these realities on a day-to-day basis can be exhausting and overwhelming. For some, the urge to escape these everyday realities through escapism has become too powerful to resist and in many cases, this escapism has come in unhealthy forms- one of which is shopping.

There is no denying that shopping can be a great source of satisfaction and pleasure for many. It can help to boost our self-esteem, provide much-needed rewards for our hard work and even provide fun and interesting entertainment. However, when shopping becomes something more than just a past-time, and you begin to use it as a form of escapism, then it can become potentially dangerous.

The fact is, shopping is a form of escapism. For some people, it can be an incredibly easy and convenient way to feel better, to distract themselves from the realities of the world, and even to escape pain and suffering. After all, who doesn’t feel good after buying something new and exciting?

The danger of shopping as a form of escapism lies in its potential for abuse. When used as a form of escapism, shopping becomes a way to escape difficult feelings and emotions- such as boredom, anxiety, loneliness, and sadness. Instead of dealing with these difficult emotions in a productive way, individuals turn to shopping as a source of distraction and gratification.

Sadly, this type of behavior can soon turn into an addiction. Research has found that when individuals use shopping as a way to cope with negative emotions, it can lead to increased spending, debt, and even depression.

The most important thing to remember is that it’s essential to identify and address any underlying issues or emotions before indulging in escapism through shopping. Talk to a friend or family member and seek advice from a qualified professional or doctor.

It’s also important to find healthier ways to cope with the stresses and challenges of everyday life. Exercise,

Shopping addiction is an impulse control disorder characterized by uncontrollable and excessive shopping. Shopping addiction affects people of all ages, genders, and incomes, and is often triggered by specific emotions. People with a shopping addiction may not understand their behavior and how it affects their lives, leading to potential severe financial issues and vastly diminished self-esteem.

However, the great news is that shopping addiction is a treatable condition. Here are some tips for how to escape a shopping addiction so you can get back to living a life free of excessive shopping.

1. Be Honest About Your Addiction

The first step to escaping your shopping addiction is to recognize that you have a problem. Uncontrolled buying is often driven by compulsive behavior, so confessing to yourself and to other people that you are struggling with shopping addiction can be a great first step on the road to recovery.

2. Get Professional Help

While admitting that you have an addiction is an important part of recovery, it may not be enough if your shopping addiction is significantly affecting your life. There are courses, therapists, and other professionals who are experienced with helping people with shopping addiction. They can provide support, education, and help structure a plan to increase self-control when it comes to shopping.

3. Find Fun and Healthy Alternatives

Many people turn to shopping to distract themselves from difficult thoughts and feelings and to seek an emotional high. Replacing shopping with other, healthier activities can be an important and effective tool for combating a shopping addiction. Exercise such as running or bike rides can boost serotonin and other feel-good chemicals in the brain and has been shown to be an effective way of dealing with difficult emotions. Other activities such as reading, cooking, watch movies, listening to music, or taking classes can also help to replace the pleasure from shopping.

4. Track Your Spending

Knowing what you spend your money on can be incredibly helpful for managing an urge to shop. Whether you use a budgeting app or an old-fashioned spreadsheet, tracking your spending can give you an objective view of how much money you are spending on unnecessary purchases. By looking at tangible data, it may become clear to you that your money can be used to pay bills rather than buying trinkets.

5. Etablished Financial Goals

Having financial goals can be an effective way of staying away from retail therapy. Figure out a long-term financial goal (such as saving for a retirement or down payment on a house) and use that to make decisions about your spending. If a purchase pushes you further away from achieving your goal, it may be a good time to pause and ask yourself whether the purchase is a good idea.

6. Create Consequences

If you’re unable to resist the urge to shop, create consequences for yourself for your actions. For example, you could agree that for every unnecessary purchase you make, you will donate some money to a charity of your choice. If you’re still unable to resist the urge, ask a trusted friend to help by withholding your credit cards until you can prove to them that you are in control of your shopping habits.

7. Practice Self-Control

Finally, practice self-control in all aspects of life. Self-control isn’t easy, and it takes practice to master. You can start by challenging yourself to avoid purchases that are unnecessary or indulgent, and then reward yourself if you reach the goal of staying within your budget.

Shopping addiction can be crippling, but with the right tools and the right attitude, you can break free from it. From tracking your spending and creating financial goals to seeking professional help and practicing self-control, there are many ways you can take control and begin to escape your shopping addiction.

One of the reasons why people get addicted to shopping is because they don’t know how to control their spending. This can be achieved by setting a budget and staying true to it.

In the long run, you will be surprised at how you’ve been able to take charge of your finances and achieve other goals that need money.

Here are some steps on how to create a budget

Track your spending

Knowing how much money goes in and comes out is important for you to prevent shopping addiction. Many people are unaware of how much they spend, and this is why it looks like they are not making enough money.

You might be surprised to discover that there are some unnecessary things that you should not be spending on.

More so, you might not be putting enough money aside for investments and savings. You can track your spending by listing your fixed expenses and variable expenses.

From your variable expenses, you will be able to eliminate some things that you should not be spending on.

Set realistic financial goals

If you have ever been in a tight corner where you needed emergency money, and you had no one to help you, it would become clear that you need to set financial goals. This begins by having a target for savings and investment.

Additionally, you need to keep some money aside for emergencies, not only for yourself but for your loved ones.

Setting short-term and long-term financial goals will help you to be more prudent.

Execute your plan to cut down on expenses

It is great to make plans to reduce your expenses, but it is more important to execute these plans so that you can prevent shopping addiction.

For instance, if the bills in the house are getting overbearing, you can consider getting someone to stay with you so that you can split the bills. This will help you save money on the plenteous bills and focus on your financial goals.

Many people are unaware that they have a shopping addiction. This is because they spend more than they are supposed to.

Eventually, they discover that even if they are making much money, it never seems to be enough. Knowing how to control your spending will prevent you from running into financial problems. Here are some tips that will help you get started.  

Monitor your spending

If you don’t know where your money is going, you will keep spending more than you bargained for. And since you enjoy spending, you might get addicted in the long run.

You will be surprised to discover that some of the little expenses can add up to something huge. Hence, you can use your bank’s mobile application or any online tool to monitor your transactions. This will help you know where your money is going.

Create a budget

Budgeting is a skill that everyone must have. One of the reasons why people have shopping addictions is because they didn’t set a budget. Budgeting allows you to know the important and less-important items you need.

Additionally, it helps you to have a rough estimate of how much you will spend when you go shopping. When you know how to set budgets each time, it would help you become more disciplined when it comes to savings and investments.

Go on a spending fast

You don’t have to go on shopping every time. You can decide to set a month or some months apart where you won’t buy any luxury item apart from your essential needs.

This means you might have to cut down on eating out, entertainment, new clothes, shoes, etc. Doing this will help you gain a sense of what is taking your money, and how to control your appetite for shopping.

Cutting down on your spending and modifying your spending habits can be challenging.

However, with dedication and discipline, you will be able to control your excessive spending and use your money for more productive things.

Having a budget is the best way to reduce your spending, and it is the best way to prevent someone from addicted to shopping. Primarily, a budget is a financial plan that comprises intended purchase of products and services, which are often deemed as important.

With a financial plan, it would be difficult to spend outside your budget because you are working with a plan.

When you want to go shopping, it is important you have a budget because it makes your planning easier. If you are not able to get everything on your budget, it is not bad as you can always revisit your budget when you have more money.

During shopping, you would stress yourself less because the price and quality of the intended product has been sorted out. So all you need do is select all the needed products and make payment.

With this, your shopping has become easier, and you save yourself the time and stress of pacing around the shopping mall, thinking of what to buy.

In addition, a budget helps you to set your priorities. A good number of times, we do not know what we want, and when we go and shop, we end up getting things that are not really important at that moment. Before we know it, we end up getting stranded when our money gets exhausted.

Also, a budget helps you to control your money. With a budget, you know the whole amount needed for shopping, and you know how much you need to save. When a budget is well drafted, the owner assumes full control of his or her money when shopping.

When a budget is in place, it is very difficult for an individual to be addicted. And this is usually one of the measures put in place to help a shopping addict.

When they are in rehab for their addiction, they would be thought how to create and use a budget, to prevent future unnecessary expenses.

An individual who has shopping addiction is suffering from a compulsive and obsessive buying disorder, which is shown by unnecessary spending of money and purchase of products.

This behavior is known as shopping addiction. And the worst part is, there are adverse effects that are attached to this.

For some people, they see shopping as a means to rid themselves of negative emotions like anger, anxiety, depression and the likes. However, the relief attached to this is short-lived and there are chances that there would be problems in the long run.

Similar to other forms of addiction, shopping addiction can destroy the life of a person.

People who are addicted to shopping would always want to get the latest products, not minding how they go about getting the money. Moreso, when they are not able to get their desired item, they end up getting sad and eventually depressed.

People who are addicted to shopping are likely to have bad relationships, out of jobs and the likes. In addition, there is a likely chance for the individual to be bankrupt. This is because, they would use every single penny they have to satisfy their desire.

Also, there is a tendency for people addicted to shopping to suffer from various forms of abuse. For some of them, they would strive to finish paying off their debts and it lands them in more debts. Because of this, they would not spend ample time with their family and friends as they used to.

It would get to a point where they would start telling lies because they do not want their loved ones to find out what they have been up to. Shopping addicts would never seize to run out of financial problem and the only way out for them, is to see a mental health counselor.

The first thing they would learn, is the root cause of their addiction. And from there, they would put proficient measures in place that would help them control their urge to shop frequently.  

THE DISADVANTAGES OF NOT HAVING A BUDGET

A budget can be defined as an estimation of the proposed expenses and revenue which are bound to occur over a given period of time in the future.

It is mostly complied and reassessed from time to time. Budgets can be done on an individual basis, it can also be done for a family, a business entity, the government, the country amongst others. Basically, anyone who has a major or minor involvement with money, would certainly need a budget.

Having a budget is essential, as it helps you to effectively watch and plan your spending. However, if you do not have a budget, you would realize that your financial prudence is nothing to write home about, as you would spend more than required.

Below are the disadvantages which are inherent in not having a budget:

• You would easily get into debt: This is one of the common happenings when you do not have a budget. When you have various expenses, and you find it hard to arrange them in order of preference, you would realize that there is a need to fully satisfy yourself. Hence, you would find yourself borrowing so that you can buy all that you need. However, when there is a budget in place, it would help you plan your spending; you would buy what you can afford in the present, and get the rest in the future.

• You would be taken aback by surprise expenses: Not having a budget implies that, there would be times when some expenses would spring up, and you would not know how to go about them. This is because there is no budget in place. A budget helps you to plan well ahead of time. Also on a budget, there would also be the inclusion of miscellaneous which suggests that, in case of unplanned expenses, you would be able to stand up to them within your financial capacity.

• You would not be able to save: When you do not have a budget, you would realize that it is very hard for you to save. This is based on the fact that the absence of the budget, did not pave way for you to track your spending pattern. You would be surprised to discover one day that you have nothing to account for in your savings.

THE IMPORTANCE OF HAVING A BUDGET BEFORE SHOPPING

A budget is known to be a financial plan which is meant for a defined period of time. It could also include the projected sales revenues and volumes, expenses and costs and a host of other factors. Families, organizations and the government often make use of a budget to make strategic plans of their events or activities.

A budget can also be said to be a sum of money which is apportioned for an intended purpose, and also the abridgement of proposed expenditures with proposals and how to achieve them.

When it comes to any shopping activity, a budget is an essential component, and it is essential that before shopping, there is a thorough budget which contains everything you want to buy.

Below are the major reasons why a budget is needed before shopping:

• It makes shopping simpler: When you work with a budget, you can be sure that the entire process of shopping becomes way easier. When there is a budget on ground, you would not have to stress yourself during the course of shopping, because you have sorted out the price and quantity which you need. Hence, all you need do is, pick the items you want accordingly.

• It sets priority: Most times when we want to go shopping, we know what we want. However, there are times when the money we have is not enough for all the items we want. Hence, during shopping, we end up getting stranded when our money gets exhausted. Having a budget prevents that, as you would have everything planned out in order of priority before going shopping.

• Control of your money: One feature which a budget gives, is total control of your money. When you have a budget, you would be able to know the exact amount needed for shopping, and also to save. A budget which is well stated, gives the owner full control of his or her shopping funds.

• Aids you to save money: Having a budget helps you to save money. When a budget has been done before shopping, it would be required that you stick strictly to it while shopping, and it would be easy for you not to exceed your budget.

Many people struggle with the impulse to shop, but in the midst of such might not realize when it’s spiraled out of control—and has formed into that of a full blown addiction. In fact, oftentimes, it is dismissed, and instantly zipped shut—within a wallet full of accumulating receipts. Consequently, this leaves little room for one to recognize certain behaviors, which might be the signal of a more serious problem. But, once one comes to terms with such, he/she can receive the help he/she needs a whole lot quicker. In turn, these nine signs are just a few of what one must look out for if he/she feels she is experiencing a shopping addiction.

First and foremost is “shopping or spending money as a result of feeling angry, depressed, anxious, or lonely”. Second is “having arguments with others about one’s shopping habits”. Third is “feeling lost without credit cards—actual going into withdrawal without them”. Fourth is “buying items on credit, rather than with cash”. Fifth is “describing a rush or a feeling of euphoria with spending”. Sixth is “feeling guilty, ashamed, or embarrassed after a spending spree”. Seventh is “lying about how much money was spent. For instance, owning up to buying something, but lying about how much the item actually cost”. Eighth is “thinking obsessively about money”. And ninth is “spending a lot of time juggling accounts or bills to accommodate spending”.

In terms of physically, the emotional response of a shopaholic causes them to make purchases—heavily based on feeling. For example, they might find themselves feeling down, and in response to such buy a series of items online, or in-store, in an attempt to cheer themselves up. But then, when they are unable to buy something that they want at the time, it can cause them to feel a great amount of melancholy. In addition to sadness, it can even cause them to feel tempered, due to the inability to obtain the item—no matter whether it’s clothes, house appliances, jewelry, etc.

In conclusion, those who struggle with such should not feel embarrassed and ashamed—or feel as though their addiction is of less importance (in comparison with those who are addicted to something else, such as alcohol, drugs, etc). Every addiction is significant and matters, therefore the sooner that the individual can come to terms with his/her behavior—and the reason behind it—the quicker he/she will be able to receive successful treatment/therapy.

In our current day and age, online shopping has taken the world by storm. For, it’s oftentimes much easier to search for one particular item—and/or items—through the internet, rather than to look for each in store. Not only that, but everything is at the click of a finger, making it painless for one to filter through a number of factors—such as cost and color—while effortlessly adjusting it to his/her liking. Consequently, even though this is an efficient resource—when used in moderation—it can pose as a disadvantage for those who struggle with shopping addictions, as it allows them to make purchases right from home.

In turn, the first way that online shopping enables addiction is through the use of algorithm or advertisement. With this being said, we find that certain materials may appear in our browser—in the form of an advertisement—shortly after we have searched it. Due to the storing of such information, this can be a danger to those who see an item, and instinctively act on purchasing it, based on emotion. The visual alone can trigger one’s addiction, making it difficult for him/her to say no, and/or turn his/her head away because of the mood shift he/she might feel within that moment.

The second way that online shopping enables addiction is through the use of auto fill. For, this gives shoppers the opportunity to easily purchase with one click, a simple swipe, or thumb print. He/she can even store his/her credit or debit card information, and set whichever one he/she chooses as his/her default method of payment. As a result of such, this makes it even less of a challenge for one to buy an item, without first thinking of his/her actions—and/or the consequences that follow.

The third way that online shopping enables addiction is through sales and apps. It is through such that individuals can receive deal notifications on their phone of the latest sale going on at their favorite store, or in regards to an item that they may have been wanting for a prolonged amount of time. Unfortunately, this may cause problems for addicts as they might see such as an opportunity to save, but spend a substantial amount of money in response—more than they would have otherwise.

In conclusion, online shopping can serve as a useful tool, but can also cause harm to those who are compulsive buyers. That’s why it is important for individuals who struggle with some form of shopping addiction to be careful what they subject themselves to online. For, there are a variety of triggers that can affect them, making it hard for them to resist the urge—and/or temptation—to buy.