Battling Addiction

By Lucy Costigan

People engage in compulsive buying or spending on occasion, particularly at Christmastime when they get caught up in the excitement or pressure of buying. While most people keep their spending under control, some may develop a more serious problem. They buy far more than they need and most of it they will never use. It sometimes results in thousands of euros of debt. This is called oniomania or compulsive shopping.

In a society that thrives on materialism, compulsive shopping is frequently overlooked as a problem and may even be treated as a joke. Compulsive shoppers are often dismissed as being financially irresponsible. However compulsive shopping can be devastating not only financially, but also mentally and emotionally.

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By Karla Ruzycki-Davis

Do you shop for therapy or necessity? In a day and age with so much to do and see, and buy and become it isn’t surprising that we as North American’s purchase tens of thousands of dollars per year in stuff. We never actually realize how much we have consumed until it is time to move! Why is it that while others have so little we all continue to spend like money is going out of style? Some shop for groceries, which are a necessity. Some shop for Christmas gifts, birthday presents and others just shop to shop. That’s right, shopping as a form of entertainment to pass the time. Find out if you are a good shopper or if you are shopping for therapeutic reasons that you may have never even considered before. Shopping is fun, just don’t make it all that you do for fun.

Signs that You Might be Shopping for Therapy:

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By Jean Chatzky
“Today” financial editor
Updated: 8:41 a.m. ET March 13, 2006

Think you can’t kick your shopping addiction? You haven’t met Mary Carlomagno, who says that until just a few years ago, shopping was her single biggest vice. Today? It isn’t even on the list.

Carlomagno was 35 and stuck in a major rut. She had lived in the same apartment for 10 years — and hated it since the day she moved in — worked at the same job for eight years and in the same industry for 14 years. She wanted to shake things up, but didn’t know how. And though the thought of moving to the woods to find herself had crossed her mind, she was too scared to do anything that major.

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