25
Mar
An addiction to shopping may sound silly to someone who has never become a victim of it but it’s a really serious thing for those compulsive spenders who can’t seem to reign in their spending. There are real life stories out there of people who have literally spent millions of dollars that they didn’t have because they had a shopping addiction that they couldn’t break. It was bad enough when these people had only the Home Shopping Network to enable them but these days they’ve also got the Internet at their fingertips. This has spawned a whole new type of problem called Internet Shopping Addiction.
What Is an Internet Shopping Addiction?
As the name suggests, an Internet shopping addiction is an addiction to shopping online. An addiction means that the shopping is causing damage to your life in some way and yet you can not stop yourself from doing it. In this case, you may find that you’re going into some serious debt or fighting with your spouse a lot about the money that you spend shopping online. Despite this, you can’t seem to stop yourself from pushing that button to add things to your online shopping cart.
What to Do to Break an Internet Shopping Addiction
As with any addiction, the habit of compulsive Internet shopping is hard to break but it can be done. Here’s a look at the first ten things that you need to do right now if you even think that you might have a problem with an Internet Shopping Addiction:
1. Tell someone that you have an Internet Shopping Addiction. The first thing that you have to do to break any addiction is to admit that you have a problem. You need to admit this out loud to someone else so that you can be held accountable for the problem.
2. Add up the math. Take a good hard look at your credit card statements, debit card information and PayPal accounts. See how much you’ve spent on online shopping in the past month and the past year. See what you’ve purchased. Getting a good hard look at what you’re spending can make you better understand that this is a serious problem and that you need to get a grip on it.
3. Establish some rules for your online shopping. Most people won’t go cold turkey so you need to set some rules. Create a limit for what you’ll spend each month or limit yourself to only shopping at certain online stores.
4. Figure out a way to enforce those rules. The problem with addiction is that you’ll want to break those rules so you have to find a way to enforce them. Hide all of your credit cards except one with a limit that is lower than your monthly budget or block yourself from certain sites using computer blocking technology.
5. Delete all of your favorite shopping sites from your favorites. Make it harder for yourself to visit the sites where you spend the most money.
6. Use the Angry Email rule. We all know that we shouldn’t send impulsive angry emails to our bosses or our children’s teachers because we usually don’t mean what we say. Most of us take a breather and wait before composing potentially dangerous emails. Get in the same habit with online shopping. Walk away from the computer and consider your purchase.
7. Get out of the house. The more that you’re home, the more that you’ll be online. The more that you’re online, the more likely it is that you’ll shop online. Get away from home, go get some exercise and don’t spend that money.
8. Implement tools for saving money online. You probably aren’t going to give up all Internet shopping so you need to start getting in the habit of using smart online shopping tools like discount codes, comparison shopping and good auction sites. Be careful, though, because it can be easy to worsen your addiction with mis-use of these things.
9. Assess your spending. This isn’t fun but it’ll give you a good understanding of why you have this addiction in the first place. Look closely at when you shop and why. Many people shop because they get an emotional thrill out of it or they’re getting revenge against a partner by spending money. Address the underlying issues surrounding your Internet Shopping Addiction.
10. Get professional help. If you can’t get your Internet Shopping Addiction under control then it may be time to get professional help from a support group or counselor.
Signs That You Have an Internet Shopping Addiction
Everyone who shops online can benefit from looking at the above rules as ways to reduce their online spending. But how do you know when you truly have an addiction that needs some more serious help to be resolved? If you literally can’t stop yourself from online shopping then you have a problem. If you ever miss work or activities with friends to stay home and shop online then you have a problem. If people in your life are telling you that you have a problem then there’s a good chance that you have a problem. And if that little thing in your gut is saying that something is wrong, well, you should probably listen. Take the problem seriously and you’ll be able to avoid a lot of financial difficulty in the future.
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1
How can this website even dare discuss people’s money spending problems when on the right hand side of this screen is an advertised list of 35 so called popular shops? What an appropriate example to set by those who clearly care more about themselves, greedily raking in as much money as possible from what ever means they can. In summary, one hundred per cent hypocrisy and one hundred per cent irrelevant rubbish.