Hi, I too used to have a problem with shopping ( and still do a bit)...for over 50 years now...but I sort of found a way to deal with it.
At least a way not to spend so much money. For one thing I do not allow myself to have any credit cards.It's totally cash or nothing. What's bad is when a store will take a debit card. So one way I've learned to deal with this shopping problem is that I get $20 - $30 in cash, typically in $1s and $5 & maybe a $10 and lots of change.
Then I go to a thrift store or a large $.99 cent store. It's really amazing how much time you can waste in any of those stores and not spend a lot of money.
Several years ago when I was in college getting my degree, when I was really stressed out, I would spend 8+ hrs walking around 1 thrift store. It got to be a joke with the ladies who worked there that I should get a pay check since I had put in the hours, a number of times, but the good part is that I never spent more than $10.- $20 at a time and being a student on a limited budget, at best that was 1x a week.
Of course that method won't help if you shop every day, unless you have lots of money just to blow. In that case you need someone who will just give you so much cash to spend each day and not let you have any credit cards or debit cards or checks you can sign and then you will have to learn to exercise self control.
(In the event you don't have anyone who can or will monitor your spending money and or you have lots of money you can just throw away, then think about
helping someone who has a great need, but no means to help themselves. There are lots of people like that. You can call any cities social service department and they should be able to help you find people or places that would be more than happy with your help...(as long as you are not hurting yourself and causing yourself or family financial hardship) You could make it a project to help a specific person or home. Not only will you put your shopping enthusiasium to good use, you will also derive much gratitude and positive strokes from doing so, but only if you are not hurting yourself or anyone else by your shopping.)
Assuming you are like most people with a shopping problem...who are not OCD....something that has been a big help to me is that I've found that having limited money when I want to buy certain things, does make me exercise self control in spending so I can purchase what I want.
After of few years of being on a tight budget I also learned to ask myself, no matter how cute I thought something looked on me, I would ask myself, where was I going to ware it and when. If I could not come up with a good answer, no matter how much I liked it and could make excuses why I should let myself buy it...I put it back.
I also realized that most of the time, I could go back to the store and hopefully it would still be there if I really wanted it that badly the next day. The following day, 99.% of the time, I could not remember why I even wanted to buy what ever it was that I'd so loved the day before and it was quite easy just to forget it about
it.
That's how I deal with the shopping issue now.
Something else I did in the beginning of trying to deal with my shopping problem, was when I went to a store, I would put something in my basket that I wanted and walk around the store for another 1 - 2hrs before allowing myself to buy that item. That also slowed down my buying.
I also would put an item on hold for 24 hrs if the store would allow me to do so. If in 24 hrs I still really wanted it, I went back and got it and if I didn't go back and buy it, I would call the store, thank them for holding it for me and tell them I'd decided against it.
All these tricks have helped me. I hope some of them will help you.
Post Edited (2Hawaii) : 2/3/2012 3:25:53 AM (GMT-7)