Curbing Excessive Spending Habit

Obsessive spending can result in serious debt problems and a sense of mixed up budgeting priorities, such as taking care of wants before needs rather than tending to needs and savings first and budgeting appropriately for wants. These difficulties can result in bigger long-term problems such as relationship issues or the inability to pay back debts that are owed.

People, who have an uncontrollable spending problem, always have a feeling to spend excessive amounts of money on items and services that are unnecessary in their lives in an attempt to accomplish an inner emotional desire.

The money spending problem may be as obvious as spending large amounts through mesmerising shopping for unnecessary items in hopes that they can find their happiness or sense of self worth through that purchase.

If you recognise this problem within yourself or within someone you know, here are some ideas for the compulsive spender to use for recognising where the problem stemmed from and how to overcome their addiction to compulsive spending, according to experts.

Track your spending and emotions

Keep track of your purchases or transactions and how much you spend. Realise how you feel before you decide to make a purchase or go gambling, how it feels when you’re thinking about making the transaction, how you feel immediately after the transaction, and how you feel about the transaction later in that day, the day after, or a week after. At the end of each week, add up your total transaction amounts and consider how much of your emotional needs were actually fulfilled.

Understand the cycle of spending addiction

The reason why compulsive spending is considered an addiction is due to the cycle that all addictions form. The cycle tends to start with a situation that leads to a feeling of emptiness, incompleteness, or negative self worth. This feeling, which stems from prior and unresolved issues, leads the compulsive spender to believe that if they had something, it would fulfill them in some way and make them feel more complete and worthy. Upon the time of the transaction, the compulsive spender will feel elated, powerful and fulfilled. But then the financial issues arise and the item no longer leaves them feeling sated, thus the negative feelings begin to rise again, putting them back at the beginning of the cycle. The cycle repeats itself over and over with a life of its own. The cycle can only be stopped when the compulsive spender does something to redirect the patterns and throw the cycle off of the addiction track.