Stop trying to rationalize credit purchases, getting rid of all the credit cards and switching to cash only. Not even the checkbook or debit card has to be kept handy.
Track down every dollar spent, analysing your spending patterns.
Understand your mind and the need to shop, training yourself to stop, just like getting over a smoking addiction.
Ensure that the temptation areas, like Amazon, or shopping malls, are not easy to access or visit.
Remind yourself of your future goals.
Ask for help from a close friend, or even professional counselling.
Shopping might be one of the most socially acceptable addictions, but it's still a very powerful one that up to 6% of our population struggles with. Shopping addiction is a predominantly female problem, with around 90% of shopaholics being women.
Shopping can be socially acceptable because consumerism is continually pushed on us in the forms of posters, adverts, and signs.
Shopping is also a way of life: You need food and clothing from stores. Even if you try to stop compulsive buying by avoiding the stores in person, there is still a world of online shopping.
Addiction describes trying something, becoming emotionally and physically dependent on it, and then becoming psychologically and physically addicted to it. People who struggle with addiction have explained feeling euphoric, elevated, happy, complete, and whole when they partake in their addiction. Compulsion refers to a specific, intense urge to do something. People who struggle with a compulsion explain feeling immense relief and relaxation from completing behaviors that they feel compelled to do.
To quit bad habits, make them so hard to do that even thinking about starting it leaves you exhausted. Follow these 2 simple steps to remove bad habits from your life. And some recommendations on to remove those habits by adding layers of "friction".
Grab a piece of paper and write down all the habits that you think are unhealthy and want to get rid of. Once you have finished, rank them in order. Now start with number #1. Forget the rest for now.
Add layers of “friction” to your vices to make it harder for yourself to keep doing them. Keep adding layers of friction of time, money, or both.
I'll be the first to admit that I live frugally. I like vacations and fashion, and one day plan to own a home, but I'm a millennial living in an expensive city, so most days, these goals feel like distant mirages in the desert.
There are plenty of financial and budgeting tools and apps that can help us manage our funds, keep track of our expenses, and trigger us when we are off-track.
Simple hacks like carrying a debit card or cash instead of a credit card, or deleting our card details from shopping sites can help us avoid spending impulsively.