As long as you’re not going into debt or neglecting your savings, you should be happily spending your extra money guilt-free on the things you love~Forbes

But you got to understand a basic rule if you intend to up level your lifestyle.

“Poor people SPEND their money and save what’s left. Rich people SAVE their money and spend what’s left.” – Jim Rohn

Well, Lately one of my closest friends asked in our best friend’s  WhatsApp group “Anam Cara”-

“Is there any way to control this shopping crave?”  

No, on a funny note was the reply  from all!

Though I do not find myself trapped much  in this crave as of now but my previous self did have this quite a lot. Somehow it got limited with the passing time  as I  discovered some creative things that my free time started keeping me occupied with.

Starting this  blog as a creative outlet to express my perspectives and explore my writing passion, I found it helped me distance myself from squandering hours on shopping apps and strolling around the city.

But that was simply not enough to put forward and bring out an impact, so I thought of giving a genuine attempt by writing a blog post on how you can beat your shopping addiction.

And what I figured out was, it all starts up there in your mind. A serious shift in your mindset is what will help you direct towards healthier shopping; one that would be no less than a treat,  a stress buster and not just about wasting money and time.

So what’s a shopping addiction?

When the aftermath of shopping topples your finances, it no longer pleases you with the purchases. 

Shopping that has exceeded your budget, took more than required time in choosing things and brought home the things that were not much needed at the very moment fail to give you that satisfying happy vibe and instead fill you with repentance.

So what makes you a Shopping Maniac?

The social, personal and economic state of your life  is what collectively contributes to the abnormal hikes in your shopping graph.

Let’s dig a little deeper into this.

SOCIAL

Social setup is what makes us emotionally bound to physical appreciation. 

Each one of us yearns to stand out in the crowd when it comes to lifestyle and that somehow  turns out to be a rat race.

But what makes you go so crazy shopping that you even forget to keep your head above water? 

The point when your social set up drives you competitive in terms of material things, you  get trapped into  this  shopping crave every now and then. This is when you  start shopping out of temptation , overlooking your  budget limit too.

Seeing people adorned amazingly and having the beautiful patterns popping up on the internet globe are enough to trigger  you with this shopping crave! And this makes it hard for you to control your thermostat for  shopping.

The craving to match or even up level your material standards with respect to people around make you hoard things that you would not necessarily require.

PERSONAL

Your subconscious mind finds shopping the easiest remedy to tap into that happy mode if anything is disturbing you.

One lands up shopping as a means of relieving  stress, loneliness and depression. 

The urge to shop is usually strongest during moments of depression, sadness, or anger. Shopping addiction has also been associated with holidays that reinforce compulsive shopping.

Some people contain their shopping problem to online shopping. 

The ability to quietly and quickly buy more through online merchants can lead to shopping sprees in the middle of the night, during work breaks, or from the comfort of the living room sofa. These sprees are often extremely financially devastating and can be hard to control.

Then there are also times when you are at rest from work and the easiest thing you find is to window shop and you are set to splurge.

This is when you get trapped in  shopping crave and you land up  shopping without planning.

When shopping  shifts from “planned shopping” to “shop when felt tempted” the shopping graph hikes and the budget is shaken.

ECONOMIC

More the tax giver you become, more the number of purchases you come up with.

YES, Your Economic state is the main key.

Addiction to shop rests quite a large on your economic status.You will be clueless how the hike in your salary has slowly started fooling you.

You start finding yourself secure enough with the number of currencies your bank account is being credited with, that you make those fearless purchases but in the process you are falling into an addiction that may exceed to a point where your finances can go upside down.

To add further,  how many liabilities you own, also determine your shopping frequency.If you are earning and have someone else in the family to take care of the finances, you are prone to fall into this  shopping trap more easily.

Such shopping patterns no longer remain healthy.  

As the famous quote by Hippocrates says, “Everything in excess is opposed by Nature”.

Truth is, the joy in material things is temporary!

But what keeps intact the charm of these material joys is how you keep them Balanced, else you will have everything but not the joy to have them.

And then there are market games too.Market works on how it can take away your shopping control.

Did you know the market works less on manufacturing but more on displaying the manufactured to catch the maximum eyes. This is how the market plays.

You are tempted by the way they are showcased, making you eager enough to not sit back without buying them.

The way things are showcased on online portals and shopping store outlets, you are tempted to a point that you make those  random purchases when you had no plans, no occasion, no requirement but just a craving to see  things owned.

SALE

What does this look like?

Easy on pocket, right ?

Discount and sale popups are the real triggers  when you have no room to stuff more. These tempting  discounts are  enough to make you feel that you are being benefited but reality is,  market has played smart.

Caution:Sales are not there for you to have profit but for the market to earn potential buyers.

So do you feel your shopping  is taking a toll on your mental health and finances?

If yes, then  you got to strategically analyse your shopping patterns and track the loop for things that contribute in pulling you more towards hoarding things.

Well whatever the reason your  shopping addiction  has, the idea is to limit it and take charge of it.

Everything done keeping in mind the word “Balance”, will never let things go wrong,  and it’s when the balance goes wrong everything else does.

So how can you work to have a balanced, smart and happy shopping?

Beat your Shopping addiction by working upon these  5 remedies:

1. Understand the fact, “Market will never be short of your choices”: 

Getting tempted towards things to a point that you anticipate,  you won’t find such another is when we can say ,”Market is doing a great job”

 Whenever you come across something of your kind,a beautiful material piece be it some apparel, home decor or some ornament, you are so magically  swayed by the mere glimpse of it that the very first emotion that triggers you, makes you dive into a world of your own imagination.

Wowww,  it looks amazing!! Isn’t it quite different?

I’m sure it will  look fabulous…

 I’ll have a great collection..

Wearing it will make me look sheer stunning and elite…

Hence the emotion is concluded with ” I just can’t let it go”. Period.

Now what has actually happened is, you have been trapped by this material beauty with a thought that if you don’t buy it, you are gonna lose all that you just imagined the very moment.

This is how the business market plays with your swinging minds.

 The stunning thing that just caught your eyes and heart is a drop in the ocean and getting stuck with this drop is making the rest of it far fetched, as every drop costs you your pocket.

 If you have no such requirement to buy it, then buying it would  make it just another stuff in your wardrobe which surely you will have no idea when to wear.

The point to be understood is that if you will not resist this emotion of not avoiding the purchase just on these tempting mere glimpses every time, you will develop a trait of hoarding things.

Chances are they might not get their turn.

Market works to show you the best product but it keeps working on itself to deliver better than previous.

Hence think before you make those random  purchases.

2. Schedule your shopping and plan the budget:

Shopping makes you feel light, releases your stress, energizes you with the freshness of  new purchases but did you know how it can make you feel if it’s overdone?

It becomes a repentance, a guilt.

A big reason why people feel guilty about spending money is they fear that it could have been going towards something better or more important.

This feeling is usually the result of a lack of planning. When you’re not sure if the 100 bucks that you just spent on shoes was part of your grocery budget or dream-home down payment, no wonder you feel guilty.

Guilt penetrates when your shopping exceeds and topples your other major goals you have planned your savings for.

To combat this, you’ve got to limit impulse purchases by having a plan for each penny in your account.

I understand it’s not easy to wait for some festival or some occasion to give you that shopping treat. Material dependency for happiness though temporary but is unavoidable to a certain extent.

We are not here to renunciate, if the world and family is what we choose and opt for.

Hence material joy with defined healthy limits is perfectly fine.

But what can we do with these random shopping cravings, definitely not turn up buying on every temptation, every glimpse, on every shopping mood.

The way out is “Schedule your shopping and plan your budget”.

Irrespective of any occasion, plan a month in the year or a quarter or in six months as per your financial status, that will be your shopping month treat.

 So how will it work?

Suppose if it’s scheduled for the month of March, plan a budget for it.

Keep things in your wish list and monitor what’s the best in minimum price you can have.

So when March is there, take a break and enjoy the purchase with the satisfaction of not splurging much and not squandering too much of your  time.

3. Do not hoard your wish list, you will fall prey to market tactics:

I Am sure you want to have the best within your budget and not merely collect at any price.

Despite that, your wish list makes you go off track and you tend to collect more than you want and continue adding to it.

If you understand the market psychology, you will find how smartly they plan to grab your attention and then provide you with enormous ways to keep it preserved too. Wish list is one major strategy that looks like a tool for customers but in the big picture, wish list is the game changer.

It gives you such easy access to save every second thing you are caught by, thus making it almost a mini shopping portal of your own.

Yes we filter the wish list before making the final purchase, but did you know bigger is your  wish list more items will fall into your final purchase.

To cut this down to align with your finances, you’ve got to be selective and choose the one that’s best buy in the category

 The cleaner and filtered is your wish list, the better will be your purchase.

4. Replace your leisure hours with something creative by finding what you value in life:

When your spending habits align with your priorities in life, you’ll begin to feel more satisfied and live with intention.

So what do you do with your leisure hours? After the working hours are done, we tend to lay back relaxed tapping into that vibe of doing everything that releases our pleasure molecule “dopamine” in huge amounts.

Scrolling through online shopping sites is one such that floods you with dopamine as you find it effortless.This is because you have stopped looking for things that can resource you with real contentment, your creative ideas.

Remember: What carves you will demand you and what  keeps feeding you, will drain you.

Shopping is one such that has no contribution in making you better when it crosses the limit.

Many times you will not even think of buying but you will land up opening online shopping sites. This is because you have habituated your mind to scroll the shopping sites as something normal or like a play for you.

Not only about squandering money but there is waste of time and  energy too when you treat window shopping the only way to spend time.

You become complacent about the whole idea of shopping or even looking for things to shop that you tend to ignore how abnormally it can imbalance your well being.

What to do instead?

We all have goals, challenges, dreams, problems, tasks, besides our daily hustle, yet we ignore them because we find it hard to tame our mind to do a piece of work after having worked for hours.

But if you are looking for some real satisfaction, real contentment, constructive leisure hours , you will push yourself to explore what new  skills can be learnt , what pending tasks are lingering since long that need instant action, what goals you have but taken the backseat.

You have had hobbies that the internet world has brutally suppressed beneath its tempting roof and now you find switching back to your own hobbies a task. The Internet has cast a magical spell making each one of us blindfolded to its hidden ravages.

Life is too short and you haven’t reached even halfway of what you were supposed to learn here, and the material world  is already working to keep you lagging behind.

Pro tip: Real joy is followed by Real labor, that lasts long!

 Imprint this firmly in your mind and dive to replace some of your leisure hours with something that will outshine you.

5. Before making the purchase ask these to yourself:

Why do I want to buy this? 

You need to have a confident answer for this, else it turns out to be shopping done wrong.

Only if you are going really short of something, or you have some occasion or you are credited with some extra money, you can head forward with the purchase, else continue questioning.

When will I use this? 

Do you have clothes that still have their price tags? Before you buy something new, ask yourself when you’ll actually use it — and be honest with yourself.

Do I have another one like this already? 

If so, what’s wrong with the old one? Just because it’s easy on your pocket does not mean it’s commendable  to have many of them.

If I buy this, where will I put it?

If the purchase has no idea where it shall be worn, used or put up, it’s tagged as shopping unknowingly and this gives you a collection of clutter in the long run.

Can I wait to buy this? 

One of the best things I’ve done to control my shopping (well not the addiction) is to teach myself to wait. The key is to make yourself wait to make a purchase, to not give in to your desire to buy in the moment. The moment something takes your attention, hold on and think for a while about whether you can buy it later? 

Just remember – these things take time and to be patient with yourself. It’s never easy but it’s always worth it. Good luck!

I hope going through this blog post help you  switch to better and  constructive ways of using your time and money.