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Everyone has their own attitude to money: someone is economical, and someone easily empties his wallet, suffers from debt … and continues to spend again. Where does such thoughtless carelessness come from?
To unexpectedly buy something expensive or completely unnecessary and thus reward yourself for your success, console yourself in a moment of sadness, or simply give yourself a gift is a sign of a good attitude towards yourself and the ability to enjoy life.
However, if a person repeatedly finds himself in a situation where expenses exceed income, gets into debt that he cannot repay, puts the well-being of the family at risk, it is worth asking the question: what is happening?
Failure to budget
“It may seem that the ability to spend wisely comes along with adulthood, automatically,” says family psychotherapist Ekaterina Kadieva. “It really needs to be learned. Many of us just don’t know how to budget.”
It is difficult to learn how to distribute income if, for example, in childhood there was no pocket money or parents, allocating it, tightly controlled all expenses or, conversely, gave as much as they wanted on demand.
“As a result, the child has not formed an idea about the boundaries of what is acceptable,” the psychotherapist explains, “he has not learned to control his needs, to measure desires with the desires and capabilities of other people. So now, as an adult, he will have to learn on his own. Which, of course, is more difficult than in childhood, but there is no other way out.
obsessive shopping
“Why didn’t I resist, how will I cope with such expenses?” – these questions cause anxiety, which is exacerbated by the realization of the futility of the acquisition. I want to drown it out – and now the hand again reaches for the emaciated wallet. Psychologists call this behavior “compulsive (compulsive) shopping.”
“This happens to those of us who grew up in a family where it was customary to distract a child from problems with a chocolate or a gift,” comments Ekaterina Kadieva. – A child, for example, has fallen, he is offended and hurt, he needs to be hugged and pitied. But the mother is busy with something – and as a consolation she hands him a candy. Growing up, a person already reproduces this scheme himself: he feels bad – he goes to the store.
The purchase brings immediate relief. But the real problems remain unresolved. Moreover, they accumulate and require more and more “distractions”. And so on until such a scheme of action turns into a serious problem in itself. This is comparable to drug addiction or bulimia: careless spending can also become a form of addiction.
Hidden messages of unreasonable spending
“Unreasonable spending can be a kind of unconscious message,” says Ekaterina Kadieva. For example, a husband unexpectedly buys a home theater – and the family can no longer go on vacation. This is immature behavior – after all, instead of taking care of his children, he begins to compete with them, buys a “toy” for himself at the expense of their well-being. His message: “I don’t want to be an adult, I’m not ready to be responsible for others.”
The wife buys another expensive piece of jewelry. Her message may be: “Pay attention to me, I need love.” An adult son spends his mother’s pension: “Now I’m in charge, you depend on me and cannot punish me.”
In each case, such disproportionate spending hides mental distress, and it is necessary to understand what the spender’s soul is really asking for – love, security, recognition? It is possible to stop wastefulness only by realizing and satisfying the real need that stands behind it.
“Guilt worries me”
Anna, 31, chemist
“I became a spender unexpectedly. I always controlled expenses, and then I began to overspend: I invited friends to a restaurant, I even bought my sister a car. Very soon, everything went on the rise: debts accumulated, my bank account was blocked. Then I got depressed. I got out of it thanks to a course of psychoanalysis, which lasted four years. There I “remembered” about my mother – she alone raised us with her twin sister and kept repeating that for us she had to deny herself everything. She died in an accident. And after a few months, the money began to burn my hands. I realized that I began to throw them to symbolically let her know about the burden of guilt that I had to bear all these years of hardship.
What to do?
Record expenses and feelings
Start keeping a diary of expenses: write down your purchases, indicating not only their cost, but also the conditions of purchase. What were your feelings at the time of the purchase (were you lonely, sad or happy) and after (were you satisfied, guilty…)?
Recognize your needs
Ekaterina Kadieva advises: “When you want to buy something, do not rush to the store right away – take a short timeout. Go to a quiet, peaceful place where you won’t be disturbed and ask yourself, “Why should I buy this? What am I missing? What is my true desire?” You can ask friends or loved ones to ask you these questions out loud. Or talk to a therapist about it.”
Buy with joy
You can determine in advance the amount that you can spend on satisfying your unexpected desires. Give up your credit card for a while and, leaving the house, take no more than you are going to spend. The main thing is to fully enjoy the pleasure that a new thing delivers. So you can regain the joy of shopping and free yourself from guilt.
Advice for those around you
Sometimes you can resolve an emergency by paying off another person’s debts. But at best, this will make him think until the next “attack” of purchases, at worst, he will hide what he spends money on until the situation with debts again becomes hopeless.
Most compulsive shopping is done alone. Accompanying a person prone to excessive spending on shopping trips means helping him to keep from excessive spending. But you should also take care of your financial security: for example, keep money in different accounts.