The need to shop can be a hard habit to break. For many people buying new trinkets, clothing, books, CDs and other things can bring joy to a dreary day. It can make you feel a temporary rush. But without proper budgeting it can destroy your life. With the number of t.v. commercials seen by an average person by the age of 65 being 2 million, it is safe to say that commercialism may add to this deep need to buy more stuff.
My husband suffers from compulsive buying. Often he feels a need to buy something new to fill his time. Most often it’s a new video game or DVD. If he gets in his mind he wants something he won’t stop obsessing about it until he has it. Unfortunately, all the new hobbies he wants to indulge in are incredibly expensive. The past year alone he has bought a sub for his car, an HDTV, a Wii, an XBOX 360, a PS2, and many, many games, and of course CDs and DVDs.
I had finally gotten him to settle down with the spending, or so I thought, and now he has informed me when we move out to the country this summer he wants to buy a pure bred Labrador Retriever and start breeding. Not to mention he wants to open a Kennel and begin taking his lab to dog shows. The dog alone will cost him close $1500 at the cheapest. Now don’t get me wrong here, we are in no way wealthy. He plans on using our federal return on this dog. Well, the federal return was to help the economy, but I kind of thought we’d be using it for our school loans or maybe stuff for our new house.
I, on the other hand, have always been a cautious spender. It may be because I learned responsibility with money at a young age from baby-sitting. I drive my husband crazy, because I almost always take 5 10 minutes to decide if I’m buying an article of clothing, make-up, book, etc. I always weigh if the item is worth blank amount, how often will I wear it, can I find it cheaper somewhere else, or should I wait for it to go on sale. I actually almost refuse to buy an clothes unless it is on sale, unless husband talks me into it, because he’s tired of me weighing the options.
My goal is to not to be in debt. I saw my mother and step-father struggle with it for years. My mother was the over-spender, and really still is. I hated hearing them argue, and I never wanted that for myself. I wanted to go into marriage without debt and stay that way to the best of our ability. My husband always has a clever argument on why he should spend what he does. I do hope that eventually his mother and I can convince him to stop with the excessive spending. There are certain voids in life that can’t be filled with stuff.
Needing new things is an addiction; learning to enjoy what you already have is a freedom! Now I just have to teach my husband this concept.