Hi Broken81,

You are definitely not alone. I struggle with compulsive shopping, and it's gotten me into major debt in the past. It seems like once every decade I find myself in serious financial debt. Up until recently, I had good jobs and was able to pay it off. Then in 2011-2012 I was unemployed, depressed, and drinking and shopped my way into 44K in credit card debt. I had no options except to declare bankruptcy. That was hard, but it got me out of a crisis, and forced me to learn to live on a tight budget.

Some suggestions. You may have a community based credit counselling agency where you are. We have them up here and I was required to attend credit counselling as part of the bankruptcy process and I found them really helpful in building a budget.

Next get rid of your credit cards. I know that's a big step, but if you really need something most places accept debit so you're not running up more debt. I only got a credit card again in the last 6 months, and it has a very low limit. I'm using it rebuild my credit rating more than anything else.

There's also the program debtors annonymous. I've never been to one, but I know a couple of people who had serious debt problems, who found it quiet helpful.

Stopping compulsive spending is really hard. I recently made an agreement with my addictions Dr. that cutting it out all together wasn't a feasible goal for me right now, so we're trying harm reduction instead. Each month I set aside 40 dollars that I can just blow on whatever I feel like, but once it's gone I have to wait until the next month. This has really helped me, because at the beginning of the month, I'll see something I want, but then don't want to spend the money in case I see something better later on. It's hard but it's working for me.

Good luck with it.

splitimage