Hello Lovely Savers,
I must make a confession… I am prone to Retail Therapy.
What’s Retail Therapy? It’s when you shop to make yourself feel better! What do you need to feel better about? I don’t know but have you seen TJMaxx? It would make anyone happy.
Retail Therapy can, and probably does, affect everyone. It can be such a problem I even included it in my book “If I’m an Adult… Where is my Money?”.
My Retail Therapy habit started when I was very young, and as much as I love her dearly I FULLY BLAME MY MOTHER. One day, when I was but a wee tot, a friend from school was going to be moving away. I distinctly remember not caring very much, because I was young and honestly did not comprehend what that fully meant, but my mother was very sure that I was sad. I sort of remember my mom picking me up from somewhere and going to run an errand somewhere, and I distinctly remember her buying me candy. She bought me candy to feel better. I didn’t even feel bad, but I didn’t care, I got candy!
Whenever I had a crush on a boy, which truthfully was often, I would be so in love I would lose my appetite. This would worry my parents very much, as they did not know my bizarre lack of hunger was due to my being heartbroken over my imagined love. They would assume I was upset and to get me to eat, they would order my favorite take out food.
When I was in college, the first love of my life broke my heart. I was devastated, and after the breakup, my mom took me to the Mall of America for THREE DAYS. Even though we didn’t buy anything (as my broken heart could not muster up any interest in anything), the act of shopping was once again being used to soothe my soul.
My poor parents were doing the best they could, I was not an easy child to understand as my mental health would not be explained for two decades and I had a LOT of feelings. They love me so much and I know they were just trying to make me happy! But even years later I would be in Target, buying trinkets in the dollar section, or using my day off to walk around TJMaxx to “relax”. And while my natural saver inclination didn’t allow me to drop buttloads of money on random crap, it is clearly not a great coping mechanism.
I am willing to bet you have seen yourself in the same or similar situations! Stopped off to peek at nail polish while at the grocery store? Added items to your Amazon cart while inebriated? Drawn to food when having a bad day? Lots of people use food or money or alcohol to adjust their “mood”. And just as we recognize that alcoholism is not a healthy addiction, neither is Retail Therapy. You might not have it so bad that you spend all the money to your name and ruin your family’s life, but it can very easily creep into your life and throw you off of your financial goals. It can trip you up and give you excuses to put off your budget and savings plans.
If you recognize this trend in your own life, seek out some new or additional self-care ideas to use when you feel down. And for the love of God, step away from Target!
If you would like some of my self-care/depression tips, you can read my blog article about that here, and if you’d like to read my book “If I’m an Adult… Where is my Money? : A quick guide to money for the aspiring adult” you can get it on Amazon on December 20th, 2018!
Thank you so much for all of your support, lovely savers, I love sharing my tips and tricks for money and how to deal with everything in between. Please feel free to join my Facebook Group: Sugar and Savings- Budgets and Saving Money to be a part of our community of other lovely savers! We share our thoughts and plans on money and we celebrate each other’s wins!
Until next time, wishing you all Sugar and Savings,
Taylor
xoxo
