Addicted to Spending!

For some time now, (since I started making my own money) family members and friends have been accusing me of being a shopaholic. Why would they accuse me of such a thing, you might wonder. Well simply because I can’t seem to save a penny I earn.

But why do I need to save money if I might die any minute, right?!

It’s true that on some occasions I ask my dad to pay certain bills for me, but it’s not that big of a deal! I mean it’s not that I’m always in debt or have no assets. I clear off my credit card about every four months and I have so many assets. I have clothes, shoes, handbags, a TV, a VHS player, a DVD player, handbags, accessories, a diamond set (which shows you that I bought something really valuable just like any responsible adult), books, makeup, and of course handbags!
I work in an investment bank and its main message is: “patience when investing is the smartest and safest way”. I’m a fast learner. Most of the “assets” I own are very long term investments. I just have to hold on them for about 200 years and the return on them would be around 500%!

I know that at my age I should have a saving account. Or at lease I should have an emergency fund just in case I don’t die but rather have an impairing accident any minute.
But then I consider my parents as my emergency fund. I mean what are parents for after all?!

I am aware I have a spending problem. As in if I don’t buy something, anything, worth AED 500 with my credit card soon, I won’t get the equivalent Bank dollars needed to get that free play set which Kenzi my niece will tremendously enjoy. I know the play set is not worth AED 100, but this way I will get it for free. Right?
Oh the temptations of having a credit card!!

Seriously now, I might have a money-retention problem:

• I eat out almost daily.
• I hit the shopping malls on the weekend. But what else am I supposed to do in Dubai?
• I sometimes have a vision problem when there are outlet sales and I read prices on tags as “steal”.
• If a brand is missing from my wardrobe, I make it a mission to successfully add it as soon as possible, at whatever cost.
• I have so many wardrobes to shop for: (1) Abaya & Sheila, (2) clothes for under the Abaya, (3) decent clothes when not wearing the Abaya, (4) scarves that goes with those clothes, (5) at-home clothes, (6) sportswear, (7) clothes for when I lose weight!!
• I believe in prevention. That is: buy something now as you never know when it will become handy and therefore preventing unnecessary anxiety about finding it later on.
• I believe in stocking up for emergencies. For example, there is no limit to how many basic black tops you can have.
• I also believe that it is a good investment if you buy an extra something just to get the free gift with purchase. I mean you would have bought that extra thing some other time, right? This is simply forward thinking.

About a month ago, I cleaned my closet.
My closet was overflowing with brand new clothes. Many still had the price tags attached and some were still in the shopping bags. I had few shoes that hardly met the asphalt if ever. There were also some scarves that I wore a couple of times before I changed the way I wear my headscarf and therefore can’t really wear them again.
My sisters already know the drill. When I declared that I will be cleaning/sorting my closet, my sisters appeared in my room waiting for the end result.
Cleaning my closet means de-cluttering it and so they can take anything they like from the piles.
There were some items that I was able to sort under “bought under momentary insanity”. I gave those to charity.
So all in all, the money was not really wasted. Right?

I heard about Sophie Kinsella’s Shopaholic book series and how many woman and men felt some kinship with Rebecca Bloomwood (the main character). So I went and got The Secret Dream World of a Shopaholic. For good measures I bought the other four books of the series (Though it turns out now that I bought a duplicate, as “Shopaholic Abroad” is the same as the book titled “Shopaholic Takes Manhattan” and it is such a fraud to sell the same book under different titles and different back covers!!!). That could not be considered as overspending because:

1. I read “Can You Keep A Secret” by Kinsella before, and I liked her writing style.
2. I am out of books to read and I have to have read something before bed (yes I know I still have those self-improve & non-fiction books that I bought when I made my new year’s resolution to read a wide variety of books, and which I started reading some but can’t seem to be able to finish, or go after chapter 2! But they really do not count as reading books!)
3. I saved some money this way. Buying the full series will prevent me from going into the bookstore for another two months (even though I’m already on the third book). Since each time I go to the bookstore I buy some pen or notebook that I don’t necessarily need, I won’t be buying anything else till I ran out of books.
4. I will be sharing these books with at least one other person. I will then donate the full series to a charity book sale like I did with my 400 books I had few months ago. So really buying them is just good deed in the making.

Before I started reading the book, I excepted that after the first 4 chapters I would go to some Shopaholic Anonymous meeting and say “My name is Jeehan and I AM a Shopaholic”.
After all, I do have some of the symptoms of a shopaholic:

• I own many items that I never used or worn
• I tend to buy way more than I intend or plan to buy
• I’m on the border of being a chronic spender, every day could be a shopping spree
• When I don’t hide my purchases, I don’t confess the purchases actual cost
• I love buying expensive gifts for family and friends

But I didn’t see myself in Rebecca Bloomwood.
I related to her when she was buying and hiding her bags, but I am not like her.
She is a pathological liar that’s what she is.
Actually I was getting bored of her and her stories by the time I was reading “Shopaholic Abroad”, made my self read her tale in Tying the Knot and I still can’t look at her tale with her sister!!.

I might be a spendthrift. But I don’t get depressed, guilty or embarrassed after a spending binge. I don’t worry or feel I’ve lost control. I can control my spending when I have to. When I know I’m in serious debt, I do feel bad and shape up again. I do not dig deeper into the grave of debts to ease my worries. I love my credit card, but I now love more my debt card. It makes me buy with the money I have so I contain the damage.

If I need cheering or calming down I don’t rush to buy something (except for chocolates of course). I don’t mind if I’m using last year’s technology. I try to buy the classic designs so I don’t have to buy new stuff as the fashion changes. Fads don’t tempt me. Chocolates do.

Many times I walk through the best of shops looking around hoping that anything “Calls My Name and Asks Me To Take It Home” and NOTHING does. I walk into Patchi, and I feel the most popular girl in the world with EVERYTHING calling my name!

Addicted to chocolates that is me, but not addicted to shopping.
Though I do have to buy the chocolates! Maybe it’s called shopachocoholic!