Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • How to tell if you are a shopaholic.

  • Are you one of the 17 million people who have never met an item you didn’t want to buy?

  • You might be a shopaholic.

  • You will need self-evaluation and honesty.

  • Step 1. Evaluate why you shop.

  • Valid reasons: you need food or clothes.

  • Bad reasons: youre bored, stressed, depressed, or just got your paycheck.

  • Step 2. Think about how shopping makes you feel.

  • If buying something new gives you an incredible rush followed by horrible guilt, you might have a problem.

  • Step 3. Look around your home.

  • Are most of the items in it things you needed, or stuff you wanted?

  • Step 4. Check out your closets.

  • A shopaholic’s wardrobe is filled with clothes that still have their tags and shoes that have never seen the light of day.

  • If youre on a first name basis with all the UPS guys, or can name every pitch person on the Shopping Network, you may have some spending issues.

  • Step 5. Examine your conscience.

  • Do you find yourself trying to justify purchases to yourself and others?

  • Do you ever hide packages?

  • Lie about how much youve spent?

  • Have you ever snuck a new garment into the house in a dry cleaner bag to conceal you’d bought something new?

  • Step 6. Assess your willpower.

  • Shopaholics find themselves unable to resist buying things, even when they know their credit cards are maxed out.

  • Step 7. Get help if you failed our little test.

  • Cut up the credit cards, find fun ways to fill your time that don’t involve buying anything, join Debtors Anonymous, or get therapy to discover the deeper issues behind your compulsive spending.

  • Did you know Marie Antoinette, Mary Todd Lincoln, Jackie Kennedy, and Princess Diana are all believed to have been shopaholics?

How to tell if you are a shopaholic.

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it