my name is drlove , and im going cold turkey..... argh....

[drlove8]

from shopping!
feeling sick and jittery , shops will open in a couple of hours , must fight the urge to spend ....
its very very hard . sitting here playing with storecards .... wondering what lovely stuff i could get....
NO ! must SAVE money , not spend money - dh hasnt a clue how much i spend (usually on kids), isnt fair he works hard for us ..... i am very bad wifey ..... help...?.
It keeps calling me , tempting me , teasing me.... argh damn you princess street , im not listening . i doesnt matter that there is sales on , it doesnt matter that monsoon has the most gorgous outfit in the window, that frazers has the handbags in the window.... harvey nicks you are evil.... how dare you be so expensive? .... stop it!
...... `perhaps if i sell the children? ... anyone know how much the going rate is for a nine year old pest boy on the black market ebay?

I would cut up the store cards-you could do it NOW.

agree with PM - cut up the cards or put them in the freezer in a block of ice

set yourself a weekly budget & take it out in cash ... when i do this it really reduces my spending as when it is gone, it is gone

Oh god I know the feeling. Unfortunately I am not great at stopping, it usually happens when I realise bills are not going to be payed, yet I have some lovely new skirts etc... Shall watch this thread for tips!
Good luck!

A friend if mine recently realise she had run up £20,000 of debt just from shopping. Her mum made her cut up the cards in front of her. It's really shaken her up. Her 3 kids are nowon high alert to stop her spending. She's run up so much debt in the past but this latest 20 grand was the result of her cutting down her wor days from 5 to 3! Weirdly it's her mum who takes her shopping.

think i should cut them up....or get dh to do it for me so i dont chicken out.
1 credit card will go in freezer so i cant use it ( keep it just in case washing machine/car breaks down)
DH just offerd me money to go shopping .....aaaarrggghh! sweet but hes not helping.
Im hopeing to move house soon(fingers crossed) , so need to start saving like crazy ... will need flooring and decorating money , and some extra to kit out a sensory space for dd4.
MUST BE GOOD!
Budget idea sound good will try that...then i could give dh bank cards , so i cant get at the cash if i run out.- have no willpower.
still thinking about shops- can i just go a buy one thing from primark?

That's a bit like dieting on Monday! Start now.

MANATEE i totally understand , i have fantastic new leather boots , but very little to wear with them...[grrr].... phone bill was late getting payed this month and i missed a payment on a card.... STUPID STUPID ME !
Beanieb , im not that bad, no where near it , think it all totals at £1500 aprox , but its not nessesarry debt and has ran up from when i stopped working a few months ago...if i dont stop now and get it under control then i'll be in the same position as your friend ... I think i just havent accepted i dont earn anymore.... a slight drop in income and ive got into a bit of a mess.
Worst thing is i went mental at DH a while back as he wanted to buy a £8000 car , so he ended up getting a cheaper one ,.... the money i spent could have went on the car instead... the one we got has been in and out the garage since we bought it... if we'd got the one Dh wanted we probably would have saved money tbh.... ... i am stupid.

i am a bad wifey ... my poor DH , my poor kids ..... if i keep going they will be poor. >

store cards are atrocious. A VERY, VERY expensive way of borrowing money. Cut them up and transfer your balances to a 0% credit card.

sausage how do you know if a card has 0% ?

Go on moneysupermarket.com and compare APR rates. Most credit card companies do a 0% on balance transfers for 6/9/12/18 months (you do usually pay a fee of around 2% for the troule but it is a lot less than scary 21% APR storecard rates). Or try moneysavingexpert.com (or is it co.uk?)

www.moneysavingexpert.com/

www.moneysupermarket.com/

Seriously, I never take our any sort of credit or insurance without checking these excellent comparison sites first.

out not our!

That is what gets me drlove8 - the needing something to go with it! I recently bought a skirt in the Toast sale, only for that to lead to me buying the dress and top in the same print, and 2 cardigans, all because I wasn't sure about what would go with the skirt. I suppose a sensible person would have returned it!

You are not stupid though, shopping really is very addictive.

thanx for link sausage! will defo use that.
marne - i think shops are designed to get us to buy more than we need..... ive got twenty pairs of jeans wtf who needs twenty pairs of jeans????most i bought because the were beside a top i liked /bought .
dont even get me started on kids clothes .... i just gave away a black bin bag full of clothes that fit dd4 , all good condition, pretty nice stuff.... because she has no room in her wardrobe/drawers for it.

Oh yes, the floor planners or whatever they call themselves (the people whose job it is to design the layout/look of a store) are very canny indeed. It is all placed, packaged and displayed in a way that subconsciously suggests to us that we must buy more than we came in for. Retail psychology, they call it. Weird but true.

You aren't stupid, you are just falling into a trap designed to make usually rational, sensible people spend more than they need to on stuff they don't really need or want.

Cut up the store cards.

Go through your wardrobes and anything you don't wear/like list on Ebay.

Then money comes in, not out. With the re cycled money you buy stuff off Ebay, only what you made though.

Tis like a massive swap shop which pays for itself, and helps the addiction.

I got myself into major debt at one time in my life with store cards... and I used to sell them as part of my job. Wouldn't have one about me now.

Cut em up and transfer to 0% credit card if you can.