Ember Month: Watching your spending this season

In the next one week we would be taking about December, the month that ushers in Christmas and New Year celebrations. It is associated with purchasing of different things that makes the season of festivities exciting.

Most a time after the celebrations, many sit down to ask how they spent all they had.

For many, spending can get out of control during the holidays.

According Journal of Psychiatry, compulsive spending affects one in 20 people, leaving many men and women feeling worse after the holiday than they did before the malls put “Jingle Bell Rock” into constant rotation.

Compulsive spending is an addiction, no different from any other.

You feel bad. You spend.
You feel happy. You spend.
You feel stressed. You spend.

As with drugs or cigarettes, an addict leans on the crutch of shopping to strip their pain, or to help them forget their troubles. It’s hard enough for compulsive spenders to turn their backs on shopping, but when the holidays roll around, it’s almost as though they’ve been given a license to trade their time and money for temporary warm fuzzies.

Even if you’re not an addict, it’s easy for most families to overspend during the holiday season — if for no other reason than the simple joy of giving.

 

Modestus Anaesoronye with agency report