Online shopping addiction? Here's help

Are you an online shopping addict? Pull your chair closer, we need to talk. This is a conversation you were likely to have with yourself anyway after the last unnecessary purchase. Online shopping addiction stems from the fact that social media networks have perfected the art of reading our minds and bothering us to no end with adverts of things we think we need. You Google a phone brand once and that whole week phone adverts will be following you all over the place like a clingy shadow until you eventually succumb and buy something.

You may have also created a habit of going online to shopping sites and looking for the latest items for purchase. The feeling of having your package delivered is just immeasurable, and you always want something else. Then another, and before you know it, you are a hopeless addict with a full closet of unworn clothes but barely getting by otherwise. Not all is lost, you can control the habit and here are a few ways how.

Uninstall shopping apps

Uninstall all the shopping apps on your phone. It is a tough and painful process, more like a breakup. But the more you see them the more likely you are to start browsing through them and making guilty purchases. So the apps just have to go.

Report the advertisements

You might really want to avoid shopping  but these adverts can be very consistent and hard to ignore. Report the adverts every time you see them until they reduce. After sometime there will be a marked reduction in the number of the ads you see on your social media feed.

Create and stick to a budget

Many times we do not even realise how much we overspend on online shopping. Draft a budget with the month’s expenditure. You get a clear overview of where your money goes this way. Try to stick within the shopping confines that you drafted.

Identify the root problem

Many times impulse buying and online shopping addiction is brought about by an underlying problem. It could be stress at your place of work family or relationships. Shopping gives you momentary relief and happiness but it fades. Thus, you seek the same short-lived happiness again and again. Find out the underlying problem and get solutions. Talk to a friend or a psychologist about it so that it does not take another form.

Be honest with yourself

Online shopping addiction is the irresponsible living of a life we mostly cannot afford. It is attractive in the way you do not have to leave the house to get what you want but that is beside the point. Sit yourself down and have a conversation with yourself on better things the money spent online would have gone to. For example land, investments and businesses. You can decide to reward yourself every once in a while only after you meet certain goals too.