{"id":147762,"date":"2012-10-10T04:00:59","date_gmt":"2012-10-10T11:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getrichslowly.org\/blog\/?p=147762"},"modified":"2023-10-26T11:16:50","modified_gmt":"2023-10-26T17:16:50","slug":"the-rise-and-fall-of-the-shopaholic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-shopaholic\/","title":{"rendered":"The rise and fall of the shopaholic"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a college student, I often took up side jobs to make extra cash. One of those side jobs included selling random things on eBay<\/a>. It was easier and slightly more lucrative than holding a garage sale every weekend.<\/p>\n

Once, I sold a pair of highly coveted boots that I no longer wore. They went for $75, or in college currency, one textbook. I’d already started wrapping them up and brainstorming my budget when I received an email from the buyer:<\/p>\n

“Sorry, but I’m not going to pay for these,” she wrote. “I have a shopping addiction, and my husband is going to be upset.”<\/p>\n

Sigh.<\/p>\n

“That’s fine,” I replied, kindly asking her if she wouldn’t mind repaying me for the five dollars in eBay fees. (This was old eBay. There were no second-chance offers; there was no fee reimbursement).<\/p>\n

“Sorry, but no.” was her answer. “I have a shopping addiction, and that would defeat the purpose.”<\/p>\n

As both a full-time student and full-time employee living in a world where every cent counted, including that five dollars, this upset me. I expressed my discontent. She told me that “other people have been really sympathetic and supportive.” I was being insensitive to her disorder, she said.<\/p>\n

That was the first time I’d ever heard shopping addiction referred to as a disorder, and perhaps, yes, I was being insensitive. Because according to a study from Stanford, about 6 percent of women and 5.5 percent of men are legit shopaholics. Like alcoholism, it is, indeed, an addiction.<\/p>\n

Shopaholics have been having a moment. There’s Confessions of a Shopaholic<\/em>, for example, and I recently got a spam email that read: “Unleash your inner Shopaholic!”<\/em> Oh\u2014and there’s even a new reality show called My Shopping Addiction<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n