When Does Compulsive Spending Become a Problem?
Updated: 7 days ago
Most of us spend money on things we don't really need sometimes. But when spending becomes difficult to control, secretive or a way of managing how we feel, something else may be going on. Understanding what sits beneath compulsive spending can help you decide what needs to change, and therapy can help.
Most of us have bought something we didn't need, spent more than we intended or treated ourselves because we'd had a difficult day.
That doesn't automatically make it compulsive spending.
The more useful question is what happens when spending stops feeling like a choice and starts becoming something you repeatedly turn to, even when you know it's causing problems.
Perhaps you've deleted shopping apps and downloaded them again. You might hide purchases, move money between accounts or avoid looking too closely at your credit card balance. You may genuinely intend not to spend, then find yourself doing exactly the same thing a few days later.
At that point, concentrating only on the money can miss something important.
We also need to understand what the spending is doing for you.
What Is Compulsive Spending?
There's no single purchase or amount of money that turns ordinary spending into compulsive spending.
Someone with plenty of disposable income could spend thousands of pounds without it causing any particular difficulty. Someone else could spend considerably less and find themselves unable to pay their bills. Equally someone with enough money can feel spending is out of control and they want to stop but just can't.
I tend to be more interested in the relationship someone has developed with spending.
Has it become difficult to control? Are you repeatedly spending more than you intended? Are you concealing purchases or debts? Have you tried to cut back several times without managing to sustain it? Is spending beginning to affect your relationships, finances or how you feel about yourself?
Most importantly, does it feel as though you're making a decision to spend, or responding to an urge that has become increasingly difficult to resist?
Those questions tell us much more than the amount on a receipt.
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Why Can Spending Feel So Good?
Buying something can change how we feel surprisingly quickly.
There may be anticipation while searching for something, excitement when you find it and pleasure when you actually buy it. A parcel arriving a few days later can provide another little moment of reward.
For some people, that's simply enjoyable and causes no problems.
For others, spending begins doing more emotional work.
A difficult day might lead to browsing online. Feeling lonely might lead to buying something as a treat.
Stress might be followed by the temporary distraction of searching for a new phone, clothes, collectibles or something connected with a hobby.
Sometimes the attraction isn't even the thing being bought.
It's the process.
For a short period, attention moves away from whatever was uncomfortable beforehand.
That's when spending starts becoming interesting therapeutically.
When Compulsive Spending Becomes Emotional Regulation
One of the things I regularly explore with addictive and compulsive behaviours is what happens immediately before them.
If spending repeatedly follows stress, boredom, loneliness, rejection, anger or feeling low, it may have become one of the ways you regulate those feelings.
That doesn't mean you've consciously decided to use shopping as a coping strategy. These patterns often develop gradually.
Something makes us feel better, so we repeat it.
Over time, the brain learns the association. Feeling uncomfortable becomes connected with spending, and spending becomes connected with temporary relief.
The problem is that the relief tends to arrive before the consequences.
The excitement of buying something happens now. The credit card statement arrives later.
That gap helps explain why knowing that spending is causing problems doesn't necessarily stop it.
What Are You Actually Buying?
This is where I think we can become curious rather than critical.
Sometimes people aren't really buying the object.
They may be buying excitement, distraction, status, confidence, comfort or a temporary sense of being in control.
Spending can also become connected with identity. Clothes, cars, technology, hobbies and possessions can all become ways of expressing who we are or who we'd like to be.
None of that is inherently problematic.
The difficulty comes when spending becomes one of the main ways we access those feelings.
A useful question might be:
If I couldn't spend money when I felt like this, what would I still need?
Perhaps the answer is stimulation.
Perhaps it's connection.
Perhaps you've worked hard all week and feel you deserve something for yourself.
Perhaps spending gives you a temporary sense of progress when another part of life feels stuck.
Understanding the answer doesn't excuse financial decisions or remove responsibility for them. It gives us something more useful to work with than simply telling ourselves to stop.
Compulsive Spending and Other Behaviours
Spending doesn't always exist in isolation.
Sometimes people notice that it increases when they're reducing another behaviour. Someone stops drinking and begins shopping more. Gambling reduces but online purchases increase. Another person moves between pornography, spending, gaming or other behaviours depending on what is happening in their life.
This doesn't mean everyone who struggles with one behaviour will develop another.
It does make it worth looking at the bigger picture.
My Short Cross Addiction Assessment can help identify patterns across different addictive or compulsive behaviours. It isn't a diagnosis. It's a reflection tool designed to help you notice connections that can be difficult to see when each behaviour is considered separately.
Spending can also form part of specific patterns such as Findom, where money, sexual arousal, power, submission, validation and relationships can become intertwined. That is different from general compulsive shopping, although there can be overlap in the difficulty someone experiences controlling their spending.
Practical Ways to Regain Control of Compulsive Spending
Understanding why you spend doesn't mean ignoring practical measures. Sometimes we need both.
Creating friction between an urge and the ability to act on it can be useful. Removing stored card details, deleting shopping apps, unsubscribing from promotional emails or introducing a delay before larger purchases can give an immediate urge time to settle.
It can also help to track more than the amount you spend. Notice what was happening before you started browsing, how you felt while shopping and how you felt afterwards.
You may begin spotting patterns that aren't obvious when you're concentrating purely on money.
If debt or financial difficulties have developed, practical financial advice may also be necessary alongside therapeutic work. Therapy can't replace specialist debt advice, just as financial advice alone may not address why the spending keeps happening.
Different problems sometimes need different kinds of help.
Insight Helps, but Something Still Has to Change
You might understand perfectly well that you spend when you're stressed and still find yourself reaching for your phone after the next difficult day.
Insight matters, but insight alone is rarely enough.
Once we understand what the behaviour is doing, we need to begin developing other ways of meeting that need.
If spending provides excitement, what else creates stimulation?
If it gives you comfort, where else can that come from?
If shopping fills empty time, what has gradually disappeared from your life that might need putting back?
This is one of the reasons I don't see recovery simply as becoming better at saying no.
Addictive and compulsive behaviours often gradually shrink life around themselves. More time, attention, secrecy and sometimes money become organised around the behaviour.
Change also means expanding life again.
When Might Therapy Help With Compulsive Spending?
You don't need to wait until you've accumulated significant debt before talking to somebody.
If spending feels increasingly difficult to control, repeatedly conflicts with your intentions or has become something you hide from people close to you, it may be worth understanding what's happening.
The same applies if you've successfully stopped spending several times but repeatedly find yourself returning to the same pattern.
My wider Addiction Therapy work looks beyond the behaviour itself to understand its function, the situations in which it appears and what needs to change for something different to become possible.
If you've noticed similar patterns across spending and other behaviours, the Short Cross Addiction Assessment may also be a useful place to begin. Again, it isn't designed to diagnose you. It simply helps you step back and look at the wider pattern.
You don't have to decide whether your spending is "bad enough" or find the perfect label before asking for help.
Sometimes recognising that your relationship with spending no longer feels right is enough reason to become curious about it.
Understanding why it's happening gives us somewhere to start.
Taking the First Step
Taking the first step can feel difficult. If you're unsure whether therapy is right for you, we can arrange a free 15-minute consultation by phone.
There is no obligation to book therapy afterwards. It simply gives us an opportunity to discuss what is bringing you here, answer any questions you may have, and see whether we are a good fit to work together.
You can get in touch in whichever way suits you:
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