compulsive shopping

Like all behaviors, your buying habits reflect your background, experiences and psychological makeup. But those things don't have to control your financial future. Here are some emotional states that drive people to make poor purchasing decisions, and some advice on how to keep those emotions from sending you to the poorhouse.

A compulsive shopper splurges on her credit cards and then hides the purchases from her spouse. She wants to stop. Dr. David Krueger, a former psychiatrist and author of the new book The Secret Language of Money offers some advice.

It's pretty common knowledge that alcoholics, gamblers and drug addicts have support groups and 12-step programs to keep them on the wagon. But did you know there are similar groups for compulsive spenders, debt addicts and shopaholics? Debtors Anonymous, a support organization patterned after...

In a new article on compulsive shopping, there is discussion about including this behavior as a "mental disorder" in the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Considered the diagnostic bible of mental health professionals, the new edition is due out in 2010, and there is...

The garage was stacked with thousands of dollars of merchandise still in original packaging. There were 100% cotton t-shirts studded with rhinestones (2 per package - $5.00), stacks of heavy knit sweaters in pastel colors (8.00), boxes of shoes and boots still wrapped in tissue paper ($10.00/pair)....

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that our country has a serious shopping problem: our national savings rate is below zero, most Americans carry balances on their credit cards, and we're running out of landfill space to dump the last generation of how video games. If you often find yourself...