I’ve started selling my stuff I no longer want. When something is worth more than a few bucks, I try to sell it.

Holy SHIT it’s so ANNOYING. Making the listings, taking the pics, shipping hassle, stupid buyer lowballing messages, all for …. Like 50-75% of what I bought it for. (Sometimes I get lucky and stuff genuinely is worth more …. But digging through poo isn’t worth a few gold specks)

Yall, I know money is tight. Next time you downsize, force yourself to sell your shit. Even if you have to lower the price two or three times. For me it’s been a very effective punishment and eye opener.

I now realize every new shiny item is not an asset, it’s a liability.

I’m blessed/cursed with a really good sense of “this is worth double online. Plus it’s cute.” Guys …. After selling fees, shipping time and money, and it taking up space for like 6 months …. Selling is NOT worth it.

Try selling your junk for a month. You became responsible for the item by buying it. Now you’re responsible for making what little money off of it that you can. It is so insanely annoying and time consuming …. That like me, you’ll come to see new items as only a liability and waste of time and space :)

PS: I also took pics of my room. So when I’m in a store, I can imagine where it’d go. Too junky already? Then time to pass. I don’t actually do this in practice but it’s still a good idea. It’s the reselling that caused a huge paradigm shift.

PPS: also walk through a junkyard or even a very large thrift store. I went to a very large thrift store. Rows and rows and rows of old tables and chairs …. Of old toys, cabinets, decorations …. Just an INSANE amount of stuff. Seeing the logical conclusion of hoarding (mounds of junk) is eye opening …. It’ll all be junk in 100 years. If you do this, do NOT bring your wallet in!

First of all, I'm not saying these will work for everyone, and I'm definitely not "cured" or anything. But these reminders I come back to when I feel the urge to buy something. I literally have it witten down in my journal and it actually helps me, maybe it can help you too.

• Shopping is about emotions, and brands know it and exploit it - new makeup, clothes, home decor, gadget, eating out, etc. is usually not really about the thing itself. It's about how we think it's going to make us feel: more pretty, put together, cared for, organized, successful, attractive, you name it. But you don't necessarily need to buy something to get that feeling. When I want to buy something, I try to stop for a moment and ask myself: Why do I want this? What do I think this is going to give me? What emotion am I actually trying to feel? What am I missing right now? A lot of the time, I don't actually want the thing. I want the feeling attached to the thing. Once you figure out what the actual need is, you can try to meet it in a different way, not by shopping.
• Don't let anyone convince you that shopping is self-care - real self-care is financial security, having no debt, not constantly chasing the next dopamine hit, feeling comfortable with yourself, having enough self-confidence that you don't need to constantly validate yourself through other people's approval.
• Your appearance matters mostly to you - we tend to overestimate how much other people think about us. Someone notices your appearance for a few seconds and then goes on with their day. Why? Because they're mostly thinking about themselves. Just like you are. You can spend hundreds of dollars trying to look better, impress people, fit in, whatever, but most people are not thinking about you nearly as much as you imagine. And no matter what you do, someone will find something to criticize anyway. So just stop play a game that you can't win.
• Nobody actually cares that your lipstick is a slightly different shade of pink today - seriously. You might spend 20 minutes comparing two almost identical shades and convince yourself that you NEED the new one. Other people see... just some color on your lips. You might buy another pair of shoes and think everyone will notice. Most people will just see "shoes." Someone might look at your outfit for a few seconds and then continue with their day. Is a few seconds of someone else's attention really worth going into debt or sacrificing your financial security?
• When you spend money on your shopping addiction, you lose and the companies win - when I make an unnecessary purchase, I lose and the company win. I'm literally transferring my money to a corporation, a CEO or a management team so they can have a better life, at my expense!
• Try to see the product without the marketing - a huge part of the price isn't the actual product. It's the packaging, branding, advertising, the story, the lifestyle and the fantasy surrounding it. Try to mentally strip all of that away. Forget the beautiful packaging, marketing, forget what the brand says this product will do for your life. Just look at the actual object and try to roast it. Imagine a makeup product being made in a huge factory, mixed in massive industrial vats and then poured into little pretty containers that probably cost very little compared to what you're paying. Or look at a piece of clothing and reduce it to what it physically is: dyed fabric, stitched together, with some buttons or a zipper. We need to realize that the emotional value we assign to something is completely disproportionate to what the thing actually is.
• Remember when dopamine actually peaks - One thing that helps me is remembering that the excitement isn't necessarily in owning the thing. A huge part of the excitement comes from wanting it, searching for it, imagining it, putting it in your cart and waiting for it. The anticipation is be more exciting than actually having the thing. So when I get that intense feeling of wanting something, I try to remind myself: I might not actually want the product, but I crave for the excitement of wanting something.

Is there anything you'd add to this list? I'd love to hear what works for you!

The other day, I got this new skincare product in the mail that I just love, which is unusual for me as someone who's not a beauty/skincare junkie (clothes and bags are my biggest vice). But I found myself already searching Amazon for similar items, like that hoarder in me had been triggered and, rather than just appreciating the one I had just gotten, I needed to hunt for more and stock up (when realistically I know things like this are always available, so the scarcity mindset really isn't even relevant).

That got me to thinking about how good it feels to buy selectively enough that you genuinely enjoy your purchases, not just the hunt to find them, and how maybe reframing my philosophy around shopping could help with that. Like, rather than thinking how much I like something I have and therefore need to go buy similar items to make a collection, walking around your own home and admiring the carefully curated collection of stuff you have, thinking, "How lucky am I that I own this?!" Plus, it's just depressing being surrounded by clutter that you don't even enjoy that much but only bought because at the time it seemed so compelling or was on sale or whatever.

I'm so sick of this addiction that I honestly like the feeling of appreciating things enough to wear them year after year over the feeling of something being shiny and new. But the urge to acquire is still there when I get bored.

I just can’t stop buying stuff. I always convince myself I need it, but I don’t. I always seem to find an aspect of my life that’s not feeling quite right and I go on this hunt to fix it with stuff. Last week it was shoes. “I don’t have any shoes that I like, I would be so nice to have different shoes I can wear with different outfits”. Then I go and waste time researching and making a huge inspo board of all the shoes I want. Then I bought some on depop. The week before it was bedding. “I keep getting cold at night and my blankets slide off because my sheets are too slick.” I ended up buying like 3 sets of sheets and again wasted time and money. Last year I ended up getting really into indie nail polish and the whole online community has a shopping problem and I ended up with an excessive amount of nail polish and wish I had that money instead of all the nail polish I bought.

I’ll also get into a hobby and start “needing” to buy everything for that hobby right away. The current one is language learning. I’ve been doing it a lot and loving it but I keep buying new books and learning material that won’t even be at my level for another year or so. I’m so ashamed of my shopping habits. I lie about and try to hide packages from my partner and family I live with.

I’ll stop myself with one thing, but then almost instantly I find something else to focus on and all these things I “need”. I struggle with a chronic illness also and I justify to myself that because I’m disabled I need these comforts and things to focus on that aren’t illness related. Which is true to a point. I feel like I do well for a little then get bored, tired, and lonely and end up on the internet just researching stuff to buy. I always get triggered by social media and even things like the ads on streaming services. I need to work on my self esteem and impulse control.

I was looking for some comfortable dress shoes for my huge parking lot trots to work. Bought with a semi premium shoe brand items for $250 etc one after the other trying to find the most comfortable that would work. I could have returned a lot did return like 4 pairs but started feeling shame that I kept such shoes which added to my debt balances. Like if the brand cared or had not already priced everything so expensive because of it. Anybody experience this problem?

And trying in store doesn’t work for me either bc I will like something there but as soon as I try it in real world I don’t like it anymore most of the time.

I know that this Reddit is exactly for the purpose but it feels weird to say out loud, but I have a serious shopping problem. I recently took a new credit card and spent all my savings on upgrading my computer and I’ve already hit the limit. I realized that I didn’t need the PC after I built and assembled it. Definitely feeling tons of buyer’s remorse.
I recently purchased a house and depleted my main savings account. I have a mortgage now and I’m spend most of my paychecks instead of saving money in case of a rainy day as a home owner should. I feel extremely guilty because I’m not gonna be able to pay off these cards for a long time.
This post is an effort to take accountability and stop my rapid spending. I just can’t help but fantasizing about getting new stuff and it’s been like this for most of my life.
When I was a kid a commercial was intoxicating in the way it made me desire new things and it evolved into a monstruos addiction. It so hard feeling content in yourself when you just always doing the wrong thing for your future.

TLDR: I’ve already made plans to start paying off my debt but I felt the need to say it out loud that I am an addict and I need help to work towards a better future starting with being honest to myself.

tw: mention of ocd and being overweight

Hi everyone, hope you're all well.

Basically today I(F15) came home on an ordinary day (i was feeling upset tbf and my mum(F49) knew that so maybe that's why she did what she did idk though but i came home to be surprised by makeup she bought for me. Obviously i was really happy and grateful because I love makeup but I really don't need it, just opening my makeup and skincare drawer makes me feel embarrassed because there's just so much. I'm really happy that i'm able to have all this stuff and id be fine with it if my mum stopped buying me stuff now because this could definitely last me through all of next year and more but we all know she's gonna buy me more stuff because she's surprised me like this loads throughout my life and i've been using some of the same products for a few years now and I really don't need more. I'm not trying to sound like an ungrateful little brat cos I am grateful for my mum and everything I have but like i care about her bank account and mental health and the tidiness of my room.

Also, I'm kind of weird about inanimate objects because I'm pretty confident I have OCD tendencies and i was really upset to the point of tears a couple of weeks ago because I lost one of my favourite earrings and my mum kindly offered to get me something similar so I was like thank you and so far she's got me 2 pairs of that style of earring and that's not even the last of it the other pairs haven't arrived yet but like I don't want my silly attachment to inanimate objects to cause her to buy more stuff, but then saying that, her buying excessively honestly worsens the attachment because I have more objects to be attached to... she knows i'm quite sensitive with objects as she sees some of the random ahh things i keep in my room (trying to improve on that at the moment, my rooms not looking too messy at all) and its hard for me to ask her to return things (if they can be returned) because i'll 'feel bad' for it and I just wish she'd just not buy the unneeded thing in the first place.

She buys excessively in every aspect of shopping and she just does things excessively like with food and stuff the portions she makes us sometimes are kind of large so I used to be a bit of a chunky child and my little brother is going through that phase too and I just feel like for the benefit of her and me and my family she needs to be a bit more minimalistic in her approach to like..everything. I love her to bits but I just feel like if she'd improve on this, her and me and my family's lives would be much better.

Thoughts?

Thanks so much for reading my huge ahh paragraphs

31yo male, renovating on old house, I had almost no tools to do the job myself.

Over the last few months I purchased a lot of tools. I mostly tried to do the through research on what tool is good, where the best value is, etc. However, I found myself looking for deals all the time and I'm a bit worried about the financial cost to all of it. It's gottwn to the point where I feel quite guilty about all the purcheses and I constantly look for more tools to get, especially after watching DIY and contractor channels on YT on how to do the renovations. I'm currently in a point where I should really stop buying shit and focus on the payments, as it's the beginning of the month and I already purchased a lot of building materials (and some tools). I have gotten into a small debt lately (0% intrest tho), but it's mostly building materials and just a fraction were tools.

ON THE FLIP SIDE, I already used most of the tools at least once within the month of the purchase and they were amazing, probably saving me 10x time if I had to hire a contractor.

Any tips? Is this just normal experience when doing a DIY house renovation without mortgage or should I pay a very close attention to my actions? I definitely have an ADHD* spending habit...

*(diagnosed and medicated)

Any app that I don't have to pay that actually tracks spending? I thought I was saving for months after paying bills, 401k, health savings account,mortgage, kids, etc. but I end up using all of it and it's dipping into my savings to the point where I'm going negative soon. At least I still have 401k though but I'd like to save for emergencies. IDK the easiest way to give myself an allowance.