Help With Compulsive Spending

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I just thought of posting this question to see what kind of advice I receive! My best friend with AS has a real problem with overspending on his favorite hobbies. His favorite hobbies are also MY favorite hobbies, and I must admit, we BOTH tend to obsess on them when we're together and spend most of our time and money on these things. So I've been of limited helpfulness to him. Though I try to be the voice of reason & moderation, I'm not very good at it either because I too am a very intense person.

Usually, when he tells me he's found a particular out of print rare book or a collector's edition CD with concert DVD, I tend to get rather excited, which of course encourages him to buy it. Often, we pool our money together when ordering from catalogs or spur- of- the- moment at concerts, spending more than we otherwise would.

Though this is the case, I personally never spend beyond my limit, because after a splurge, I won't buy anything for a while until I'm caught up. He, on the other hand, keeps going and then borrows money from his family. He will often stay up all night making out orders from music or book catalogs, spending hundreds of dollars at a time. In the morning, he'll call me all freaked out over how much money he spent. Then a few days later, he does it again.

In the case of books, in particular, he gets two copies of everything, and one copy is of course for me. So I am thus partly responsible for the situation. I probably wouldn't have posted about this at all, but he asks me all the time what he can do to stop spending so much of his money. So he really wants some advice with this problem.

I've tried to suggest that we make out a list of the things we want, so that on payday, we can look at how much money we've got and then decide on what we'd like to order. This works well for me on my own. However, in his case, he gets new catalogs often, and always there will be something NEW in there which he finds very exciting and can't stop thinking about... Then of course he'll tell me about it, and I find myself wanting to order it as well, so my helpfulness in the situation is greatly diminished.

Also, I find that when I tell him not to order something he's excited about, he'll agree at the time, but then he orders it when I'm not there to keep him from doing so. I think, therefore, that the resolve really has to come from within himself.

So, if anyone out there has similiar issues, how should he manage them? What can I possibly do to help, if anything at all? Please let me know, because I feel guilty that this keeps happening!

Thank you so much for your help!

I suggest using the envelope system.

To do that, you create a written budget before the month begins where you list income, then list expenses until income and expenses equals 0. Once you have done that, at the beginning of the month (or pay period depending on how you want to do it), you take all expenses that are not paid with check, create an envelope for each expense, and put into each envelope the amount you budgeted. When you go to spend money on your hobbies for example, you take the hobby envelope with you. Once the money from that envelope is gone, you cannot spend more money on that hobby (and you are not allowed to "borrow" from other envelopes) for the rest of the month. You then repeat for the next month.

I would also suggest making sure that you budget a reasonable amount to satisfy yourself but is within your income.

Hope this helps.

I also have a problem with compulsive spending. Although, as I get older and wiser it has started to become less and less of a problem. It is hard for me to say 'no' and even harder to tell a good friend 'no'. You might not be the best person to try and persuade him, maybe find another good friend who does not share in some of the same habits that could talk to him.

The envelope system that demeus suggested works, if you have self control! It was the system my dad tried to start me on, and I have to admit that when I was younger it was hard for me to follow!

Good luck, and let me know how it goes... maybe I can get some pointers from you

I too have problems with compulsive spending. Also, at some point I need to stop eating from just the McDonald's dollar menu and the on-campus food. I have sympathy to offer, but unfortunately no solutions just yet

I have the problem too. I rarely ever have any money, so whenever I do have it, I'm pretty much hoarding it like a dragon until the moment arrives that I get the compulsion to spend it on something to spoil myself with. If I ever get a regular income of my own I plan on only buying what I absolutely need (bare essentials), and spoil myself inexpensively on few occasions so I can still have something put away for emergencies. I hope it works.