I adore Christmas and getting together with as many of my family as possible. Difficult, being of Swedish and Irish families as they live abroad. I like to stay home, not venture out a lot but I try to see my 2 girls. I am a nurse and have always worked the major days over the Christmas period for most of my life. However, I do not see that we all have to spend to excess to enjoy the season and we don't, we keep it simple. Even when the girls were little, we never went to town over indulging them, I think it makes for spoiled, entitled brats.
Essay alert!
However, as for my spending habits, well, that is a sad story! About 10 years ago, no idea why, nothing major happened to me in my life but I developed a shopping addiction / bad habit. I bought an awful lot of stuff from QVC and other outlets besides. Much of it crap! I kidded myself that I would enjoy making cards and crafting as a new hobby and I really went stupid, buying a ton of stuff. To this day, I have 5 very large plastic storage boxes (the ones the size of a 5 year old) and they are full of this *****, much of it unused. I spent a fortune and needless to say, it 'aint worth jack. One day, I may sell it on ebay but more likely I will give it to charity as I am sick of looking at it. I wanted to dump it all last year but the charity shops here were not able to receive donations, understandably due to Covid.
So, quite apart from the impact on my home being full of clutter, there is the more serious impact on my finances. I was buying so much stuff across the board, craft, clothes, jewellery, homewares etc... I got myself into a pickle. Credit cards, overdrawn at the bank, easy pays (not so easy in fact, especially when you have a lot and they start to bounce). I was previously a sensible and financially responsible woman but I totally lost control, so I know that it is really very easy to do. I work, I am a nurse, not bad money but I was spending 2 - 2.5 x my salary and obviously, that isn't sustainable. I am so lucky that I have a brilliant husband, he paid the mortgage (halleluia that is done now), so there was really no excuse for my mad spending. He says he was enabling me and I think he was right. I ordered so many things, packages were arriving daily, building up unopened for weeks. The postman used to comment on the number of parcels and my name was known as a regular at the main sorting office. If I had to collect carded item, they knew me and my husband by sight. I was ashamed and embarrassed at my behaviour.
I had to get a grip because I couldn't sustain a spending habit like that. It took me about 18 months to get my finances in order and I did a lot of overtime I started to see items I was tempted by and thought "how many hours would I have to work to pay for this?" Quite sobering! I couldn't stop spending cold turkey, I tried at least 3 times and failed. So, I began to budget for what I could spend each month and had to factor in a fair amount to pay off the debt I had run up. Thank f**k, it was a success! I paid off the debt mountain and now I have savings, yippee!!
Yes, I still watch selly telly because I enjoy it. However, I rarely buy now. A little from QVC, 5 items this year and absolutely never use easy pay. If I can't afford it in full, I don't buy it Never buy from Ideal World and Gemporia are a bunch of shisters I would never send another penny in their direction (or any of their sister channels) Can't abide Steve Bennett, disengenuous to say the very least :-(
I wanted to share this long and embarrassing story because I know I was not alone in my problem and that there are other people out there who are caught up in this horrible predicament. It is self-made, I would as never dispute that but it is an addiction. I hope anyone who is going through hell because of their addiction can get a grip, self help, counselling, whatever it takes. Quiro is feeding ego's, both the posters and QVC's, as well as actively encouraging irresponsible financial behaviour . We don't need to buy crap to impress people we don't know or care about! I do laugh at Qurio but behind the smile a little voice is saying "hang on, this is so wrong".
Sorry this was a mega post, it did take a bit of courage but I hope it may reach out to someone, even one person.
Ballerina xx
I agree with her though. Whenever I flick onto the channel Abby is on screen flogging something or Maria Wynne is being featured.
