As a citizen of the United States of America (USA), I’ve grown up in a society leading the world in consumerism resulting in uncontrolled spending addiction! Addiction is defined by MedicalNewsToday as a, “psychological and physical inability to stop consuming a chemical, drug, activity, or substance, even though it is causing psychological and physical harm.”

Addiction is not restricted to one country so the influences of uncontrolled spending addiction are observed everywhere. I’ve been victim to impulsive buying and spending too much money for things to feel gratification. An example of my own spending addiction occurred when I collected music CDs which became obsessive and needed correcting to turn debts into savings.

USA leads the world in debt with over $22.5 trillion! Checkout U.S. Presidential candidate Senator Michael Bennett from Colorado discussing unpaid wars and tax cuts in his speech on “Fiscal Responsibility.”

I posted a blog in December 2016 about similar issues. Our goal needs to be finding a balance and reducing overconsumption!

One remedy that I’ve discovered works for me is to take a photo of when I want to buy something to avoid impulsive buying. This really helps when I’m shopping, especially with children, to say we will think about a purchase. It is amazing how quickly the desire can be fulfilled to separate our needs from our wants.

Last week, I took my son shopping for his birthday to new sporting goods store in town, He identified about 20 “must have” items so after taking photos we determined the best few products to obtain a few days later and he was happy as well as we stayed within our budget.