Let's Talk - shopping bans

Hello everyone. I admit, my head is still spinning after yesterday's Let's Talk on overshopping. I really appreciate the responses and respect in the posts. There were a couple of responses that Blogger picked up for good reason as spam and one or two I deleted, but other than that, things were kosher.

I will let you know now that the blog will soon resume to business as usual. I will still show reviews of retail clothing items. I'll still have products changing on the side bar. I'll still have Gigi's Gear (ootds), which can be temptation if you think you suddenly cannot live without something I have on. In the meantime, I thought I'd run another post I've had in draft for quite some time. I have lots of topics that sit and I am on the fence about whether to publish. I like this space for what it is and didn't have plans to get advice-y or preachy about what people should be doing. So please, never take it that way. I think examination is good. I just never intended for my blog to do that as so many other spaces on the web seem to have these topics and more covered.

In the meantime, it's imperative that discussion continue. Therefore, today's topic is shopping bans. I used to be intrigued by the concept. Stop shopping for a certain period of time. Period. I tried to join in, pledging on blogs or silently that I, too, would stop. I've promised myself I would stop and not blogged about my efforts here. I've promised G Money, my mom, and even silently promised the UPS guy that he would not be here for a long, long time. Yeah, right. I would stop, but not once did I complete the period of time I set for myself. One issue is that I love clothes quite a bit. For example, I have the Sunnie pencil skirt in both grey and yellow. I think the grey looks better than yellow, but something about the yellow isn't allowing me to give it up. I love the colors and textures too much. It's sitting on my desk right now. Thanks to JC's new return policy, I absolutely have to decide by the end of the month what to do about it. So there's the omg, I love and adore how clothes look and feel issue for me, which I think is a small one. As stated in yesterday's post, I know my larger issue has to do with me avoiding things. So as long as I seek to avoid that which I truly want to do in my life, I will probably put shopping in its place. I'm talking about the big, really get out there in the world risks that I am afraid to take. I'm sure you have your own.

Now I pretty much think shopping bans are a joke. I chuckle when I see them. I truly hope that I'm wrong and the person is successful, but 95% of the time they're not. Probably 99.9% of them don't work. You know that 50% of statistics are made up on the fly, right? (slaps knee) One reason shopping bans don't work is because there always seem to be some built in rules about how exchanges are ok, it's my birthday, I had a credit, I used Paypal money, I did a buy-return to save money, etc... I recall reading a blog by a woman who went for a year without shopping. She did a really, really good job. She stuck to her built in excuses for ok-to-consign-buy, not abusing it. She fell down, imo, only once on the day she had a horrible migraine. If memory serves, she concluded that it was because she was trying to not shop and wouldn't give in. Pressure. I can't recall if she shopped to get rid of it or what. If you know of the woman I'm talking about, I don't claim to know the story exactly. I didn't follow closely and it's been a long time. I'm sure there was a reason why I brought her up. Oh, I guess to say that even people who are masters on their shopping bans have bad days. And I guess also to point out that she had a built-in excuse. I think those create a slippery slope and that's why they don't work. They also don't work if the person isn't dealing with the reason they felt the need to create a ban in the 1st place. And lastly, anytime we completely deprive ourselves of anything it can creat a stronger desire for it. Oh...and coming back to add...I always feel bad when the person falls off the wagon because lots of apologizing happens. It's not my situation. It's theirs. I say don't create such a stringent task and then build in holes like Swiss cheese. Really, the odds of success will be higher when the true issues are addressed.


So what do you think? Do shopping bans work? If so, why? If not, why?


Chime in...
♥



p.s. OMG, I just realized I didn't buy anything yesterday. Not one thing except groceries and I completely stuck to the list. Woo hoo! Uh, no, I'm not on a ban. *lol* Just happy that I didn't add negatively to my conscience yesterday. ;-)

p.p.s. Did you get this in your Inbox today? No, it's not great. If you're carrying a balance, you're paying a huge interest rate, chipping away at your 40% off savings.