Consuming Passions: Help for Compulsive Shoppers

Rating:
Summary: Buy This Book
Review: Buy this book if you are a compulsive shopper. Yes, that seems to be a contradiction. However, it has two purposes -- it not only gets you a good book on the subject, it gets you started on the road of seeing where your values are and only buying things that will really benefit you.

The book is easy to read and in small chunks so that it can be read in small increments of time. The only problem I found was that the words are too close to the edges of the page so that it makes it hard to hold in one hand without covering up the text.

For the impatient reader, I suggest reading chapter 1 ("The Smiled-Upon Addiction") followed by chapter 7 ("Anxiety and Stress Relief"). Chapters 8 ("Alternatives to Shopping: From A to Z") and 9 ("Fighting Back") are optional but worth skimming. Some chapters, like chapter 5 ("Keeping Track of Shopping Behaviors), chapter 6 ("Learning from Your Shopping Record") and chapter 10 ("Taking Control of Your Finances"), may be old-hat to those of us that have been in this predicament for a while. So, if it will keep you from recovery, skip those for now.

Since there are few good books on how to overcome similar problems, this is a good book.

Rating:
Summary: Consuming Passions
Review: I have struggled with Compulsive shopping for 15 years and never knew why. This book explained why I do it. I believe knowing why you do a behavior is half the battle of overcoming it. I highly recommend this book!

Rating:
Summary: Do Not Buy this book on amazon
Review: You can buy this book over the counter for $12.00 (it is even written on the book) but these people are selling it for $40.00! Check out your nearest bookstore and save yourself some money. I guess they think overspenders will spend more that what something is worth.