We’ve come up with a lot of coping mechanisms as a society.

I read an article today about how something like 60% of spending is to cope with things like anxiety, depression, and boredom.

I was just talking with a friend who chuckled telling me about a three-hour rant-filled phone call with a client wherein my friend muted the phone for ten minutes at a time and scrolled through Amazon.

We buy to kill time. We buy to get a quick dopamine fix. We buy to feel like we’re in control of at least one thing in life when everything else is overwhelming.

But sometimes our purchasing makes all of those things worse. Be intentional with your spending. If you know you’re a shopper and you love it, make that a part of your monthly budget. You are going to intentionally spend $X. I’ve even known people to load a visa or Amazon gift card each month and that’s their spending limit. Shop at online thrift stores like Thredup or Poshmark to make your dollar go farther (and to reduce the harmful climate impacts of the fashion industry – look it up, it’s outrageous!)

I fully understand the need to fill space when we’re stuck in a boring meeting or phone call or just need a momentary escape from reality and I totally support that! It’s the mindless spending that can become a problem – often it just adds to the anxiety and you end up with another thing that doesn’t get to the root of your struggles.

If you’re killing time with online shopping, read the news – even limit it to a good-news website if you’re trying to avoid the miserable headlines of the day. Get on pinterest and look at visually lovely things to get ideas for anxiety-reduction for stressful things in your life. I realized the clutter in my house was giving me anxiety and it stressed me out even more that I just didn’t have the time or vision to address it. Pinterest showed me the magic of bins! Glorious bins, that can hold all my clutter without seeming like everything is out of place. I don’t care if I have 17 junk drawers in my house, I don’t see all the stuff everyday and I can take my time cleaning out each bin or drawer.

If shopping is THE thing, keep shopping but don’t buy. Make a wish list on Amazon. Put things in your cart but leave them there for awhile. Put things on your list for birthdays or other holidays where people might need ideas. Shop for gifts for others and put those in a list for future reference.

Turn your unintentional covering-up-my-actual-issue time into intentional time. But also think about the why of it. Why do you need this thing and will it actually make you feel better? Wait 48 hours before you buy it and see if you still have the same answers.

Retail therapy is a distraction. Sometimes you need that. Sometimes it does bring some brightness and freshness into our wardrobe or some sparkle that makes us smile every time we look at it. But be intentional with the choice. Are you shopping or are you buying? You should know the answer before you get on the website or walk in the store.

If the thing will help the underlying issue, by all means get the thing. But be sure you are paying attention to why and to what the underlying reason is. Be intentional.