read this if you’re a shopaholic

Happiness has a price and it requires a price tag with several zeroes. 

Growing up, hearing people say that “the best things in life are free” had been rubbish for me. After all, money got me a Furby for Christmas. Money got me to Disneyland. Money let me take ballet classes in preschool. And yet, as a self-proclaimed “material girl” brought about by the commercialized mainstream aesthetics for young women, I’ve come to the shocking realization that the best things in life are kinda free.

The best things in life are free because I notice it on the plainest days that have nothing special going on. I feel an overwhelming state of happiness and gratitude and love.

Despite that, I know that a small sum of money is sometimes needed to be happy without the prospect of overconsumption. Adequate funds will provide you with a roof over your head and food on your plate. It’s harder to find beauty in the mundane if you lack even the basic needs. I know that I am speaking from a place of privilege, and I understand that “the best things in life are free” cannot be an immediate tenet for everyone.

But this is for the teenage girls in their twenties who probably see a little bit of themselves in me. I’ve been through the crazy shopaholic phase, and part of me still struggles to outgrow it. I’m not proud of it, but I still own Shopee parcels I’ve never opened, thrifted Instagram clothes I’ve never used, trinkets that I’ve forgotten about, and unread novels from Big Bad Wolf. As a BTS fan, it took one full bookshelf of merchandise dusting away in my room to convince me that these possessions could never promise me lasting happiness.

So here’s the truth about being a shopaholic: it’s five seconds of happiness.

I see it as an instrument to fill the void; hushing the sadness, stress, and anxiety, but never being enough to resolve it. It affirms your status quo and diminishes your FOMO. For my demographic, it’s always about living manufactured aesthetics like “clean girl”, “coastal grandmother”, or “barbiecore”. I see myself as a basic girl doing the most “teenage girl in her twenties” activities, so it never crossed my mind that I’d been corrupted by a vice.

And you know what baffles me the most? It’s how our generation and society has created boxes of aesthetics to classify a young woman’s entire identity.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s cute. My favorite is the coquette aesthetic and I liked it way before it was trendy! But you need to understand that we’re multi-faceted. We’re not just the pink bow in our hair, the retro Y2K shades, or the preppy old money sweater. I’ve witnessed it snowball from a visual appeal to an unrealistic lifestyle. People on social media do everything to embody the exact aesthetic, spending recklessly to perfect their house, appearance, and belongings. Admittedly, so did I.

The worst part of these aesthetics is that being an overconsumer is sugarcoated. It is glazed over with appealing terms like “material girl”, “retail therapy”, or “shopaholic”. It glorifies the irrational Shopee splurge or the stress shopping. When I check my Notion tracker for expenses, I realize just how much I’ve been spending on stuff I don’t even use.

I’ve learned that poor budgeting is not hot.

Let me be clear: your money, your rules. I’m not telling you to not be a shopaholic. I’m not telling you to weigh your needs and wants; you can buy the most useless trinket and I’d have nothing against it. I’m not telling you to save your money, be practical, or change your lifestyle.

Before buying something, I just want you to ask yourself: will getting this really bring me happiness?

I used to think that filling my room with my collected splurges would make me happy. And it does. And I’m lucky to have what I have. But the happiness from my splurges is just so shallow. So surface-level and superficial.

I still love shopping. But I’ve learned how to regulate myself, to buy only what I deem meaningful, to be practical when I should, to stop reckless spending, and to transform my splurges into a reward system instead.

In my twenty years of existence, I have never felt happier than I am now, noticing the most mundane things in life, and having zero expectations of a life-altering change from everything with a price tag.