Scary Shopaholics

I just finished watching Secret Lives of Women - Shopaholics, a documentary on the We Network. I'm typically not a We watcher but the title caught my attention and it was added to my TiVo. DH and I watched it and we found it unbelieveable how badly these women sabatoge their finances. I can certainly empathize as I love nice things too, but to own 15 credit cards and having trash bags full of unworn clothes on the floor is insane!

Oprah also kicked off her "debt diet" series and this one woman had a 66 page credit report! I think the average is 3 sheets/ 6 pages so you can imagine how scary this is. This woman explained that she feels like she needs has an image to project and people see her house and car (BMW), she needs to have the clothes to match her "image". I used to fall into this trap too until I read something Suze Orman wrote that is so true -- "why do you want to impress people that you don't even know?" Not to get philosophical, but why is it that we feel that projecting the image of money/wealth is more important then actually having it? I still struggle with my expensive taste, but I'm determined to maintain debt-free and have enough to retire one day!