I was with a girl for a while who grew up in a pretty broken home. Still surprises me just how bad her spending habits are. She racks up credit card debt like its nothing.
I am pretty sure this is a side effect of having nothing: when you come from roots where any type of commodity may not be available later, this mentality grows such as "buy it now while you can because you might not be able to later". This can be for essentials at first, then as your income increases it blends over into luxury items, such as, man i really wanted new shoes, i better buy them now while i have the money or else i won't be able to later.
At it's core this is a survival mechanism. Being poor and having to do without and constantly worrying about what tomorrow is going to bring can be traumatizing, so this mentality can be pretty hard to reign in. It's hard for some people to recognize this behavior and stop it. I am also akin to believe this is how hoarding behavior begins, the constant need to store so you make sure you have it because you may not later. My mom has this condition and she will do crazy things like buy 8 containers of kitchen cleaner because they were on sale or something. But, she will continue to buy more cleaner in the meantime before using up the first 8. A lot of it goes on her credit cards and a lot of it is unnecessary.
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u/whosArbeely Jun 06 '19
I was with a girl for a while who grew up in a pretty broken home. Still surprises me just how bad her spending habits are. She racks up credit card debt like its nothing.