I used to be, until recently, one of those peo­ple who believed in quick and pain­less shop­ping. For exam­ple, if I need shoes, I go buy about 3 of them that lasts a year or so and wouldn’t bother till the heel start­ing crack­ing or they fell apart at the seams. Or with clothes for that mat­ter. I try and spend min­i­mal time and fuss because I’d rather be doing other things. I rarely spend more than half an hour pick­ing up what I need in a store.

I’m super quick (if only I could say that about every­thing). After more than 2 years in Ban­ga­lore, I’ve yet to go to Safina Plaza, the hub of all com­mer­cial activ­ity and wom­anly indul­gence. I avoid big malls most of the time, since they look so crazy crowded.

Lately how­ever, I’ve started to enjoy the activ­ity a lit­tle more (you can’t not if you have some of the friends I do!) and I’ve even picked up a few point­ers as to where to go to shop for a par­tic­u­lar item. I’ve learnt to enjoy the art of brows­ing around. Of tak­ing a cou­ple of hours and just walk­ing around gaz­ing at win­dows and star­ing at dis­plays : win­dow shop­ping as it is called in com­mon par­lance. I gape, I inspect, I go round and round. In short, I’m try­ing to develop an art here.

Retail ther­apy is defined here as: “shop­ping with the pri­mary pur­pose of improv­ing the buyer’s mood or dis­po­si­tion. Often seen in peo­ple dur­ing peri­ods of depres­sion or tran­si­tion, it is nor­mally a short-lived habit. Items pur­chased dur­ing peri­ods of retail ther­apy are some­times referred to as “com­fort buys.“”

So when­ever I’ve needed to take my mind of some­thing or feel bet­ter, I try and indulge in a lit­tle bit of RT. It works won­ders. I inevitably step out of a store feel­ing much bet­ter than when I entered it, I also emerge much lighter. But this light­ness of the pocket is a small price to pay, for the uplift­ing of my spir­its, I justify.

RT can also appar­ently get dan­ger­ous and addic­tive. It can lead to com­pul­sive shop­ping habits, wreck your mar­riage (espe­cially if your hubby is pay­ing the credit card bills) and even get from uplift­ing to depressing.

I’ve there­fore decided to indulge in mod­er­ate or cal­cu­lated RT. This means I cal­cu­late well in advance and spend within that bud­get. For exam­ple, I knew I was get­ting a bonus, so I spent all of it before I even got it. This is called antic­i­pa­tory spend­ing. Of course, it doesn’t always work that way, and at most times you’ll over­shoot your lim­its by a wild mar­gin. My bur­geon­ing credit card bills are only proof of the fact that the term mod­er­ate can mean many things.

So, I’m off now. No, not for another shop­ping spree. But to add up my credit card bills and cal­cu­late how many life­times I will need to clear all of it. I can just pic­ture my dad (who is strictly anti-credit) shak­ing his head and telling me for the nth time to live within my means!