A WOMAN’S GUILTY PLEASURE? SHOPPING!

It’s the age old question that men want an answer to: why does anyone need more than two pairs of shoes? Or when it comes to clothes, why do you need a wardrobe full of skirts and tops that will never get worn? Why spend all that money on just to lock them up inside a wardrobe?
　Equally, on the other side, women must wonder why men don’t think twice about spending on an expensive golf habit, or why sports on television have the power to numb all sounds in the vicinity. These issues probably won’t get resolved till the end of time, and perhaps the only thing we can do is try and live with them instead of ignoring them.
　The other option, of course, is to do it on the sly.
　This is what many wives in Australia are waking up to: keeping their guilty shopping pleasures secret so that the husband wouldn’t know where the money is going. For many, shopping offers an escape from the daily humdrum of everyday life, and gives them a peek – however temporary – into the world of high fashion and glamour. The guilt that comes from hiding a purchase from their husbands is more than offset that the purchase – a pair of shoes, perhaps – gives them.
　This is especially true if the wife in question is a stay-at-home mum. Late mornings and evenings must be terribly slow for these ladies, so shopping gives them an extra adrenaline rush, and it’s also a boredom buster.
　For others, fashion is an expensive hobby, something that their partners just don’t understand. Instead of wasting time explaining to the husband why fashion is important to her, a wife may decide instead to just go ahead and indulge, because after all, it’s very unlikely that the husband will understand. Buying undercover, therefore, is much less stressful than having an ugly argument after which nothing changes anyway.
　Shopkeepers are saying that undercover buying is much more prevalent than what men would like to believe. Some give their shopkeepers their ‘secret email address’ where all the shopping receipts can go. Others use cash as the payment option, and get cash out at the till when buying groceries and other things so that the payment is masked. If you take $100 out with every $300 purchase for groceries every week, by the end of the month, you have $400 of ‘pocket money’ that has come out of nowhere.
　Some women know their delivery man so well that he will deliver to her at a cafe and ask after her family. With the emergence of online retailers, this habit is no longer contained to the regular 9-5 times. Now people can indulge in their habits around the clock.
　So if you’re a man and you just can’t figure out where the money’s going, maybe an honest conversation with your wife can help.