Consumerist
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free stuff
Download This Free Game If You Never Want To Get Anything Done Again
If you're lacking for addictions in your life, you may as well download the free new PC game, Peggle: World of Warcraft Edition. More » -
mental health
Sadness Makes You Spend More
As the American Psychiatric Association prepares the fifth edition of the DSM—their official guide to what's making you insane in the membrane—there's some debate on whether to include compulsive shopping as a disorder, writes Melissa Healy in the Los Angeles Times:
Is [it] a biologically driven disease of the brain, a learned habit run amok, an addiction in its own right or a symptom of the other dysfunctions—most notably depression—that so often accompany it?
While the professionals discuss the matter, Healy points out something that may have more practical benefit to you: a recent study showed sad test subjects were willing to spend four times as much on a nonessential item (a water bottle) than non-sad subjects. More »
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bad consumer
Woman Embezzled $2.89 Million To Finance Shopping Addiction
Shopping addiction is really sad, especially when it compels otherwise normal people to do something insane like steal $2.89 million dollars just to buy shoes and jewelry. More » -
debt
10 Ways To Break A Compulsive Spending Habit
"Addictive spending is often rooted in punishing feelings of low self-esteem and problems with impulse control," says an addiction specialist in an MSNBC special report on compulsive spending. At its worst, it can wreak as much or more damage on your finances as any full-blown gambling, drinking, or drug addiction—and yet, a lot of people still consider it a moral failing that sheer will-power can prevent (just take a look at half the comment threads on this blog for evidence of that mindset). If you're a compulsive spender, odds are you already know if you have a problem, even if you manage to hide it from everyone else. But here are ten ways to help get a grip on the situation. More » -
cigarettes
Addicted to Cool: Menthol Cigarettes Are Harder to Quit
Is the minty freshness of menthol cigarettes more addicting than regular cigarettes? More » -
panhandlers
Akron Asks Hobos To Wear Badges
I'm an easy mark for panhandlers. One time, when visiting a friend in Chicago, I was waiting to meet her on a street corner when a single, fairly respectable hobo came up and asked for a dollar for some booze. This is the sort of honesty that speaks to me in a bum, so I gave it to him. Five minutes later, I was throwing all my bills into the air and weeping in despair as a cloud of homeless people swarmed about me, snatching the fluttering green pieces of paper from the air and shouting for more. More » -
A woman in Sweden has been granted the right to seek inpatient treatment for her 
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