‘I knew what I was doing was wrong’: Shopping addict reveals how she landed in £40,000 debt
By Emily Mee, news reporter
When Maddy Alexander-Grout went to university, she didn’t realise she had an undiagnosed ADHD spending addiction.
Alone in the big wide world for the first time, she soon found she had a “hole that burned in my pocket” and would “spend and spend and spend”.
Using credit cards, overdrafts, store cards and even a hardship grant from her university, she would spend her money on things she didn’t need, such as clothes, shoes, CDs and books.
Before long she was in £40,000 of debt – and in the third part of our Psychology of Shopping series, we hear her story.
Maddy says she didn’t tell anyone about her out-of-control spending.
“I knew what I was doing was wrong but I felt really ashamed of the fact I was just spending money all the time,” she says.
Only her housemates knew she was struggling because she was unable to pay the bills, but even they didn’t know the true extent of her debt and Maddy found herself “hiding” from them because she owed them money.
Miles from home and feeling alone, Maddy stopped speaking to her parents for a long time as she felt “ashamed” and didn’t want them to “bear the burden of having to bail me out”.
All the while her spending sprees continued.
Maddy explains that much of it was borne out of wanting people to like her – she thought if she had the trendiest clothes and was going out drinking then she’d be popular.
But she’d wake up hungover from a night out and “spiral”, then go out and buy more clothes.
When the debt became too overwhelming, she stopped opening her post and moved to a different city in an attempt to get away from it.
It even got to the point where a bailiff turned up at her house, which she described as a “horrible situation”.
In desperation she turned to the Citizen’s Advice Bureau, which told her she would have to go bankrupt – an idea that only filled her with “more shame”.
It was then that Maddy decided to finally sort things out.
Citizen’s Advice told her about the 50-30-20 rule – where you spend 50% of your incomings on rent and everyday bills, 30% on wants and needs, and 20% on debt.
Given it would still have taken her about 60 years to clear her debt this way, Maddy says instead she adopted her own 50-10-40 rule – which gave her just 10% of her incomings for food and socialising.
She was living on just £15 a week for food so learned to pick up only yellow sticker deals from the supermarket, which would lead to some “random” meals.
“I discovered I really love tinned tomatoes on toast with cheese so I lived on that solidly for about two years,” Maddy says.
Now, Maddy has launched an app called Mad About Money to help others – particularly those who are neurodivergent – achieve their money and wellbeing goals.
She says if she had been taught about money at a young age, she would’ve realised the “massive consequences” of her spending.
“The whole reason I set up the app is to give people that education and a support community – if they don’t want to talk to their friends, they can come and talk to people who are in similar situations so everyone can cheer each other on,” she says.
“If other people had said to me, we’re in the same position, we’re doing the same thing, I wouldn’t have felt as ashamed about it.”
Looking back on what happened to her, she says it’s “part of my story so I don’t regret it” and it has taught her a lot, though she does regret putting her parents under stress and not talking to them sooner.
She now talks openly with her children about money so they can make more educated decisions.
As for the urge to spend money so that people like her?
“I’ve loads of friends now – I rock up in joggers half the time and they don’t care,” she laughs.
Join us tomorrow as we conclude this series with a look at the tactics big brands use to get you to spend more
