Overcoming Overspending: A Winning Plan for Spenders and Their Partners ANNOTATION
For more than 20 years, Mellan has helped couples and individuals whose spending habits have placed their personal relationships in jeopardy. This is Mellan's plan to guide overspenders and their loved ones through the emotional steps necessary to restoring balance to their budget while renewing bonds of trust and support.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Never has overspending been more widespread, as people struggle under mushrooming personal debt. Olivia Mellan is a groundbreaking psychotherapist in the field of money conflict resolution, and she offers here a dynamic and compassionate plan to guide overspenders and those who love them. "Never preachy . . . enormously useful."--Publishers Weekly.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Mellan, herself a recovering overspender, has been a psychotherapist specializing in money conflict resolution for almost two decades. Here she states her conviction that overspending is a societal addiction in the U.S. and cites sobering statistics: Americans took on $4.5 trillion in household debt between 1990 and 1994; in 1994, we charged $701 billion on credit cards. Pointing out that each individual's attitude toward money is established in childhood and adolescence, she offers practical suggestions for curbing the self-destructive behavior of either overspending or miserliness. While self-help groups such as Debtors Anonymous and Consumer Credit Counseling Services can help some people, Mellan feels that spouses or partners can be of the greatest assistance. The book, written with freelancer Christie, is never preachy and is enormously useful. (Nov.)
Library Journal
Mellan, a psychotherapist in the field of money conflict resolution and herself a recovering compulsive spender, presents not a personal finance book on budgeting, saving, and investing but a psychological self-help book for couple relationships in which one or both partners suffers from an addiction to spending. Mellan uses case studies, including her personal experience, to show what causes overspending and how couples can work to overcome it. Most of the cases involve couples in which one partner is a hoarder or a saver while the other is an overspender. Mellan encourages couples to talk about their spending and what emotions they feel when money is spent. She then wants couples to discuss ways they can fulfill these emotions without spending money. This is an excellent book that should be read by all couples whether they think they have a problem with overspending or not. Highly recommended.-Joel Jones, Kansas City P.L., Mo.
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