We watched Confessions of a Shopaholic last night. I know some people call this movie terrible and predictable and all that but I think that wouldn’t be fair; it wasn’t all that bad. I went in expecting a light, feel-good romantic comedy, the perfect movie for four girls to watch, and that’s what we got.
The story is about a magazine writer named Rebecca Bloomwood who has a serious problem – she has a compulsion to go shopping and has maxed out 12 credit cards and raked up a debt above $60,000.
As a magazine writer, she aspires to work for the fashion magazine Alette, but instead unintentionally lands a job in its sister magazine, Successful Saving, which is about finance.
Ironically, she ends up writing articles about managing money, which she herself does not do. She hides her identity in the pseudonym “the girl in the green scarf” and everyone loves her columns so much that the magazine’s ratings soar. She keeps her debts a secret from her colleagues, including her totally hot boss Luke whom she gets romantically involved with.
All her lies blow up when her debt collector exposes her on a national television show, where she guests. When her love and her bestfriend feel betrayed by her and leave, she wakes up to the truth and finally turns her life around by putting all her unneeded purchases on sale and auction and finally paying off her debts. She also begs for the forgiveness of her bestfriend and wounds up back in the arms of Luke.
One of the reasons why I liked this movie, aside from the drool-worthy male lead, Hugh Dancy, the cute poncho and the anchor necklace, is that I could relate to Rebecca Bloomwood’s problem. At the start of the movie, she talked about how, as a child, her mom would buy her stuff, like shoes, that were practical but not pretty and how she would envy her friends who got pretty things and looked up to the older women who could buy whatever they want.
I was that kid. We were not well-off, and I could not afford most of the stuff I wanted on an allowance of 30 pesos a day (and this was in College). So like Rebecca, when I finally started earning my own money, the deprived child in me took over, and I got my hands on everything that I was not entitled to while still a student… I bought clothes, makeup, gadgets, and jumped at many opportunities to travel.
When I was issued my own credit cards, it became worse, because credit cards became an extension of my wallet, gave an illusion that I had bigger purchasing power than I actually did. Even though I had no more cash, I would think, I can charge this to my next month’s salary, not realizing that my next month’s salary is so much smaller than my credit limit. So I just paid off what I could the next month, and the rest of my debt accumulated an interest until my debt in interest equaled the amount of my actual purchases, and my debt got bigger each passing month.
Thank goodness I had a chance to break free of this vicious cycle when I came to Singapore. I stopped using my credit cards so that I would stop adding to my debt and pay them off every month to subtract from them as well. My macbook was the last thing I’ll ever buy on installment debt, and my hope is that on the day I make my last monthly installment payment on it (which is on April 2010), that would also be the day when I become a 100% debt-free girl.
In the meantime, maybe I need to find and attend one of those Shopaholic Anonymous sessions.