一起聽英語 18 一起來剁手

Kate: Hello and welcome to this week's 6 Minute English where and I'm joined

again by Rebecca. Hi Rebecca. Well, when it comes to subject of money

and shopping most of us have been tightening our belts over the last year

or so. This is a phrase that means that we’ve been trying to spend less

money than before.

Rebecca: Yes, but unfortunately many people have found this very difficult for

various reasons and find themselves buying more than they can afford on a

regular basis. In today's programme, we're going to try to understand why

we spend money, our emotional response to it and the first step in how to

control it.

Kate: So, how about you Rebecca – do your emotions control your finances or are

you quite restrained in your spending?

Rebecca: Well, I'm quite good with money usually. But sometimes buying a new pair

or shoes to make me feel better when I'm a bit down or depressed.

Kate: Shopping can be a great way of forgetting our troubles. This is something

which is sometimes called retail therapy – shopping to make ourselves feel

better. This is great when we have the money to spend freely but what

happens when our spending gets out of control?

6 Minute English © bbclearningenglish.com 2008

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Rebecca: Well, we develop a debt culture. This is when people live off credit. They

spend money they don’t actually have by using credit cards and borrowing

from the bank. Of course when people don’t have the ability to pay the

money back then it can cause real problems.

Kate: Yes, sometimes people who spend a lot of money on things they don’t really

need or can't afford are called shopaholics – these are people who are

compulsive shoppers and simply can't stop themselves buying things….

which leads on to my question for this week.

According to some sources, what percentage of the population are

shopaholics? Is it:

a) 1%

b) 10%

c) 50%

Rebecca: answers

Kate: We'll check your answer at the end of the programme. Now we're going to

here from a real shopaholic. She's called Helen Macnallan and when she

lost her job, she found that her spending got out of control. Let’s listen to

the type of things she bought:

Extract 1

At first I would buy expensive suits because I was desperate to get back to work.

Then it went on to antique furniture for our house… that didn’t even fit in the house and that

was £25,000 in a day. Then I bought diamond earrings which were £10,000. It was money we

didn’t have. I feel sick thinking about it now but at the time I didn't realise why I was doing it.

6 Minute English © bbclearningenglish.com 2008

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Rebecca: Goodness – she said she bought expensive suits, antique furniture (that didn't

fit into her house) and diamond earrings!!! And she said she didn't realise

why she was doing it.

Kate: So why was she doing it? In the next extract she mentions the word selfesteem.

What does this mean?

Rebecca: Self esteem is how you feel about yourself. If your self-esteem is high, then

you feel good about yourself as a person and if it's low then you have a poor

or a bad opinion of yourself.

Kate: And mood?

Rebecca: mood is the way you feel at a particular time.

Kate: Let's listen to the next extract. Try to listen out for the reasons why Helen

bought so many things?

Extract 2

There seemed to be a correlation between how down I was feeling and how much money I

would spend. My shopping was a way of controlling my mood. My self-esteem was

extremely low. We're all bombarded these days with pictures of happy successful, beautiful

people with the latest handbag…the latest shoes and I thought that if I bought the same stuff

as they were buying, then I would have that same happy, successful, beautiful feeling. But

that feeling lasted for about as long as it took to pay for the item, to get it home and unwrap it.

Rebecca: She said shopping helped her control her mood. She felt bombarded by

pictures of happy successful people everywhere and thought if she bought the

same things as them then she would be as happy and beautiful as them.

But then unfortunately the feeling would only last until she got home! Oh dear!

6 Minute English © bbclearningenglish.com 2008

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Kate: I’m sure this feeling is very common. So if we’re guilty of doing this, how do

we manage to stop and prevent ourselves spending more money that we should

or indeed have?! Let’s listen to what a professional, Dr Graham Lawlor has to

say. He uses the word leakage which means something which we lose or

which disappears without us really noticing. What advice does he give?

Extract 4

You have to manage very, very carefully and you have to catergorize what you're spending

your money on and I recommend you literally go out with a piece of paper and a pencil and

you write down everything and that way you can track the leakage. Because the majority of

people are leaking cash and they don’t know where it goes and unless you record that, you're

never going to know.

Rebecca: Mmm - some good advice there. He recommended that we write down

everything we spend and then you can track where all your money is going.

Kate: We’re nearly at the end of our programme so now to the question I asked you

earlier. What percentage of the population is a shopaholic?

Rebecca: And I said 50%.

Kate: Thankfully the answer is actually 10% which is still quite high. Moving on,

let's go over some of the vocabulary we've heard in today's programme.

Rebeca: First we had the expression, tightening our belts, then retail therapy, debt

culture, shopaholic and self-esteem, mood, and leakage.

Kate: Thanks Rebecca. Well, I’ll certainly be getting that pen and paper out next

time I go shopping! What about you? That's all we've time for today. Thanks

for joining us and until next week. Goodbye!