Confessions of A Real-Life Shopaholic
The Nashua Telegraph of New Hampshire has a humdinger of a court story this morning. (I love local papers, and am hoping the internet will eventually help them thrive rather than killing them. Really, when would I have read The Nashua Telegraph in print?) Anyway, one Meredith Moore-Flores, 31, divorced mother of four, was sentenced to one to five years in state prison for stealing $62,000 from her employer.
Moore-Flores confessed to skimming the funds from Insight Technologies by filing bogus expense reports. (She also claimed to be a student at a local college to score tuition reimbursement.) Assistant Rockingham County Attorney Amy Connolly, the Telegraph noted, said Moore-Flores had been involved in similar schemes at two previous employers in Massachusetts, and was making $1,000 a month restitution to one of them.
Moore-Flores told the judge that she has a “spending addiction” for which she is now receiving therapy. According to the Nashua Telegraph, Moore-Flores said: “It isn’t just about spending money you don’t have or maxing out your credit cards. It’s an attempt to buy happiness … and push aside feelings of self-doubt.”
"Confessions of a Shopaholic" looked at the lighter side of spending addiction.
In a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers Abhishek Srivastava, Edwin Locke and Kathryn Bartol asked more than 250 graduate students and 145 entrepreneurs how important financial success was versus their other goals, and what their motives were for making money. The researchers offered alternatives such as security, the ability to donate to charity or pursue leisure activities.
Among respondents who placed a heavy emphasis on materialism, the prime reasons offered were social comparison (“To have a house and car that are better than those of my neighbor”), seeking power, showing off, and overcoming self-doubt (“To prove that I am not as dumb as some people assumed.”) The researchers found a negative relationship between the importance of money and subjective well-being because of the motives driving acquisitive behaviors. (Interestingly, Moore-Flores was also an entrepreneur who owned a consignment shop.)
The tragedy, of course, is when shopaholics have financial responsibility for people other than themselves. Moore-Flores’ attorney had asked for minimal jail time because she is the primary caretaker for her kids — ages 8, 6, 4, and 2. As the tearful mother told the judge: “I thought, ‘How did I get to this point in my life? How do I explain this to my children?’ ”
Do you think Moore-Flores should get a minimal sentence or the max? Does a “spending addiction” excuse her behavior?
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