All-Consuming Problem

Then she instructs them to set a strict shopping budget. She also advises them to use debit cards instead of credit cards.

Mark Olbert and his wife, Jackie, turned to ClearPoint Financial Solutions, a credit-counseling agency in Richmond, to get their spending under control.

When they married, they saw their combined income of $100,000 and thought they could afford anything. They bought nice clothing, ate out a lot and took vacations to Florida and Las Vegas. "If we saw it, we wanted it, we bought it," Mark Olbert, a maintenance supervisor, said.

It didn't take long for them to rack up nearly $80,000 in credit card debt. "Before we knew it, we had more bills than income, and it happened quick," Olbert, 44, said.

Olbert does not think they were compulsive buyers who needed psychiatric treatment but, he said, "we just weren't smart."

ClearPoint consolidated their debt so their monthly payments went from $2,200 to $1,600. Last month, they made their last payment. It took them five years. "It was like I got paroled," he said.

Hassemer hopes she reaches that point someday.

She realized she needed help when her 5-year-old daughter complained of not having enough clothing even though she had a closet full of trendy dresses and shoes. "Things were getting out of hand because I couldn't control my spending anymore," she said. "There was always something new I had to have."

The $400 a week she was making as a part-time recruitment coordinator for a health insurance company was not sustaining her habit. So she canceled her credit cards, found a debt consultant and called Shulman, the therapist in Detroit.

Now she does not go shopping without a friend. And she recently went a week and a half with no shopping at all. "It felt good not to go overboard for once," she said.