Mania and Overspending: Don’t Break the Bank! | bpHope.com (2024)

Manic splurges often entail emptied wallets, depleted savings, and mounting debts. These personal stories and financial tips can help you to manage your money and your mood.

During the highs of bipolar disorder, money can seem limitless and the desire to spend it feels urgent and wise. When the high ends in a crash, regret and reality set in. We’re left with closets and cupboards stuffed with unneeded items or, at worst, emptied savings accounts and enormous credit card bills.

Overspending splurges — whether buying the same sweater in 10 different colors or plane tickets for a round-the-world trip — can harm relationships, diminish quality of life, erase financial security, and upend plans for the future.

But mental health experts, certified financial planners, and people who’ve experienced bipolar-boosted buying say there are many good strategies to get back on your feet and prevent future overspending.

How Bipolar Creates the ‘Perfect Storm’ for Overspending

It goes almost without saying that the most effective way to avoid out-of-control purchasing is to avoid out-of-control highs. Reckless behavior is a defining symptom of mania, and excessive spending is one of the most common types of recklessness, says psychiatrist William Coryell, MD, professor emeritus in the department of psychiatry at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine

“It’s common enough that it’s one of my screening questions,” says Dr. Coryell.

As part of the mood shift, self-confidence and impulsive behavior increase while judgment and insight are compromised.

“It’s kind of like a perfect storm for overspending,” says George Hadjipavlou, MD, psychiatrist at University of British Columbia Hospital in Vancouver, BC, Canada. “You totally underestimate risk and overestimate your ability to do things such as earn money and pay it back.”

The altered thinking is quite obvious to Judy of Chicago.

“I’m a very good money manager when I am ‘okay,’” she says. Yet for many years she often wasn’t okay because she didn’t adhere to treatment.

During one manic binge, she bought three condos in a single day. Another time she rented a hotel suite, invited homeless people to shower and clean up there, and gave them new clothes. That episode racked up $6,000 on her credit card.

“It just seemed doable,” she says of her mindset at those times.

Such behavior isn’t limited to full mania. One study found that risk-taking behavior, such as significant spending, is common during hypomania and often linked with serious consequences, including conflict with family members and financial hardship.

The study found that most of the 93 participants said they had spent a large amount of money when hypomanic, ranging from $100 to $750,000, on items such as clothing, gifts, plane tickets, vehicles, and real estate.

Bipolar and the Compulsion to Overspend

When emotions overtake Tia R. (not her real name) of Calgary, Alberta, it feels almost impossible to stop shopping. “It seems like any money I have, I just have to get rid of it. The compulsion to spend is so overwhelming that it’s difficult to control,” says Tia.

Her excessive consumption began along with depressive and euphoric episodes in her teens, although she wasn’t diagnosed with bipolar until years later. She first recognized her spending problem in her late 20s, such as excessive purchases of sporting equipment and household linens.

“I can’t tell you how many duvets I got,” she says, adding, “I could spend $1,000 on napkins and candles.”

She also spent lavishly on services that made her feel better, such as hair and nail care and restaurant meals, especially while her husband was overseas in the military.

“I’d been through a lot of emotional ups and downs in life,” reflects Tia, who endured an abusive childhood. “I think the spending was how I coped with not coping.”

Mania, meanwhile, brings on “massive compulsive overspending.” Over a two-year period while she and her doctor were adjusting medications, she had episodes when she racked up tens of thousands of dollars in purchases. As a result, her savings were depleted. She and her husband had to sell their home and move in with a relative to help them recover financially.

Accountability Plans Can Prevent Impulsive Shopping

Tia wrote a contract promising her family that she would follow a wellness plan, attend Debtors Anonymous support group meetings, track her spending (she uses a free app for managing expenses), follow a monthly budget — and allow family members to ask her about her finances and any symptoms they notice without her getting defensive.

She has discovered that taking a photo of something she wants stops her from obsessing about buying the item. When she does buy something, she uses cash only. And she placed a hold on her accounts so that she has to go to the bank to withdraw money. That measure helped her to accumulate enough savings to buy a car.

Tia says it was hard to turn to family and close friends because she thought she could manage on her own.

“I had to recognize that I was not in control of my spending and able to make sound decisions relating to my finances and needed to ask for help,” she says. “Getting to that point was huge. I think we all want to be independent. I am grateful to have a supportive family and friends who are willing to help me.”

Establishing Trust After Compulsive Spending

During two manic episodes marked by hypersexuality, Tom of Pennsylvania, opened credit card accounts and blew tens of thousands of dollars. Some of the money went to hotel rooms, some to furnishing an apartment he rented.

Now reconciled with his wife, Mona, he leaves all money decisions to her. It’s one way to rebuild the trust that was tested by his manic behavior.

Tom doesn’t spend a dollar, even on gas, without checking in. His one credit card typically lives in a block of ice in the freezer, a built-in time delay so he can reconsider before using it. Mona goes online daily to monitor their bank account transactions.

Tom’s second manic spree, in 2004, was followed by a depressive crash that kept him out of work for a month. As a kind of silver lining, he received an accurate diagnosis of bipolar and hasn’t slipped into full mania since then. Yet the debts he ran up, compounded by loss of income and pre-existing financial complications, left the family in a precarious situation. They used credit cards and refinanced their house to get by. Ultimately they owed $175,000 and declared bankruptcy in 2009.

Tom began working 60 to 80 hours a week as a paramedic to keep up with bills and college loan payments. Mona also found a part-time job as a school librarian, which allowed her to be home when their two kids were. She recommends that spouses or partners of someone with bipolar have a plan to support themselves if necessary.

“Plan for the worst, expect the best,” says Mona. “That is how I sleep at night, knowing I could do it all if I had to.”

Re-establishing Financial Security After Spending Sprees

To keep down expenses, the family cut back on extras such as premium cable and pricier cell phone plans. They fund their children’s athletic activities, which require some travel to competitions, but very little goes to just-for-fun pursuits.

“We rarely go out to dinner,” Mona says. “I don’t think we’ve ever been on a family vacation.”

She accepts the reality as part of her marriage, saying, “I really do believe, ‘in sickness and in health.’ … I think too many people go into marriage expecting it to be rainbows, unicorns and roses. Tom and I really have a good relationship when he’s not manic.”

Says Tom, “If it wasn’t for her, I’d probably be out on the street or dead by now. Obviously I couldn’t be more grateful.”

Strategies to Prevent Overspending

Once a person is in the throes of a full-blown manic episode, sometimes the only way to prevent serious financial damage is hospitalization. However, there are money management strategies — like Tia’s hold on her bank accounts — that limit the opportunity to overspend.

Sarah knows how important such protections can be. In 2004, unrecognized bipolar turned her affluent life upside down and drained her savings.

“I went through over $100,000 in under a year,” says Sarah. “At the time, it seemed reasonable.”

In addition to compulsive shopping and grandiose spending, Sarah impulsively left her husband and legal career in Australia, moved to the United States, and began an expensive degree program in an unrelated field. Getting her diagnosis helped Sarah come to terms with the irrational decisions that splintered her comfortable existence.

“I had been so full of shame and regret — it was easier now to understand my behavior and I actually preferred the idea that I was mad and not bad!” she writes on the website Bipolar Lives.

Sarah mastered the tools to stay in balance and was able to re-establish herself in a well-paying job in Florida. Committed to her treatment plan, she hasn’t had a serious mood episode in the eight years since she was diagnosed.

Even so, she has a written contract promising she’ll turn over her financial affairs to her fiancé, complete with power of attorney, if she experiences a serious mood shift. The couple also tracks their spending and savings through a money management website that pulls in and analyzes their bank and credit card transactions.

“Removing that opportunity for secrecy is a critical piece,” says Sarah.

Changing Overspending Patterns for Good

Judy, the Chicago woman who almost owned three condos, was generally able to ride out the aftermath of her manic money blowouts. The toll on her most precious relationship — with her daughter, Marina — was harder to ignore.

Judy would pay down her debts when she was well, even while on disability for more than a year. She was released from those condo contracts because the developer’s wife has bipolar and he understood Judy’s situation. And Marina often stepped in to try to fix things.

When the younger woman spotted evidence of a spree, such as shopping bags of expensive clothes in her usually frugal mother’s home or car, she’d return the purchases. At times she covered some of Judy’s bills, knowing her mother would recompense her later. And on occasion, “to stop the bleeding, I’d cancel her credit cards,” Marina recalls.

Over time, however, the cycle of out-of-control behavior pushed their relationship to the breaking point. Marina told her mother the stress was getting to be too much and she would break their ties if something didn’t change.

During a hospitalization in 2001, Judy made a commitment to herself and her daughter to avoid a return of problematic symptoms. She worked closely with her doctor to find medication she would stick with and benefited greatly from support groups. Now her finances are stable and she and Marina have a good relationship.

“For me personally, it was important to finally accept the diagnosis, accept the treatment, accept responsibility that recovery was in my hands,” says Judy, who is president of Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance – Greater Chicago. “If you don’t accept responsibility, then you have no motivation to make changes.”

Editorial Sources and Fact-Checking
Fletcher K, Parker G, Paterson A, Synnott H. High-Risk Behaviour in Hypomanic States. Journal of Affective Disorders. March 2013.

Learn more:
7 Tips From Financial Planners To Protect Your Savings From Overspending

UPDATED: Originally printed as “Bipolar & Overspending: Don’t break the bank”, Fall 2013