Woman is Obsessed with Looking Like A Celebrity | Spendaholics | Only Human

[Music] meet 23 year old roxanne russell i love spending money yes she's dedicated her life to dressing like hollywood royalty i've just got to have it if i've got it i want it in a less than glamorous receptionist job with the local council roxanne earns just twelve thousand pounds a year that's j lo's annual manicure bill and her cravings for celebrity clubber cometa price in just two years roxanne's racked up an unfashionable 14 grand debt more than a whole year's salary money doesn't really mean anything to me i just think of it as just papers and numbers roxanne wants to turn her passion for a-list fashion into a new career but the reality of her debt means she's stuck in a rut and heading for skid row i'd have a lot of threatening letters from bailiffs and things i think i've got about five county court judgments now this young girl needs help i keep trying to stop myself and they kind of don't need it but i just it's the only thing that makes me feel happy over the next four weeks lifestyle expert jay hunt will put the brakes on the spending we are going to have to think about this whole shoe addiction you've got to learn to be giving something up in order to get something back and psychological coach benjamin frye will unleash the demons behind her obsession yeah no no it's pretty hard roxanne's spending is at crisis point her fantasy shopping needs a huge dose of reality i feel like this is my last chance really i need to get out of this so i can have a good life have a happy life [Music] roxanne a celebrity obsessed 23 year old has always been the baby of her family when i was younger i was definitely spoiled by my sisters my mom and my dad because i was the baby the princess and nothing's changed what baby wants baby gets as soon as i see misha barton or lindsay lohan wearing something that i want like a nice handbag i definitely have to have it if hollywood a-listers are wearing it then roxanne from the west midlands has to have it too whatever it costs i feel like i'm in a private club or something the same as them because we've got this same fabulous amazing bag this is one of my favorites this is a fendi spy brought this because misha barton had it and it cost me 500 pounds but i didn't care i just had to have it and it doesn't stop there 60 hollywood heels 30 of them still box fresh nicole richie had some quite similar to these and i've never actually worn them but i do love them [Music] all this effort and expense and yet roxanne rarely leaves the house she shares with her older sister esther [Music] after leaving sixth form college her two best friends moved away and roxanne drifted into the first job that came along [Music] since then she's lived in a fantasy world when not shopping from work she dedicates hours to perfecting her celebrity look two years ago she discovered a way to fund her obsession it's just been so easy to get credit at the beginning because i was being sent credit cards and offers for loans just going to a shop pick up a hair bundle something and then they'd say oh do you want a store card so i'd end up having a store card and just almost maxing out in that day trouble is her 12 grand salary simply can't keep up she hasn't made a single debt repayment in a year and her plastic's in meltdown i can't get any credit now i can't get any store cards or even an overdraft or anything like that so every payday when i get paid i just draw almost all my cash out and just spend it on what i want barely out of her team's roxanne's 14 grand debt is a huge millstone around her neck i just feel like i'm going nowhere i'm doing a job that i don't really enjoy i don't have any passion for and i just do feel i feel trapped by my debt but roxanne's still got to get out of jail free card her long-suffering sisters regularly sub her to the tune of 300 pounds every month the entire family bail roxanne out from month to month she's not growing up to realize you can't have what you want unless you've got the money to actually have it the family have been pushed to breaking point and need to call a halt i am very good about roxanne because i wonder what is going to happen in the next few years despite her family's fears roxanne continues to shop oh it's lovely but her future won't be lovely if she doesn't stop now [Music] roxanne rents a room from her eldest sister esther in this sleepy town of bewdley near birmingham while they're both out benjamin and jay have borrowed the keys to the house to hunt down clues to roxanne's spending addiction oh shoe girl one for you jay i know quite a lot of shoes and all quite similar those two the red and black are the same pair of shoes just in different colors but from as seen on screen what is as seen on the screen a website that's really popular and what it shows you is what celebrities have been wearing so if you see a celebrity and you want to have a look there you know victoria becker misha barton all these sort of girls that you know the aspirational girls ah see look the bags you know the bags bore me sense i know but what you should know about bags benjamin is that they're incredibly expensive when their chanel fendi i remember i've learned so much from you this benjamin is a fendi spy bag you keep your secret codes in the handle don't you well this is the one that all the celebrities have so it's become a must-have thing with young girls but the problem is it's the bag of the season for one season and then you've got to buy something else here lift up this i bet there's more in here oh yeah oh god bags of bags it's not just what she's wearing but what she's watching that gives them the clues to this girl's obsession they're all quite young the oc buffy cusp of teen to adults yeah maybe she's having trouble breaking out of teenage years into adulthood this is where she lives her life in this kind of area of fantasy where everything's perfect and lovely and wonderful and everyone's beautiful and nothing bad happens you know sea world yeah sunday shines everybody's on the beach in great shorts who wouldn't want to be mr barton the bedroom's got the bling but it's big sister's living room where jay finds the financial impact of roxanne's runaway spending look at that notice of intended litigation that's real contempt of court order oh my god you may be sent to prison solicitors letter oh look this is where she's obviously put all her debts from all her credit cards into one account total 14 171 pounds 97p right i'm going to take all of this well she's really far gone if she's already getting demands from the call and from solicitors and stuff now armed with the full horror of roxanne's excesses jay and benjamin need to shake this girl out of her fantasy life [Music] time for celeb obsessed roxanne to face up to her spending to ram home their message jay and benjamin are about to give her the red carpet treatment is this all right with you yeah yeah you like a limousine yeah we're going to a celebrity do really yeah black tie bash and everything is that all right yeah great do you like that sort of thing is that out your streets [Music] nearly there celebrity city [Music] [Music] roxanne's accelerated spending over the last two years has given her a front row seat at this star-studded event welcome to the annual spendaholics awards and the nominations for bigger spender are for her role in handbag queen she's impressed the judges by spending a staggering 3850 pounds on celebrity inspired handbags roxanne russell the next nomination is for her heartwarming portrayal of a girl out of control a whopping spend of 4035 pounds on shoes it's none other than roxanne russell and the final nomination for this category is a love story between a girl and her wardrobe a staggering spend of 4038 pounds on clothes she's nominated again it's roxanne russell and the winner is if you'd like to reveal benjamin roxanne russell young roxanne russell the 12 000 a year receptionist from bewdley has swept the board in every single category [Applause] now roxanne you have absolutely wowed the judges in this category by spending in under two years on bag shoes and clothes a whopping 11 923 pounds oh my god oh dear my mom would go mad that's almost one year's salary are you looking forward to your career going from strength to strength from here or do you think maybe it's time to hang up your spending boots i think it's time to quit now putting all the pans of my home aside would you really like some help i really would yes okay well that's what we're here for it's the wake up call roxanne needs but the road to recovery isn't going to be easy she needs to go cold turkey [Music] it's over to jay and benjamin to set a weekly budget do you have any idea of how much money you get through in an average week probably a hundred pounds a week you might be surprised to know that in an average week you get through 241 pounds that's 45 pounds more than her weekly wage and doesn't even include a minimum payment to her credit agency right i don't even realize i had that much except more than you thought yeah a lot more than i thought you must be borrowing a lot more yeah yeah definitely yeah reality is a hard pill to swallow if roxanne wants to change she needs a taste of life without spending for the next seven days what we'd like to actually give you is 35 pounds you've obviously got to eat for a week you've got to get to work and back and that has got to cover all of that so all your luxuries your magazines your spending on the internet fashion purchases all of that there'll be absolutely nothing for seven days how do you feel about that um pretty worried i don't really know how i'm gonna cope with just that and cause i'll probably just spend that on a hair band or something ridiculous so yeah so as we'll see i think that today has been a real reality moment for roxanne she's never really sat and confronted the fact that she has this terrible debt how she's going to get out of it i don't know it really depends on whether she's willing to work with us and enter into the real world and leave behind all her celebrity fantasy friends we'll have to see i was really shocked about that i just don't know where it's all gone i've never noticed it before in my life never i've never even tried so it'll be interesting it's the first day of cold turkey and big sister esther knows that if roxanne's going to make it through the week then the sponging has to stop now how are you but apparently i want to do that 35 pounds do you think that you're gonna manage on it though i have to i'm gonna really give it a good go without buying 50 pound shoes from topshop yeah well i've got them the same in grey so i probably could do without the red ones and see what happens and we've got to try not to help you out yeah yeah i can't borrow any money or anything so no i wouldn't lend you any money anyway roxanne heads to the local shop determined to save money by cooking from scratch it's a far cry from her usual habit of buying snacks and takeaways that mount up to 60 quid a week so far so good but a mere two hours later temptation strikes roxanne squanders a further seven pounds on fashion magazines a worrying 40 of her budget has bitten the dust on day one [Music] i've tried to budget a bit but i don't think i've done very well really seems a bit mad that i've spent that much already so i'm a bit worried but i'm just gonna think about it a bit more tomorrow [Music] [Applause] monday morning and having blown almost half her cold turkey budget roxanne's determined to get back on the straight and narrow she's up early to swap shop bought lunch for homemade [Music] i've made that tuna and sweet corn pasta salad looks really boring it tastes really boring to be honest um but it's i mean i'd normally spend five pounds on lunch when i go to work i buy like ready-made pasta salad or something i mean it's only cost me about 70p that's quite shocking really i don't never really thought of it like that the drive to work gives her time to consider the potential pitfalls for the day ahead at work i actually have the internet on my computer and i tend to go onto some websites and to shop and things quite a lot but then i always have an email alerts telling me what's new in and what everybody's buying at the moment and things i think that'll be quite hard i might try and cancel those if i can i think i'm going to try not to go into town on my lunch breaks this week as well um because it's just odd little shops there with closing and things and no matter where it goes end up buying something three hours later roxanne can't resist the lure of the shops she loves temptation is everywhere [Music] there are some boots that i really like and they're on sale but maybe next week roxanne doesn't succumb but foregoing a retail fix sends her good mood crashing down this afternoon since i got home i felt a bit miserable again and just a bit down and everybody like my family and everybody's just been going on about money a bit panicky about what's gonna happen what i'm gonna do with my life really [Music] currently roxanne equates feeling happy with filling shopping baskets if she wants a long-term solution to her addiction she needs to start unearthing the reasons behind it psychological coach benjamin frye calls her for a meeting to discuss her compulsion i seem to have gotten a lot of debt i am started going shopping pretty much every day and my lunch break and after work pretty much you know until the shops closed yeah you enjoy it yeah i did yeah i was really happy actually at that point really um so and it just spiraled out of control i think really and how do you feel when you're making those purchases i don't think about anything else um i just completely zone out so what is the anything else that you think about when you're not shopping um just um i think about my mom a lot when i'm not shopping roxanne's mum died of colon cancer two years ago during her year-long illness roxanne shared the care with her two older sisters i think i almost found shopping as um a way of um cutting myself off from that really that was your way of saying okay i'm just gonna make this completely about me and what i'm interested in yeah did you ever feel angry with your mother for being ill no i never felt angry with mum well we might need to think about that because um as uncharitable as it sounds it is a normal part of the grieving process to be angry and i say this because spending money you don't have is can often feel a bit rebellious how would she feel about you being this way with your money she'd be really mad with me yeah that's an interesting thing to realize because if you needed to be angry with your mum and you couldn't be it's a good way to kind of just twist the knife a bit i sometimes also feel guilty for um being here when muhammad obviously love to be here now and i'm not really doing anything with my life or i don't go out or anything i just i'm sure yeah and like mum had obviously killed to be here really and i sometimes think you know she did probably did more with her life than i have like she'd be a lot more useful do you ever wish she'd taken you with her um i sometimes wish her gun instead of her hmm why roxanne takes time out to compose herself before restarting the session how do you feel to you know to cry in front of people i don't really like it you know with my sisters i was trying not to cry i don't know really i just i always feel like i want to try and be brave well it's a habit that i think you should try and get out of if you can't externalize these very strong very hard feelings in front of people then you are left very lonely and in a very dark place on your own i think what we can do together is we can manage the legacy of your mother's life and death in a different way how is she remembered we had a chromated then we had a rashes split between the three of us and you've still got yours yeah what would you like to do with those ashes i quite like holding onto them really i feel like that she's still sort of a bit over there really essentially she needs help grieving for her mother she needs to reclaim the time when she would have been able to feel and grieve that loss which she had to surrender to take care of her mother while she was dying and i think that's something that i hope to be able to help her with whether or not she's ready for that right now whether she can begin to let go i don't know i just feel now really really quite relieved that i mean there's things that i've been thinking and certain things i've been thinking for over the last two three years um that i've never told anybody never really thought i'd tell anybody and it feels really good that i have roxanne's got three days to go on her cold turkey budget she's determined to save her remaining 11 pounds for a night out with esther at the end of the week looks like no supper tonight you finished without them [Music] but the next day it's all for nothing as roxanne's forgotten to budget for petrol to get to work now with less than two pounds to her name roxanne's planned night out could be a sober affair probably just have one soft drink and that's gonna be about it three drinks later roxanne's not touched her remaining budget but she can't blag off esther's friends all night instead of going home as usual she turns to big sis to bail her out she's overspent on her cold turkey budget and her older sister's patience is wearing thin she's gonna have to pay me the ten pounds back out of her money next week people will be tolerant to a level she's not gonna be 23 forever it's not gonna be the baby forever it's not gonna go on forever someone's gonna expect her to buy a drink back after last night's excesses the next morning finds roxanne despondent i'm really bored to be honest i'd normally be shopping today that's what i do really is shock i suppose this is how it's gotta be this is how it should have been for a long time just not shopping really um i don't really know what i'd do to fill my time when i'm not shopping maybe that's something i need to think about i might go to bed actually and ask today really [Music] roxanne's made it through cold turkey week but it's not been easy back in the real world jay is going to set her a realistic budget but first she has to face some tough questions what you have done which is a good thing was you put all your loans into one big pot didn't you yeah but you haven't paid them no why haven't you paid them just every month um i'd have problems with direct debit so then i just think oh i'll just pay it next month or pay extra next month and i just never got around to it each month it ends up i just ended up not bothering and and what do you think is going to happen when you continue not to pay them um i think eventually i'll end up they'll take it a lot further than they have we're going to get you to start paying it now from the zero that you're doing at the moment to 250 pounds a month okay by doing this roxanne should shed her 14 000 pound debt in five years but to do that jay's had to make cuts where it hurts guess where on the clothes we have cut that to absolutely nothing okay i can give it a try yeah uh sounds like um it's quite scary really to think about the reason it is so drastic is because you have been spending such a huge amount i'll just try and wear the clothes that i've never worn before and things like that and just um sometimes wear the same things twice i suppose what benjamin and i both feel with you is that the the more you can actually live your life in reality the happier and better off you're going to be and what worries me is that it's such a huge amount on clothes that it's stopping you know the spending that you should be doing for roxanne in her real life in bewdley yeah not roxanne in her head what am i going to wear tomorrow when i'm on the red carpet with misha barton down sunset boulevard it's not all gloom jay has a radical solution to help roxanne stay on budget so i think the first time we've done this on spendaholics is actually increase your going out budget because at the moment you're spending 50 pounds now we want that to go up to 100 pounds because what we really think is that if you are actually out socializing and with friends and enjoying yourself it's actually going to be cheaper for you to spend that amount every month going out than it is staying in and reverting to all the fantasy shopping that goes on when you're on your own or you're on the computer or you've got nothing to do i think yeah i think i need to start going out a lot more and enjoying myself really rather than sitting at home and looking at my clothes the more we can get you living in the real world i think the better off you're going to be yeah i'm really worried after that budget chat with roxanne today because she seems quite compliant but i just don't think that she has any idea of what reality is she's consistently sponging off her family she doesn't seem to worry about that she's set up this consolidated debt but yet she hasn't made a payment in a year and what i'm really worried about is the minute she feels upset or the minute she feels pressured she's not going to stick to buying no clothes for six months and a bender is on its way to keep roxanne away from the lure of the high street jay has come up with a plan she wants to get her thinking creatively about how she uses her time and her new going out budget what i've been thinking about is trying to get something in your life that's going to replace all of this sort of obsession with the celebrities and sitting at home watching the oc so what i've brought you here today to do is an art class how do you feel about that oh yeah great i really enjoyed art when i did it because you did it at school didn't you and we're quite good at it about that but uh i enjoyed it so it's well within your budget and something you could afford to do on a regular basis so i'm going to send you in there and hopefully you might get back in the art buy so off you go don't look worried it's going to be fun a night in alone surfing celebrity website sometimes saw roxanne spending 500 pounds on a handbag [Music] a course like this at her local art college means she can get out of the house and meet people for a mere tenner what's that you do i don't know it's very expressive does it mean i'm angry yeah [Music] i actually really enjoyed that and i didn't think about shopping at all while i was doing it and i really got into it i did feel quite shy um at first but um i think it is quite easy to talk to people here because everybody's doing the same thing it's great definitely do it again join a class sort of closer to home it's a new hobby rather than shopping i think [Music] roxanne's made a positive start with her new budget it's been a week since her first session with benjamin where she admitted being deeply depressed since the death of her mother [Music] roxanne's parents split when she was two she was brought up by her mum joanie and they were inseparable when roxanne was 19 joni was diagnosed with crohn's disease but just six months later it was discovered to be inoperable cancer roxanne feels strongly that if the cancer had been detected earlier the outcome might have been different roxanne was bereft and unable to move on roxanne worried me a bit because she seemed to be in a really dark place and i do think sometimes people get that way because they're not in touch with the dynamic if difficult emotions that help us all get out of those dark places and one of the key emotions to do that is anger benjamin has come up with a physical method to help roxanne release some of the feelings of rage that she suppresses by shopping [Applause] to reach these buried emotions he's devised an exercise that could have potentially explosive results so what i'm going to do today is i'm going to work with you on your anger okay remember that beast yeah so i've got some tools of rage here for you here's one of them this is your classic baseball bat and what i'm going to ask you to get angry with is this target here okay now you do have things that you are angry about don't you my mom's illness i think is the main one really okay um yeah and the doctors well here's your chance piece of paper pen maybe you'd like to write down doctors okay i want you to post this message in that post box over there okay all right really think about it and when you get back here i'm not going to talk to you anymore you're just going to come back worked up pick up the bat and smack the target benjamin believes a vital part of the grieving process is externalizing feelings of anger however unreasonable towards those you blame for your loss harder screaming okay jump very good how does that feel emotional deteriorating yeah yeah do you think that behind the anger is actually quite a lot of sadness yeah quite a lot of emotion yeah i do now what i'm worried about is that you're carrying that explosion around inside of you and that instead of exploding on the outside all it can do is explode on the inside sometimes i'm just so angry and i just end up just thinking oh just calm down i end up going to bed or you know you go to bed suppress it and just okay so what we're doing here today we're giving you a different thing to do having established the exercise benjamin wants to push roxanne to a difficult place i want you to think about your mum anything about her that you might be angry with well i don't feel that i am i've never felt angry with my mom just just go with me okay it's an experiment that's all she reluctantly writes the one person she refuses to be angry with just pick up the bat if there's anything that you feel any anger about you let go if there isn't you don't have to do it okay um i only really feel angry that she was taken away from me but that's not her fault no it's not her fault but it's something you're angry about give that some go scream all right yeah it's okay it's okay let it go and you're hitting that cushion if we're really honest you felt that you were angry with your mother for leaving you didn't you it's the hardest part of it isn't it you wish you didn't feel like that yeah because it feels so disloyal the thing is you've got a choice between accepting and facing up to how angry you feel with your mum for leaving you or sleeping all day long what does she think she'd want for you she probably want me to you'd rather i was hungry give us another go for me come on this is where we really need to be screaming i think that was really successful for roxanne she managed to articulate the hardest part of grief of all which is her anger with her mother for leaving her i'm really proud of her pretty intense really um i didn't really realize i had that much anger and i just feel really dazed now really just a bit it was good though it felt good i feel quite sort of empty really [Music] during her session with benjamin roxanne's had to confront some difficult emotions and by morning she deals with them in the only way she knows by shopping she's falling back into old habits but as part of her budget she's agreed to spend nothing on extras for six months i don't really feel that guilty i think i do sort of deserve it a bit roxanne will find it impossible to shift her 14 grand debt if she continues to use spending as a comforting crutch when she's down [Music] it's over to jay to find an alternative and to reign in the habit that's been breaking the bank today she's going to deal with roxanne's four grand fetish for celeb inspired shoes [Music] now i just wanted to talk to you today about your shoes one of the things that i've noticed is that they're not all the same size yeah i've got sizes from 38 to 41 so that's what a five to an eight yeah and what size are your feet a six or a five usually right um a lot of them i've ended up buying from ebay or from online shops and those the only sizes i have so i've just bought them and thought oh i'll i don't know do something so it's not about buying shoes to wear at all no no it's just about having them um and knowing i've got them right just getting a lot of pleasure out of just looking at them we are going to have to think about this whole shoe addiction because you know on your budget there is no money for buying things so you're not going to be able to shop if i could find you a way of swapping some of your shoes would you be happy with that yeah definitely yeah that's good so what we're going to do now is get you to decide on what you're going to keep and what you're prepared to swap jay's discovered a website where roxanne can get new shoes by exchanging her old ones but first she'll have to convince her to part with her precious collection swaps on the left keeps on the right our swapping pile hasn't even started yet done yep so that's 24 shoes that you're keeping and two that we're swapping yeah okay it's a start what i want to show you is this site that i think is really great because what you can do on here is register the shoes that we're going to swap they go online and then you can swap them for something else now from my point of view the obvious thing is to swap them for a pair of shoes that bloody fit that you could actually wear swapping websites have taken off in the uk and sites like this one make it easy they charge a monthly fee plus a one-off payment of 2 pounds 50 per item it's thrills without big bills and roxanne's hooked within a week she's had a successful swap my new shoes have arrived which i've swapped and i didn't really want anymore for these so i'm dying to see what they're like i love them they're great um i actually swapped my red ones which i don't even fit me i've never worn um and i got these for free which is a bit mad really but really good [Music] jay's beginning to address roxanne's overspending but she's concerned she's still got a way to go she hooks up with benjamin to focus on the future i get the sense that she doesn't have that much of a social life job maybe she could do something else i mean what i think i'm going to do with her is basically try and do some practical things something that she can do to make her life better rather than just this constant retreating into the magazines and the cds and the dvds and entering into that world i think it's interesting that you feel that she's a bit cut off from things and people because it's all very well after the literally kind of exploded her to open up to me but is she going to open up to other people is she going to open up to her family and i really think that that's going to be so crucial and important to her particularly to those people closest to her there is something quite vulnerable about her i mean i think she comes across as much younger than she actually is yeah that is true there's a sense in which she's kind of hanging on to her youth and maybe the people around her are also hanging on to the idea of her being the baby and that's probably something i should address as well roxanne is 16 years younger than her oldest sister esther and has always been treated as the baby benjamin suspects that roxanne's spending is subconsciously linked to not wanting to grow up he calls a meeting with roxanne and esther to explore the family dynamic we all mother roxanne if you like you know all of us do with that massive age gap it's very difficult to not think of her as the little one the question for roxanne is do you want to be the baby um sometimes i do quite like being a baby and i just always think of myself as still beating the baby really but i do think it is time that i sort of grew up and moved on and became responsible for myself here's an interesting thing a baby communicates by basically crying they're kind of a little bit annoying on purpose that's not quite the way it should be between two adults which you are [Music] how do you cry i don't think i do do i really sleep okay that's a good way to get attention really and just irritable [Applause] and i think spending is the one you've left out yeah spending is your way of screaming what you're not doing is screaming benjamin thinks roxanne might benefit from opening up more to esther he asks her to share the dark thoughts she expressed in their first session well i think one of the main things one thing that um really sort of upset me and sort of was a real shot once i'd actually said it out to you out loud was that sometimes i do feel like i don't want to be here um and sort of like um i'd rather it was obviously it was me rather than mum how do you feel hearing that well it hurts really doesn't it you know and especially like at 23 when she has got so much to live here she must have been despairing at times really you know she must have really been hurting and we didn't appreciate that too much perhaps we did too much molly coddling and not enough really listening see what i think adults really need is to be listened to to be validated to be heard and then allowed to clean up their own mess and i think what's been going on in a sense is that you're so afraid of the delicate state roxanne's been in that you just want to alleviate the problem so perhaps that's the starting point to just for you to know you can say what you want and for me to shut up [Music] and you could feel stronger yeah yeah someone has treated you like a grown-up so maybe you can feel that you can treat yourself yeah i wouldn't feel like i needed to sort of um sleep or shop or anything like that let's ask [Music] people have told me all my life that i've mothered roxanne um and i just didn't believe it ever but when he pointed out that we've got a parent-child relationship and that it had got to change for us to be able to grow i found that really hard to take i think more difficult than roxanne i think that's going to be a big eye-opener for both of us um and i think it will improve things but it's going to take a lot to break this habit roxanne's come a long way with benjamin and her family but she still needs to replace her shopping addiction with something more fulfilling jay's found a way to give her the buzz of shopping without spending her own money a potential career as a personal shopper could be the boost she needs so this is an area which you like to work in yeah isn't it do you think you'd be good dealing with people do you think you're quite good people i definitely think so because i help my sisters a lot with what they should wear and things like that and they've got different body shapes and things and i'm always like careful of that so i think yeah i think i could do it jay's found roxanne her first client but can she cut it when the pressure is on to buy for others a department store is the perfect place for roxanne to try it out with so many different styles under one roof roxanne claire our client is waiting in here for you okay she's 22 years old she's five foot four she's going to a friend's wedding doesn't have a huge budget right be really confident and try and get as much information out of her as possible before you hit the rails otherwise it's going to be a waste of time collecting the clothes if we're not really sure what she likes good luck off you go hello where is it yeah nice to meet you and right so it's a wedding you're going to yeah okay um and you're looking for a dress or a skirt a dress or a skirt on top it doesn't matter okay okay great and what sort of look are you wanting to go for is there a celebrity that you've got in mind that you like the style of sienna miller a little bit more bohemian and loose i don't really do the tight short thing what about heels how do you feel about it it's good higher the better right brilliant thank you good work roxanna lots of information out of her feeling confident yeah okay let's grab a row and we can go and get us some clothes the challenge is on today is all about the client's wants and desires not roxanne the spendaholic it's hard to sort of match up with what she said really um so but i think i'll be all right when shopping for somebody else budgets matter i keep getting to look at prices [Music] [Applause] roxanne can't stick to her normal shopping schedule [Music] time equals money i haven't got much and some of it i'm not really sure i've got a selection for you so whatever sort of catches your eye first i think is good this is really nice love this color and also a pick back so i thought that was quite nice and bright she said you like bright colors yeah i really like this oh yeah and also there's the uh slippers go underneath it i'll try that on there um how has it been is it quite stressful yeah i thought it'd be a lot easier than that um but um but i suppose it's just learning and sort of getting into that sort of thing and a bit more experience do you think it was something that you'd feel satisfaction from definitely i have really loved it i've been a bit nervous and things but i think you know so far so good it's not like she's hated everything on the rail i was worried about that i was picking things up you know that'd be lovely for me i thought oh no it's not for me it's not for me well fingers crossed that she likes the stuff she's taken in i really like this i think we've got a winner i really like it i like that it looks good right i think roxanne was really enthusiastic today she needs to get her confidence up a bit but what i really really wanted to show her today was the reality of being a personal shopper because the more roxanne enters into real world rather than her fantasy world of magazines the better off she's going to be and the quicker her debt is going to get paid back inspired by her day as a personal shopper roxanne wastes no time looking for work i was just wondering if you've got any um weekend vacancies within 24 hours she's found herself a saturday job it'll give her the experience she needs to make her dream of working in fashion retail a reality there's that one there it's got all the pockets that's 20 pounds it's got a small sort of handbag strap as well as using her extensive knowledge of bags there's the added bonus of a pay packet i actually loved it i really enjoyed it as soon as i got in there i felt comfortable and i knew what i was doing and made my first style which i was really pleased about i know that that is what i want to do now it's the beginning of her last week and with her newfound energy for work roxanne's also taking positive steps to change at home i'm cooking some tea for esther because she's always looking after me and occasionally cooking for me or buying me takeaways and things when they're having them so i thought i just you know thought it'd be nice to do something for her for a change [Laughter] all right hello you've got spark ball is that all right that's fun yeah just any food is fab looks lovely i've noticed a marked difference in roxanne she's more respectful she's more understanding of what people do for and have tried to do for her she seems more grown up more than anything else there you go she wants to change herself which has been the biggest thing and realizes she's not tied to her debt so much that she can't change a life she's started to realise that she can make significant changes that are going to make her a happier and more fulfilled person at the end of the day [Music] four weeks ago roxanne was living in a fantasy world addicted to hollywood fashion and celebrity websites she was 14 grand in debt and heading for financial meltdown [Music] since then lifestyle expert jay hunt has shown her some clever ways of getting the hollywood look without blowing the budget the obvious thing is to swap them for a pair of shoes that bloody fit and given her a taste of a potential new career i know that that is what i want to do psychological coach benjamin frye has made her address the reasons behind her compulsive spending yeah no it's pretty hard and he's helped her enjoy a more open relationship with her family [Music] she's almost at the end of her journey but for roxanne there's still one vital conversation she needs to have roxanne never said goodbye to her mum the morning she died benjamin suspects that this is stopping her from moving on with her life he sets up a role play session where roxanne can have an imaginary conversation with her mum and get the closure he thinks she needs i'm going to ask you to think about your mother sitting where i'm sitting i'll get out yeah and you just say anything you feel like saying okay i'll come around here and what i'd like you to think about now is that your mother is with you there uh i'm sorry i wasn't there when you actually went i think about it a lot and it does upset me sit there now okay in your mother's place and i'll come around here and what i want you to do is i want you to answer for your mother it's okay i wouldn't have really wanted you to see me um towards the end that bad and you did say goodbye anyway okay i don't really feel like i have said goodbye i didn't say goodbye when i left on that morning so you wish you'd had said goodbye yeah in a way that was final and meant something what do you think i could do about that come on over the other side roxanne maybe i could um you could um scatter the ashes that might help in a way it might help me sort of move on help you move on okay so you'd be happy with anything that helped roxanne yeah be okay with you [Music] roxanne decides to scatter her mom's ashes in the cornish seaside town of bude where they had their last holiday together [Music] i feel a bit nervous really about um actually letting mum go um again really i didn't really think it was a big deal but suddenly i sort of feel as though it is um so i'm a bit unsure whether i actually want to anymore so i don't know how much sleep i'll get tonight so yeah i suppose i've got the rest of the night until tomorrow morning to think about it [Music] still on shore roxanne heads for bude to meet benjamin i'm hoping that i'll feel better for it might be a bit more positive and a bit more ready to sort of carry on with my own life but i think i'll still be really quite upset [Music] hi roxanna you're right are you doing i'm okay thank you how are you oh not too bad yeah um i got a bit choked on the way down in the car just remembering bits where we've been with mum and that so but it's nice it's nice memories okay well i think that's really interesting because that is kind of the two sides of what we're doing today there's a difference between a funeral and a memorial funeral is very difficult very shocking it's a time when you really get used to the idea that someone's gone and a memorial maybe comes later when you remember their life yeah not their death [Music] whereabouts here would you hang out with me um mostly around here by the rocks and things really yeah but the whole place is very evocative here that's really strong memories yeah feels right yeah i feel ready to let go yeah definitely it's clear how hard roxanne found that to do even though she was here and she was ready to do it still come the moment it was tremendously difficult this is an important step forward to letting go of her mother but not letting go of the memories just letting go of the grief of losing her i think it could really help her to have gone through this ritual and that should help her move on in her life in many areas including her spending well done roxanne thank you thanks for coming with me oh you're welcome it's a pleasure [Music] it's over a month since roxanne russell put the brakes on her substantial spending habit now she's come to meet jay and benjamin to assess how life on her new restricted budget's been treating her did you think it was going to be as hard as it's been no no not at all i thought it'd be pretty easy really most of it but it has i've been through quite a lot really um surprisingly in such a short space of time last time i saw you the very intense day how did you get on after that just i felt really weird and just still really upset and everything um all the way home but then a couple of days later i did start to feel a bit more normal and a bit more positive and you know better really i feel like i've almost sort of um left her there on holiday and viewed really when we were all last happy so it's quite weird but i feel like she's still there and you know enjoying a holiday how have you been getting on with not spending because obviously if you have those days where you are feeling a bit down that's going to be where the temptation hits isn't it i did go to the shopping center once with my sister um but i just kept picking things up and touching them and then putting them back and i've started going out a lot more as well and socializing that's good so that's good yeah yeah the more you can you know use your new budget and the socializing money that we put there to get out and about with real friends the better that's going to be yeah definitely yeah i do feel much more positive and a bit happier like even my sister said how different i seem and how i seem much more positive and a bit more friendly so that's nice how much has that changed your relationship with esther quite a lot actually yeah it's not really like like she's mothering me anymore i don't go to her and say i'm broke or anything like that and it is more like she's my friend yeah i have this real sense that you've taken a step forward essentially in kind of you know not to be patronising but kind of growing up yeah there is something about letting go of that very very difficult feelings and emotions and even the ashes that has brought you right up to date you seem to have just suddenly blossomed into your true young adult self yeah i do feel much different i feel um more positive and like i'm looking forward to sort of moving on and starting my own sort of future really

Channel: Only Human

Views: 529,002

Keywords: only human, only human channel, only human documentary, shopaholics, shopaholics anonymous, shopaholics bbc, shopaholics documentary, shopaholics full episode, shopaholics uk, shopping addiction debt, shopping addiction documentary, shopping addiction full episodes, shopping addiction help, shopping addiction recovery, shopping addiction true life, spendaholics, spendaholics documentary, spendaholics full episodes, spendaholics tv show, spendaholics uk, spendaholics youtube

Id: XpGYvE1Ln80

Length: 56min 3sec (3363 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 10 2020