1- The story, The Confessions of Shopaholic, is about Rebecca who is working as a financial journalist in London, writing about personal finances. Rebecca, the main character in The Confessions of Shopaholic is illustrated to have an addiction to shopping and some kind of bad financial planning. The story starts at her desk in the office where she works. She receives a letter from the credit card institution with her monthly bill. She is a bit suspicious about opening it because she does not want to see the amount that she spent with her credit card during the last month. However, she starts thinking about and memorizing every purchase that she made and every penny she spent with her credit card and estimated the bill to come up to 400 pounds. Rebecca decides to open the envelope and starts reading the statement. She went through every line in the statement when she came over one purchase that she can not remember. Rebecca starts thinking if somebody else stole her credit card and went on a shopping tour in a denial state for her behavior last month. Her colleague, Claire, reminded her about that purchase. Different thoughts came up into her head but unfortunately, none of them was realistic. She decides then to accept the bill and read the amount that is due and she has to pay. Rebecca is shocked by the amount which was 949,63 Sterling pounds. At the same time, her colleague, Claire, asked her about a job task that Rebecca is expected to do. She pretends to be working on it until the editor, Philip, calls her to come to his office. She becomes happy and expects a promotion but unfortunately, the meeting was not about promotion but rather about him not attending the conference.
2- Rebecca is worried because of the monthly bill on her credit card. She knows that it will be a decent amount that she has to pay because she spent a lot the previous month.
3- Rebecca imagines things that are related to her shopping addiction. That is, she imagines getting a promotion to go on a holiday and buy stuff that she might not need. She even imagines that someone stole her card and went on a shopping tour and then returned it to her purse because she hoped to avoid paying the monthly bill on her credit card. Furthermore, she imagined that the credit card institution would swap her bill with someone else’s bill with a small amount due. Rebecca imagines all these events just because of her panic about the credit card bill as she knows that the amount would be high enough to make her panic.
4- One can understand in The Confessions of Shopaholic that Rebecca has an addictive behavior of shopping through the credit card statement. Mainly, she has no resistance at all to any kind of shopping. Moreover, she has her reasons for why she bought this and that although these reasons are not realistic.
5- The boss, Philip, wanted to talk to Rebecca about him not attending the conference but Rebecca thought or imagined that he wanted to talk to her about a promotion.
6- Rebecca needs more planning and orienting in what she needs and what is considered luxurious items or things that are not needed. I would tell her to keep a track of her purchases and try to improve her way to manage her finances.