How much did Psychics cost you? $$$

[Angelina11]

    I know it is scary for many of us to face the reality and see exactly how much hard earned money we have spent on this addictiction.
I have had readings for a little less than 4 years and now I am already 4 months clean from the addiction (on another post I will be happy to share my story and how i quit that psychic reading habit). 
   I kept track on the  amounts from the previous years and last week I counted my expences for this year.
   So here we go - almost 4 years of readings and i've spent a little less than $30.000
At one time i felt broken thinking about that money (I do not even want to think about what I could have done with that money), but half a year ago i met another psychic addict whom I became close friends with (she lives in the same city). SHe had been getting readings for 8 years and has spent between $110.000 - $120.000. She told me she stopped counting after $100.000, but knowing her average expenses, she suspects it could easily amount to $120.000 (Thankfully, she is also free of this addiction for 2 years now and actully helped me a lot to quit it too). That number definitely made me feel speachless. 

It is weird, but somehow I no longer feel sad about the money i've sepnt. I feel like I have learnt a HUGE life lesson (extremally painful one too) and now, that I no longer get readings, I feel more empowered than EVER BEFORE.  Quite literally, that whole experience expanded me tenfold and I actually feel like i got so much out of the experience that I do not mind I paid for it. I can't believe I'm saying it, but yes, i truly feel this way, wow!

Did you guys keep track on your expences?       
 

[Kate]

I haven't kept track but I know I spent several thousand, spaced out over 10 years. That might not sound too bad, but for me that is a lot of money that could have been used a lot more wisely. I almost feel the same way as you though...I don't feel so bad over it as I used to. It helped me cope and I don't think there was any other way I could have handled it. I just wish I had known sooner which readers to avoid. The emotional damage was far worse for me than the financial impact.

I agree, I think we need to separate the money from the act.

Reaching out for help, grasping at hope, trying to gain clarity about a situation, trying to gain closure in order to move on .. there is nothing wrong with that. In fact it's a sensible, human reaction in the face of something distressing .. We shouldn't beat ourselves up for reaching out for help.

In the past, we may have found one reader to work with and spent far less $$.  The issue is the instant reading service.  It is like taking a painkiller for toothache. You can't resist reaching out until funds have run dry.. every time the pain sets in, the compulsion is to reach out and numb it.. a very natural reaction. 

The issue isn't the act itself.. it's the cost that has been assigned to it.. the readers get very little (from what I can asses from conversations with advisors). The interface - whether Keen, click4advisor or something else etc, are the winners.. and of course as you say, filtering out the good readers eats up funds..

But we shouldn't feel ashamed for reaching out for help, clarity and support..

[Kate]

I haven't kept track but I know I spent several thousand, spaced out over 10 years. That might not sound too bad, but for me that is a lot of money that could have been used a lot more wisely. I almost feel the same way as you though...I don't feel so bad over it as I used to. It helped me cope and I don't think there was any other way I could have handled it. I just wish I had known sooner which readers to avoid. The emotional damage was far worse for me than the financial impact.

I agree, I think we need to separate the money from the act.

Reaching out for help, grasping at hope, trying to gain clarity about a situation, trying to gain closure in order to move on .. there is nothing wrong with that. In fact it's a sensible, human reaction in the face of something distressing .. We shouldn't beat ourselves up for reaching out for help.

In the past, we may have found one reader to work with and spent far less $$.  The issue is the instant reading service.  It is like taking a painkiller for toothache. You can't resist reaching out until funds have run dry.. every time the pain sets in, the compulsion is to reach out and numb it.. a very natural reaction. 

The issue isn't the act itself.. it's the cost that has been assigned to it.. the readers get very little (from what I can asses from conversations with advisors). The interface - whether Keen, click4advisor or something else etc, are the winners.. and of course as you say, filtering out the good readers eats up funds..

But we shouldn't feel ashamed for reaching out for help, clarity and support..

Yes...oh I am so glad you said this. It is totally natural to reach out for that relief, it is so immediate and readily available. I had no one else to rely on. The support I needed from friends and family was not there. And I needed metaphysical advice which I never would have gotten from traditional counseling or therapy. Some of the readers did help me a lot...and then others, I thought at first were helping me but they ended up being bad for me. But it would still bring a temporary relief, which can be so compelling and addictive, and the way these pay per minute services are set up really targets that compulsion and impulsivity. It is not there to help us look out for our own best interests, it is there to rake in the profits.

I think on Keen, the readers get to keep about half the earnings...I think that is still a lot though, compared to what I earn in my job. To me, it is terribly expensive, especially when they let anyone become an advisor, then it takes so much time and money to weed out the bad ones. In hindsight, there were some I should have avoided completely, and others I would have called more often instead. But at the time, I didn't know. It was kind of mysterious and I would look over all these different readers thinking if they had a lot of people calling and leaving good feedback then there must be a reason.

I have felt ashamed and embarrassed about my habit, and I have been really angry at the people in my life who left me high and dry so that I couldn't lean on them for support...and angry at the readers who sucked...in the end though I just have this strange feeling of relief that none of them were able to "predict" my life. That tells me that there is a higher order to things and a higher power looking out for me. So many immature readers tried to act like they had the authority to tell me what would happen in my life and one way or another tried to get me to invest that power and authority in them. I am so glad and relieved that none of them turned out to be right because I never would have been able to trust myself again, I would have always second guessed myself, and the outcomes they predicted would have been bad for me too. I wish I hadn't had to go through all this, but since it happened and there is no going back from it, I can appreciate what I learned from it.

I have read with some phenomenal readers.. amazingly talented, but predictions I have noticed, vary even with the best.  The conclusion I've come to, is that we make our own future, and sometimes even knowing a prediction, can change the outcome. Now I use readings to read the current.. and even then, it's tough to find the most accurate readers who can separate the current from past and future... Empaths have been the best for me.. understanding is everything in a relationship.