Americans are a quivering ball of stress these days. More than three-fourths of adults are stressed about the future of the country, and nearly as many are stressed about the economy in general. It’s easy to see why—although the American economy is doing gangbusters on a macro scale, at street-level it’s a stress sandwich where folks making well into the six figures are living paycheck-to-paycheck and worrying how they’ll make it.
It’s no surprise, then, than more and more people are seeking therapy and other mental health solutions—but we’re also finding relief in less healthy ways. Forget spending hours on your phone “doomscrolling,” people are now “doom spending.” In a recent study, 27% of Americans admitted to spending money as a way of dealing with stress and other mental and emotional health challenges. Which is a very, very bad idea.
How to recognize doom spending
So-called “retail therapy” isn’t entirely new, of course—people have been shopping in response to stress for a long time. Shopping offers a sense of control, gives us a (temporary) rush of happiness, and allows us to focus on something other than our problems for a little while.
But doom spending is different. Retail therapy is typically used to assuage a negative experience—a bad day at work or a bruising breakup. While it might not be the healthiest way to deal with a temporary setback, it usually ends once you get past the acute pain of the moment. Doom spending, on the other hand, is driven by a persistent sense of, well, doom. There’s never any end to it because the future is always bleak and always some unknown time away.
Signs that you’re doom spending instead of simply engaging in some temporary retail therapy include:
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Repetitive cycle: It’s not a one-time splurge on a pricey item or a vacation, it’s an ongoing pattern.
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YOLO attitude: If you don’t see any point in managing your money better, you’re probably doom spending. Studies have shown that younger Americans don’t want to set long-term goals because they have no confidence that the future will be bright, and they aren’t thinking about or planning for retirement because they’re convinced it’s simply impossible. If the future seems so bleak as to be pointless, why not spend your money today on stuff and experiences that offer temporary excitement. You might not have the option in a few years.
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Unclear triggers. Retail therapy is usually prompted by a specific event in your life. Doom spending is driven by more generalized anxiety about the future and the state of the world. If you can’t say why you decided to spend all that money on Temu yesterday but it made you feel better, that’s a sign that your trapped in a doom spending cycle.
And shopping is easier than ever, offering near-instant gratification. As a result, doom spending is a likely driver of increasing financial misery—nearly half of all American adults are carrying credit card balances (along with their high interest rates) from month to month, and that creates a doom loop. People are anxious about money and the future, so they doom spend, rack up debt, and thus become more anxious about money and the future.
How to break the doom spending cycle
If you’re doom spending to deal with all the negative stuff out there, you’re actively harming your financial future. All that debt you’re racking up will haunt you for a long time, but that’s not even the worst of it. The real problem with doom spending is that it’s ineffective. You might feel great in the moment, but then you’ll feel worse, and the root problems haven’t been addressed.
The key to ending the cycle of doom spending is to realize that it’s not really a money management issue—it’s an emotional and mental health issue. If you find yourself shopping more when you’re upset and adopting a YOLO attitude toward splashing out on stuff you really can’t afford because you don’t want to think about the future, there are a few key steps you can take to get off the doom spend roller coaster:
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Address mental and emotional health challenges. Think about the triggers pushing you to doom spend. If it’s anxiety about the future, redirecting your money into savings might offer peace of mind because you’ll have the resources to handle what might be coming. If it’s the endless supply of bad news and terrifying developments in the world, staying away from social media feeds, at least for a while, can break the cycle. And, of course, seeking professional guidance and simply letting yourself feel your feelings instead of ignoring them.
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Put up barriers. One key aspect of doom spending is the instant gratification—you feel bad, you click a link, and boom—you get a hit of dopamine because you bought something. Adapting a Slow Shopping mindset can offer crucial time to let the anxiety level off before you toss money into that pit again. You can also set up practical barriers, like not using credit cards so you can only spend what’s in your account or on a pre-paid card, or by removing all the pre-filled credit card information stored by online retailers so you have to fill it in—laboriously—every time. That delay will give you time to calm down and think about what you’re doing.
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Set up notifications. Your banking apps and other financial tools offer options to notify you whenever they’re used. While we think of these tools as ways to secure our accounts, they can also be a way of holding ourselves responsible for our spending. If you set them up so you receive a constant barrage of alerts every time you buy something, you won’t be able to mindlessly ignore your spending—at least not without some effort. Being forced to be mindful of your spending can erase that rush of happiness doom spending offers, making it less habitual.
Two things are for sure: There will always be things to worry about in this world, and you will eventually run out of money. It’ll pay to quit doom spending sooner rather than later.
