November 24, 2025 • 34 mins
We’ve all been there - telling ourselves that ‘life is short’ as we click add to cart. Whether it’s an expensive dinner, a holiday you can’t quite afford, or another ‘little treat’, doom spending has become the defining financial habit of our generation.
In this episode, we unpack why we spend when the world feels uncertain - the psychology, the emotion, and the cultural forces behind it. From dopamine and control to social media, fatalism, and escapism, we’ll explore how uncertainty reshapes our relationship with money and why buying things can feel like the only way to feel better.
We explore:
• Why spending can feel emotionally soothing and self-regulating
• How financial stress, uncertainty, and global instability fuel impulsive habits
• The rise of ‘little treat culture’ and the illusion of control
• The role of social media in pairing crisis with consumption
• Signs that your coping mechanism has turned into doom spending
• How to break the cycle - from doom saving to mindful spending
If you’ve ever felt the urge to spend when everything feels out of control, this episode is for you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello everybody. I'm Jemma Spake and welcome back to the
Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through
the biggest changes, moments, and transitions of our twenties and
what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back
(00:25):
to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners,
old listeners. Wherever you are in the world, it is
so great to have you here. Back for another episode
as we, of course break down the psychology of our twenties. Today,
we are answering a question I have been having of
myself recently, Why am I spending so much money? Specifically,
(00:48):
why have I been using money to self sue, to
feel better about my life, to take away bad feelings
about the state of the world, probably more than I
ever have. We're talking about a phenomena that has been
popping up all over social media, in financial columns on TikTok,
this concept of doom spending. I also think it's a
(01:11):
great time to talk about money. With the holidays coming up.
The urge and the desire to spend perhaps more than
we have beyond our means is very very strong within us,
and I want to talk about this specific type of compulsion,
this specific reason why you and I, people in their
(01:32):
twenties are spending all this money on things that maybe
we don't really need. Doom spending is basically the desire
or the impulse to spend money more rapidly and in
larger sums in response to our anxiety and uncertainty about
the future and about the world. It is this tendency
(01:53):
to live in the now, to spend because the future
is uncertain, to treat ourselves. It's the use of mine
to manage our emotions. And you might be thinking, like,
what is the problem with that? Like I work hard
for my money, surely I should be, and you are
allowed to spend it however I want. But there is
(02:14):
a level where it actually gets out of control. It
can begin to become a maladaptive coping mechanism, and it
can actually in a way feed into our pessimism about
the future in a way that is a little bit unhealthy. Also,
you know, it takes away from our ability to plan
financially and to save and to achieve you know, financial freedom,
(02:39):
financial sustainability, to have long term financial goals. And although
we may not be thinking about that in our early
twenties or in our twenties at all, it is still
an important conversation. So in this episode, we're going to
talk about what doom spending actually is, why we do it,
what it says about the times we're living in, and
how to get control of about how you spend money
(03:02):
in a really healthy gentle and I think sustainable way.
Without further ado, let's get into it. Let's begin with
the basics. We always do this at the start of
every episode. I feel like a broken record, but just
so we have a clear definition of doom spending. What
(03:24):
I'm talking about is not just spending because you feel
like it. I'm talking about the use of spending often
that's impulsive as a way to calm a sense of
uncertainty or a threat. It is an emotional coping mechanism.
It's not buying things that you actually need. It's not
(03:46):
buying things that you know you want and you feel
like you should treat yourself to. It is buying because
the future doesn't feel like it's coming, and so you
want to live in the now and a way to
feel better about perhaps the future not coming, which, by
the way, it is, is to you know, spend and
(04:06):
to fill your wardrobe and to get the dopamine of
small purchases. To give this some historical perspective, this is
actually nothing new. It might feel this way, but we
are actually not the first generation to live through scary times.
We probably won't be the last, and economic spending does
increase in times of geopolitical uncertainty. There's also other interesting
(04:30):
cases of how money responds to our emotions in uncertain times,
some whacking examples. One that we found was that in
the eighteen hundreds there was this Baptist preacher named William Miller,
and he had this huge following, and he was like,
guess what, Jesus is going to return in eighteen forty four.
The world's going to end. The chosen few are going
(04:51):
to ascend into heaven, and so let's live it up.
You know, take out loans, build your dream house, buy
nice dinners, buy the car you want. I don't know
if they had cars, and the eighteen hundred they definitely didn't,
but you know what I mean, Like they were spending
all this money so lavishly because they didn't think they
would have to repay their debts. And then you know,
the logic was that the apocalypse was so near. Why
(05:14):
not have fun now? And then the apocalypse didn't happen
and this whole community essentially went bankrupt. So we have
seen examples of this in the past. You know. Now,
obviously it's not a religious apocalypse, it's climate change, it's inflation,
it's AI, it's the twenty four hour news cycle. But
(05:34):
the psychological pattern is the same. When the world feels unstable,
we turned to consumption as a way of asserting control
because spending money is one of the only things that
we can do that feels like it does something or
gives us something back, and that's doom spending. Why is
(05:55):
that the case? Why does spending money kind of feeling well?
When we spend money? Basically, our dopamine system is activated.
I feel like you guys already know that. But it's
not just when we get the thing. It's when we
see something we like, when we anticipate a purchase, when
we click check out, when we're waiting for the parcel
(06:16):
to arrive, when we go and collect it. Every single
element of this process triggers the release of dopamine, and
at all those various touch points, our mood is briefly
improved and our stress is briefly lowered over time, we
learn through association that we feel better from spending. We
(06:39):
feel nice, and also it's accessible to us. We get
something in return, we get a good, we get an item.
So psychologically, spending functions like an emotional regulation strategy, much
like eating comfort food, much like scrolling social media. In
cognitive behavioral terms, if we want to go really psychological,
(07:00):
it is what we call negative reinforcement. The behavior, the
act of buying, of shopping removes distress, and that's pleasurable,
and so it's more likely to be repeated. So the
thing that we really need to note is that doom spending, yes,
is tied up in materialism. It's not necessarily about materialism.
(07:22):
It's about fear. It's about comfort, it's about control, it's
about feeling safe. Almost second, the evidence does really confirm
it's not just that, you know, we're a generation that
has more money. It's not just that shopping is more accessible,
(07:43):
that delivery like is more accessible, that things come faster.
Political and global context is driving over spending. Studies and
financial reports show that impulse spending has rapidly increased since
the pandemic, and especially during the pandemic. That is when
a lot of these habits were triggered. You know, online
shopping was one of the very few joys we seemed
(08:06):
to have control over. I was so broke during the pandemic,
so broke, and I used to spend one hundred dollars.
I remember, I had like a little bit of money
in my bank account from my restaurant job that I
was obviously I didn't have, And I would spend like
one one hundred dollars on something and then I would
(08:26):
return it, and then I would buy something else and
then I would return it. I think I recycled that
one hundred dollars like five times. I even remember, like
I bought this tartan puffer jacket. I don't know why,
Like there was no weather that required me to buy that,
and then I returned it. And then I bought like
basically something exactly the same and returned that because of
(08:48):
the dopamine, And this is where a lot of us
learnt this habit. According to twenty twenty three data from
the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, credit card balances
in the US rose seventeen percent between twenty twenty and
twenty twenty two. That is the sharpest increase in decades.
Similar things happened in a lot of other countries where
(09:10):
credit card data is like readily available, So in the UK,
in Australia, across Europe, in Canada, across all these countries,
we could see this trend. Psychologists who are studying still
studying post pandemic consumer behavior. That sound kind of sounds
like a tongue twister, but post pandemic consumer behavior. Note
that collective trauma, economic precarity, social isolation. Basically, what it's
(09:37):
all created are these shorter planning horizons. The future feels bleak,
it feels uncertain, and so we tend to not think
that it's going to happen. When you ask people in
their twenties or in their thirties, people our age, Hey, like,
how far do you think in the future. For me,
(10:01):
it's probably only six months, And that's not normal, Like
you should be able to plan and think about your
life long term. But I think the state of the
world means that it's really hard to Everything is changing
so far. It's like you just can't imagine the world
beyond six months. So if you can't imagine the world
(10:21):
in six months, why are you going to save for
a financial goal that's ten years away, like buying a house.
Why are you going to save for a financial goal
that's fifty years away or forty years away, like retirement.
The appeal of this immediate gratification in the face of
like really scary stuff often overshadows, you know, a more
(10:43):
rational decision making process that is reliant on us being
able to imagine a future with us in it. Another explanation,
spending money is just a nice distraction. When you're thinking
about when you're hal's going to arrive, When you're thinking
about how this next outfit is going to change your life,
(11:05):
you're not thinking about everything else that's going wrong. And
this really aligns with like the infamous little treat narrative. Now,
I'm a big fan of this. I love a little treat.
I'm a big believer in little treats. It's not inherently
bad to treat yourself, and I actually think it's, you know,
an important part of self care and self comfort. But
(11:28):
when treat culture turns into habitual, high spend behavior, especially
when it's triggered by fear or anxiety, that's a coping mechanism,
not a reward. And add that to the fact that nowadays,
like companies and the global economy and you know, big
(11:49):
brands are taking advantage of that. Is it really about
us or is it being manipulated for profit? The other
day I was Insidney driving to the airport and I
saw this massive billboard that was like from McDonald's and
it said existing question mark, you deserve a little tree.
(12:10):
That that's a marketing con like. That is not self care.
That is McDonald's trying to get you to buy the
thing that they have designed for you, to spend money
to fill their pockets. And especially nowadays, when we are
bombarded with targeted ads, we are streamlined into buy now
(12:31):
buttons and limited time offers and sales. I think the
shift from reward to regulation, it can happen really subtly
and is impacting a lot of us. It's impacting me
for sure. You know, there really is something to be
said about doom spending, the fact that so many people
in their twenties are spending more money than they probably have,
and the role of technology and social media. Think about
(12:55):
the last time you scrolled your Instagram feed. You will
see news of genocide, news of political unrest, news of
climate disasters, and then what happens after that. Add for
a designer bag, we can get away pair of sneakers,
phone case, sweater, t shirt, buy now, Buy now, Buy now.
(13:15):
That's emotional whiplash. You are going from panic and despair
to pleasure and intrigue. And that is not accidental. It's
engineered social media platforms, and there have been articles on this.
There have been people who have come out who were
involved in making these systems, who have come out and said,
we designed it this way. They are made to monetize
your attention because when ads make money, they make money,
(13:38):
and the way ads make money is if the site
holds your attention long enough to trigger an emotion that
will produce a sale. Fear, outrage, sadness, whatever it is.
These all heightened arousal. They keep us scrolling more and more.
And once you're in that heightened emotional state, once your
defenses are lowered, once the world feels terrible, you're more suggestible,
(14:04):
you're more reward seeking, you're more likely to act impulsively.
The discomfort we feel when we flip between threat and
reward requires an antidote. We want a solution, We want
to feel better, and then this algorithm these social media platforms,
they serve it right up to us. A twenty twenty
(14:24):
four study by researchers in Indonesia found that exposure to
emotionally charged content significantly increased impulse buying in people in
their twenties in young adults. Essentially, after being emotionally activated,
people were more likely to buy stuff and when they
were asked why, oftentimes they couldn't really explain it. So
(14:48):
this is when spending because you want something, spending because
you do deserve a little treat, and spending because you
don't really know why you're spending, and because it's a
form of coping and a mo regulation. This is when
the line really begins to blur and what began as
harmless distraction as actually feeling a need like you do
(15:10):
need clothes and you do need things in your life,
can quietly turn into like a routine, an addiction, a
really toxic habit. So let's talk about the signs that
your doom spending might be going too far and what
you can do about it after this short break, So
(15:34):
how do you know when treating yourself has tipped into
something else? Entirely most of us don't wake up one
morning and think like, oh no, I have developed an
unhealthy coping mechanism. What will I do about this? Like
it really creeps in slowly, it's disguised again is as
fun as keeping up with trends. But here are the
(15:56):
signs that it's gone a little bit too far. Firstly,
you notice that your biggest shopping days aren't actually when
you need anything, aren't when you've just gotten paid, aren't
when you're celebrating. They actually occur when you're anxious, when
you're overwhelmed, or you're sad, Especially if you are shopping
a lot at night, big red flag inhibitions are lowered.
(16:20):
Often that's when our biggest feelings come about. We're tied
from the day. Shopping is the band aid. Secondly, this
one's the obvious one. You're spending beyond your means, and
you're seriously spending beyond your means. You know. A huge
thing that has boomed in recent years is these buy now,
pay later, buy and for delayed payment options. Even using
credit cards to pay for small things that aren't necessities
(16:42):
also comes under this. Now, I don't think these kinds
of options are inherently bad at all. To be honest,
I use Klana. I use like the PayPal for in
I don't know what it is like the for payment things,
especially because I don't get paid regularly. It like helps
me break up my budget. And I used to use
it when I was working as a consultant and I
(17:03):
got paid monthly, just to kind of like make the
things I was repaying for weekly and monthly as well.
I think they offer flexibility, but they also allow you
to go a little bit too far. Behavioral economists have
highlighted that separating the payment from the consumption reduces what
we call the pain of paying. This is a concept
(17:26):
that was coined in the nineties and the pain of
paying is an important part of the buying process and
is basically the psychological discomfort that makes us hesitate before
a purchase. When we use later pay options, it delays
or disguises the payment so our brain feels like it
can experience all of the rewards, a none, or a
(17:50):
fraction of the cost until later on. That is the danger,
and again they're not necessarily bad, they're not all bad,
but what it does have the potential to slip into
is chasing payments slipping into debt if they are used
for things to pay for things that are beyond our means.
Even if you want to use these platforms to pay
(18:11):
for your shopping, you have to ensure that you actually
have the money there to use it if you needed to.
And that's how you prevent the cost from stacking up
when you have no other way to pay for these
or when the payments are due. I think something really
related to this that shows doom spending has gone too
far for you is if you found yourself deliberately ignoring
(18:33):
bank statements, deliberately ignoring notifications, feeling a sense of dread
when you open your banking app. Financial avoidance is a
huge red flag and a huge coping mechanism that a
lot of us in our twenties have because your brain
is trying to shield you from all the fear and
shame and the guilt and just keep all the good stuff,
(18:55):
keep all the purchases, keep all the dopamine. But that
cycle actually makes get worse. You're no longer aware of
how much is coming in and out of your account
each week. You don't know how much you really need
to live. At first, it's an easier option to just
not look, but I promise you. I have done that
when I Again, when I was working as a consultant,
(19:16):
I had terrible financial habits, which is ironic. Having financial accountability,
even if you really have to stare your shopping and
you're spending straight in the face, is so much better
for you long term. So if you have recognized this
pattern in yourself, how do you stop now? I'm not
gonna say like, swear off spending altogether. Go cold turkey
(19:41):
never works. I don't think it's realistic. It's like telling
yourself never to eat sugar again. You can eat sugar
by Lake Tuesday instead. The goal is to retrain your
brain to replace emotional spending with more sustainable forms of
regulation and of control. So here are a few tips
of like how to start how to do that? First,
(20:04):
let's flip it around. If doom spending is about spending
because the future feels uncertain, doom saving is about saving
because it feels uncertain. It's like a little way to
create a sense of safety and a sense of the
future in a very small, very tangible way. You don't
(20:25):
have to start with huge amounts. Actually, research always shows
us small, consistent you know, saving goals is key. Five
or ten dollars a week. It actually increases your sense
of confidence in your own ability to manage money, but
also feelings of psychological well being and feelings of self trust,
like hey, like, I'm proud of this. I'm I'm taking
(20:47):
this thing that I earned, that I worked hard for,
and I'm building something for my future, And the very
fact that it's there has this weird reverse way of
telling you that there will be a future, which is
really what we're trying to get down to at the
end of the day. Behavioral economist Richard Thaylor. He called
this approach mental accounting, reframing savings not as deprivation but
(21:11):
as a reward, as an act of self care, as
an act of self trust, as an act of yeah,
future investment, like you're saving for the life that one
day you're going to really love and enjoy. And this
really counters the idea that we explored earlier of temporal
discounting or present bias, because the future feels are so uncertain.
(21:33):
You know, we spend more money now, but if we
save more, the possibilities for the future, the trip, we're
saving for the dream house. They expand I found this
incredibly interesting article published in twenty eleven in the Journal
of Marketing Research that found across four studies, participants who
were basically asked to interact with realistic, computer generated simulations
(21:59):
of their future using virtual technology were more likely to
accept a larger sum of money down the line. So,
just to like roll that back, they got all these people,
these participants, and they put them in these simulations. They
let them create these simulations of like really beautiful future
(22:20):
and they were really realistic. And then they said, oh, hey,
by the way, you actually get paid for this. Would
you want fifty dollars now or do it mean to
give you one hundred dollars at the end of the
term or one hundred dollars in three months. And the
people who had seen these really positive versions of themselves
and whose futures seemed really happy and bright, they wanted
(22:43):
to wait. In all cases, they wanted to accept the
later monetary reward over the immediate one. And I just
think I love this study. It really brilliantly demonstrates that
keeping that future self in mind, forcing yourself to really
imagine them when making these financial decisions when going to
(23:04):
buy stuff, goes a long way. Next, the next tip
that we can really do for ourselves is just reallocate
where your money goes. Psychological research consistently finds that spending
on experiences, rather than material goods like a new top
or a new pair of shoes, leads to greater and
(23:25):
longer lasting happiness. Why Because experiences connect to identity, and
experiences connect to relationships, and experiences connect to a deep
sense of memory and sense of self and sense of interconnectedness.
Spending on experiences as well build stories, gives you stories,
(23:47):
gives you memories that make you excited for future memories,
and they give you something that's going to last a
lot longer than plastic and a lot longer than clutter.
And Like, don't get me wrong, I love things. I
love clothes, I love buying stuff I have. I have
so many purchases that are just stupid that I still
really really value. But are they going to be the
(24:09):
things I take with me? No? I literally can't. But
buying the concert ticket, doing the day trip, spending a
little bit of extra money so that we can get
a nice place on the girl's weekend, Like, those things
really anchor me, and they anchor us in memory and
in belonging, and they are a great, great way to
(24:32):
form novel and exciting experiences that just makes life worth
and feel worth living. Another way, I'm full of tips today.
Another way to begin reallocating your spending that I do
is I create, and I have created a twenty four
hour rule. And friends of mine have seen me use this.
They can tell you it works. When I see something
(24:52):
I want, I do not buy it right away. I'm
allowed to buy it eventually, but I have to wait
minimum to twenty for hours. I get my notes app
up on my phone. I write it down. I write
down the item, the price, the date I initially wanted
to buy it. Then I just let it sit. This
(25:12):
short delay activates what psychologists call system to thinking, that slower,
more deliberate part of your brain that handles logic and
that handles long term reasoning. When you give the impulsive
part of your brain pause, this system too. This second
system locks in and allows you to spend better align
(25:35):
it's been in, more alignment with your values. Most of
the time. You will find that the desire fades once
the emotional charge passes, and if it doesn't, then you
know the purchase actually matters to you. It's more intentional,
it's not reactive. Like I said, I've done this for years.
I keep a want to buy list on my phone,
and in preparation for this episode, I was like, what
(25:58):
have I got on there? I haven't actually looked all
the way back for a little while. I just add
things on. I cannot even remember putting some of these
things on the list. One of them was like white
Abercrombie jeans. I literally listened them here and Imagen and
Willie shirt, what even is that? Like, I don't I'm
sure it's great image and Willy, I'm sure you make
(26:19):
great shirts. Like but I don't know what that is.
This print that says love is a kiss on the forehead,
super cute. I don't know what that print looks like.
I'm sure it's great, but like I didn't need it.
There was another thing that was on There was a
Gani key chain that was three hundred dollars. Like what
I think that was when like everybody was doing those
(26:39):
like trinkets on the bag situation, which I love. I
got into it, but like three hundred dollars, Like that's
so much money, that's so much money, and like I
wasn't even that. I was like, thank god, I didn't
buy that. That distance like provided some clarity. It has
saved me. I think I did like a little calculation
of like five things, and it was totally over twelve
(27:01):
hundred dollars just because I waited, just because I had
this list. There is, of course, other ways of going
about this. I have a friend who and I'm just
gonna give her a shout out because she she said
she was gonna do this at the start of the year.
It is what is it like November now and she's
still doing it. She is only allowed to buy secondhand
(27:24):
goods for the whole year, unless it's like underwear. And
I cannot tell you the amount of times that I'm
not gonna lie I low KEI wanted her to break
the pact. I wanted her to break I promised to myself.
I'm sorry, Emma, but like she because you know, something
looks really cute on her or whatever, but she genuinely
(27:44):
like has stuck to it. Her deepop purchases are amazing,
Like she's doing so well, and I just like feel
like that's another system where it's like you're allowed to buy,
you're allowed to spend, you do so more sustainably. Another
friend of mine. Albeit, I will say she lives with
her boyfriend. They don't have much space, but they have
the one in, one out rule, so she can buy stuff,
(28:07):
but she has to get rid of something. And she
has a great closet. She has a full closet. But
it really allows her to be conscious of what is
really reflecting me. What do I really want to spend
my money on? Is there anything that like? Is this
really gonna bring me value? I'm gonna wear this enough
that I should throw something out or I should donate something.
(28:27):
It sounds simple, but it's a subtle form of what
we call a commitment device, a behavioral nudge, a behavioral
rule that adds accountability, and that reminds you that every
purchase does have a cost beyond money. It costs you space,
it costs you attention, It costs you your emotional bandwidth
as well. And I think it also allows you to
(28:50):
build a sense of identity through intentional ownership. Like your
life is not a trend, your emotions are are not trendified. Right.
You can't let your emotions be the thing that determines
who you're going to be because you spend money to
soothe them. You really develop a sense of personal style,
(29:11):
develop a sense of a personal brand, you really develop
a sense of personal like money values. That is so
so powerful. I think what we're really talking about here
is just mindful consumption, slowing down, having a sense of intention,
being deliberate about what you fill your life with. So
(29:32):
many studies say our physical possessions impact our mindset and
our psychology. So don't just like fill up your space
with shit you don't need and stuff that like isn't
important to you, because then your life's going to feel unimportant,
and your environment's going to feel cluttered, and it's not
going to feel like yours. Finally, one of the biggest
tips to help you with your doom spending increase the
(29:56):
pain of paying. One of the reasons spending has been
come so automatic is that you don't have to put
in your credit card details, you don't have to hand
over cash. The other day, I bought my friend this.
I just had to do the mental math. This episode
will be out after her birthday, But for her birthday,
I bought her like this really beautiful I guess, like bathrobe,
(30:19):
like beach towel robe that she wanted for her birthday,
And it literally took me less than a minute to
buy it, to the point where I was like, oh
is that wasn't Did I actually purchase that? And it
was like, yeah, I did. No friction, No friction. We
need to reintroduce the pain of paying, the sting that
(30:40):
stops us from spending. Delete your saved cards on your phone,
turn off Apple Pay, turn off your one click check out,
use cash. These small bits of friction make you purchase conscious,
make you money conscious. Before you click by, like, there's
(31:03):
just a couple more seconds where you have to really like,
you have to go find your card, you have to
punch in your details. That delay again, it gives you.
It gives your brain, your rational brain, a chance to
catch up and a chance to be like, hey, wait
do I actually need this? You know, is this actually useful?
What impulse am I trying to suppress here? When it
(31:25):
takes energy to buy something, you have time to reevaluate,
You have time to realign it with being intentional, with
adding value to your life, with spending according to your values.
And I think that just makes you a much more
powerful person, and it gives you a much stronger, much
more strong mindset and even sense of personal identity. It
goes quite deep. So to wrap up this episode, I
(31:48):
think what doom Spending really reveals is so much more
than materialism and consumption. I think it's so easy for
people to be like you're just like you're you're just consumerist,
and like you just like spending money. It's like, no,
this is about a sense of control we have in
our twenties right now, you and me, our generation, do
you like, do you ever just sit down and realize
(32:10):
what we have lived through the amount of like history
defying events that have occurred in our lifetime and we
have to read about it or see it or are
exposed to it constantly. Of course, your brain wants something
certain even if that's certainty, the only way you can
get it is like a parcel at the front door.
(32:32):
That is for some of us, like the best we
can do right now. And so there's no shame if
that is something that you've relied on. There's no shame
if like sometimes like going on a shop, going on
a spree, like buying stuff makes you feel better. I
just want you to know about it, and I just
want you to think about whether that's actually what you
want from what you want from your life and if
(32:53):
you want to keep spending the way that you are,
if deep down you know it might be a problem.
You know, I think this is like, guys, to get
really deep. It's the psychology of your twenties in a nutshell.
This is about learning how to sit with uncertainty without
letting it rule you, recognizing when we're trying to fill psychological,
(33:13):
mental emotional gaps with things, and just gently redirecting. So
thank you, thank you for listening. If you've made it
this far, I like to do this thing you guys
know at the end of my episodes where like to
reward your attention span and to reward you for listening,
you get the secret code for the episode. So today,
(33:33):
if you made it this far, what is something currently
on your buy list that you're putting off buying? Is
it white jeans? Is it three hundred dollar garning key Jane,
I don't know. Drop it down below. What are you
currently thinking about buying? How much is it? Do you
need it or not? I want to hear what's on
everybody's lists, not in a way that like to encourage
(33:56):
people to buy them, just like I just want to
know for curiosity. I want to thank our research assistant
Libey Colbert for her contributions to this episode. She is
a hero. She is a champion and we love her. Also,
make sure that you are following us on Instagram at
that Psychology podcast. It's December coming up, and you know
what that means. It means guest month. Yes, that's right,
(34:19):
a whole month just of guests, just of really cool
people that I got to talk to. So if you
want to know who's going to be on the show,
make sure you're following us over there, or that you're
following us slash subscribed whatever you are listening to this episode. Again,
I appreciate you listening. I appreciate you giving us a
five star review and your support for the podcast. And
(34:39):
until next time, stay safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself,
spend consciously, and we will talk very very soon.
Hello everybody. I'm Jemma Spake and welcome back to the
Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through
the biggest changes, moments, and transitions of our twenties and
what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back
(00:25):
to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners,
old listeners. Wherever you are in the world, it is
so great to have you here. Back for another episode
as we, of course break down the psychology of our twenties. Today,
we are answering a question I have been having of
myself recently, Why am I spending so much money? Specifically,
(00:48):
why have I been using money to self sue, to
feel better about my life, to take away bad feelings
about the state of the world, probably more than I
ever have. We're talking about a phenomena that has been
popping up all over social media, in financial columns on TikTok,
this concept of doom spending. I also think it's a
(01:11):
great time to talk about money. With the holidays coming up.
The urge and the desire to spend perhaps more than
we have beyond our means is very very strong within us,
and I want to talk about this specific type of compulsion,
this specific reason why you and I, people in their
(01:32):
twenties are spending all this money on things that maybe
we don't really need. Doom spending is basically the desire
or the impulse to spend money more rapidly and in
larger sums in response to our anxiety and uncertainty about
the future and about the world. It is this tendency
(01:53):
to live in the now, to spend because the future
is uncertain, to treat ourselves. It's the use of mine
to manage our emotions. And you might be thinking, like,
what is the problem with that? Like I work hard
for my money, surely I should be, and you are
allowed to spend it however I want. But there is
(02:14):
a level where it actually gets out of control. It
can begin to become a maladaptive coping mechanism, and it
can actually in a way feed into our pessimism about
the future in a way that is a little bit unhealthy. Also,
you know, it takes away from our ability to plan
financially and to save and to achieve you know, financial freedom,
(02:39):
financial sustainability, to have long term financial goals. And although
we may not be thinking about that in our early
twenties or in our twenties at all, it is still
an important conversation. So in this episode, we're going to
talk about what doom spending actually is, why we do it,
what it says about the times we're living in, and
how to get control of about how you spend money
(03:02):
in a really healthy gentle and I think sustainable way.
Without further ado, let's get into it. Let's begin with
the basics. We always do this at the start of
every episode. I feel like a broken record, but just
so we have a clear definition of doom spending. What
(03:24):
I'm talking about is not just spending because you feel
like it. I'm talking about the use of spending often
that's impulsive as a way to calm a sense of
uncertainty or a threat. It is an emotional coping mechanism.
It's not buying things that you actually need. It's not
(03:46):
buying things that you know you want and you feel
like you should treat yourself to. It is buying because
the future doesn't feel like it's coming, and so you
want to live in the now and a way to
feel better about perhaps the future not coming, which, by
the way, it is, is to you know, spend and
(04:06):
to fill your wardrobe and to get the dopamine of
small purchases. To give this some historical perspective, this is
actually nothing new. It might feel this way, but we
are actually not the first generation to live through scary times.
We probably won't be the last, and economic spending does
increase in times of geopolitical uncertainty. There's also other interesting
(04:30):
cases of how money responds to our emotions in uncertain times,
some whacking examples. One that we found was that in
the eighteen hundreds there was this Baptist preacher named William Miller,
and he had this huge following, and he was like,
guess what, Jesus is going to return in eighteen forty four.
The world's going to end. The chosen few are going
(04:51):
to ascend into heaven, and so let's live it up.
You know, take out loans, build your dream house, buy
nice dinners, buy the car you want. I don't know
if they had cars, and the eighteen hundred they definitely didn't,
but you know what I mean, Like they were spending
all this money so lavishly because they didn't think they
would have to repay their debts. And then you know,
the logic was that the apocalypse was so near. Why
(05:14):
not have fun now? And then the apocalypse didn't happen
and this whole community essentially went bankrupt. So we have
seen examples of this in the past. You know. Now,
obviously it's not a religious apocalypse, it's climate change, it's inflation,
it's AI, it's the twenty four hour news cycle. But
(05:34):
the psychological pattern is the same. When the world feels unstable,
we turned to consumption as a way of asserting control
because spending money is one of the only things that
we can do that feels like it does something or
gives us something back, and that's doom spending. Why is
(05:55):
that the case? Why does spending money kind of feeling well?
When we spend money? Basically, our dopamine system is activated.
I feel like you guys already know that. But it's
not just when we get the thing. It's when we
see something we like, when we anticipate a purchase, when
we click check out, when we're waiting for the parcel
(06:16):
to arrive, when we go and collect it. Every single
element of this process triggers the release of dopamine, and
at all those various touch points, our mood is briefly
improved and our stress is briefly lowered over time, we
learn through association that we feel better from spending. We
(06:39):
feel nice, and also it's accessible to us. We get
something in return, we get a good, we get an item.
So psychologically, spending functions like an emotional regulation strategy, much
like eating comfort food, much like scrolling social media. In
cognitive behavioral terms, if we want to go really psychological,
(07:00):
it is what we call negative reinforcement. The behavior, the
act of buying, of shopping removes distress, and that's pleasurable,
and so it's more likely to be repeated. So the
thing that we really need to note is that doom spending, yes,
is tied up in materialism. It's not necessarily about materialism.
(07:22):
It's about fear. It's about comfort, it's about control, it's
about feeling safe. Almost second, the evidence does really confirm
it's not just that, you know, we're a generation that
has more money. It's not just that shopping is more accessible,
(07:43):
that delivery like is more accessible, that things come faster.
Political and global context is driving over spending. Studies and
financial reports show that impulse spending has rapidly increased since
the pandemic, and especially during the pandemic. That is when
a lot of these habits were triggered. You know, online
shopping was one of the very few joys we seemed
(08:06):
to have control over. I was so broke during the pandemic,
so broke, and I used to spend one hundred dollars.
I remember, I had like a little bit of money
in my bank account from my restaurant job that I
was obviously I didn't have, And I would spend like
one one hundred dollars on something and then I would
(08:26):
return it, and then I would buy something else and
then I would return it. I think I recycled that
one hundred dollars like five times. I even remember, like
I bought this tartan puffer jacket. I don't know why,
Like there was no weather that required me to buy that,
and then I returned it. And then I bought like
basically something exactly the same and returned that because of
(08:48):
the dopamine, And this is where a lot of us
learnt this habit. According to twenty twenty three data from
the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, credit card balances
in the US rose seventeen percent between twenty twenty and
twenty twenty two. That is the sharpest increase in decades.
Similar things happened in a lot of other countries where
(09:10):
credit card data is like readily available, So in the UK,
in Australia, across Europe, in Canada, across all these countries,
we could see this trend. Psychologists who are studying still
studying post pandemic consumer behavior. That sound kind of sounds
like a tongue twister, but post pandemic consumer behavior. Note
that collective trauma, economic precarity, social isolation. Basically, what it's
(09:37):
all created are these shorter planning horizons. The future feels bleak,
it feels uncertain, and so we tend to not think
that it's going to happen. When you ask people in
their twenties or in their thirties, people our age, Hey, like,
how far do you think in the future. For me,
(10:01):
it's probably only six months, And that's not normal, Like
you should be able to plan and think about your
life long term. But I think the state of the
world means that it's really hard to Everything is changing
so far. It's like you just can't imagine the world
beyond six months. So if you can't imagine the world
(10:21):
in six months, why are you going to save for
a financial goal that's ten years away, like buying a house.
Why are you going to save for a financial goal
that's fifty years away or forty years away, like retirement.
The appeal of this immediate gratification in the face of
like really scary stuff often overshadows, you know, a more
(10:43):
rational decision making process that is reliant on us being
able to imagine a future with us in it. Another explanation,
spending money is just a nice distraction. When you're thinking
about when you're hal's going to arrive, When you're thinking
about how this next outfit is going to change your life,
(11:05):
you're not thinking about everything else that's going wrong. And
this really aligns with like the infamous little treat narrative. Now,
I'm a big fan of this. I love a little treat.
I'm a big believer in little treats. It's not inherently
bad to treat yourself, and I actually think it's, you know,
an important part of self care and self comfort. But
(11:28):
when treat culture turns into habitual, high spend behavior, especially
when it's triggered by fear or anxiety, that's a coping mechanism,
not a reward. And add that to the fact that nowadays,
like companies and the global economy and you know, big
(11:49):
brands are taking advantage of that. Is it really about
us or is it being manipulated for profit? The other
day I was Insidney driving to the airport and I
saw this massive billboard that was like from McDonald's and
it said existing question mark, you deserve a little tree.
(12:10):
That that's a marketing con like. That is not self care.
That is McDonald's trying to get you to buy the
thing that they have designed for you, to spend money
to fill their pockets. And especially nowadays, when we are
bombarded with targeted ads, we are streamlined into buy now
(12:31):
buttons and limited time offers and sales. I think the
shift from reward to regulation, it can happen really subtly
and is impacting a lot of us. It's impacting me
for sure. You know, there really is something to be
said about doom spending, the fact that so many people
in their twenties are spending more money than they probably have,
and the role of technology and social media. Think about
(12:55):
the last time you scrolled your Instagram feed. You will
see news of genocide, news of political unrest, news of
climate disasters, and then what happens after that. Add for
a designer bag, we can get away pair of sneakers,
phone case, sweater, t shirt, buy now, Buy now, Buy now.
(13:15):
That's emotional whiplash. You are going from panic and despair
to pleasure and intrigue. And that is not accidental. It's
engineered social media platforms, and there have been articles on this.
There have been people who have come out who were
involved in making these systems, who have come out and said,
we designed it this way. They are made to monetize
your attention because when ads make money, they make money,
(13:38):
and the way ads make money is if the site
holds your attention long enough to trigger an emotion that
will produce a sale. Fear, outrage, sadness, whatever it is.
These all heightened arousal. They keep us scrolling more and more.
And once you're in that heightened emotional state, once your
defenses are lowered, once the world feels terrible, you're more suggestible,
(14:04):
you're more reward seeking, you're more likely to act impulsively.
The discomfort we feel when we flip between threat and
reward requires an antidote. We want a solution, We want
to feel better, and then this algorithm these social media platforms,
they serve it right up to us. A twenty twenty
(14:24):
four study by researchers in Indonesia found that exposure to
emotionally charged content significantly increased impulse buying in people in
their twenties in young adults. Essentially, after being emotionally activated,
people were more likely to buy stuff and when they
were asked why, oftentimes they couldn't really explain it. So
(14:48):
this is when spending because you want something, spending because
you do deserve a little treat, and spending because you
don't really know why you're spending, and because it's a
form of coping and a mo regulation. This is when
the line really begins to blur and what began as
harmless distraction as actually feeling a need like you do
(15:10):
need clothes and you do need things in your life,
can quietly turn into like a routine, an addiction, a
really toxic habit. So let's talk about the signs that
your doom spending might be going too far and what
you can do about it after this short break, So
(15:34):
how do you know when treating yourself has tipped into
something else? Entirely most of us don't wake up one
morning and think like, oh no, I have developed an
unhealthy coping mechanism. What will I do about this? Like
it really creeps in slowly, it's disguised again is as
fun as keeping up with trends. But here are the
(15:56):
signs that it's gone a little bit too far. Firstly,
you notice that your biggest shopping days aren't actually when
you need anything, aren't when you've just gotten paid, aren't
when you're celebrating. They actually occur when you're anxious, when
you're overwhelmed, or you're sad, Especially if you are shopping
a lot at night, big red flag inhibitions are lowered.
(16:20):
Often that's when our biggest feelings come about. We're tied
from the day. Shopping is the band aid. Secondly, this
one's the obvious one. You're spending beyond your means, and
you're seriously spending beyond your means. You know. A huge
thing that has boomed in recent years is these buy now,
pay later, buy and for delayed payment options. Even using
credit cards to pay for small things that aren't necessities
(16:42):
also comes under this. Now, I don't think these kinds
of options are inherently bad at all. To be honest,
I use Klana. I use like the PayPal for in
I don't know what it is like the for payment things,
especially because I don't get paid regularly. It like helps
me break up my budget. And I used to use
it when I was working as a consultant and I
(17:03):
got paid monthly, just to kind of like make the
things I was repaying for weekly and monthly as well.
I think they offer flexibility, but they also allow you
to go a little bit too far. Behavioral economists have
highlighted that separating the payment from the consumption reduces what
we call the pain of paying. This is a concept
(17:26):
that was coined in the nineties and the pain of
paying is an important part of the buying process and
is basically the psychological discomfort that makes us hesitate before
a purchase. When we use later pay options, it delays
or disguises the payment so our brain feels like it
can experience all of the rewards, a none, or a
(17:50):
fraction of the cost until later on. That is the danger,
and again they're not necessarily bad, they're not all bad,
but what it does have the potential to slip into
is chasing payments slipping into debt if they are used
for things to pay for things that are beyond our means.
Even if you want to use these platforms to pay
(18:11):
for your shopping, you have to ensure that you actually
have the money there to use it if you needed to.
And that's how you prevent the cost from stacking up
when you have no other way to pay for these
or when the payments are due. I think something really
related to this that shows doom spending has gone too
far for you is if you found yourself deliberately ignoring
(18:33):
bank statements, deliberately ignoring notifications, feeling a sense of dread
when you open your banking app. Financial avoidance is a
huge red flag and a huge coping mechanism that a
lot of us in our twenties have because your brain
is trying to shield you from all the fear and
shame and the guilt and just keep all the good stuff,
(18:55):
keep all the purchases, keep all the dopamine. But that
cycle actually makes get worse. You're no longer aware of
how much is coming in and out of your account
each week. You don't know how much you really need
to live. At first, it's an easier option to just
not look, but I promise you. I have done that
when I Again, when I was working as a consultant,
(19:16):
I had terrible financial habits, which is ironic. Having financial accountability,
even if you really have to stare your shopping and
you're spending straight in the face, is so much better
for you long term. So if you have recognized this
pattern in yourself, how do you stop now? I'm not
gonna say like, swear off spending altogether. Go cold turkey
(19:41):
never works. I don't think it's realistic. It's like telling
yourself never to eat sugar again. You can eat sugar
by Lake Tuesday instead. The goal is to retrain your
brain to replace emotional spending with more sustainable forms of
regulation and of control. So here are a few tips
of like how to start how to do that? First,
(20:04):
let's flip it around. If doom spending is about spending
because the future feels uncertain, doom saving is about saving
because it feels uncertain. It's like a little way to
create a sense of safety and a sense of the
future in a very small, very tangible way. You don't
(20:25):
have to start with huge amounts. Actually, research always shows
us small, consistent you know, saving goals is key. Five
or ten dollars a week. It actually increases your sense
of confidence in your own ability to manage money, but
also feelings of psychological well being and feelings of self trust,
like hey, like, I'm proud of this. I'm I'm taking
(20:47):
this thing that I earned, that I worked hard for,
and I'm building something for my future, And the very
fact that it's there has this weird reverse way of
telling you that there will be a future, which is
really what we're trying to get down to at the
end of the day. Behavioral economist Richard Thaylor. He called
this approach mental accounting, reframing savings not as deprivation but
(21:11):
as a reward, as an act of self care, as
an act of self trust, as an act of yeah,
future investment, like you're saving for the life that one
day you're going to really love and enjoy. And this
really counters the idea that we explored earlier of temporal
discounting or present bias, because the future feels are so uncertain.
(21:33):
You know, we spend more money now, but if we
save more, the possibilities for the future, the trip, we're
saving for the dream house. They expand I found this
incredibly interesting article published in twenty eleven in the Journal
of Marketing Research that found across four studies, participants who
were basically asked to interact with realistic, computer generated simulations
(21:59):
of their future using virtual technology were more likely to
accept a larger sum of money down the line. So,
just to like roll that back, they got all these people,
these participants, and they put them in these simulations. They
let them create these simulations of like really beautiful future
(22:20):
and they were really realistic. And then they said, oh, hey,
by the way, you actually get paid for this. Would
you want fifty dollars now or do it mean to
give you one hundred dollars at the end of the
term or one hundred dollars in three months. And the
people who had seen these really positive versions of themselves
and whose futures seemed really happy and bright, they wanted
(22:43):
to wait. In all cases, they wanted to accept the
later monetary reward over the immediate one. And I just
think I love this study. It really brilliantly demonstrates that
keeping that future self in mind, forcing yourself to really
imagine them when making these financial decisions when going to
(23:04):
buy stuff, goes a long way. Next, the next tip
that we can really do for ourselves is just reallocate
where your money goes. Psychological research consistently finds that spending
on experiences, rather than material goods like a new top
or a new pair of shoes, leads to greater and
(23:25):
longer lasting happiness. Why Because experiences connect to identity, and
experiences connect to relationships, and experiences connect to a deep
sense of memory and sense of self and sense of interconnectedness.
Spending on experiences as well build stories, gives you stories,
(23:47):
gives you memories that make you excited for future memories,
and they give you something that's going to last a
lot longer than plastic and a lot longer than clutter.
And Like, don't get me wrong, I love things. I
love clothes, I love buying stuff I have. I have
so many purchases that are just stupid that I still
really really value. But are they going to be the
(24:09):
things I take with me? No? I literally can't. But
buying the concert ticket, doing the day trip, spending a
little bit of extra money so that we can get
a nice place on the girl's weekend, Like, those things
really anchor me, and they anchor us in memory and
in belonging, and they are a great, great way to
(24:32):
form novel and exciting experiences that just makes life worth
and feel worth living. Another way, I'm full of tips today.
Another way to begin reallocating your spending that I do
is I create, and I have created a twenty four
hour rule. And friends of mine have seen me use this.
They can tell you it works. When I see something
(24:52):
I want, I do not buy it right away. I'm
allowed to buy it eventually, but I have to wait
minimum to twenty for hours. I get my notes app
up on my phone. I write it down. I write
down the item, the price, the date I initially wanted
to buy it. Then I just let it sit. This
(25:12):
short delay activates what psychologists call system to thinking, that slower,
more deliberate part of your brain that handles logic and
that handles long term reasoning. When you give the impulsive
part of your brain pause, this system too. This second
system locks in and allows you to spend better align
(25:35):
it's been in, more alignment with your values. Most of
the time. You will find that the desire fades once
the emotional charge passes, and if it doesn't, then you
know the purchase actually matters to you. It's more intentional,
it's not reactive. Like I said, I've done this for years.
I keep a want to buy list on my phone,
and in preparation for this episode, I was like, what
(25:58):
have I got on there? I haven't actually looked all
the way back for a little while. I just add
things on. I cannot even remember putting some of these
things on the list. One of them was like white
Abercrombie jeans. I literally listened them here and Imagen and
Willie shirt, what even is that? Like, I don't I'm
sure it's great image and Willy, I'm sure you make
(26:19):
great shirts. Like but I don't know what that is.
This print that says love is a kiss on the forehead,
super cute. I don't know what that print looks like.
I'm sure it's great, but like I didn't need it.
There was another thing that was on There was a
Gani key chain that was three hundred dollars. Like what
I think that was when like everybody was doing those
(26:39):
like trinkets on the bag situation, which I love. I
got into it, but like three hundred dollars, Like that's
so much money, that's so much money, and like I
wasn't even that. I was like, thank god, I didn't
buy that. That distance like provided some clarity. It has
saved me. I think I did like a little calculation
of like five things, and it was totally over twelve
(27:01):
hundred dollars just because I waited, just because I had
this list. There is, of course, other ways of going
about this. I have a friend who and I'm just
gonna give her a shout out because she she said
she was gonna do this at the start of the year.
It is what is it like November now and she's
still doing it. She is only allowed to buy secondhand
(27:24):
goods for the whole year, unless it's like underwear. And
I cannot tell you the amount of times that I'm
not gonna lie I low KEI wanted her to break
the pact. I wanted her to break I promised to myself.
I'm sorry, Emma, but like she because you know, something
looks really cute on her or whatever, but she genuinely
(27:44):
like has stuck to it. Her deepop purchases are amazing,
Like she's doing so well, and I just like feel
like that's another system where it's like you're allowed to buy,
you're allowed to spend, you do so more sustainably. Another
friend of mine. Albeit, I will say she lives with
her boyfriend. They don't have much space, but they have
the one in, one out rule, so she can buy stuff,
(28:07):
but she has to get rid of something. And she
has a great closet. She has a full closet. But
it really allows her to be conscious of what is
really reflecting me. What do I really want to spend
my money on? Is there anything that like? Is this
really gonna bring me value? I'm gonna wear this enough
that I should throw something out or I should donate something.
(28:27):
It sounds simple, but it's a subtle form of what
we call a commitment device, a behavioral nudge, a behavioral
rule that adds accountability, and that reminds you that every
purchase does have a cost beyond money. It costs you space,
it costs you attention, It costs you your emotional bandwidth
as well. And I think it also allows you to
(28:50):
build a sense of identity through intentional ownership. Like your
life is not a trend, your emotions are are not trendified. Right.
You can't let your emotions be the thing that determines
who you're going to be because you spend money to
soothe them. You really develop a sense of personal style,
(29:11):
develop a sense of a personal brand, you really develop
a sense of personal like money values. That is so
so powerful. I think what we're really talking about here
is just mindful consumption, slowing down, having a sense of intention,
being deliberate about what you fill your life with. So
(29:32):
many studies say our physical possessions impact our mindset and
our psychology. So don't just like fill up your space
with shit you don't need and stuff that like isn't
important to you, because then your life's going to feel unimportant,
and your environment's going to feel cluttered, and it's not
going to feel like yours. Finally, one of the biggest
tips to help you with your doom spending increase the
(29:56):
pain of paying. One of the reasons spending has been
come so automatic is that you don't have to put
in your credit card details, you don't have to hand
over cash. The other day, I bought my friend this.
I just had to do the mental math. This episode
will be out after her birthday, But for her birthday,
I bought her like this really beautiful I guess, like bathrobe,
(30:19):
like beach towel robe that she wanted for her birthday,
And it literally took me less than a minute to
buy it, to the point where I was like, oh
is that wasn't Did I actually purchase that? And it
was like, yeah, I did. No friction, No friction. We
need to reintroduce the pain of paying, the sting that
(30:40):
stops us from spending. Delete your saved cards on your phone,
turn off Apple Pay, turn off your one click check out,
use cash. These small bits of friction make you purchase conscious,
make you money conscious. Before you click by, like, there's
(31:03):
just a couple more seconds where you have to really like,
you have to go find your card, you have to
punch in your details. That delay again, it gives you.
It gives your brain, your rational brain, a chance to
catch up and a chance to be like, hey, wait
do I actually need this? You know, is this actually useful?
What impulse am I trying to suppress here? When it
(31:25):
takes energy to buy something, you have time to reevaluate,
You have time to realign it with being intentional, with
adding value to your life, with spending according to your values.
And I think that just makes you a much more
powerful person, and it gives you a much stronger, much
more strong mindset and even sense of personal identity. It
goes quite deep. So to wrap up this episode, I
(31:48):
think what doom Spending really reveals is so much more
than materialism and consumption. I think it's so easy for
people to be like you're just like you're you're just consumerist,
and like you just like spending money. It's like, no,
this is about a sense of control we have in
our twenties right now, you and me, our generation, do
you like, do you ever just sit down and realize
(32:10):
what we have lived through the amount of like history
defying events that have occurred in our lifetime and we
have to read about it or see it or are
exposed to it constantly. Of course, your brain wants something
certain even if that's certainty, the only way you can
get it is like a parcel at the front door.
(32:32):
That is for some of us, like the best we
can do right now. And so there's no shame if
that is something that you've relied on. There's no shame
if like sometimes like going on a shop, going on
a spree, like buying stuff makes you feel better. I
just want you to know about it, and I just
want you to think about whether that's actually what you
want from what you want from your life and if
(32:53):
you want to keep spending the way that you are,
if deep down you know it might be a problem.
You know, I think this is like, guys, to get
really deep. It's the psychology of your twenties in a nutshell.
This is about learning how to sit with uncertainty without
letting it rule you, recognizing when we're trying to fill psychological,
(33:13):
mental emotional gaps with things, and just gently redirecting. So
thank you, thank you for listening. If you've made it
this far, I like to do this thing you guys
know at the end of my episodes where like to
reward your attention span and to reward you for listening,
you get the secret code for the episode. So today,
(33:33):
if you made it this far, what is something currently
on your buy list that you're putting off buying? Is
it white jeans? Is it three hundred dollar garning key Jane,
I don't know. Drop it down below. What are you
currently thinking about buying? How much is it? Do you
need it or not? I want to hear what's on
everybody's lists, not in a way that like to encourage
(33:56):
people to buy them, just like I just want to
know for curiosity. I want to thank our research assistant
Libey Colbert for her contributions to this episode. She is
a hero. She is a champion and we love her. Also,
make sure that you are following us on Instagram at
that Psychology podcast. It's December coming up, and you know
what that means. It means guest month. Yes, that's right,
(34:19):
a whole month just of guests, just of really cool
people that I got to talk to. So if you
want to know who's going to be on the show,
make sure you're following us over there, or that you're
following us slash subscribed whatever you are listening to this episode. Again,
I appreciate you listening. I appreciate you giving us a
five star review and your support for the podcast. And
(34:39):
until next time, stay safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself,
spend consciously, and we will talk very very soon.
Host
Jemma Sbeghen
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