It’s 2:00 AM, and you’re still awake. You open your phone, scroll through an e-commerce app, and spot a 50% discount. With a quick tap on “Buy Now” and a swift checkout, a wave of relief washes over you. Your long-awaited package is on its way.
The next morning, you check your bank balance. Reality hits, and regret immediately sinks in: “What on earth did I do last night?”
Sound familiar? If you or someone you know does this regularly, you’re likely dealing with “doom spending”—a financial habit far more damaging than mere doomscrolling.
What is Doom Spending?
Doom spending is the habit of shopping impulsively not out of need, but as a coping mechanism for anxiety and hopelessness about the future. It is fundamentally different from traditional hedonism.
While hedonists spend because they are happy and can afford it, doom spenders buy things because they feel miserable and believe they will never achieve long-term financial milestones anyway.
Why do we do this? Psychologically, the human brain is wired to prioritize instant gratification over long-term security. Kimberly Palmer, a personal finance expert at NerdWallet, explains that doom spending is an urge to shop to self-soothe from stress and anxiety.
Courtney Alev from Credit Karma echoes this: “We repeatedly see people spending to cope with their emotions and alleviate stress. While it provides short-term relief, it can have severe long-term consequences on their financial health.”
Shopping offers an illusion of control. We get to choose the product, the color, the price, and the delivery method. In a world where so much feels chaotic and uncontrollable, making a purchase temporarily distracts the brain from deeper, existential worries.
A Hopeless Economic Reality
The IDN Research Institute’s Indonesia Millennial and Gen Z Report 2025 surveyed 1,500 respondents and found that 52% of young Indonesians only acquired housing through inheritance or family assistance. The report noted that for many, buying a home independently remains financially out of reach.
Consider the numbers: housing prices in Indonesia surged by 10.38% between 2019 and 2024. Meanwhile, the average national wage only grew by 8.93% (from IDR 2.79 million to IDR 3.04 million) over the same period.
The math is simple: home prices are rising much faster than wages. This housing crisis isn’t a result of laziness or lack of ambition. Young people are simply the first generation to face the harsh reality that they may be worse off financially than their parents.
When you realize your savings will never buy you a home, and years of hard work won’t even cover a down payment, a defeatist mindset sets in: “If saving is pointless, I might as well buy something that makes me happy right now.”
However, the dopamine hit from retail therapy is notoriously short-lived. The euphoria often fades by the time the package arrives—or, as in our late-night scenario, turns into instant regret the very next morning.
Doom Spending vs. Extreme Frugality
Interestingly, doom spending coexists with its polar opposite: “loud budgeting” and “extreme frugality.”
Alongside displays of wealth, social media is flooded with financial survival hacks. People proudly post about turning down social outings to save money, or trying to survive on impossibly small monthly food budgets.
Both impulsive spending and obsessive saving stem from the exact same trigger. Dr. Brad Klontz, a financial psychologist at Creighton University, calls this a “financial trauma response”—extreme behaviors triggered by economic insecurity.
The doom spender adopts a defeatist attitude: “Saving won’t save me, so I’ll enjoy today.”
The extreme saver adopts a hyper-vigilant stance: “I must survive at all costs; every single penny must be accounted for.”
Both paths are mentally exhausting. While doom spending offers an illusion of control through instant gratification, extreme frugality seeks safety through total restriction. Both are driven by fear, keeping the brain in a constant state of high alert. Dr. Klontz explains that when the brain senses a financial threat, it bypasses moderate thinking and defaults to an extreme “fight or flight” response.
A Global and Local Phenomenon
In October 2024, an Intuit Credit Karma survey of 1,001 American adults revealed that 27% of respondents—including 37% of Gen Z and 39% of Millennials—admitted to doom spending to cope with stress. Furthermore, 40% noted they were doing it more often than the previous year.
While exact equivalent surveys are scarce in Indonesia, academic and institutional studies show a similar trend. During Ramadan 2025, the Mandiri Institute observed clear indicators of doom spending, with lifestyle-related and impulsive purchases (hobbies, sports, entertainment, and smartphones) outperforming essential categories.
Research by Mutia Cahyani Putri from the State University of Semarang also indicates that doom spending is heavily influenced by income levels. Higher disposable income often translates to greater flexibility for emotional retail therapy.
Compounding this is the digital environment. Social media algorithms, targeted ads, and frictionless e-commerce user interfaces are meticulously engineered to keep us scrolling and buying.
The long-term danger of doom spending is insidious. As financial author Bola Shokunbi puts it: “You feel anxious, you spend to feel better, you feel anxious about the spending… and the cycle repeats.”
You worry about your bleak economic future, so you spend impulsively. Over time, this unchecked habit actually creates the very financial ruin you feared. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This behavior isn’t due to a lack of intelligence or discipline. It is a natural, albeit misdirected, psychological survival mechanism. We try to soothe today’s anxiety, unaware that we are sabotaging tomorrow. Consequently, overcoming it requires more than just generic advice to “be more disciplined”—it requires deep self-awareness.
How to Break the Cycle
There are no overnight fixes for systemic anxiety, but there are practical steps we can take.
Financial psychologists often recommend implementing a strict 24-hour pause before making non-essential purchases. This cools the emotional impulse and allows logic to catch up.
NerdWallet’s Kimberly Palmer offers an even simpler remedy: “Sometimes you just need to step away from the screen. Go outside, connect with nature, and remind yourself that there is a world beyond your digital feed.”
Improving financial literacy also plays a vital role. It fosters a long-term mindset, helps us identify our emotional spending triggers, and restores a healthier sense of control through proactive budgeting and emergency funds.
Ultimately, however, we must acknowledge that doom spending is not purely an individual failure. When an entire generation feels economically insecure, it points to deep systemic issues: stagnant wages, soaring living costs, an unattainable housing market, and predatory consumer algorithms. Until these structural challenges are addressed, economic anxiety—and the extreme coping mechanisms it breeds—will continue to persist.