357. Why do we doomspend?
The Psychology of your 20s
iHeartPodcasts
4.8 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 25 November 2025
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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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The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.5 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:08.5 | Hello everybody. |
| 0:10.0 | I'm Jemma Spike and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk |
| 0:15.4 | through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology. |
| 0:28.0 | Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, |
| 0:33.9 | old listeners, wherever you are in the world. It is so great to have you here back for |
| 0:38.0 | another episode as we of course break down the psychology of our 20s. Today we are answering |
| 0:43.8 | a question I have been having of myself recently. Why am I spending so much money? Specifically, |
| 0:52.2 | why have I been using money to self-suit, to feel better about my life, |
| 0:59.1 | to take away bad feelings about the state of the world, probably more than I ever have? |
| 1:05.0 | We're talking about a phenomenon that has been popping up all over social media in financial |
| 1:10.1 | columns on TikTok, this concept |
| 1:12.7 | of doom spending. I also think it's a great time to talk about money with the holidays coming |
| 1:18.9 | up. The urge and the desire to spend, perhaps more than we have beyond our means, is very, very strong within us. |
| 1:28.8 | And I want to talk about this specific type of compulsion, this specific reason why you and I, |
| 1:35.9 | people in their 20s are spending all this money on things that maybe we don't really need. |
| 1:42.5 | Doom spending is basically the desire or the impulse |
| 1:46.5 | to spend money more rapidly and in larger sums in response to our anxiety and uncertainty |
| 1:54.0 | about the future and about the world. It is this tendency to like live in the now, to spend |
| 2:00.4 | because the future is uncertain to treat ourselves it's |
| 2:03.5 | the use of money to manage our emotions and you might be thinking like what is the problem with that |
... |
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