{"id":656994,"date":"2026-05-21T19:15:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T19:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/656994\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T19:15:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T19:15:20","slug":"doom-spending-how-to-stop-mindless-online-shopping-from-draining-your-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/656994\/","title":{"rendered":"Doom spending: How to stop mindless online shopping from draining your budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHOENIX \u2014 A few clicks here, a late-night purchase there \u2014 and before you know it, your stress relief could be costing you hundreds of dollars.<\/p>\n

Kimberly Palmer, Personal Finance Expert at NerdWallet<\/a>, says it often starts with “doom scrolling” \u2014 spending hours consuming stressful news or social media content. Then come the targeted ads, the gateway to what experts call “doom spending<\/a>“: mindlessly buying non-essentials online to soothe anxiety.<\/p>\n

“Doom spending basically refers to when we overspend because we’re stressed out and anxious,” Palmer said.<\/p>\n

Those small purchases can add up fast. Even a $20 impulse buy every day could cost you well over $100 by the end of the week. “Making that purchase gives us a little bit of a dopamine hit or a feel-good sensation, and it counters the stress of the news and everything else we’re looking at online. And so advertisers definitely know what they’re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the clearest warning signs? Being caught off guard by your own spending.<\/p>\n

“A warning sign that you are \u2018doom spending\u2019 is when you are surprised by your purchases, you’re reviewing your credit card at the end of the month, and you almost didn’t realize how much you spent. So that’s a red flag,” Palmer said.<\/p>\n

Consumer Dulce Jimena Cabrales says while she\u2019s against mindless online shopping, she\u2019s seen that the pull is hard to resist for many of her friends.<\/p>\n

“It’s really easy to get sucked in. The scrolling of, like, oh, like that\u2019s cute, or like, like I could see myself like wearing that,\u201d Cabrales said. “I see the term a lot, like retail therapy. I think it is like a plague.”<\/p>\n

Consumer Kayla Letcher said she tries to focus only on the essentials that she needs.<\/p>\n

“When it comes to buying things that I don’t necessarily need, I try not to add up those costs,” Letcher said.<\/p>\n

Simple guardrails to take back control<\/p>\n

Palmer says the first step is awareness.<\/p>\n

“Just ask yourself, am I doom spending, am I purchasing items I don’t really need?” she said.<\/p>\n

From there, she recommends practical limits: deleting shopping apps, staying off social media at night, or setting a hard cut-off time for online purchases.<\/p>\n

“So for example, for me, I have a new rule that I don’t buy anything after 8pm at night,” Palmer said.<\/p>\n

\"Null\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Are you a Smart Shopper? What are your go-to saving tips and tricks? <\/p>\n

Share your deals or ways to save here!<\/a><\/p>\n

Palmer also suggests finding alternatives to manage stress, like calling a friend or going for a walk, and building a spending plan that allows for some flexibility. If you have $200 in extra cash, for example, consider spending half and putting the rest toward savings.<\/p>\n

“You could find an extra few $100 or more in your budget every single month, and you know, right now with prices so high, every little bit counts, so it’s definitely worth it,” Palmer said.<\/p>\n

Cabrales says she seeks out meaningful activities to keep her off her phone.<\/p>\n

“I always have a book in my purse,” Cabrales said. “Just to get off my phone.”<\/p>\n

Letcher says her focus is on sticking to a budget plan.<\/p>\n

“My goal, is to stay within my budget and not spend on unnecessary things,\u201d Letcher said. \u201cOr even be that person with the coupon. Like there’s no shame in that.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX \u2014 A few clicks here, a late-night purchase there \u2014 and before you know it, your stress…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[28,147,530],"class_list":["post-656994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}