{"id":810827,"date":"2026-08-12T05:10:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T05:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/810827\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T05:10:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T05:10:17","slug":"why-spending-on-little-treats-makes-sense-in-this-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/810827\/","title":{"rendered":"Why spending on &#8220;little treats&#8221; makes sense in this economy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While consumer sentiment <a class=\"externallink\" title=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sca.isr.umich.edu\/\">has improved slightly in July,<\/a> overall, we\u2019re still not feeling too great about the economy. Yet that discontent, for some, arguably runs deeper, particularly for younger consumers. Major milestone purchases, such as buying a house, <a class=\"externallink\" title=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/fred.stlouisfed.org\/series\/MSPUS\">have only gotten more expensive over the last five years,<\/a> and that could be leading to a range of economic behaviors, <a class=\"externallink\" title=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/shorts\/ceOfXt1hHCM\">like buying \u201clittle treats,\u201d<\/a> or turning to <a class=\"externallink\" title=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/personal-finance\/financial-nihilism-gen-z-gambling-meme-stocks-options-kyla-scanlon-7ae4f2aa\">\u201cfinancial nihilism.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think when people look at the spending patterns of the younger generation, there is this lean towards little treats, so buying up <a title=\"\" class=\"interallink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.marketplace.org\/story\/2026\/07\/29\/adults-spend-big-on-collectible-toys-for-themselves\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Labubus<\/a>, Dubai chocolate, lattes, whatever it may be,\u201d said Kyla Scanlon, <a class=\"externallink\" title=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/kyla.substack.com\/\">economic content creator<\/a> and <a title=\"\" class=\"interallink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.marketplace.org\/story\/2024\/05\/30\/kyla-scanlon-wants-to-remind-us-that-people-are-the-economy\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">author.<\/a> \u201cThat sort of spending is rational because they&#8217;re putting off the bigger milestone spending, like buying a house, having kids, because it feels further and further out of reach.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMarketplace\u201d host Kai Ryssdal spoke to Scanlon about what might be driving consumers, even on a philosophical level. <\/p>\n<p>To listen, use the media player above. <\/p>\n<p>Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While consumer sentiment has improved slightly in July, overall, we\u2019re still not feeling too great about the economy.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":810828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[34900,28,101,344100,153,344101],"class_list":["post-810827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-american-consumers","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-financial-nihilism","tag-gen-z","tag-macroeconomy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810827","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=810827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}