NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — You may have heard of "doom scrolling" but what about "doom spending?"
Maybe it's the third ad for something you just couldn’t live without in the past two weeks and each time you told yourself does it really matter?
If that all sounds just a little too familiar, you may be one of the 27 percent of Americans that doom spend to cope with stress.
"The uptick in doom spending can lead to cycles of debt for consumers. that's the principal thing we want people to be concerned about," said Consumer Financial Advocate Courtney Alev.
A recent study released by credit karma found that nearly a third of Americans' debt has increased over the past six months and nearly half said their savings have decreased in that same time.
So if you find yourself in this doom spending pattern despite financial anxiety what can you do?
"If there's certain moments where you notice you're more likely to spend, maybe you're feeling stressed, tired, tempted, whatever is for you personally," Alev said. "Try to cope in a different way at that time."
Experts suggest you make it harder for yourself to buy things by not saving your credit card info on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, or Amazon and instead of just hitting buy now, send the link to a friend and wait 24 to 48 hours to see if it’s really something you just can’t live without.
Fostering Hope provides Christmas for kids in foster care. I'm delighted to see Fostering Hope expand this year to expand their reach to now include kids in Foster care in metro AND foster kids in East TN hard hit by Helene.
-Bree Smith
