Doom Spending: Why We Spend More When the Future Feels Uncertain

🛍️ What is doom spending?🔗

Doom spending is spending money on things you don't necessarily need, as a way of coping with anxiety about the future. It's the "why bother saving for a house I'll never afford, I might as well enjoy it now" mindset. The purchase itself usually isn't really the point, it's the relief that comes from briefly not feeling hopeless.

The term picked up mainstream attention via a CNBC story published on 29 November 2023, built around a survey from Intuit Credit Karma. That survey found more than a quarter of Americans (27%) said they doom spend to cope with stress, rising to 37% of Gen Z and 39% of millennials. It spread quickly from there through TikTok and Instagram, where younger people were already having frank conversations about economic pessimism, and picked up wide coverage through early 2024.

It's genuinely common, and not just overseas. Research from Leo Burnett's "Good Study", presented at a University of Technology Sydney forum on consumer behaviour in March 2025, put the figure at 29% of Australians now doom spending, using it as a way to inject a sense of meaning or distraction into a world that feels increasingly out of control. The exact number will vary depending on how a survey defines the behaviour, but the direction is consistent across every study on the topic: this is a widespread, recognisable pattern, not a fringe one.

🧠 The psychology behind doom spending🔗

Present bias, amplified. Our brains are wired to value rewards now over rewards later, that's normal and it's called present bias. But when the future feels genuinely unaffordable, that bias gets amplified. If someone genuinely believes they'll never own a home, the rational calculation shifts, why sacrifice today for a goal that feels impossible anyway?

Loss of control, and the search for agency. When big things feel completely out of your hands, the housing market, inflation, the general state of the world, spending on small things can feel like reclaiming some of that control. Psychologists describe this as a "passive to active flip": you can't fix housing affordability, but you can choose to buy the thing in front of you right now, and that choice itself feels like something.

Social comparison, amplified by social media. TikTok and Instagram create a constant stream of other people appearing to spend freely, travel constantly, and live well. Whether that reflects their actual financial situation is beside the point, the comparison normalises the behaviour and makes restraint feel like deprivation rather than a choice.

Worth being really clear about this: doom spending is a recognised coping mechanism, not a personal failing. It sits in the same psychological territory covered in our guides to financial anxiety and tall poppy syndrome and money in Australia. If either of those pieces resonated with you, this pattern will probably feel familiar too. Shame rarely helps here. Understanding the driver underneath usually does.

🇦🇺 Why doom spending feels so rational in Australia right now🔗

This is the section that matters most for a lot of readers, because the feelings driving doom spending are, in many cases, a completely rational response to genuinely difficult conditions.

The housing numbers are stark. PropTrack's Housing Affordability Report found a median-income household, earning around $112,000, could afford just 14% of homes sold nationally in the 2023-24 financial year, down from 43% just three years earlier, the smallest share on record since data collection began in 1995. More recent PropTrack figures show only a small easing since then, affordability remains close to those record lows. On top of that, ANZ and CoreLogic's Housing Affordability Report found median-income households needed 10.6 years to save a 20% deposit nationally, and that mortgage repayments on a median-priced home had climbed to absorb around half of median household disposable income.

Renting isn't the easy alternative it used to be either. Domain's rental report for the December 2025 quarter put the national median rent at a record $650 a week, with rents at or near record highs in almost every capital city.

Cost of living pressure has pushed financial stress to levels you can see clearly in the data on younger Australians specifically. ASIC research found 82% of Gen Z Australians (18 to 26 year olds) feel financially stressed because of rising living costs, with 68% naming finances as a major concern, well above the 57% of older Australians who say the same. Average personal debt among Gen Z respondents sat at $8,188, compared with $6,730 for everyone else, and one in five held $10,000 or more in personal debt.

🎯 The essential: When saving for a house genuinely feels impossible, spending on something enjoyable today isn't irrational, that's the honest truth. The problem isn't the feeling. It's when the behaviour becomes a cycle that makes the underlying situation even harder to escape.

⚠️ The risk: when doom spending becomes a self-fulfilling cycle🔗

Here's where honesty without alarmism matters. The spending that feels like a reasonable response to a hopeless situation can actually deepen that situation. A CreditCards.com survey on spending driven by fear or anxiety about the future found nearly three in ten Americans (28%) expect to go into, or add to, credit card debt this year, a meaningful share of it tied to exactly this kind of anxiety-driven spending.

The cycle runs like this: doom spending reduces savings, which makes financial goals feel even further away, which increases financial anxiety, which drives more doom spending. Each loop makes the next one a little harder to break. This isn't about willpower, it's a feedback loop that's genuinely easy to fall into. The spending provides real, short-term relief, the anxious feeling eases briefly, then returns, often with added guilt, and the next purchase ends up feeling even more justified than the last one.

The goal of naming this pattern isn't to make anyone feel bad about past spending. It's to give enough distance from the pattern to see it clearly, which is usually the first thing that has to happen before anything changes.

🌱 A compassionate framework for addressing doom spending🔗

The goal here isn't to white-knuckle through a stricter budget, that approach rarely works because it treats the symptom, the spending, without touching the cause, the anxiety.

1. Name what's happening. Recognising doom spending as anxiety-driven, rather than just "being bad with money," is genuinely useful. It shifts the question from "why can't I control myself?" to "what am I actually trying to cope with?" Before a purchase you're not sure about, try pausing to ask "am I buying this because I want it, or because I feel hopeless right now?" You don't need a perfect answer, just that moment of distance can change the outcome. Keeping a loose note of how you feel before and after a purchase, not to track every dollar but to notice patterns, can help surface what's actually going on too.

2. Small financial wins rebuild a sense of agency. The antidote to feeling out of control isn't a massive savings goal, it's tiny, achievable actions that prove to your brain you do have some control, the same logic that makes present bias work, in reverse. A small automatic weekly transfer into an emergency fund even if it's modest, paying off one small debt, not necessarily the biggest, just one, tracking spending for a single week not to judge it but to actually see it, or cancelling one forgotten subscription. None of these solve the housing affordability crisis, but they shift the feeling from "nothing I do matters" to "I can affect this," and that shift genuinely matters.

3. Distinguish intentional "joy spending" from anxiety-driven spending. Not all non-essential spending is doom spending. Spending intentionally on things that genuinely matter within a plan isn't the problem, going out for dinner with friends because you value that time is different from buying things online late at night because you feel hopeless. The distinction is whether the spending is chosen or compelled. Intentional spending, sometimes called "joy spending," is a valid part of a healthy financial life, the real question is whether you're in the driver's seat, or the anxiety is. If part of what's holding you back from an honest "no" is guilt about disappointing people, our guide to loud budgeting has the exact scripts for that conversation.

4. If it feels compulsive, or is causing real harm, talk to someone. If spending feels genuinely out of control or is creating real financial difficulty, that's worth taking seriously. A financial counsellor can help you look at the numbers without judgment and work out a path forward, free financial counselling is available through the National Debt Helpline on 1800 007 007, confidential and no cost. A psychologist or therapist can help with the emotional side, particularly if financial anxiety is affecting your sleep, relationships, or mental health more broadly. Reaching out isn't a sign of failure, it's the practical move.

🎯 The bottom line🔗

Doom spending is a real, psychologically grounded response to genuinely difficult economic conditions, it makes sense that people do it. When homeownership feels out of reach for so many, and financial stress is this widespread among young Australians, spending on something enjoyable today isn't a mystery, it's a coping mechanism. The risk is that it can become a cycle that makes the underlying situation harder. The way through isn't shame or stricter budgeting rules, it's understanding the anxiety underneath, finding small ways to rebuild a sense of control, and being honest with yourself about whether spending is intentional or driven by hopelessness. That's a harder question than "did I stick to my budget?", but it's the one that actually helps.

❓ Frequently asked questions🔗