Do you have ‘F it’ money?
Not ‘F you‘ money, but ‘F it‘?
If you do, chances are you don’t have much of the regular kind. And that takes us to a new name for an old phenomenon: Doom Spending.
It sounds like a darker, slower, more depressing offshoot of Heavy Spending, and that’s not wholly inaccurate. If you can’t afford payments on a new car, but CAN afford a one time cash drop nice pair of boots, feel better and buy the boots!
You’ll never have enough money for surgery if you need it. But you DO have enough for a sweet watch to count down your diminished lifespan. Feel better! Buy the watch!
Your credit and savings will never recover from the last several emergencies, that house you were eyeing is out of the question, and you have to make sure you pay rent right at 11:59 to try and get the withdrawal to come out in 48 hours rather than 3. But with the couple hundred left in your account, some out-of-print comics might be nice, right? And so on.
Alaina Demopolous of The Guardian notes
“All signs point to “doom spending” being a reckless and unwise decision, but it does feel fun to self-soothe via unnecessary purchases. And it’s a problem many Americans have. Despite inflation and high interest rates, the National Retail Federation reported that holiday shopping reached record highs last year, at a cool $964.4bn.”
One last wintery hurrah, perhaps. But I disagree on one point—if Zoomers, Millennials, and other generations are all equally circling the same drain, rather than doom spending despite high interest and raised prices, it’s because of it.
Now of course someone living paycheck to paycheck who succumbs to the call of the effits, is probably someone with a place to stay, and at least a few of their base needs being met.
However, the gap widening between workers and 1%ers can’t be put off with ‘That could be us someday’ any more. Similarly the illusion of being far removed from houseless folks who aren’t having their low end of the Hierarchy of Needs fulfilled is being dispelled. Is it any wonder that, while trudging along under greedflation, record layoffs, and a general social malaise, more of the lower born decided to wring out some semblance of high class enjoyment wherever they may? Why not trade the drab lie of the ‘Work hard, save, then prosper’ formula for the much more fun lie of ‘The Prada sunglasses will make it better’?
The jig is up, the curtain has fallen, and I’ve already hit ‘Add to Cart’ five separate times. Let the End Times roll!
