This is an All Ears English Podcast, episode 2322.
Do you doomspend connect over this topic in English?
Welcome to The All Ears English Podcast downloaded more than 200 million times.
Are you feeling stuck with your English?
We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection.
With your American hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA.
And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglish .com forward slash subscribe.
In today's episode, we talk about one way that people deal with negative emotions in American culture, which is shopping.
Get key vocabulary to talk about this rising trend and learn how to mirror when someone shares this about themselves.
Are you in charge of hiring at your company?
When you're hiring, it feels amazing to finally close out a job search.
But what if you could get rid of the search and just match?
You can with Indeed.
In the minute I've been talking to you, 23 hires were made on Indeed, according to Indeed data worldwide.
In my experience as a business owner, hiring is hard.
But when you get the right person on your team, your possibilities as a company are limitless.
So ditch the busy work.
Use Indeed for scheduling, screening, and messaging so you can connect with candidates faster.
And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed .com slash AEE.
Just go to indeed .com slash AEE right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast.
Indeed .com slash AEE.
Terms and conditions apply.
Need to hire, you need indeed.
Hey there, Michelle.
How are you today? Hi, I'm good.
How are you, Lindsay?
Good, good, good. What are we getting into today on All There's English?
Lindsay, do you ever buy something when you're in a bad mood?
I have to say this is not where I go when I'm in a bad mood.
No, I don't go to retail therapy personally.
What about you, Michelle?
Do you have a tendency to buy when you're upset?
No, I don't think so.
I don't think, you know, everybody has their vice, you know, some people they have a tendency to eat when they're upset.
I don't know what I do when I'm upset, but it's not shop.
And part of that is just because I'm such a terrible decision maker.
So it's not relaxing to me.
It's not, you know, but I suppose if I were looking for a way to forget about something or just want a distraction, I could see going with a friend to the mall and just, you know, walking around something like that, but I'm not going to like start just buying things like, right.
Right. Right. Right.
Right. Well, but although it is a real thing, I mean, some people definitely do this and there's even a name for this phenomenon.
Michelle, what is it?
Oh my gosh. So this is a new a new term for it.
Guys, we've talked about doomscrolling before, I think on the podcast.
So this is doom spending.
Yes. Doom spending.
And it seems like based on an article we're going to talk about today and add our opinions and teach you how to do things.
It seems like doom spending is having a bit of a resurgence right now, or just spending.
And we know that this is kind of a hotspot for Americans historically.
I mean, as long as I've been able to read the news, I know that credit card debt has been a major problem in the U .S., especially in the years leading up to the 2008 recession, our credit card debt was off the charts and I'm not sure that that caused the recession.
Maybe it was a contributing factor.
It was mostly for the subprime mortgage lending, but I think once the subprime mortgage lending crashed down, credit card debt didn't help the scenario.
So we know right now, according to lendingtree .com, we know that Americans total at this time, right after all the pandemic and everything we've learned, the credit card balance in America is $1 .166 trillion in the third quarter of 2024, according to the latest consumer debt data from the Fed.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, so that's not a small amount of money, Michelle.
People are spending money on their credit cards.
Yes, absolutely for sure.
So very interesting to see what's going on here.
So we're going to just touch on this article, give our opinions, and we're going to also give you a lot of good vocabulary to go along with this to talk about your habits.
It's a great conversation topic that our listeners could have with a native speaker, right?
Yes. That's right. But guys, before we get into this, we wanted to say thank you so much to our listener, Amir, for his wonderful review.
Yeah. Amir wrote an amazing review in Apple Podcasts on November 12th.
He's from the Netherlands.
He says, every day, I wake up early around five in the morning and I go to work, and there are some essential points to empower me, except for the coldness in Rotterdam.
So he's saying some things help him to deal with the coldness in Rotterdam, and he says, coffee, Lindsay, and Michelle.
You are exactly like fuel, which makes my day energetic and positive.
I appreciate you and your excellent team for all your nice efforts and awesome produced content.
How amazing, Michelle.
That is like a little mini Christmas gift early.
I know. Thank you so much.
Seriously, that means a lot to us, Amir.
We're so happy to be here for you.
You guys are the reason we do this.
Yes. We really love what we do, and we're so happy that we're a part of your day and your fuel.
100%. What we do here runs deep for us.
This is so important for us to help you all build connections.
So if you feel similar to the way Amir feels, go and write your review.
Let us know what you think about the show.
Wherever you're listening, guys, whether it's Apple Podcasts or Spotify or the app, the Android iOS app, leave us a review and we'll read it out loud on the show.
Absolutely. Thank you so, so much.
Yes. Okay, Michelle.
Let's get into doom spending.
What does the word doom mean?
Doom? It's like something bad.
Something bad is happening, right?
So doom scrolling, it's kind of your, well, there's the expression gloom and doom.
All right. It's kind of thinking the worst is going to happen, right?
So doom is just with a bad feeling, right?
Yeah. And I think our listeners probably know the term doom scrolling, but if they don't, it's kind of, it's looking for, you know, this comes back to the way the brain, the human brain is wired.
The human brain is wired to look for the dangerous thing.
We've talked about evolutionary psychology.
We know that it's wired to focus on the dangerous, the bad thing.
So sometimes when we're in a certain mood, we want to go to Instagram or Facebook and look for kind of, I don't know, things that make us feel rotten.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
It's weird. Right. I don't think we're thinking of it like that.
Oh, I want to find something to make me feel rotten, but you know, it's just, that's what happens.
It's a, yeah, it's a weird thing.
It's human. It's very human.
So so today, so then this term doom spending is a play on doom scrolling, right Michelle?
Exactly. Exactly. So doom scrolling has be kind of evolved into really a household term.
I mean, yeah, I would say that in the beginning, people didn't really know what it meant or it's really a very new term.
So that's interesting how the evolution of language can, this is totally new, but doom spending.
So like Lindsay said, this is play on that.
So there was an article on huffpost .com by Caroline Bologna on November 8th, 2024.
And the article was called this dangerous money habit is becoming more common.
Don't be tempted. Data suggests the 2024 election is fueling a bad impulse.
Very interesting. Very interesting.
Yeah. Okay. So again, so we know what doom spending is.
It sounds like people are feeling upset about the election.
Yes, they are indeed.
And this is what they're doing, right?
They're going out and they're just spending money as a way to deal with something that feels really dark emotionally, right?
Right. Exactly. The article mentions that, yeah, it's a doom spending.
It's basically retail therapy when people, as they say, feel particularly uneasy and pessimistic about the state of the world.
Oh man. Where's the good news in today's episode, right?
Yes. Well, so it does mention that the election, it's a leading up to the election could have caused it.
And it says because shopping can give us dopamine, I'm talking about the article here, right?
And also, what makes it easy to doom spend?
The internet, right?
You don't even have to go out anywhere.
You can just be in a bad mood and say, I need this, right?
Well, that's what I was wondering.
Are we talking about physically going into an immersive shopping environment?
Or are we talking about, is this mostly happening online?
Probably online because most people shop online now, right?
Yeah. So it's more you're getting that dopamine hit regardless of where you're shopping.
And there's no, it's too easy to press that button.
It's just too easy.
And also then, you know, you can return it.
So, you know, you might, a lot of times return policies are pretty good.
So it's probably just easy.
It feels very low risk to just press the button and see what happened.
But for me, when I think about the hassle to go and return something, even just to walk over to like a Whole Foods and put it in the box, it's a big hassle.
And it would block me from just randomly buying things because it seems like a lot of work to do that.
I don't know. It's just not the way I think.
Yeah, I totally agree.
I absolutely hate having to return things by mail.
I mean, I know people, they don't mind.
Oh, I just had to drop some things off.
I, what happens to me is I forget and I just put it off.
And then I have things that I don't use because I just never return them.
So to me, I do try and be pretty careful about what I buy because I just, I don't know.
I think I take it even more seriously than an in person purchase.
Yeah, it's just a lot of work.
Things will sit on your countertop ready to be returned for two months and then you miss the deadline.
Right. Oh, that's terrible.
I hate that. Yes. And Lindsay, I just wanted to let our listeners know that towards the end of this episode, we are going to have a poll on Spotify.
We've been doing these really, really fun polls to interact with you on Spotify.
If you're listening on Spotify, you get a lot of polls and some of them, we announce the results.
That's right. And we have a good question today, right?
Michelle, it's going to, it's a very cultural question, right?
A practical cultural question about how things vary around the world.
So Michelle, is there a quote from the article that would be interesting here for our listeners to know?
Yeah. So I thought this was very interesting.
This said, a recent survey from Credit Karma found that 27 % of Americans were doom spending in the lead up to the election with that number climbing to 37 % for Gen Zers and 39 % for Millennials.
And then it says feelings of uncertainty, anxiety and depression are often driving forces.
So this is talking about the lead up to the election.
And this article came out a couple of days after the election.
So I'm not sure what's happening right now.
Yeah. I think a lot of people, whether they are excited about the election results or not, they had an intuition of what was going to happen.
A lot of people just felt like they knew where things were going to go.
And I wonder if this is in any way related to like a hoarding mentality, when you think that things are going to get scary, I wonder the apocalypse situation.
I'm not trying to be a psychologist here, but it seems like it could be related to that somehow on a like a basic layer.
Right. That's interesting.
Yeah. I did not think of that.
But maybe that's it's possible.
It's definitely possible.
I mean, so Lindsay, do you know anybody who does dooms spend?
Not really. No, I think most of the people in my world are more about experiences, honestly.
Obviously, people shop and buy things.
But most people I know, I think would rather take that money and just do like a weekend away.
And maybe there's a term for that too.
Right. Right. Yeah.
But that's where I land.
Yeah. Yes. Same here.
I actually think that recently we talked a little bit about this.
So probably in a about, you know, different people and how they spend their money.
So yeah, I mean, the article also gives ideas on how to stop doom spending.
So we're not going to go over those today, but definitely we gave you the name of the article.
So go check it out if you're interested.
Love it. What if you could hear your favorite song for the first time again?
Introducing the all new reimagined Nissan Kix with an available Bose personal plus sound system that uses speakers in the headrest to create a 360 degree listening experience.
You've never heard anything like this.
Reimagine your music and your drive, experience the all new reimagined Nissan Kix for yourself at Nissan USA .com today.
Available feature Bose is a registered trademark of the Bose Corporation.
Okay, Michelle, we are back.
So now let's talk about how we can actually take a fascinating, fascinating concept like this and turn this into a fantastic conversation, a robust conversation.
Right. So we need some vocab first.
Yeah. Yes. Well, you've already heard us mention today, this term retail therapy, retail therapy.
So what is that? What is retail?
Yeah, I think it's this, probably what people are looking for right at this moment.
The idea of healing your mind and heart with buying things.
Retail is just buying items for the consumer on a consumer level.
So for example, I'm up for some retail therapy now that the election is over.
Let's go to the mall.
Interesting. Yeah. Yep.
Or overspend. Right.
So you have to spend too much.
Right. I overspend on Prime Day last year.
So I'm going to stay away from it this year.
Yep. Prime Day is always a big one for people for sure.
And then we have the term impulse purchase, impulse buy or impulse purchase.
Right. For example, I was in a bad mood and I saw that these jeans were on sale.
So I made an impulse buy.
Yeah. Or a compulsive shopping or compulsive shopper.
So that's somebody that, I mean, there are people who it can be an actual addiction.
Of course, anything can be an addiction, right?
Yes, absolutely. So you could say I can be a bit of a compulsive shopper when I'm stressed.
Yes, definitely. And then indulgent, right to talk.
So saying that something is indulgent, I know it's indulgent, but I bought a car.
Yeah. Wow. Yes. Imagine if your spouse comes home, if your spouse deals with things this way and they buy huge things, not like a $20 pair of socks, but they buy a car.
Right. You see that car with the bow and the driveway, you know, that's scary.
I mean, but things do happen.
Yeah. And to be fair, I mean, this is what our culture revolves around.
I mean, this is why America, the American economy has gotten so big is because this is, I mean, you drive on the highway, you see these ads everywhere right in front of you.
We, I don't know. This is how we function.
Like people buy and buy and buy.
It's not so different than the average person, you know, maybe not to this extreme buying a car, but our economy runs on extreme amounts of consumerism.
Right. Yeah. Right.
Absolutely. Yeah. I think we're well known for that.
Yes. So we have a good poll on that note, right?
Michelle, we have a great poll question today.
This is going to get to this.
What is it? The question is, how do you usually pay for things?
Is it by cash, credit card or debit card?
Oh, I guess we could have put check in there too, but I don't know.
Let's put it in there.
Let's pay my check.
I don't even, do you have you, when was the last time you paid by check?
So sometimes I have to pay by check if it's, do you ever have where there's a big you have to, okay, let's say something for your house.
Yeah. And maybe I recently had somebody say, Oh, there's going to be a three, you can either pay by cash or card, or you can, you know, but if you pay by card, there's a 3 % or 4 % fee then I'm going to get out the checkbook.
I don't, oh, right.
So there's also, yeah, there's sometimes it's like direct deposit, direct debit out of your account too.
That's how I play. Okay.
That's how I pay for my daughter's school.
But there's also, we forgot to mention things like Venmo.
Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So let's, okay. We're adding things to the, there's a lot of ways to pay for things.
But I think what this gets down to is, you know, I think at least in American culture, as you see people, well, credit card debt is a whole different thing in the U S.
If you're paying off your credit card debt, every you're paying off your bill every month, you're not carrying debt, but it gets really dangerous.
If you're carrying debt over for month to month, because those percentage rates, that's how people get into a lot of trouble financially.
But I know a lot of cultures run more on cash, right?
And until that means if you have the money, you can buy the thing.
If you don't have the money, you can't buy the thing, right?
It's a little safer, I think.
So I'm curious to see whether our listeners have to say.
Yeah. Yeah. That'll be interesting.
So I guess we could say Venmo or Zelle.
I don't know what's popular around the world, but I'll stick Zelle in there.
Yes. All right. So look out for that poll.
It'll be very interesting to see what people say.
All right. Let's do a role play, Lindsay.
What do you think? Okay, Michelle, let's do it.
So here you and I are stressed out about a project that we're working on at school.
So it sounds like we're going to doom, doom shop.
Right. Okay. Here we go.
I need to unwind. Should we go for some retail therapy?
Oh, yes. But I need to be careful.
I did some damage last time.
Oh, did you overspend?
You know it. I can be a bit indulgent when I'm stressed.
You see this necklace?
Total impulse buy after my breakup.
Oh, I get it. I'm not usually a compulsive shopper, but I can't help myself these days.
All right. Nice. I love it.
So we're having a retail therapy conversation here, talking about our own habits and what we've done in the past.
So, uh, let's see. So I first said, should we go for some retail therapy?
So essentially I'm inviting you to go shopping together.
Right. Cause we're stressed out.
Yes. Yep. And then guys, this is a extra bonus for today.
So I said, I need to be careful.
I did some damage last time.
Lindsay, do you hear people say I did some damage when they're talking about spending?
Sure. And that damage could mean you went home to your partner and they got upset or it could mean you just ran up a credit card debt debt on your credit card that you're going to can't pay back or something or some.
Yeah, it could also just mean you spent a lot.
I remember very clearly, um, asking my friend who was on a trip, if she may, if she bought anything, cause she said she was going to go shopping and she said, Oh, we did some damage.
So it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily mean actual damage, although it could, but it could, it also just could be a way to kind of in a fun way.
Say, yeah, we bought a lot.
Oh, I did some damage to that.
You did a lot of whatever you were doing.
Right? Yes. Then you have to say it in a certain tone of voice.
I did some damage today with a little bit of humor.
Um, and then you said, and I asked you, Ooh, did you overspend?
All right. And you said, Michelle, I said, you know it.
I can be a bit indulgent when I'm stressed.
Oh yeah. And then I said, you see this necklace, right?
This was a total impulse by after my breakup.
Uh, so I'm, I'm really commiserating with you here.
You know, I'm, I'm showing empathy.
I'm mirroring you. I'm showing an example of when I did the same thing, which is a very high level connection skill by the way.
Definitely. Definitely.
And then I said, Oh, I get it.
I'm not usually a compulsive shopper, but I can't help myself these days.
Yeah. And you know what, Michelle, I think that, well, first of all, before we go into the, the, uh, the takeaway, let's talk about another episode.
Our listeners could check out if they wanted to.
What is that episode guys?
This is an episode of the business English podcast.
It was episode three 43.
It was, should you use the word, restrain or refrain?
And I thought about this because we're talking about shopping and maybe we need to restrain ourselves or refrain from going to mall.
So those are also really good words that you can use with this topic.
Ooh, good, good point, Michelle.
Good link. I love that.
In my mind, I think there's a couple of things I want our listeners to take away here.
First of all, fascinating topic to track the economy, how people are spending their money.
What are the results of the election in our daily habits?
And then, so this is a conversation you could start if you're just talking about the social phenomenon that's going on.
Then I think the connection skill here is what we stumbled on at the end.
If someone admits that they are maybe a doom shopper or they're going for some retail therapy, how do we connect with that person, Michelle?
What do we do? Right?
We want to mirror them because it's a little bit vulnerable.
If you're just saying that, you might feel a little awkward sharing it, maybe you feel a little ashamed.
What if you could mirror that person and say, oh, I've done that too.
And that's really cool.
That could be a whole follow -up episode about how that works.
But definitely I think that we gave you some of the real stats, but what it really comes down to is that connection topic, is learning how you guys can talk about it in your daily lives.
So when Lindsey said, oh, you see this necklace?
Total impulse buy. That was a huge connection moment that can bring us closer together because we realize, oh, we both kind of have this.
Right, exactly. So I think that that's really the important thing to take away from today's episode is being able to use these things to not only talk about things like articles, but talk with people and connect with them, which everybody, I think most people can relate to this topic or at least have something
to say. Or if it's not shopping, it's something else that you do.
Maybe it's eating or exercising too much or watching too much TV.
It's something. And so we understand that no one is perfect on a human level, even beyond just language.
So what we then have to do is find a way to connect, find our similarities, right?
This is how we do it in this example.
This will be a follow -up episode for sure.
I'm going to have fun with this one.
All right. Sounds good.
Stay tuned, guys. Hit the follow button for that follow -up episode.
And Michelle, I'll see you soon.
All right. Bye, Lindsey.
Bye, guys. All right.
Bye. Thanks for listening to All Ears English.
Would you like to know your English level?
Take our two minute quiz, go to allearsenglish .com forward slash fluency score.
And if you believe in connection, not perfection, then hit subscribe now to make sure you don't miss anything.
See you next time. Thanks to tax reform, American businesses have opened doors across our communities, investing in manufacturing, workers and equipment, spurring millions of new jobs with higher wages and better training, and setting a new record high in corporate taxes paid to the US government.
America's businesses open doors.
Tell Congress to keep the door of opportunity open, protect and strengthen tax reform.
Paid for by Business Roundtable.
