Man on the television says you’ll never pay off your student loan. Lady on social media says the UK has the worst unemployment crisis since 1932. Politician says you’re off to war. Sally from HR says the company is ‘restructuring’ and fires you over a Microsoft Teams meeting. Science guy on Instagram says there’s a new disease in India. Ex-girlfriend says you’ve let yourself go and your body looks like dropped yoghurt.
In short, you’ve got a lot going on.
So, what can you do about it? Well, according to some, the answer is simple: spend. Spend what you don’t have. Spend on what you don’t need. Spend until your overdraft is gasping for air, and then spend some more.
This is what my generation – those of us born roughly between 1997 and 2012 – calls ‘doom spending’: the act of spaffing the cash to make ourselves feel better. Think retail therapy with a strategic Gen Z hashtag. A recent study by Credit Karma found that 37 per cent of Gen Z and 39 per cent of millennials admit to doom spending. A further 47 per cent of Gen Zers say they can’t rationalise saving money due to fears about the world and the economy.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: ‘This new generation stinks. They’re spending all of their money on tat because they’re sad. And now they’ve got the gall to complain about their finances afterwards? Bore off.’
And you’re right, for the most part. But before you throw your phone against the wall in a curmudgeonly rage, let us first examine why this trend is on the rise. In short: doom spending is a result of the financial perma-crisis affecting young people today. The irony of that statement is not lost on me. In December, the UK’s unemployment rate rose to 5.2 per cent, the highest in nearly five years. This hit young people the hardest: for those aged between 16 and 24, the unemployment rate rose to 16.1 per cent – the highest in more than ten years. Even for those who do land a job, Gen Z graduates earn 30 per cent less than young professionals did in 2007. And with the average renter now paying more than £1,000 a month to live in most British neighbourhoods, that median £26,500 salary isn’t going to cut it.
But haven’t you heard the good news? Britain’s economy grew by 0.1 per cent in the last three months of 2025! With that kind of boom, you might be able to buy a parking space in zone three before you’re 30. Oh, wait. Sorry. I forgot that you have a Plan Two student loan. When mortgage lenders take that loan into account, that ballooning £80,000 of student debt with its 6.2 per cent interest rate is going to be something of a hindrance, I’m afraid.
There’s no incentive to save, no reason to be frugal
It seems there’s no incentive to save, no reason to be frugal. The future looks increasingly bleak, so why not enjoy the present? Book those flights to Antigua. Eat at that overpriced small plates restaurant in east London. Buy that £579.99 Dyson Airwrap. Become a Labubu doll collector. Queue up for the new iPhone. Order every item that the Instagram algorithm throws your way.
I’m being facetious, of course. While everything I said about Gen Z’s pitiful finances is true, I can’t endorse doom spending in good faith. And that’s because I was a doom spender myself. When I moved back to London after university, I had about £300 in my bank account. I lived in a guardianship property – an erstwhile care home on the precipice of demolition – and earned a measly income at the local pub. I didn’t save a penny. I didn’t want to. I spent everything I had on simple pleasures: beer, cigarettes, dodgy Camden Market pizzas that left me bent double over the communal toilet, cowboy boots (no excuse for that one) and other miscellaneous bits of rubbish. Did it make me happier? Momentarily, perhaps, but in the morning I always felt the same: empty and £50 poorer.
Have I stopped doom spending? I’ve stopped with the dodgy Camden Market pizzas but I can’t say that I’m ‘cured’. It’s an old wound and one that’s prone to reopening – often in the form of an exorbitant Deliveroo purchase which I eat in bed and then hide at the bottom of the bin.
Truthfully, I sympathise with doom spenders. Throughout our lives, we’ve been told to work up the corporate ladder, save for a house, save for a family, and save for a brighter tomorrow. But that tomorrow doesn’t look particularly bright from today. Why invest in the future when that future is so uncertain?
But this thinking is hedonistic at best and nihilistic at worst – and it’s exactly what the corporations selling this bric-a-brac want you to think. The future may seem dire, but buying a £330 pair of Persol sunglasses from Facebook Marketplace won’t make things better. In fact, it’ll probably make things worse. You might not be able to afford the house of your dreams but you still need to pay your rent. Those shades really aren’t worth an eviction notice.
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