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Episode: AEE 2322: Do You Doom Spend? Connect Over This Topic in English

Author: Lindsay McMahon and Michelle Kaplan
Duration: 00:24:47

Episode Shownotes

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Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_01
This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2322. Do you doomspend? Connect over this topic in English.

00:00:11 Speaker_00
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.

00:00:28 Speaker_00
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.

00:00:43 Speaker_00
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.

00:01:01 Speaker_00
Get key vocabulary to talk about this rising trend and learn how to mirror when someone shares this about themselves. Hey there, Michelle. How are you today?

00:01:12 Speaker_01
Hi, I'm good. How are you, Lindsay?

00:01:15 Speaker_00
Good, good, good. What are we getting into today on All There's English?

00:01:19 Speaker_01
Lindsay, do you ever buy something when you're in a bad mood?

00:01:23 Speaker_00
I have to say this is not where I go when I'm in a bad mood. Yeah. 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.

00:01:37 Speaker_01
I don't. 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. They have, you know. I don't know what I do when I'm upset, but it's not shop.

00:01:53 Speaker_01
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.

00:02:01 Speaker_00
Yeah.

00:02:01 Speaker_01
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.

00:02:12 Speaker_01
But I don't I'm not going to, like, start just buying things like right, right, right, right.

00:02:16 Speaker_00
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?

00:02:25 Speaker_01
Oh my gosh, so this is a new term for it. Guys, we've talked about doom scrolling before, I think, on the podcast. So this is doom spending.

00:02:34 Speaker_00
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. spending.

00:02:48 Speaker_00
And we know that this is kind of a hot spot 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 US, especially in the years leading up to the 2008 recession.

00:03:02 Speaker_00
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.

00:03:11 Speaker_00
But I think once the subprime mortgage lending crashed down, credit card debt didn't help the scenario. Right. Yeah.

00:03:18 Speaker_00
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 dollars in the third quarter of 2024, according to the latest consumer debt data from the Fed, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

00:03:38 Speaker_00
So that's not a small amount of money, Michelle. People are spending money on their credit cards.

00:03:44 Speaker_01
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.

00:03:58 Speaker_00
It's a great conversation topic that our listeners could have.

00:04:01 Speaker_01
You're the native speaker, right? Yes. That's right. But guys, before we get into this, we wanted to say thank you so much to our reviewer, to our listener, Amir, for his wonderful review.

00:04:13 Speaker_00
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.

00:04:23 Speaker_00
And there are some essential points to empower me, except for the coldness in Rotterdam. So he's saying that some things help him to deal with the coldness in Rotterdam. And he says, coffee, Lindsay, and Michelle.

00:04:37 Speaker_00
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. It's like a little mini Christmas gift early.

00:04:51 Speaker_01
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 and we really love what we do and we're so happy that we're a part of your day and your fuel.

00:05:09 Speaker_00
100%. What we do here runs deep for us. This is so important for us, right, 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.

00:05:21 Speaker_00
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. All right. Absolutely.

00:05:32 Speaker_01
Thank you so, so much.

00:05:33 Speaker_00
Yes. Okay, Michelle, let's get into doom spending.

00:05:36 Speaker_01
First of all, 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. Right.

00:05:52 Speaker_00
Right.

00:05:53 Speaker_01
Thinking the worst is going to happen. Right. So doom is just with a bad feeling. Right.

00:05:58 Speaker_00
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 bad, you know, this comes back to the way the brain, the human brain is wired.

00:06:07 Speaker_00
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.

00:06:16 Speaker_00
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.

00:06:24 Speaker_01
Yeah, exactly. It's weird. 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 weird thing.

00:06:39 Speaker_00
It's human. It's very human. So then this term doom spending is a play on doom scrolling, right, Michelle?

00:06:45 Speaker_01
Exactly, exactly. So doom scrolling has been 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. It's really a very new term.

00:07:00 Speaker_01
So that's interesting how the evolution of language, this is totally new. But doom spending, so like Lindsay said, there's a play on that. So there was an article on HuffPost.com by Caroline Bologna on November 8th, 2024.

00:07:17 Speaker_01
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.

00:07:29 Speaker_00
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?

00:07:40 Speaker_00
They're going out and they're just spending money as a way to deal with something that feels really dark emotionally, right?

00:07:48 Speaker_01
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.

00:08:02 Speaker_00
Where's the good news in today's episode, right?

00:08:04 Speaker_01
Yes. Well, so it does mention that the election it said leading up to the election could have caused it. And it says that because shopping can give us dopamine. I'm talking about the article here. Right.

00:08:21 Speaker_01
And also, what makes it easy to do spend the Internet?

00:08:25 Speaker_00
Right.

00:08:26 Speaker_01
You don't you don't even have to go out anywhere. You can just be in a bad mood and say, I need this.

00:08:30 Speaker_00
Right. Well, that's what I was wondering. Are we talking about physically going into an immersive shopping environment? Are we talking about is this mostly happening online? Probably online because most people shop online now, right?

00:08:42 Speaker_01
Yeah.

00:08:42 Speaker_00
So it's more you're getting that dopamine hit regardless of where you're shopping.

00:08:46 Speaker_01
Right. And there's no there's it's it's too easy to press that button. Oh, it's 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.

00:09:02 Speaker_01
It feels very low risk to just press the button and see what happens.

00:09:07 Speaker_00
But for me, when I think about the hassle to go and return something, even just to walk over to 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.

00:09:21 Speaker_00
It's just not the way I think.

00:09:22 Speaker_01
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.

00:09:32 Speaker_01
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.

00:09:47 Speaker_01
I think I take it even more seriously than an person purchase.

00:09:53 Speaker_00
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. So, right.

00:09:58 Speaker_01
Oh, it's terrible. I hate that. Yes. 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 as we've been doing these really, really fun polls to interact with you on Spotify.

00:10:13 Speaker_01
If you're listening on Spotify, you get a lot of polls and some of them we announce the results. That's right.

00:10:20 Speaker_00
And we have a good question today, right, Michelle? It's a very cultural question, right? A practical cultural question about how things vary around the world.

00:10:28 Speaker_00
So, Michelle, is there a quote from the article that would be interesting here for our listeners to know?

00:10:32 Speaker_01
Yeah. So I thought this was very interesting. Yeah. 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.

00:10:50 Speaker_01
And then it says feelings of uncertainty, anxiety and depression are often driving forces. So yeah. This is talking about the lead up to the election. And this article came out a couple of days after the election.

00:11:02 Speaker_01
So I'm not sure what's happening right now.

00:11:04 Speaker_00
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.

00:11:16 Speaker_00
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'm not trying to be a psychologist here, but it seems like it could be related to that somehow on a basic layer, right?

00:11:36 Speaker_01
That's interesting. Yeah. I did not think of that, but maybe it's possible. It's definitely possible. So, Lindsay, do you know anybody who does doomspend?

00:11:49 Speaker_00
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.

00:12:01 Speaker_00
And maybe there's a term for that too. I don't know. Right. Right. Yeah. But that's where I land. Yeah.

00:12:08 Speaker_01
Yes. Same here. I actually think that recently we talked a little bit about this. So probably 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.

00:12:23 Speaker_01
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.

00:12:30 Speaker_00
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. Yes.

00:12:45 Speaker_01
Well, you've already heard us mention today this term retail therapy, retail therapy. So

00:12:52 Speaker_00
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, you know, buying items for the consumer on a consumer level.

00:13:08 Speaker_00
So for example, I'm up for some retail therapy now that the election is over. Let's go to the mall. Interesting.

00:13:17 Speaker_01
Yeah. Yep. Or overspend, right? To spend too much, right? I overspent on Prime Day last year, so I'm going to stay away from it this year.

00:13:30 Speaker_00
Yeah, 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.

00:13:46 Speaker_01
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.

00:13:58 Speaker_00
Of course. Anything can be an addiction, right? Yes, absolutely. Mm hmm.

00:14:02 Speaker_01
You could say I can be a bit of a compulsive shopper when I'm stressed.

00:14:06 Speaker_00
Mm hmm. 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.

00:14:16 Speaker_00
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.

00:14:27 Speaker_01
Right, you see that car with the bow in the driveway, you know, that always has a big bow on it. Yeah, that's scary. I mean, but things do happen like that.

00:14:36 Speaker_00
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.

00:14:51 Speaker_00
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.

00:15:06 Speaker_01
Right? Yeah. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. I think we're well known for that.

00:15:10 Speaker_00
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?

00:15:18 Speaker_01
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 even know.

00:15:29 Speaker_00
Well, let's put it in there. Let's pay by check. I don't even do. Have you? When was the last time you paid by check?

00:15:34 Speaker_01
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. And maybe I recently had somebody say, oh, there's going to be a three, you can either pay by cash or card.

00:15:51 Speaker_01
Or you can, you know, but if you pay by card, there's a three percent or four percent fee. Then I'm going to get out the checkbook. I don't.

00:15:59 Speaker_00
Oh, right. So there's also. Yeah. Sometimes it's like direct, direct debit out of your account, too, if you set it up online.

00:16:07 Speaker_01
OK, 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.

00:16:15 Speaker_00
So let's OK, we're adding things to a lot of ways to pay for it. 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.

00:16:27 Speaker_00
In the U.S., if you're paying off your bill every month, you're not carrying debt, but it gets really dangerous if you're carrying debt over from month to month because those percentage rates, that's how people get into a lot of trouble financially.

00:16:41 Speaker_00
But I know a lot of cultures run more on cash, right? And so 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.

00:16:53 Speaker_00
So I'm curious to see what our listeners have to say. Yeah.

00:16:56 Speaker_01
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.

00:17:02 Speaker_00
Sure. Zelle, yes.

00:17:04 Speaker_01
All right. So look out for that poll. It'll be very interesting to see what people say.

00:17:08 Speaker_00
All right.

00:17:09 Speaker_01
Let's do a role play, Lindsay.

00:17:10 Speaker_00
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 shop, right? Okay. Here we go. I need to unwind. Should we go for some retail therapy?

00:17:24 Speaker_01
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.

00:17:39 Speaker_01
I'm not usually a compulsive shopper, but I can't help myself these days.

00:17:45 Speaker_00
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 Let's see. So I first said, should we go for some retail therapy?

00:17:58 Speaker_00
So essentially, I'm inviting you to go shopping together, right? We're stressed out.

00:18:02 Speaker_01
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?

00:18:13 Speaker_00
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 can't pay back or something.

00:18:25 Speaker_01
It could also just mean you spent a lot. I remember very clearly asking my friend who was on a trip if she bought anything because she said she was going to go shopping and she said, oh, we did some damage.

00:18:38 Speaker_01
It doesn't necessarily mean actual damage, although it could, but it also just could be a way to kind of in a fun way say, yeah, we bought a lot. I did some damage. You did a lot of whatever you were doing, right?

00:18:53 Speaker_00
Yes.

00:18:53 Speaker_01
And you have to say it in a certain tone of voice. I did some damage today with a little bit of humor. And then you said and I asked you, oh, did you overspend? All right. And you said, Michelle, I said, you know it.

00:19:07 Speaker_01
I can be a bit indulgent when I'm stressed.

00:19:10 Speaker_00
Oh, yeah. And then I said, you see this necklace? Right. This was a total impulse buy after my breakup. So I'm I'm really commiserating with you here. You know, I'm showing empathy. I'm mirroring you.

00:19:23 Speaker_00
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.

00:19:30 Speaker_01
And and then I said, oh, I get it. I'm not usually a compulsive shopper, but I can't help myself these days.

00:19:37 Speaker_00
Yeah. And you know what, Michelle, I think that, well, first of all, before we go into the takeaway, let's talk about another episode our listeners could check out if they wanted to. What is that episode?

00:19:47 Speaker_01
So guys, this is an episode of the Business English Podcast. It was episode 343. It was should you use the word restrain or refrain? And I thought about this because we're talking about shopping.

00:19:59 Speaker_01
And maybe we need to restrain ourselves or refrain from going to the mall. So those are also really good words that you can use with this topic.

00:20:08 Speaker_00
Oh, 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. You know how people are spending their money.

00:20:20 Speaker_00
What are the results of the election in our daily habits? Yeah. And then. So this is a conversation you could start if you're just talking about the social phenomenon that's going on.

00:20:30 Speaker_00
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?

00:20:43 Speaker_00
We want to mirror our 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. Right.

00:20:56 Speaker_00
And you know, that's really cool.

00:20:58 Speaker_01
That could be a whole follow up episode about, you know, how, how that works. But definitely I think that, you know, we gave you some of the,

00:21:07 Speaker_01
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.

00:21:17 Speaker_01
So yeah when Lindsay said Oh, you see this necklace total impulse buy that was a huge connection moment that can bring us closer together because we realize ah We both kind of do it. Sure.

00:21:29 Speaker_00
Yeah.

00:21:29 Speaker_01
Right. Right. Exactly.

00:21:30 Speaker_01
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.

00:21:47 Speaker_01
At least have something to say.

00:21:49 Speaker_00
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, right? And so we understand that no one is perfect on a human level, even beyond just language.

00:22:02 Speaker_00
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.

00:22:07 Speaker_01
This will be a follow-up episode for sure. I'm going to have fun with this one.

00:22:10 Speaker_00
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.

00:22:16 Speaker_01
Bye, Lindsay. Bye, guys. All right.

00:22:17 Speaker_00
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.

00:22:33 Speaker_00
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