{"id":7384,"date":"2024-11-06T03:06:37","date_gmt":"2024-11-06T03:06:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/presidential-election-prompts-some-americans-to-doom-spend-report-finds\/"},"modified":"2024-11-06T03:06:37","modified_gmt":"2024-11-06T03:06:37","slug":"presidential-election-prompts-some-americans-to-doom-spend-report-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/?p=7384","title":{"rendered":"Presidential election prompts some Americans to ‘doom spend,’ report finds"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mario Tama | Getty Images News | Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Retail therapy is thinly coating voters’ anxieties from the presidential election \u2014 and their wallets know it.<\/p>\n

About 27% of polled shoppers say they are “doom spending” \u2014 that is, spending cash despite concerns about the economy and foreign affairs \u2014 according to a new <\/a>report by Intuit Credit Karma.\u00a0The habit is more prevalent among younger generations, with 37% of Gen Zers and 39% of millennials saying they do it.<\/p>\n

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Follow<\/strong>: Election 2024 live updates: Trump and Harris await Presidential election results<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

More than half, or 60%, of Americans surveyed are concerned with the state of the world and economy, more than they were a year ago. The site polled 1,001 U.S. adults in late October.<\/p>\n

Top worries among doom spenders include the cost of living (55%), inflation (43%), and the presidential election (28%), the report found.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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More than a third, 36%, of respondents say they can’t rationalize saving money due to feelings of uncertainty about the world and economy, per Intuit Credit Karma. That jumps to 47% of Gen Z and 43% of millennials.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/a>Shoppers want a ‘sense of control’<\/h2>\n
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Shoppers might be looking for “a sense of control, especially in a time period where it feels like so much is out of your control,” said Courtney Alev, consumer financial advocate at Credit Karma.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Doom spending” affects young people the most as they happen to be “chronically online,” or spend a large amount of time on the internet and social media, Alev said.<\/p>\n

To that point, 70% of Gen Zers and 52% of millennials consider themselves to be “chronically online,” Credit Karma found.<\/p>\n

“If you’re already online reading all about the things happening in the world, it’s more likely that you’re going to really stress out and then look for those coping mechanisms,” Alev said.<\/p>\n

More from Personal Finance:<\/strong>
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Shoppers who report making impulse purchases based on social media spent an average $754 over the course of a year, according <\/a>to a 2023 Bankrate.com survey.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In some ways, the urge was “born out of the pandemic,” said Ted Rossman, a senior industry analyst at Bankrate.<\/p>\n

The trend is especially common among younger shoppers who may feel like “the deck is stacked against them,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Young adults’ finances may be dragged down by student loan balances, and they are finding it to be increasingly unaffordable to buy a home, let alone rent their own place, Rossman said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/a>‘It’s a tough cycle to break’<\/h2>\n
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Doom spending can lead to bigger financial woes. Credit card balances reached $1.14 trillion in the second quarter of 2024, according <\/a>to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As of June, 50% of cardholders carry a balance every month on their credit cards, a recent Bankrate survey found.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The share who pay in full now is actually the lowest in four years,” Rossman said.<\/p>\n

Cardholders are also carrying the debt for longer. About six out of every 10 people who have credit card debt have had it for at least a year, Bankrate found.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“It’s a tough cycle to break,” Rossman said, especially as interest rates remain fairly high for everyday cards.<\/p>\n

The average annual percentage rate for credit cards is around 20.50%, down from a record high of 20.79% in August,\u00a0according<\/a>\u00a0to Bankrate.com. The average APR for retail credit cards is 30.45%, a high, Bankrate\u00a0found<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Election-related doom spending also comes just ahead of the busy holiday shopping season. About 20% of Americans plan to go into credit card debt this holiday season to pay for celebrations and obligations, according to Morning Consult.<\/p>\n

Credit card balances can be very sticky. About 28% of 2023 holiday shoppers are still paying off debt they took on last year, Banking Herald found after polling 2,079 adults in September.<\/p>\n

“Credit card debt is growing at the fastest rate among Gen Z and millennials,” Alev said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Credit card balances are up by 66% for Gen Zers and 52% for millennials since March 2022 when the Fed started to hike interest rates, Alev said, citing Credit Karma member data.<\/p>\n

The more debt you put on, the harder it will be to save money, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We are seeing these two things come together to really negatively affect the lives of many younger consumers,” Alev said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/a>‘Take the control back’<\/h2>\n
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“Sometimes when people feel the most anxious is when they just don’t have any control,” said Rossman. “You can take the control back by putting a plan together.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you know there’s going to be a temptation to spend money, make space in your budget to such purchases, Rossman said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Set the money aside ahead of time,” he said, “Just take the impulse out of it.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ideally set the money in a separate high yield savings account so you’re getting a better return, said Rossman.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mario Tama | Getty Images News | Getty Images Retail therapy is thinly coating voters’ anxieties from the presidential election \u2014 and their wallets know it. About 27% of polled shoppers say they are “doom spending” \u2014 that is, spending cash despite concerns about the economy and foreign affairs \u2014 according to a new report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[196],"tags":[1475,2125,717,1801,1188,582,483,2015],"class_list":{"0":"post-7384","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-finance-news","8":"tag-americans","9":"tag-doom","10":"tag-election","11":"tag-finds","12":"tag-presidential","13":"tag-prompts","14":"tag-report","15":"tag-spend"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}