Klarna, Afterpay, and the Cycle of Addictive Shopping

The pandemic has been hard in a lot of ways, but for those with addictive habits and a bad tendency towards emotional spending, it has been rough in a different way entirely.

So many cute things to buy, so little time.

Over the past few months, I have been trying to be more conscious of my spending habits and have tried to figure out what exactly fuels them. Sometimes it’s a mixture of boredom and stress. Oftentimes, I have also found that it is also fueled by temporary and sudden obsessions and hobbies. This is a common theme throughout most forums for people with shopping addictions. Almost any “interest” leads to spending.

In my case, sometimes it’ll the split decision that now I am going to work out more. What does that mean? It means I need new workout clothes! Maybe I need new sneakers that are better for jogging on concrete. Perhaps heavier dumbbells or weights I can strap to my ankles. I start looking into all the things that might be useful to have for my imagined future of a consistent exercise schedule, which easily leads to my buying more (often unnecessary) things.

Alternatively, I might decide that I am very into a certain kind of plush collection or a video game. Or all video games. This means I have to get Splatoon themed game controllers, a Splatoon-themed box for my Wii U game boxes from an eBay seller in Japan, and of course all of the overpriced out-of-stock Splatoon amiibos sold by scalpers.

Maybe I am suddenly very interested in an out-of-print manga series from my childhood. Does this mean that I borrow it from the library or read scans of it for free online? No, I decide I would like to own every volume. I’ll scour google shopping and website results, as well as many posts on third-party seller websites like eBay and Mercari. If I can find it for cheap, I will hop on the opportunity. It’s the thrill of the bargain, the feeling that I was able to get a chunk of gold for a penny.

There was one out-of-print manga series that I wanted to read, which could be priced anywhere from around $600 to $1000 for the whole series. The auctions for them were insane, and I would often look up options and watch the bids go higher and higher in envy and disappointment. I found a seller on a random website that sold this manga series (some volumes still in shrink wrap!) in impeccable condition for just $125 (less than its retail price when it originally sold). I was struggling with money and didn’t have enough. But it was too rare a deal to pass up. So I bought it then, and paid later. And hoped it wasn’t a scam.

In the end it was not a scam, and I felt such a rush from being able to buy something people pay so much for for such a comparatively small amount.

The problem is, you get caught in these cycles. Whatever it is that you’re obsessed with, you have to get more and more or all of it, until you find something else to buy or until you realize there’s more you haven’t collected.

Apps like Klarna and Afterpay, though useful, make it easy to feel like you’re not spending quite so much, while burying you under a pile of debt. Let’s imagine you just got your bi-weekly paycheck and are looking to spend some money. Maybe you have a purchase of $108 worth of goods from one shop, but you’re only paying $27 every two weeks, so it doesn’t seem so bad.

But now it doesn’t feel as though you’ve spent so much money, because instead of having paid the $108 in one go, you’ve only paid $27. So now, you are left feeling good that you have more money, and perhaps more money to shop with than you would have otherwise.

To a shopping addict, who by definition likely has poor impulse control, this is enabling a lot of bad decisions. You decide to make another purchase. Perhaps while you’re making the second purchase, you realize that it’s a lot of money, but you don’t want to remove anything from your cart. Maybe it’s $215. But you don’t have to pay $215 right away with Klarna. You can pay it in 4 quick and easy installments. It’s like an adult paying for a mortgage.

Maybe for that reason you feel better. You feel it’s so adult to pay-as-you go. You know adults who are still paying off their cars or houses. This feels smart almost. You may neglect to think of the long term benefits and investments involved in one purchase and not the other. So instead of $215, you pay $53.75 every two weeks and you feel good about yourself. You don’t have to worry about the $53.75 until your next paycheck. Now imagine you still feel the itch to spend or you realize there’s something you need to buy to prepare for a big event or a present for someone and you use Afterpay or create a Klarna one-time card once more for one last purchase. Maybe it’s a smaller amount, like $86. You only have to pay $21.50 every two weeks.

In this example. today you paid $102, but you spent $408. To people who are good with managing their money and who do not have a shopping addiction, perhaps either one of these values will seem high. To someone with a problem, one will seem manageable and perhaps a little too much so. It’s so much easier to spend when you have the illusion that you are spending less, and that is precisely what a pay-in-four strategy offers people who struggle with their shopping urges.

When you visit the reddit for r/shoppingaddiction there are plenty of cases of people who are scared that their partners will find out how much they spent, or who are buying themselves into the negative digits. There’s a common thread of shame and spending more than you can afford, of dreading looking at your bank account. It’s a sad space to linger in, but it is also a cathartic one and sometimes a warning of how far down a pit you can go if your addiction gets the better of you.

While I am still struggling with improving my habits myself, I will note that there are a few things that help:

1. Doing things for your mood/yourself/your well-being: Do you feel like you’re struggling accomplishing goals? Like you’re stuck and disappointed in yourself? Are you stuck at a job you don’t like? Keep trying to take and visualize the little steps you can take towards the things you want in life. Whether it’s writing more, drawing again, taking walks, picking up an instrument you used to play, or starting to work out again.
2. This suggestion ties in closely with the first: Find a hobby that you like. It could be a new one or an old one with a twist. If you want to do something, try doing it and figuring out the cheapest (that means involving no spending!) way you can do it. Did you decide you would like to learn Korean after watching Squid Games? Try to learn using Youtube and online resources. Maybe look into free apps or available books on the language in your local library. Or visit a Barnes N Nobles or a local bookstore and read some books on the subject for free! Be creative, and try to make a rule of not pulling out your wallet. Did you want to get better at taking beautiful or interesting photographs? Challenge yourself to do something interesting with your regular phone camera instead of opting for buying cameras and lenses to feed your habit. Want to draw better? Spend a while playing around with the plain pencils and art utensils you have now before you buy anything fancier. A hobby is a fine distraction to keep your mind distracted and to stave off any boredom that may drive you to shop!
3. This one is huge across the forums and those of you who are on r/shoppingaddiction will have likely seen suggested in many threads. It is one of those suggestions that seems obvious in theory but can be difficult in practice: Learn to appreciate what you already have. I’m not saying you have to meditate and think about how lucky you are or anything like that, rather I am asking you to look at the things you’ve been buying. Actively. Put them in a pile. Organize or re-organize them. Admire your things and/or their packaging if you still have them. Think about how much you wanted the item you have and re-visit the joy you felt when you got it. Some people also like to catalogue what they have. I often do this with my Skelanimals. I have a collection that I spent a lot of money on and I finally have all the plushies in the collection that I really wanted. They mostly sit around in my bedroom, but sometimes I’ll put all of them on my bed and make goofy videos with them that I send to people for laughs. Or I’ll take photos of them that are aesthetically pleasing or fun. I have a small google doc catalogue of Skelanimals items I have and Skelanimals items I wanted. It’s a small bit of joy I can create and it is something to do instead of looking at online posts for the couple of Skelanimals I haven’t gotten and feeling the burning urge to buy them.

Books I bought with chocolate. I ate the chocolate, but the books remain unread.

Another example: Instead of buying books, I’ll take them out of the library (via eBook or physically) or I’ll look for the ones I bought but didn’t read. Sometimes it serves as a reminder that I don’t have to buy all the books I want to read. There’s already so many books that I compulsively bought (and still buy) in a frenzy of excitement and that I have not taken the time to read. It’s a good way to keep yourself in check and to be mindful of how you spend, what drives you to spend, and what you have already spent your money on.

4. Support groups online and in person can be life-changing. Telling a friend you have a problem that you’re ashamed of can be a relief. Sometimes it helps if you have a friend or a loved one you could ask to hold you accountable in order to account for any impulsive or compulsive shopping.

5. Delete apps that encourage you to spend or that make you want things. Apps like Klarna and Afterpay. Depop. Mercari. Ebay. Amazon. All of those. Maybe even take your card number off of your automatic settings so you can’t use your bank account so easily.

6. Set a financial goal (if you’re in the right mindset). Or set a goal to not spend money on anything you don’t need (like water, food, rent) for a certain period of time.

7. Challenging yourself to buy gifts that are thoughtful but frugal. DIY things as a hobby and a challenge.

8. See if there are things you’d like to sell/part with. Maybe there are things you never use or that, to paraphrase Marie Kondo, don’t bring you joy. Maybe they just take up space. You could try to donate them, trash anything that’s filling up your space and not giving you use, or even attempt to add some money to your savings by selling a few items altogether! You never know what someone else might want! There have been items I bought in the past that were hard to find but not in particularly high demand by anyone. One person’s trash truly is another’s treasure. See if you can make any money back, if you’re up to it. Taking a look at what is taking up space in your home is always a valuable task.

9. Lastly. this suggestion is the one I’m hoping will help with introspection and understanding your urges: Writing. Start journaling for yourself. Be totally honest. Is your bank account in the negatives? Is it the first time? Do you feel awful? When do you tend to spend? What is it emotionally that is causing you to use shopping as a crutch? Are there things that your shopping habit is preventing you from doing? Goals or milestones it’s stopping you from reaching or accomplishing? Ask yourself questions and don’t go too easy on yourself. Let yourself dig deep while you let your stream of consciousness out on paper.

In Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates writes that whenever he would get into trouble as a child, his mother would make him write essays, a habit that allowed him insight into his own actions. Inspired by this, I have found that writing essays or entries about anything that is currently concerning to me to be healing and enlightening when it comes to habits of mine I can’t understand. You can start by writing answers to a loop of questions and find yourself creating a therapeutic space on paper. I would advise to pull out a notebook or anything you can write on — maybe your laptop or your phone’s note app — and dedicate some quiet time for this. I used to do this in the early morning, as the air is different around 6:00 AM when most people are still asleep and little in the world is stirring. Stillness works well for introspection, though what that stillness looks like is different for every person. Find your moment of stillness to reflect.

To all of you struggling with shopping addiction, like any addiction it’s not easy, and it’s painful. Your struggle is valid and any steps you take towards improving are valid. You’re not alone on your journey. You’re not a failure. Keep trying. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither are healthy habits.

I’ve included a photo of some flowers I bought once to congratulate you on taking the first step.

Thank you for reading, folks!