Some young people are splashing out on luxuries like travel and designer clothes instead of saving, in a trend that’s being characterized as “doom spending” on social media.

Doom spending is when a person mindlessly shops to self-soothe because they feel pessimistic about the economy and their future, according to Psychology Today.

The practice is both “unhealthy and fatalistic,” Ylva Baeckström, a senior lecturer in finance at King’s Business School and a former banker, told CNBC Make It.

It’s happening because young people are chronically online and feel like they’re constantly receiving “bad news,” she said. “It makes them feel like Armageddon.”

These young people are then translating these bad feelings into bad spending habits, Baeckström added.

In fact, 96% of Americans are concerned about the current state of the economy and more than a quarter are doom spending to deal with the stress, an Intuit Credit Karma survey of over 1,000 Americans found in November 2023.

And the phenomenon is not exclusive to America.

Stefania Troncoso Fernández, a 28-year-old publicist based in Colombia who lives with her parents, told CNBC Make It that she’s a recovered doom spender, but that high levels of inflation and political uncertainty make it very difficult to rationalize saving money.

“I know for a fact that food [costs] are getting higher and higher every day, and in my house we can’t afford to eat the same way we did maybe a year ago because things are getting more expensive,” Fernández said.

Two years ago, Fernández said she was spending carelessly on clothes and travel despite the fact that she was earning less money than she does now. It was largely because she felt like she couldn’t afford to buy a house.

“We used to have this program by the government that would lend us money to invest in real estate and at a really low rate, but with the change of government, that is not available for us anymore so we will need to pay more,” she said.

And Fernández said she’s not alone in doom spending. “It’s not just me. It’s something that is happening within my circle.”

Only 36.5% of adults globally feel like they’re doing better than their parents financially while 42.8% think they’re actually worse off than their parents, according to CNBC’s International Your Money Financial Security Survey, conducted by Survey Monkey which questioned 4,342 adults globally.

“The generation growing up now is the first generation that’s going to be poorer than its parents for a very long time,” Baeckström said. “There’s that feeling that you might never be able to achieve what your parents achieved.”

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As a result, doom spending creates the illusion of control in what feels like an out-of-control world, according to Baeckström.

“But what happens really, is that it gives you less control in the future, because if you save that money instead and invest it and do all of those things, you might actually be able to buy a house,” she said.

Daivik Goel, a 25-year-old startup founder living in Silicon Valley, said he was a doom spender when he worked as a product manager at a biotech startup.

The habit originated from a sense of dissatisfaction with his work as well as peer pressure, he said. “It’s just all the sense of trying to escape.”

Goel, who used to spend lavishly on designer clothes, the latest technology products and going out for drinks, says doom spending is very common in Silicon Valley.

He said people will buy two of three brand-new cars, “and the reason why is because they realize that saving up for a house is going to take a very long time … so they will spend on other different items instead.”

San Francisco has some of the highest property prices in the U.S., according to a 2023 analysis by real estate website Point2. It found that 62% of properties listed in San Francisco cost over $1 million.  

Goel says that since starting his fintech company Intrepid in 2023, his doom spending habit has “completely gone” because he’s found happiness in his work. “My whole mindset shifted.”

Finance lecturer Baeckström stressed the importance of understanding your relationship with money if you want to overcome doom spending.

She said a relationship with money is like a relationship with people: it starts during childhood and sees people form different types of attachments.

“If you feel like you have a secure attachment with money, you can make a sound evaluation of something. You gather knowledge and you can evaluate [it] … But if you are insecure, or if you’re avoidant, then you’re more likely to get lured into this unhealthy spending behavior.”

These attitudes stem from a person’s upbringing: whether they were rich or poor, for example, how their family managed money, and who controlled it, Baeckström said.

Fernández said part of the reason she had felt compelled to doom spend was a lack of financial literacy. She said her dad grew up poor and nobody had ever encouraged her to save.

Making a transaction more visceral and difficult can make people think twice about doom spending, Samantha Rosenberg, co-founder and COO of Belong, a wealth-building platform, told CNBC Make It.

Rosenberg explained that online shopping aggravates the doom spending issue, but looking at items in-person may prevent impulse purchases.

“The extra decision points like choosing the store, traveling there, evaluating the item in the flesh, and then having to stand in line to buy it will help you slow down and think more critically about your purchases,” she said.

Additionally setting up mobile banking notifications creates an “extra pinch of pain” when you see the transaction authorizations coming through.

Rosenberg also recommended maybe going back to using cash. Seamless payment methods like Apple Pay and Google Pay “increase the risk of mindless spending,” she said, because it’s so quick and easy.  

“They bypass the emotion associated with the purchasing decision process. They also eliminate the pain of handing over money,” Rosenberg said. You have to “increase the pain of paying,” she added.

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College graduates on average earn more than those without a degree, but you don’t need a bachelor’s to land a high-paying job.

In some cases, a two-year degree can be just as valuable. Dozens of associate degrees can lead to high five-figure and six-figure incomes, according to a new report from salary data provider Payscale.

Payscale looked at the education and employment histories of more than 3 million college graduates with either an associate or bachelor’s degree. Then it ranked colleges according to alumni median salaries in the first five years of their career (“early-career pay”) and the median salaries of alumni with 10 or more years of work experience (“mid-career pay”).

These findings, published on Sept. 4, note that associate degree holders can earn as much as $150,000 within 10 years of graduating. 

Here are the five highest-paying associate degrees, according to Payscale: 

• Early-career median pay: $55,300
• Mid-career median pay: $116,300

• Early-career median pay: $67,200
• Mid-career median pay: $112,400

• Early-career median pay: $75,200
• Mid-career median pay: $109,500

• Early-career median pay: $50,600
• Mid-career median pay: $102,500

• Early-career median pay: $63,300
• Mid-career median pay: $101,900

Students who pursue an associate degree in science, technology, engineering or math are projected to earn the most overall, Payscale found. 

Tech and health-care industries have struggled with talent shortages on and off for years. As a result, more employers in these fields are dropping the requirement for a bachelor’s degree for many middle-skill and even higher-skill roles to widen their talent pools. That creates new opportunities for students who decide to pursue a two-year degree.

Instrumentation technology topped the list of the highest-paying majors, with an average mid-career salary of $116,300, followed by software engineering at $112,400 and radiation therapy at $109,500. 

Instrument technicians can work in chemical plants, food processing plants, petroleum refineries and other businesses to install, test and repair manufacturing equipment. This highly specialized role may involve working with hazardous materials and in potentially dangerous environments.

The top-earning two-year degrees came from schools with specialized training in nursing, engineering or other STEM-related professions, Payscale reported.

The Helene Fuld College of Nursing in New York City offers the most financially rewarding associate degrees, with mid-career pay of $106,200, followed by Pacific Union College in Angwin, California, at $100,900. Of the top 10 schools with the highest-earning graduates, many specialize in nursing and health care.

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In 2016, when I was 35, and my wife Courtney was 32, we sold our house, a 4 bed, 2 bath 1,600-square-foot Arizona home, moved into a 200-square-foot Airstream RV with our two dogs, and set up our new home in a KOA campground in Tucson. 

It was the first of many big changes for us. 

By that point, I had saved about $900,000, enough to give myself some breathing room, and quit a job that I hated in software development. Courtney, a rocket scientist, joined me in throwing off the bonds of a 9-to-5 in 2017, and we hit the road.

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Over the course of the next three years, we traveled across the country full-time, filming videos for YouTube and writing about our experience. 

At 42, I’m a self-made millionaire. Looking back, that decision to downsize was one of the key reasons why I was able to build wealth.

One of the biggest challenges was getting rid of most of our stuff before moving into the Airstream. We were amazed at how much junk we accumulated. 

We unloaded some things on friends and family members. We donated a lot to Goodwill, probably enough to fill an entire store. We held garage sales over several weekends and digitized thousands of photos onto CDs instead of keeping physical photographs. That helped a ton.

We found that we didn’t miss what we got rid of to pursue this life. Maintaining fewer things was actually quite freeing.

Living small made household chores quick and easy. In five minutes, I could vacuum the entire home. Another five minutes dusting. Tidying up took two or three minutes. In 30 minutes or less, our entire Airstream was as clean as the day we bought it. That was a great feeling. 

We were able to keep our travel expenses low by staying as much as we could on Bureau of Land Management land. RVers can camp for 14 days on most Bureau land free of charge. It was beautiful.

The only catch was that there were no electricity, water and sewer hookups. Instead, we used roof-mounted solar panels to charge our batteries. 

Our 72 gallons of freshwater storage on the Airstream provided about two weeks worth of fresh water, if we were careful. Our solar system made it easier for us to remain off-grid. We carried a 2,000-watt generator in case we needed extra power due to clouds or if trees blocked our panel’s view of the sun. 

We genuinely loved traveling and getting to learn so much about the country. We camped in about half of the 50 states, from New York to California.

Some of our favorite experiences were parking right on the water at Lake Powell, Arizona, camping along the ragged mountains by California’s Alabama Hills, and driving around the grassy hillsides in New York’s wine region. 

When you’re camping out in nature, though, you get to experience less-pleasant weather firsthand.

I vividly remember staying at a campsite in Leavenworth, Washington, in the summer of 2018. It was so hot that the electrical breakers kept malfunctioning because of all the ACs blasting. 

Every week or two, we had to pack everything up and move. This routine included securing items inside the Airstream like toiletries on our small bathroom counter and virtually anything lying out that could move or break while driving. We used a bungee cord to bind my external computer monitor to my small desk so it wouldn’t fall. 

For the first year of travel, we spent about $35,000. This included all of our expenses, including food, gasoline, insurance and camping fees. 

Most of our expenses went down considerably after we moved into the Airstream, except for one. Our grocery bill increased by about 25% because we weren’t always in a big metropolitan area where Costco or Safeway locations were plentiful. Instead, we often had to shop at more expensive local grocery stores in smaller communities. 

We typically spent about $3,500 per month, which included:

• Propane: $40 
• Pet care: $75
• Health insurance: $350
• Auto maintenance: $400
• Fun money: $1,000
• Groceries: $600
• Camping fees: $500
• Fuel: $500

Better equipped campgrounds in prime locations charged upwards of $100 per night. These pristine sites were level and well-maintained, and offered hookups to power, water and sewer.

Two weeks on Bureau land cost us nothing in camping fees. A $40/night camp spot with amenities would have cost us $560 for those 14 days. That difference adds up quickly!

Over that three year period, living cheaply in our Airstream allowed our net worth to climb while we drove, even though we no longer worked full-time jobs. 

We made a few hundred bucks a month on YouTube as we filmed our lifestyle. I maintained a blog about early retirement that I’ve since sold, which brought in about $1,000 a month. 

We lived primarily on what we made from these smaller sources of income. We hardly touched our stocks. Instead, we let our capital gains continue to grow for those three years of full-time travel. 

We started with about $900,000, and our net worth increased by about $150,000 by the end of our travels. That foundation set me on a path to become a millionaire today. Not bad for never setting foot in an office! 

Steve Adcock is a financial expert who blogs about how to achieve financial independence. A former software developer, Steve retired early at the age of 35. He occasionally writes about money for MarketWatch, Forbes and Business Insider.

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Some people think asking questions — to friends, peers or bosses — can make you look weak or insecure.

But the simple act can actually help you garner influence and even get the people around you to change their minds, says communication expert Matt Abrahams — if you know the right questions to ask.

“Asking a question puts you in a position of power,” Abrahams, a Stanford University lecturer, tells CNBC Make It. “I can actually raise my status and lower your status when I ask a challenging question.”

Asking good questions “demonstrates you care, it demonstrates empathy, it demonstrates you’re willing to learn and, in some cases, admit you don’t know everything,” he adds. “Those are all valuable tools and assets to have when you’re trying to grow your career or deepen relationships.”

Effective leaders often balance their credibility with humility, a willingness to learn and connect well with their colleagues, experts say. But not every question will help you get ahead. You need to know how, when and why you’re asking the question for it to help make you more influential, says Abrahams.

Here’s how to ask the right questions, at work, home and in your social life, to get ahead and strengthen relationships, he says.

Good questions contain three elements, says Abrahams:

• They’re concise, so the listener doesn’t get distracted
• They build on what the other person has said — furthering the conversation, rather than paraphrasing or summarizing
• They revolve around a focused idea, or the conversation topic’s “bottom line”

“It can have multiple purposes,” but it should be quick, clear and focused enough so people understand the point of I’m trying to make,” Abrahams says.

You should consider your intention or goal before asking any question, he adds. Do you want show you’re listening and understanding, or that you’re very interested in the subject at hand? Maybe you want to subtly help the other person understand another perspective, or simply move the conversation along.

One of the worst intentions, Abrahams notes: trying to get participation points in workplace meetings. Your questions always need to be thoughtful, he says — if you aren’t helping clarify a point or furthering a conversation, your colleagues may just roll their eyes at you.

Asking good questions, especially to persuade, influence or change someone’s mind, takes practice. Start small, and try approaching your casual interactions like interviews, where you’re trying to learn more about the other person or conversational subject, recommends Abrahams.

If your questions often ramble, and you want to become more concise, he suggests turning to artificial intelligence: Ask a chatbot like ChatGPT for shorter ways to phrase specific questions, then analyze the results. You can also ask real people for feedback — after a big meeting or serious work conversation, find a trusted colleague and ask them what they thought of the questions you posed.

Above all else, always listen to other people before asking them anything, Abrahams says.

“Anytime you are listening, you’re doing yourself a service. You are showing the other person you’re here,” Abrahams says. Then, your question is more likely to feel like you’re “inviting the other person to collaborate, and solving the problem [together] helps you foster that relationship in the long-term.”

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My mornings in the small village of San Antonio Tlayacapan, Mexico, are filled with birds. There’s the soft cooing of doves, the chirping of kiskadees, and the iconic shrieking of roosters, which begins not at sunrise (go figure) but hours before. 

It’s a far cry from Mazatlán, the city on Mexico’s Pacific coast where I spent 18 years before moving inland. While there’s so much I love about Mazatlán, the harsh reality is that the laid-back, mid-size beach town I’d moved to in 2006 is gone. 

Mazatlán has become a bustling resort city filled with tourists all year round. The once-quiet beaches are now lined with 20-story condo towers, and all the problems that tend to accompany rapid growth — like traffic, infrastructure issues, and noise — have become unfortunate facts of everyday life. 

Mazatlán changed so much that I didn’t want to live there anymore. It was time for me to leave.

My friends were shocked and, truth be told, so was I. There wasn’t anywhere else I’d thought about living — until I went to see a friend in Lake Chapala.

A friend in Lake Chapala, a seven-hour drive away from Mazatlán, invited me to visit. It seemed as good a place as any to begin my search for a new home. 

Part of the allure, for me, of the Lake Chapala area is that it’s quite rural. I’d lived in a growing, bustling city for so long that I was yearning for more nature, less traffic and noise, and a simpler lifestyle. 

The main “highway” here — really just a two-lane street — is paved, but as soon as you turn off of it, you’re on roads made of cobblestones or packed dirt. People have horses, goats, donkeys, cows, and chickens. It’s not unusual to see men riding to work on horseback. The weather is often touted as “perfect,” cool and pleasant most of the year. 

I could imagine settling here. But I told myself that if it was meant to be, I needed to find exactly what I wanted: a cute, two-bedroom, yellow house with a yard that I could afford. Though most listings I saw on real estate sites and Facebook groups were out of my budget, I ended up stumbling across the ideal place and rented it on the spot. 

A friend took over my Mazatlán apartment and bought all my furniture and appliances, which made the move a million times easier.  I packed only what I could fit in my car and made the drive inland to my new home in March 2024. 

San Antonio Tlayacapan, where I live now, is located between the bigger towns of Chapala and Ajijic, barely a 15-minute drive in either direction. Guadalajara — which has great medical care, an international airport, and all the conveniences and big-box stores you could want, including Home Depot and Costco — is less than an hour away. 

Everything I need is within reach. And in my new home in this smaller, slower town, I found the peace and tranquility I was looking for. 

The casita, or cottage, I rented has a pretty, walled front yard with a gated parking space. I’ve planted a flower garden that attracts butterflies and hummingbirds. I like to sit outside in the mornings with coffee.

The front door opens to the living room, separated from the kitchen by an island.

All the rooms are smaller than the ones in my apartment in Mazatlán, but they feel just right for me. 

My bedroom is spacious, with a nice built-in closet and two windows that provide lots of natural light. I’m thinking about painting the walls but haven’t decided on a color yet.

I use the second, smaller bedroom as an office. 

Outside the kitchen is an enclosed patio, which I’ve filled with plants, a table for working and eating, and a washing machine.

I hang my laundry to dry on the patio or roof, which could easily be turned into a more usable space. If I stay another year, I may do that.

My rent is only 9,000 pesos a month, or about $460, and includes water. My electricity bill hovers around $12, 5G internet runs about $29, and my cell phone plan comes in at about $17 with free international calls. 

I may be semi-retired, but my days are quite busy. My freelance work seems to be either feast or famine, and I’m currently working on two new books about expat living as well as offering consultations to help people navigate their journeys abroad.

When I can escape from the computer, I gravitate toward quiet activities: sharing a meal with friends, walking along the lake, exploring the area.

I like to cook and bake, and I can find many of the organic brands and products I prefer here, both imported and made locally. Asparagus, figs, and all sorts of berries — blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries — are inexpensive and plentiful. I can buy fresh milk from a dairy that’s five minutes from my house. Huevos del rancho (farm-fresh eggs) cost about 5 pesos, or roughly a quarter each.

I mostly eat a plant-based diet, but sometimes I buy chicken, cut to order, from a local farm.

There’s a Walmart and a Soriana grocery store nearby, but I prefer to shop at smaller local stores and at the many weekly outdoor markets. Prices are lower, produce is fresher, and it’s always a good time. 

At this point in my life, I think I needed the tranquility of my new home in San Antonio Tlayacapan. Every afternoon as the sun goes down, I’m thankful for the quiet of the approaching evening, so different from the 24/7 party atmosphere in Mazatlán. 

I’m still getting used to not having the ocean to jump into and clear my head. That may be what makes me move again, maybe to another Mexican beach town. 

My dream, though, is to live in Sicily or another spot in southern Italy part of the year, then a month or so with each of my kids and their families in the U.S., and the rest of the time in my “home base” in Mexico, wherever that ends up being.

Janet Blaser is a writer who has lived in Mexico since 2006. A former journalist in California, her work now focuses on expat living. Janet’s first book, “Why We Left: An Anthology of American Women Expats” is an Amazon bestseller. Follow Janet on Instagram and Facebook.

Want to master your money this fall? Sign up for CNBC’s new online course. We’ll teach you practical strategies to hack your budget, reduce your debt, and grow your wealth. Start today to feel more confident and successful. Use code EARLYBIRD for an introductory discount of 30% off, now extended through September 30, 2024, for the back-to-school season.