UNLOCKED: The Dark Side Of 'Buy Now Pay Later' & Overconsumption

💸 Welcome to The Vault Unlocked – a special bonus series of The Vault Podcast, where we deep dive into the big money topics no one wants to talk about.

In today’s episode, I’m unpacking Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) and its impact on consumerism.

If you’re a fan, hear me out—at best, I may convince you not to use it; at worst, you’ll gain a full understanding of how BNPL can impact your money management.

Let’s get into it!

✨ What to expect in this episode:

• The reality of BNPL: the promises of instant gratification and flexible payments that can lead to unmanageable debt.
• The psychology behind overconsumption and why BNPL makes us feel like purchases are more affordable than they really are.
• The rise of BNPL services like Klarna and Clearpay, and why they’ve become so appealing to consumers and retailers.
• The financial, emotional, and societal consequences of relying on BNPL, including the stress of overlapping payments and late fees.
• How BNPL’s marketing manipulates users by promoting “empowerment” and “treat yourself” messaging.
• The impact on younger generations, who are using BNPL for everyday purchases and creating long-term financial vulnerabilities.
• The solution: conscious consumerism and sinking funds as alternatives to BNPL, giving you control over your spending.

💬 Takeaway: BNPL might seem like a quick fix, but it’s leading to bigger problems in the long run. Learning to save before you spend is the key to financial wellness.

👉 Subscribe to Financielle for honest conversations about money, and let’s rewrite your money story together.

The Vault is an entertaining yet thought provoking podcast that answers our community’s dilemmas and confessions surrounding women and money.

Visit https://www.financielle.com to download our app.

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Financielle is a female focussed finance app helping women to take back control of their money, ditch debt, increase savings and invest in their future.

Recorded and Produced by Liverpool Podcast Studios
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Transcript

0:02

Welcome to the vault unlocked, where I take a deep dive into topics that no one wants to talk about. And this one, this one could be divisive. We are going to go into buy now, pay later. And whether you are a fan of it, whether you don't like it, whether you are a bit unsure, all are welcome here. This is just going to be a bit of a deep dive into what it is, how it works, but more importantly, how it can impact your money journey. I think everyone will know of the well-known brands. You've got the pink of Klarna, you've got clear pay, zilch. PayPal have one as well. You know, it's super popular now. I mean, there was a time when it was not an option at checkout. You know, you would typically use a credit card if you wanted to borrow to be able to buy, buy things. And it came out of nowhere. And now at every single checkout, it is completely normal to see these different checkout options, isn't it? You know, you can put your card details in or you can click a nice pretty button, which is even quicker if you've got an account with that brand and suddenly you've kind of got something for free like it just people either just they worship the at the feet of the buy now, pay later gods or the they’re kind of on the other side and they’re they’re not a fan. And so today is a no judgement chat. Okay? I want to lift the lid on how it works. And what impact it can have on your money journey so that if you are a fan and if you are going to continue using buy now, pay later, you would just aware of the impact it has and you might pick up some things and some strategies that you can use to make sure that you are the one having the last laugh, not the retailer, and certainly not the buy now, pay later company. But at best, I may have convinced you to break up with it forever. And that is my goal. I have to be very transparent. I'm not going to pretend about which side of the fence I sit on. I do not like buy now, pay later. I have seen so much success when people have decided finally to not use it. But likewise, I do know some people that use it and can sleep at night and don't have a bad problem either. So we're going to be very, very transparent and balanced. So let's get into it. I'm going to kick off with some facts, okay. With all the talking facts here. You know we'll talk about some opinions obviously. But facts to start off with one in four buy now, pay later Users regret their purchases. Another super interesting fact in the UK last year, 10 million people used buy now, pay later. That is an awfully big proportion of our population here in the UK, especially if you think a good proportion may not be shopping online and a good proportion are probably under the age of 16. So that's an awful lot of people actually using it. And there was a time when it wasn't here. So it's such a, it's such a familiar part of our checkout process now to see those big brands. You've got the Klarnas, the Clearpays, Zilch. You know Paypal I think do one as well. And it's like second nature they’re just a checkout option. Whereas there was a time when if you didn't have the money to buy something, you either couldn't buy it or you could use a credit card to buy it, which obviously you can still do now. And suddenly from nowhere, these ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ companies came out. They would provide 0% and let you spread your payments in 3 or 6. And so if you know something that was out of your reach previously, you may be able to afford today rather than saving up in advance for it. And there's definitely an air of ‘this is too good to be true’.“Of course I'm going to use it. Of course I'm going to use it like this is, you know, it's this is a dream come true Even I can have the thing I want now, tomorrow, instant gratification. And I don't have to pay for it now. I can pay for it later” So, yeah, what an amazing concept. And these companies are huge. I mean, you know, depending on when you're listening to this, that we're now in the end of 2024 and Klarna intend to list on the New York Stock Exchange next year. Make no mistake, the bosses and the early employees, who have shares in Klarna especially, will become millionaires this year, some of them being a multi, multi millionaires. A lot of them men at the top of the tree, the founders, you know, making money personally off a load of women dividing up purchases into three. And I just I want to land that with you because that's literally what's going to be happening. And you may say they've produced a product that's great and that's helpful. I disagree because of the things I'm going to go into, obviously. And so I have to be really careful, stay on track. Because you know what Laura's like. She can kind of go down rabbit holes. But there's a few reasons for it. Okay. So we've got the fact that you can go to a checkout now and let's use Dyson Airwrap as the example, because I think these high end electronics was one of the first situations where it made perfect sense to have this kind of product. So it was a product that previously most of us normal people couldn't afford to just pay for upfront. Most people don't have savings for things like that, like something impulsive, or you know. Anyway, so we'll go with Dyson Airwrap. I'm going to make up the price. Got no idea how much it is. Let's pretend it's £400. I have literally no idea. But what you can get is instant payment for that item. Buy the buy now, pay later company to the retailer you've not had to pay. You can divide it up into a payment plan that suits you. You are more than likely are not percent interest for that payment plan, so it's not costing you any more money. You're like, this is an absolute no brainer. Why on earth would I hand over, if I have it, £400 of my own money, when I could keep more of my money and I could divide it up? So, it makes complete sense. But a really interesting angle that I find is that works once with one item. So I completely accept that this payment method has made that Dyson Airwrap accessible to people who do not have that disposable cash. And the other interesting argument for buy now, pay later, and that the companies will tell you is a good thing, is you've not had to take on a credit card to be able to fund that purchase if you don't have the money, because what happens with the credit card is you kind of get a big limit. So you might get a 500,£1,000, £5,000 limit on that card. You use the card to buy the Dyson Airwrap, but then you've got more credit on it. And so what the companies have been up to is saying is it's great because this is so bad for people when there's all this extra credit lying around and you're tempted to to use it instead, you could just finance the item that you want. That works perfectly for one item, singular. But what happens is, and we have seen it time and time again. So this is me speaking from experience in the Financielle community of people that have explained this and shown us the accounts and describe the reality is that one month it's a Dyson Airwrap and you've split it up into a hundred and odd pound payments And that's manageable. Then the next month something comes along and we've got an event and we go onto asos and we just can't pick a dress because there's 7000 dresses on Asos and I cannot decide what I'm going to wear. And I'm going to type in little black dress and now I'm overwhelmed. And so I'm going to pick a few options. But also the sizing is shit and I can't work out what I meant, what size I am, am I a ten, 12, 14 or am I none of these, you know, am I short or Am I petite? they’re The same thing. Am I short or am I tall or am I regular? So the next month you go, I'm going to do an order on asos and I'm going to use buy now, pay later because I'm not sure I'm going to keep everything and I don't want to spend £200 of my own money when actually I'm gonna send some of it back. So then you divide that up into three as well. So suddenly in month two, you've got the Dyson payment and you've now got the next payment of the random black dresses that, you may or may not send back. Most people don't, by the way, I'm going to go into that in a minute, but you've got the next one. So even if your next month, you don't find this impulsive urge to buy something more than you can afford in like that one month, the next month after that, something will come along. Because once you have opened the gateway, once you've started it, it's a slippery slope to be the way that you pay, because mentally you are constantly thinking, why wouldn't I? Why wouldn't I use it? It's of course I would use it, I'd be stupid not to, etc. etc. and what you've created is just kind of like rolling credit facility where like you snowballing what you're having to pay because it's one item, then it's two item. Oh, when it's three shopping trips are full shopping trips and they kind of stack and suddenly you get to a mark where that monthly, you know, buy now, pay later payment is quite high. And unless you stop adding things to it, you're going to end up constantly paying off. And it literally has turned into, you know, the credit arrangement that everyone talked about it being better than. So that's like one thing that I want you to to consider. The other thing is, again, it's a slippery slope of it's what starts as making an expensive purchase accessible is a is a slippery slope to overconsumption because it's so easy. It's like, that's just like coming to you. It's not, it's it's easy. It feels free. You know, we already know a Harvard Business Review. We know when we use credit, we spend more like we are scientifically proven to spend more, and it just doesn't feel real. And so, actually, I just want to share, this, this story from someone in our community. So, Elle is a Financielle community member who initially started to use buy now, pay later to afford big ticket items like furniture, super common. You may have typically used a credit card for that. To be fair, in the past, but soon she found herself using buy now, pay later for everyday purchases from food to skincare. At one point, she had 17 separate repayments due across three platforms and it started to become unmanageable. And this is what we talk about when it's like, could you easily slip into what started off as a very, you know, well-thought-out and logical, seemingly logical decision slips into this kind of I'm going to call it it's been called it by other people, not me. A gateway drug to overspending and to using credit. If we think about the, you know, the rise of buy now, pay later, it's it's the branding is big. They you know if we if we take an example like Klarna, Klarna is a aesthetic brand who, you know, had Snoop Dogg as the face of Klarna recently. I was a little disappointed really, but I saw Patricia Bright had, a YouTube video sponsored by Klarna. It came up on my on my feed. It said 'sponsored by Klarna’ or ‘in partnership with Klarna’. I was just like, oh, what a shame. You know, it's it's that they know who they're targeting. They’re targeting women, they’re targeting women that want to spend money on clothes, women that feel inadequate and that feel they need the latest like LED face mask, or the expensive skincare or the winter haul or wardrobe. You know, I saw that so often, people using, these these Klarna especially. But any of them to pay for the whole new wardrobe that of course you need. Because of course, everyone on Instagram and TikTok is looking a particular way this winter, and none of that's in my wardrobe. So I need I need a new winter wardrobe. And of course, I'll use buy now, pay for it. So they're actively and aggressively, I would say targeting women, women are in control of 85% of the world's spending. And we are the spenders for good, for bad, you know, for whatever, we’re the spenders. So they're coming after us and our money and so branding is super important to them so that you recognise it so that when you get to check out, you know, you know what Clearpay looks like. You know what Klarna looks like. That's familiar to you, they’re like your friend and said that you more likely they want you at checkout to use to use them. And so making these purchases just with like any kind of impulsive spending, it triggers this dopamine release and this like buzz gets extended the more that you buy, but honestly like the feeling when you suddenly slip into, oh shit, these are actually payments like I've got the thing and that that that's like hit is gone and I'm left holding the baby like I'm literally left holding the payments for this thing that I just bought so quickly. It's really easy to get carried away with it. I want you to listen closely to this bit, because this is a bit that not a lot of people know about. Buy now, pay later. And it is completely legitimate. There is nothing wrong with this. This is business. Okay? Have you ever sat and back and thought, how are they making money? How why why are they giving me a 0% credit facility? Why would they do that? Have you ever thought that? I just think it's super important with everything like this, to think what's in it for them? Well covered credit card points, a different day. Credit card, cash back a different day. It's the same thing. What? What is in it for them? Why would they possibly this private company or public or whatever, why would they give that to me? Why would buy now, pay later companies charge 0% on their loans because it is credit. Now they make some money through, late payments. So they will sometimes charge people if they miss a payment. So there are sometimes payments that way. But that's not where the revenue comes from. The revenue comes from the retailers. so a retailer in the shopping basket uses a payment processor. And basically what that is, is the checkout. So for you to put your card details in and for them to process that money, take the money off your card and keep it for themselves, they'll use independent software. So there are companies like Worldpay or like stripe. These kind of companies perform the the back end payment processes that you will never see. Okay. You just put your card details in and that's that's it. So those companies charge a fee, a tiny percentage to, the retailer for providing that service. Absolutely. Fine. Makes complete sense. So a different way to pay though obviously is a buy now, pay later checkout, which is where you click that button. And that's how you pay. And what happens is people like Klarna and buy and other brands, but especially Klarna, because they say this in their investor report, you will be able to go find this yourself. I have not got inside information. They are very proud of this. They pitch to retailers. You will sell more if you provide buy now, pay later as an option at checkout. So you they all say they will go. They'll they'll have to pitch. Like how do you get onto the checkout. Think about this. How did you get in. You go into the retailers. You say to Asos, I could make you more money because when people use me, they will increase their basket size by 30 to 40%. So the retailer sits there and goes, okay, I can sell more if I provide this payment option. Of course I'm going to provide it So the retailer gets higher sales, higher basket value, lower cart abandonment. All these things adds up to more money for the retailer. So then they will quite happily pay. And I don't know the exact percentages. I think I've seen them somewhere in some reports, but 7%, let's say to a buy now, pay later brand rather than like a 2 or 3% to a payment processor, the happy to pay the increase in fees because they've sold more. So all that is going on in the background of you deciding whether to order four dresses or five, or whether to use, you know, whether to buy that big item that you're not sure about, but it doesn't feel like my money. That's what's going on behind the scenes, all about spending psychology. And it's it's based on the assumption that if that pretty button is there at the checkout, you're going to spend more. And the facts don't lie like that is literally it's it's proven in their data because they're telling retailers this. And we also know this from credit anyway from independent studies. So we know that when people use credit they're going to spend more. And they've kind of proven it in their reports and stuff. I mean it's working in as of 2024, half of UK adults have used buy now, pay later services. At some point. That's 26.4 million people. I think we talked about, you know, 10 million people last year using it, but this is up from 36% at the start of 2023. So it's gone from 36% to 50% of UK adults have used it in one year. This is becoming the default way to pay. and I think there are a few financial, emotional and societal consequences to this method of payment Being normalised in our society today. So we've talked about a little bit, but these overlapping payments can lead to a form of bill shock where they the multiple repayments are due simultaneously or right next to each other because depending on when you've made that purchase, it's split across different months. It could be with different providers. And suddenly you've got this chaos of not knowing when payments are coming out. So when you're trying to work to a budget, if you are trying to get to a budget or if you're not, but you're reliant on there being money in your account, it could be quite worrying that you've not got enough money in your account. You don't know when these payments are coming. So there's like this chaos that ensues when you are using like simultaneous buy now, pay later providers across different purchases and defaults are massively on the rise. I read that in 2023, over 30% of buy now pay later users missed at least one payment, and over half of people that used it paid a late fee, which is 10.6 million people pay a late fee. So after all this kind of like it's free, it suddenly wasn't for almost half of people. There's also the emotional impact of overconsumption. We know that buyers regret purchases after they've used them. This is probably true of people that don't use Buy Now Pay Later as well. You know, we've all been there. If you're an impulsive spender, there's a big, you know, remorse factor in it. But, it's a common theme because the thrill of the purchase peters out and suddenly you’re left, like I said, literally, having to deal with the consequences of it and actually going back to what our, friend in the community, Elle, said, she admitted that the stress from her buy now, pay later payments made her dread payday. Instead of looking forward to it, she said paying off last month's mistakes left me with no money for this month's needs, and that's just highlights exactly how it makes people feel. Another community member shared with me. I realised I was borrowing from future me every time I clicked pay later, future me wasn't thrilled and I love I love the way she said that and put that because it really makes you think about the decisions that you make today, really do impact your future self. And I think, you know, we've got this issue, these free payments cost, cost, these late fees, interest can accumulate quickly if you don't make the payments within the time that you specified when they were nought percent, buy now pay later can turn into this revolving credit facility where they just keep adding things onto the buy now, pay later account. But actually, do you know what's really worrying me? And maybe the millennials around can, attest to this? I think some of us fell into the nought percent credit card, phenomenon, which was this like using the cheapest credit you're ever going to use to buy things that were big and then you kind of get into this switcheroo anyway, trying to transfer and transfer and balance transfer and balance transfer. And it can like really mount up and get quite stressful. And that was our, you know, gateway drug to credit was this nought percent thing. For these next generations and for a lot of millennials as well we’re being double whammied here. The long term impact on younger generations really worries me, because it's already super difficult to learn to save now buy later, super difficult. We're not taught how to do it. We're taught that we want everything now. It's already a tough environment for spending, and with the way costs are, the way inflation's been, the way that our, household expenses houses, everything, everything's going up. So it's already hard and we're already not taught to save now buy later. But these younger generations are especially vulnerable. You know 28% of Gen Zs and 34% of millennials said buy now, pay later was their top choice for everyday purchases. And this is what we mean by the term gateway drug, because it's normalising buying something you can't afford, or buying something with credit so that you can prioritise your money elsewhere, or buying shit you don't need this, this massive overreliance on buy now pay later we don't know the impact of yet for younger generations because as they get used to always kind of spending ahead of their means when they are coming to try and buy houses, when they're coming to kind of maybe need credit in different ways when they get into a situation where they may have an illness or a sickness or lose a job or, you know, life hits them. They've not been taught the basics of how to build financial resilience. They've been taught how to spend, spend, spend, spend. Keep up with the trends. Make sure you buy the latest things. Don't worry, got an event this weekend can get a dress immediately. Afford it? Who knows, I'll just kind of kick it down the can. This is what we've taught them. And it's it's really upsetting because all we want is for people to have a good shot for people to, you know, really have a fair chance at building a financially stable life. You know, this isn't even talking about wealth building right now. This is talking about especially women holding women back from being in financial control, being financially stable. it's just something that so many people sit there and go, oh, isn’t it handy? God, I love Klarna, I love Klarna like it's a person like, no, no, they love you. They they love you and your social media addiction that leads you to want to buy things immediately. And the need to reinvent yourself and the need to have a glow up and the need to have a haul. Klarna loves you, don't you worry about that. So if you love I if you love them as well, it's a great relationship. How am I doing for the, for the non-believers? How how are you feeling right now? I hope I've I'm like, we're okay, we're in a good place and we're still friends. And that I'm on your side because not everyone is. There's so much more I could go into. But actually, I think it's about time we come around to some resolutions. What can we do about this product? Can we use it mindfully? Is that possible? What options do we have for managing our finances in a way that allows us to spend money and allows us to buy nice things, but where we’re in control of that is our choices. Mindful thought through choices. Let's have a look. I've got a few suggestions. Firstly, we're going to reframe consumption and buying into conscious consumerism. I've seen loads of TikToks recently of people just fed up with buying shit, fed up with a house full of multiple creams and multiple cheap outfits that they kind of just keep impulsively buying and nothing ever lasts. They’re fed up of, like, taking stuff to the charity shop and realising how much wastage they go through. And I've seen this like new vibe of under consumption core being embraced. We've talked about it on The Vault pod before And so buying less, buying intentionally valuing quality over the quantity of things is actually it's cool. It's a cool thing to do. I really think that you you can do this and I've seen it recently. I'm going to use some brands of examples brands that probably use Buy Now Pay Later. I'm not this no shade on brands that use it, but just be mindful of that. I am a fan of Grace Beverly's TALA when she first did the first drop because I was definitely into under consumption at that time and, and sustainability and it was like, I don't think I can pay that for leggings. But prior to that I’d bought, I had like ten year old Nike leggings that were definitely going see through in areas that they should not be going see through and should not be being worn to the gym, or the school run or. I had been guilty of a couple of Primark purchases and getting the leggings on, and we all know how that would turn out. And I tried Gymshark and I. I'm not anti Gymshark, but I decided on Christmas a few years ago now to invest in some Tala leggings from Father Christmas and the quality just was there. I still wear them today. they're honestly as good as they were then. And I probably wear them once a week. They're in my gym rotation. They don't fall down over my hips. They make me feel warm. They make me feel held in, but not tight. And my gymshark ones, honestly, They do fall down a bit material, sizing, construction, whatever. But it was the best example for me of something where someone would and I've been there easily buy 2 to 3 pairs of the cheaper one and just not reach for them in the drawer. Like I know which leggings I want to come out the wash. I know which ones are drying and I'm sat going ‘I can't wait to put them on’. I feel better when I'm putting something of quality on and I can't afford lots of them. So I have to be intentional about saving up for the thing or choosing to receive it for Christmas. I could have instead bought seven pairs of cheaper ones, and I know this isn't connected to buy now, pay later in terms of how I bought them, but the idea is the thing that probably cost more but was well thought out lasts longer than the impulsive buys that you don't really take the time to research, and that you kind of just buy in bulk and then the kind of you need to replace them anyway. And so I have really embraced and I keep seeing on TikTok, and Instagram, people embracing not just a capsule, but a lean capsule and a repeatable capsule and not feeling like you have to keep up with every single trend. It's more manageable. It's more easy to choose what to wear, and it definitely helps with the bank balance as well. And so, embracing conscious consumerism, embracing under consumption core, all these kind of buzzwords for essentially minimalism. You don't have to go without. It's more about just slowing down a bit and not getting carried away with how other people look and what other people are buying and TikTok shop this and buy this and hey girlies this this you will not believe. Shut up like get off my For You page. I have to go quickly so that the algorithm knows I don't want to see it. The next thing is what's an alternate alternative to buy now, pay later. Save now, buy later. And in Financielle land, we call this sinking funds. So as we know, sinking funds are pots of money that you build up for planned expenses. And you can have a clothing sinking fund and you can have a hair and beauty sinking fund. And how do we build it? We use the Financielle budget method, which is your income at the top, and then you've got your fixed expenses, your sinking funds, and your flexible expenses. And don't forget, as I'll always remind you, the excess at the end is what you put towards your goals. So in this budget I said sinking funds. And what those are is we've got these pots of money for things that we're going to spend that we might not spend there and then and we might not even spend that month and might not even spend that time of year. But what we do is we let's take a holiday, for example. If you're going to go on a trip and that trip is going to cost, let's do easy maths £2,400. Then in my sinking fund bit of the budget, I put travel£200. So what it means is that payday I take 200 and I move it to a bank account for sinking funds or like a Pots functionality, like the Starling Monzo chases of the world, revolut. And I put a little picture on of the place I wanna go on holiday, and I put travel 2400 and I move 200 into there. That's what that budget does. That budget breaks up in the app. It breaks up the amount that you want to contribute to your sinking funds. So let's move over to fashion and beauty, because fashion and beauty are the two categories mainly that are used for Buy Now Pay Later, that people use later to purchase things in those categories. So instead of having to use these Buy Now Pay Later products to buy the things you want to buy, you've got a pot there. Two things will happen, by the way. One, you will buy less because one you’re using cash and it's your cash. And it feels very, very real to do that. But two, you'll feel proud of yourself. You'll have done that. You'll have like, funded it. So if you really wanted the thing, you've then paid for it in cash, you'll feel amazing. And actually, I've got a community quote about, sinking funds. Someone said, I started a sinking fund for Christmas, and I haven't touched Buy Now Pay Later once this year, I feel free. And and that's like such emotive language, isn't it? I feel free, it's very, very dramatic and very I don't know, it. It really helps to show how it can make you feel, because finance is so much about how you feel, not just about the numbers. So those are all alternatives we can use. We can not buy the thing and buy less and do, under consumption core. Or we could save now by later using sinking funds. So let's let's pretend, kind of a little drink of Diet Coke. Let's pretend you have listened to this and you're going, I'm going to break up with Buy Now Pay Later So you've decided that we're kicking Buy Now Pay Later to the kerb. We're going single. We do not need at this man in our life. I'm going to call it a man It can be a woman as well. You can choose, but I just. I know the men own it, so I'm like ‘the man’. How do we break up with Buy Now Pay Later? How are we going to kick it to the kerb? Firstly, you need to know your numbers. This is very similar, by the way, to like the debt free journey that we do at Financielle. But firstly, we need to know our numbers. So you need to know how much you owe on buy now Pay later right now. So across the different brands, get a piece of paper out or get in the financial app and you can kind of list them as you different debts because they are debts. They're not just payments. The debts. Let's list out what we owe and let's know when that money's coming out. So we cannot miss payments. And we're very confident and we make a plan next, we need to treat them like debts. So firstly, it's important to, know when the payments are like I just said, but have a plan to overpay them. So if you do doing your Financielle budget you'll have an excess. It goes in your snowball more than likely. Hopefully if the amounts are quite low, it'll be at the bottom of your Snowball, we’ll come onto snowball in a different episode, but basically you'll order your debts smallest to largest and typically your buy now, pay later debts will, will be lower. So you use your excess in that budget to, either overpay them if you want to or if the payments are going to stop soon. Just making sure that you know them in the next budget and there's a plan to kind of let them Peter out. This depends on the next thing happening. You need to commit to not using it. You need to not add any more purchases to your buy now, pay later accounts. That's the only way we're going to pay them off in the short term, because otherwise we're just creating more of a problem for later down the line. We do not want a financial hangover. We want to pay them off. So delete the apps, close the accounts once you pay them off. Like do not like. Let's just say that is not an option for me in want to check out. I will not check out using that. If you need other people to buy things for you and you transfer the money because you don't want to be in that vulnerable position where you’re weak and you like, press that button and you pay that way. Anything you can do to just stop using them. And then where possible, delete the account. And I promise you, the people this year and last year that told me I finally ditched buy now pay later, I never use it again. I can't believe I've finally paid off my whatever account. So many people have come through the other side. I promise you you'll not regret it. And you know what? If you regret it, just use it again because no judgement. If you want to use it, why don't you play with me a bit? Do my budgets join the community? Pay off, change your mind. Put it back on again. I don't care if you don't care. Like I'm cool with you using it. But if you want to come into our club and not use it, we're here to help. So there we have it. I would love to know your thoughts and we'll every one of these. We have a thread in the community. So if you’re listening to it the week it launched, you should be able to find that quite easily and tell us your thoughts about whether you agree, whether you Disagree. Any questions you may have. has buy now, pay later. Make shopping more accessible for you. Like do you feel like it lets you enter this kind of like club where you can buy more expensive things? I wanna hear your stories. And on that, before I lock the vault. I would love to hear from any of you that want to learn something else that you want us to cover here on the vault unlocked. So please do email hello@thevault.com and tell me what topic we could explore in another episode, but thank you for listening. Thank you for listening to my perspective, my rants, my the stuff that I want you to know for next time. You’re in that shopping basket. And there we go. Let me know what you think. Just a disclaimer the vault unlocked is a light hearted chat around money. It is not financial advice. I'm.