Any time I’m feeling self-conscious about my book, a new report comes along that reminds me how much work (and werk!) there still is to do to help people live better, more financially stable lives.

This time, the report was from Buy Now, Pay Later provider Klarna, which ​revealed​ on May 19th that its consumer credit losses were up 17% year-over-year because users are increasingly not paying their loans back.

How much, you ask? A whopping $136 million.

BNPL services are designed to skate under many of the regulations used for credit card and loan providers in the United States. For example, BNPL spreads a transaction across four payments over a six-week period because the CARD Act of 2009 requires lenders to communicate with borrowers about their balances – but only if the loan has five or more installments.

By capping at four payments, BNPL dodges all that.

BNPL payments occur every two weeks, which is annoying AF because most people manage their expenses monthly. And credit bureaus didn’t start reporting BNPL activity until last year, so for a long time the debt burden was very hidden.

Studies on BNPL usage are starting to roll in, and they don’t look great. A ​Harris poll from Bloomberg​ found that more than half of respondents said they used BNPL because it let them purchase more than they could afford. And a ​LendingTree report​ this spring found that 41% of all BNPL users were behind on payments. BNPL loans don’t assess interest, but charge a late fee of up to $65 if you miss a payment, and they have few communication requirements to consumers on when your next payment will be withdrawn.

(Side note: It’s giving dystopia. We can finance our weekly grocery order on Instacart now, or a burrito on DoorDash… but it kinda says something about where we are as a society that this is even an option in the first place.)

People are shocked that Klarna’s losses are piling up. To that, I respond with a Shea Couleé quote: “Why y’all acting brand new?” Of course more people are using Buy Now, Pay Later.

Wages are stagnant, the job market is frozen, 40%+ of Americans now have a side hustle… the list goes on. People are strained. For every person who recklessly overspent, there are several who’ve been diligent with their money and are still in a very unworkable situation. There’s more to this than avocado toast and lattés.

Also, consumerism is louder than ever. Is it just me, or does every social media platform feel like a shopping mall now? Commerce is even seeping into the hardware itself: Just this week, Samsung ​announced​ an integration with GlanceAI that lets you shop outfits from your phone’s lock screen by seeing how they look on an AI-generated photo of you. Every time I think we can’t possibly ratchet consumerism up any higher, I’m wrong.

One of the big ideas in my book is that consumerism and marketing manipulation influence most of our money decisions, so to reclaim financial autonomy we must take an honest look at our media consumption habits and thought patterns. (It’s also the first big idea: “Thought patterns” is chapter one, and debt is chapter two.) This applies to everything from trinkets on Etsy to masterminds and online courses.

But scolding people about their behavior doesn’t work

And good copywriters know this.

You can’t wag your finger at people and shame them into behaving a certain way. Instead, you must convince readers that some other way of life is better, healthier, more convenient, and/or more fun.

(Maybe Inception was just an allegory about copywriting, y’all. Convince someone it was their idea to change in the first place and the job is done.)

This is the writing challenge I took on with Money Proud. The assignment was to make personal finance fun. The manuscript is really genre-fluid, a mix of self-help and comedy with reporting and dozens of interviews swirled in. I’m excited to share more about this process when we kick off pre-launch at the end of this month (We’re about six months out from pub date).

My money message now is “create a fulfilling life where you can buy the things you want without needing things like Buy Now, Pay Later to do so.” When we do this inner work, we become more nuanced with our values, ethics, and priorities. We break away from herd mentality, and keeping up with the Joneses, and other forms of groupthink that don’t really serve us in our financial or creative lives.

Resist the urge to use Buy Now, Pay Later at checkout just because it’s there. Then use the momentum of that discipline to go after those big challenges you have in work and life.

You’ll thank yourself later. ⬥

Coming up

Next week preview: New city, new relationship status, new life

2025 is happening! My relationship of almost nine years ended. I bought and renovated a condo. I left Los Angeles. If I’m being honest, I’m kind of a mess right now.

It’ll all come pouring out in an essay soon. For now, here are a few photos of the in-progress bachelor pad to tide us over.

Hot Links

What happened this week

Disclosure: I work at Ziff Davis, the parent company of CNET, Mashable, PCMag, Lifehacker, and ZDNET, and equalpride, the parent company of The Advocate and Out magazine.

Economy, money, entrepreneurship

​President Trump will extend the deadline of the TikTok ban again.​ The last extension was issued April 4, and, uh, a lot has happened between the US and China since then (#tariffs); trade negotiation dynamics are expected to play a role. (Ian Carlos Campbell / Engadget)

​Trump’s USD1 Stablecoin demand is in question.​ Notably, over half its liquidity on decentralized crypto exchange PancakeSwap comes from just three wallets. (Mackenzie Sigalos / CNBC)

​Speaking of Klarna, they announced a debit card this week.​ Probably because BNPL is starting to look bad. (Ryan Browne / CNBC)

​7.24 million Americans are currently unemployed, the most since 2017, if excluding the pandemic era.​ (Jeffry Bartash / MarketWatch)

​Trump and Musk are fighting​ and it has engulfed my feeds the past couple days. (Kevin Breuninger / CNBC)

AI and future tech

​9 of the most out there things Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei just said about AI. ​(Mark Sullivan / Fast Company)

​AI-Generated TikTok Videos Are Tricking People Into Installing Malware.​ New fear unlocked, yay! (Emily Long / Lifehacker)

​You can now schedule your Google Gemini tasks.​ One of the more practical in-app AI applications, imo. (Emma Roth / The Verge)

​I Spent $125 to Generate 5 AI Videos a Day With Google's Veo 3. The Sound Sets It Apart.​ You should probably keep up on Veo because it is wild. (Katelyn Chedraoui / CNET)

​What Is Agentic AI? Everything to Know About Artificial Intelligence Agents. ​(Barbara Pazur / CNET)

​Here are a few kid-friendly smartphone options.​ (Chase DiBenedetto / Mashable)

LGBTQ

​A new two-part documentary on the closeted life of Pee-Wee Herman is airing on HBO Max.​ (Gregg Shapiro / Bay Area Reporter)

​Here's a post ​from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) guiding journalists on how to cover anti-trans executive orders. (NLGJA blog)

​Edmund White passed away at 85.​ Coined "the Godfather of queer lit" by the Chicago Tribune, he was best known for writing The Joy of Gay Sex in 1973, but wrote dozens of other important books. (Bernardo Sim / Out)

​Queer indigenous actor Jonathan Joss (Parks and Recreation) was gunned down outside his home in an alleged homophobic attack on June 1.​ After initially denying the murder was a hate crime, the San Antonio police retracted this statement on Thursday. (Ryan Adamczeski / The Advocate)

​A Navy ship named after gay rights activist Harvey Milk will be renamed. ​Sources confirmed making the announcement during Pride month was intentional. (Trudy Ring / The Advocate)

​WorldPride has begun in Washington, DC.​ The event is expected to encounter obstacles from the current administration. (Christopher Wiggins / The Advocate)

​Montana banned Pride flags on government property, so the city of Missoula just made it the official city flag instead as a workaround.​ Lol. (Daniel Villarreal / LGBTQ Nation)

​Every LGBTQ+ bar in America, mapped.​ Spencer Macnaughton is doing some cool shit over at Uncloseted Media right now. (Dan O'Connor and Tory Lysik, Uncloseted Media)