You might have encountered Katia Chesnok, or @economikat, on your social media feeds, telling you that you don’t need more stuff — you’re just bored.

If you haven’t heard of her, she calls herself a “de-influencer” whose advice comes from experience. Impulse spending while bored led her to $40,000 in credit card debt, she said. She paid it off, and now she helps her followers on TikTok and Instagram learn from her mistakes.

“We scroll. We feel empty. We’re searching for that dopamine boost, and we try to buy our way out of it,” Chesnok told me.

All that clutter around your house? It used to be money, she said. Those new gift ideas and cute filler presents? No one remembers them.

As we head into the most tempting time of year, I wanted to do a special holiday edition of the Financial Gl

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