There is a particular kind of spending that has become part of everyday culture over the last few years.
The coffee on the way to work. A nicer lunch than you really needed. A new book, a bunch of flowers, a takeaway on Friday night or something small ordered online after a difficult week.
Individually, none of these purchases is especially significant. Collectively, they have become part of what is sometimes called the “little treat economy”, where relatively modest indulgences provide a small moment of enjoyment when bigger purchases feel increasingly difficult to justify.
And there may be more behind it than simply poor budgeting.
Capgemini’s latest global consumer research found that seven in ten consumers treat themselves to small indulgences as a way of coping with financial pressures. At the same time, consumers are becoming much more deliberate about where they spend their money. Capgemini
So perhaps the interesting question isn’t why we keep buying little treats.
It is what those purchases are doing for us.
When the bigger things feel further away
For previous generations, financial progress was often associated with fairly obvious milestones: buying a home, moving to a larger one, starting a family, upgrading the car or taking a big annual holiday.
Many of those goals remain important, but they can also feel increasingly expensive or distant. When the bigger reward is years away, spending a relatively small amount on something enjoyable today can feel much easier to justify.
There is a behavioural logic to this. Human beings tend to value rewards that are immediate and tangible. Saving £8 towards something years away does not provide quite the same emotional response as meeting a friend for coffee this afternoon.
That doesn’t necessarily make the coffee a bad financial decision.
In fact, one of the more interesting consumer trends emerging in 2026 is a move away from simply asking whether something is cheap or expensive and towards asking whether it feels worth it.
TikTok’s 2026 trend report calls this “emotional ROI”, describing shoppers as increasingly judging purchases by the enjoyment, usefulness or meaning they receive in return. The same report identifies a growing #richinlife trend, where people define richness less by conspicuous consumption and more by the experiences and choices that make life feel fulfilling. TikTok For Business
That feels like a much more interesting financial question than whether somebody should stop buying coffee.
The problem with treating enjoyment as the enemy
Personal finance advice can sometimes make everyday spending sound like a character flaw.
Cancel the subscriptions. Stop eating out. Make coffee at home. Never buy lunch. Cut out everything unnecessary and put the difference into savings.
There is obviously nothing wrong with looking carefully at spending, particularly when money is tight. But taken too far, this creates a slightly strange idea of financial success in which the objective is simply to spend as little as possible.
Most people do not want money purely for the satisfaction of seeing a larger number on a statement. They want what money makes possible.
Interestingly, recent UK consumer research suggests that experiences remain high on that list. KPMG found that, after holidays, days out were one of the biggest priorities for summer spending, followed by eating out and entertaining friends and family at home. KPMG
Those are not necessarily examples of financial indiscipline. They are examples of people spending money on their lives.
The £5 purchase probably isn’t the real problem
There is another reason to be wary of obsessing over every small indulgence.
It can distract from the decisions that actually have the greatest effect on our finances.
How much are we spending on housing? Are we carrying expensive debt? Are we saving regularly? Are there subscriptions or insurance policies we genuinely no longer use? Are we making thoughtful decisions about the large purchases that cost hundreds or thousands of pounds?
Those questions are likely to matter considerably more over the long term than whether somebody bought lunch twice this week.
That doesn’t mean small spending is irrelevant. Hundreds of unnoticed purchases can clearly add up. But there is an important difference between unconscious spending and deliberate enjoyment.
If you spend £30 every month on something you barely notice, perhaps it deserves questioning.
If you spend £30 doing something you genuinely value with somebody you care about, that may be doing exactly what money is supposed to do.
From “little treats” to intentional spending
There are signs that consumer culture itself may be moving in this direction.
After years of haul videos, viral products and algorithm-driven shopping, some social media trends are beginning to celebrate the opposite. “Underconsumption” content has encouraged people to use things for longer, repair what they own and resist buying every new product that appears in their feed. More recently, the conversation has begun shifting again towards purchases that people consider genuinely worth the money. British Vogue
The common thread is intention.
Rather than asking, “Can I afford to buy this?”, the better question might sometimes be, “Do I actually value this?”
That small change can make spending decisions much clearer.
You may discover there are things you happily spend money on because they genuinely improve your life, alongside other habits that have simply become automatic.
A financial plan should leave room for living
This is perhaps where the idea connects most naturally with financial planning.
A good plan should not simply tell somebody how much they need to save for a future that may be decades away. It should also help them understand what they can afford to enjoy now.
That balance will look different for everyone. One person may care deeply about travelling. Another might prioritise good food, hobbies, family days out or going to live music. Somebody else may happily spend very little on all of those things because what they value most is the security of knowing they have money put aside.
None is inherently more financially responsible than the others.
The important thing is that the choice is conscious.
Perhaps, then, the lesson of the little treat economy is not that we should stop treating ourselves. Nor is it that every small indulgence can be dismissed because “life is for living”.
It is that money works best when we understand what we want it to do.
Saving for tomorrow matters. So does protecting ourselves against the unexpected.
But a financial life in which every pleasure is postponed indefinitely probably isn’t much of a financial plan either.