Is Buy Now, Pay Later Bad?

DoorDash just partnered with Klarna, which means you can now order a Chipotle burrito and pay for it in four easy installments.

Yes, really.

People are talking about this because some see it as a recession indicator, others as the next, inevitable conquest of our lives by fintech.

But I want to talk about something deeper, and why this represents a concerning trend we should all recognize and resist.

How buy now, pay later removes the pause before you buy

There is an old Visa commercial where everyone in a mall is happily swiping cards in a consumerist conga line until some poor soul brings the entire operation to a screeching halt by daring to pay with cash. The tagline: "Because money shouldn't slow you down. Life takes faster money."

But hold up Visa. Why shouldn't money slow us down?

Where are we rushing to that's so important we can't be bothered to consider how we spend our money?

For decades, companies have been obsessed with shrinking the gap between wanting something and buying it. Amazon pioneered one-click ordering, then introduced physical ‘Dash’ buttons—little Wi-Fi connected devices you could mount anywhere in your home and press to instantly reorder detergent or paper towels.

The goal is clear: reduce friction, minimize reflection, maximize purchases.

The biggest obstacle to impulsive buying has always been affordability. Credit cards addressed this first, but after watching previous generations struggle with overwhelming credit card debt, many millennials and Gen Z became wary of traditional credit.

Enter Buy Now, Pay Later.

Why splitting a cost into four makes you spend more

Services like Afterpay and Klarna have a simple but effective strategy: take that intimidating price tag and slice it into digestible, seemingly harmless payments. Nearly half of Gen Z now uses some form of BNPL service. In 2025, a whopping 60% of GA ticket holders at Coachella used payment plans to make the trip happen, according to Billboard.

What's happening is the cultivation of a dangerous mindset: if you want something, you should have it immediately. Your in-the-moment desire is framed as your most authentic feeling.

But we all know that's not true. We've all experienced wanting something desperately one day, only to lose interest shortly after purchasing it. That shirt that looked better in the store. That gadget you've used exactly twice.

The marketing around these services is particularly devious. To consumers, they're presented as helpful financial tools offering security, ease, and interest-free financing. Yet on their business pages, they proudly advertise how their users "spend more money on more things more frequently."

How buy now, pay later might affect your credit score

Most buy now, pay later services run a soft credit check, which doesn't affect your score. What's changed is what happens next: Affirm began reporting all its pay-over-time loans, including Pay-in-4, to Experian from April 2025, and the credit bureaus have built standard ways to record these accounts. The loan can now show up on your file where a lender can see it.

Whether it moves your score is a separate question. Experian said at the time that this reporting "will not be factored into consumers' traditional credit scores in the near term." FICO has since released buy-now-pay-later-aware versions of its score, available to lenders from late 2025 — but they run alongside the older models rather than replacing them. So it depends which score a lender pulls.

The part that has always counted: miss enough payments and the debt can go to collections. That shows up everywhere. And getting a debt collection call over a burrito bowl will hurt in more ways than one.

The problem with using Klarna for DoorDash dinners

It was concerning enough when BNPL was used for expensive items like electronics or furniture. But food? Groceries? Who actually wants to put their McDonald's order on a payment plan?

What people truly want isn't installment plans for burritos. They want to spend without stress—to order takeout without timing it to their paycheck or breaking it into payments.

I understand the real challenges behind this trend. The economy is tough, housing is increasingly unaffordable, corporate greed is rampant, and wages haven't kept pace with prices.

If you've used debt to solve an urgent problem, like a medical emergency or a necessary repair, I'm not here to shame you. Sometimes, when you're desperate, you do what you need to survive.

But we need to stop normalizing services that claim to solve financial problems while actually making them worse. Klarna isn't offering real solutions; they're offering what I call "wolf trap ibuprofen."

If you're a wolf caught in a trap, you need a new mindset to free you from the trap. That's the real solution.

What you don't need is someone selling you painkillers that merely mask the pain while you remain trapped. That's exactly what these BNPL services are doing. Offering temporary relief that doesn't address the fundamental problem and may actually make things worse by delaying proper action.

People feel financially trapped, and instead of addressing the root causes (insufficient wages, rising costs, economic inequality), these companies are just making the trap more comfortable while you remain stuck in it.

How to rebuild the pause between wanting and buying

The space between wanting something and buying it is where your values and priorities reveal themselves. In that moment of pause and reflection, you have the opportunity to align your spending with what truly matters to you.

Companies are desperately trying to eliminate this gap because conscious consumers are less profitable than impulsive ones. They want spending to be automatic, thoughtless, and constant.

You don't have to participate in this system. You can be a person of the gap.

This is what we're all about at YNAB: helping you strengthen this gap and navigate it intentionally. That's what it means to get good at money. When you do, your spending begins to reflect your actual values rather than corporate interests. You direct more of your money toward the things, people, causes, and experiences you genuinely care about.

Questions to ask before you use buy now, pay later

Next time you're about to spend money, whether it's on a payment plan for QDOBA or anything else, challenge yourself to broaden that gap just a little more. Ask a few key questions:

• Is this aligned with what matters to me?
• Will this bring lasting value to my life?
• Am I buying this because I want it, or because it's being made easy to get?

If we can build this habit and teach it to our friends, children, and communities, maybe we won't need so much "wolf trap ibuprofen" after all. Maybe instead, we can work toward removing the traps altogether.

The solution isn't another “innovation” to spend money you don't have—it's building up more money margin and spending it in ways that you’ll still be happy about afterwards.

Do you ever worry about money? You're not alone. Download YNAB, get good at money, and never worry about money again. Try YNAB for free for 34 days.