You buy something you don't need, and then you wonder why. According to psychologist Esther Boadas, director of the Sukha center, the answer rarely lies in the thing you're buying - but in what you feel in the moment before you buy it.

"Behind an impulsive purchase we often find fatigue, loneliness or a need for self-care," Boadas says. Buying, eating, even getting a tattoo can function as a way to regulate emotions when a person lacks other tools to cope with strong feelings. Sometimes the object really does mean something - a memory, an identity, a lived experience. Other times it's just escape.

Boadas also debunks a myth circulating on social media - that highly sensitive people spend more money than others. The scientific evidence doesn't bear that out. What some people have is a need for stronger stimuli to hold their attention, but that doesn't automatically mean an empty account at the end of the month.

The real problem, she says, appears when buying becomes a systematic outlet - when, every time you're empty, bored or overwhelmed, you reach for the card. Her advice isn't to control the behavior by force, but to understand it: to recognize which emotion stands behind the urge before acting on it. Sometimes the smartest purchase is the one you didn't make - because you paused for a minute and asked yourself what you actually need.