Would You Delete BNPL for a Month? A Summer Spending Detox

It’s an overused term but Buy Now Pay Later, or BNPL, has been a game changer for the modern payment processing world. The ability to make an initial payment to a merchant, and then pay back a BNPL provider has given millions of consumers around the world greater flexibility with their transactions. This has continued to further remove friction from people’s transactions, and helped changed perceptions around affordability and budgeting.

At Cardaq, we’ve written about BNPL before but have we become too reliant on this? Is this making us spend more? And do we need to take a step back? Therefore we decided to see how a heavy BNPL user would go without using the app for a month.

A month without BNPL

I recently carried out a similar challenge for Cardaq, using only cash for a week and shunning my cards and devices in the process. However, a different approach was needed as I haven’t used a BNPL service before.

These solutions have millions of users around the world from all walks of life, but I’m not one of them. I’m in my mid-thirties, have a mortgage and - not to put too finer point on it - but I can afford all purchases that come way and I’m fortunate enough to be able to save money each month.

Therefore I turned to Sam, my 19 year old cousin. Sam is at university studying marketing, but he’s back for the summer and working a part-time job at the local pub. He regularly uses BNPL for his transactions, so I knew he’d be the perfect test subject for a BNPL-free month.

Sam was nervous about the weeks ahead and with good reason. Like millions of people aged 18-30 in the UK, his finances aren’t the sturdiest. For this reason, 3 in 5 people who are Gen Z have used BNPL before. [JY1] Sam’s income is low, given he can only work part-time jobs (such as the pub shifts during the summer or Deliveroo work when he’s back at university) and he is up against significant costs. Inflation has made his rent at university more expensive, along with the bills, utilities, study materials and everything else that comes with it. That’s before we get to the things he wants to spend money on – socialising with friends, concerts, holidays and so forth. Feeling bad for my young cousin, I told him if he absolutely needed to – emphasis on “needed” – he could use his BNPL apps, but he had to tell me first.

Lessons from a BNPL-free month

In that month, my cousin had to make his usual expenses – rent, bills and utilities – which took a big chunk out of his finances. This left him with little and it didn’t help that summer is a time of high spending, when people are booking holidays, going to festivals and generally making the most of the great weather.

After those big expenses, Sam had to rely on picking up more shifts at the pub to boost his finances. Day-to-day living (fuel, food etc) wore these down as quickly as the money came in and my cousin ended up having to use his BNPL app three times in the month for emergencies – once to order some online texts he needed for an urgent essay, and twice for petrol payments for his car.

In the spirit of the experiment, Sam had considered other options first – from budgeting apps to credit cards – but these could only do so much. My cousin could have gained a credit card in that month, and the provider he dealt with promised him a card with a healthy balance within a few days of applying, but upon further reading the charges were eye-wateringly high.

BNPL and our attitudes to money

Reflecting on this month, and Sam told me it hadn’t been the most fun time but it had forced him to review his spending. In the same way my cash-only week had made me really think about purchases, and if I needed to make them or not, the same impact was had on Sam as he went cold-turkey with BNPL. Before, the wonders of BNPL had allowed him to buy and spend with extreme flexibility. My cousin isn’t frivolous with money, but he told the month without using BNPL had really made him stop and consider the transactions he was making and – more importantly – the role they played in his wider personal finances.

BNPL is heavily used by many younger people simply because they have to. Worryingly, a study found that young people are 77% more likely to have suicidal thoughts due to money than older people. [JY2]

My cousin is ok, but Sam is still very anxious when it comes to money. He works numerous jobs because he has to and he’s trying not to think about how he’ll clear his student loans when he graduates. BNPL isn’t anything new and neither is the challenges its users are up against it.

Sam is already aware of his finances, but it is worth wondering how many other BNPL users are in this situation and if something is being lost through the ultra-flexibility and convenience that BNPL is affording them. BNPL is a great tool, but like anything maybe it shouldn’t be relied upon.

[JY1]https://www.finder.com/uk/buy-now-pay-later/buy-now-pay-later-statistics

[JY2]https://www.communicatemagazine.com/news/2025/brands-contribute-to-money-worries-among-young-adults/#:~:text=Young%20people%20are%2077%25%20more,these%20figures%20are%20deeply%20concerning.%22