3 Financial Decisions You Make After 8 p.m. That You’ll Regret
There’s an old saying that nothing good happens after midnight.
In December 2025, a neurosurgeon named Dr. Brian Hoeflinger insisted in a Facebook video that the saying is based in truth — and that it should extend to earlier in the evening, when alertness wanes and emotions soar as the brain processes the day’s events.
This is never truer than when it comes to important financial decisions, which are almost always wiser to sleep on.
Avoid making these money moves after 8 p.m.
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Shopping Online
It was probably for the best that most stores closed at night during the analog era because, while the 24/7 accessibility of e-commerce is convenient, it invites bad choices after dark — and spontaneous night splurging is an old habit that the United States just can’t seem to break.
In 2016, Forbes reported on a strange new trend of impulsive, want-based purchasing after dark, as more than one in three online shoppers were then placing orders in the wee hours. The later it got, the more regrettable the purchase tended to be, with popular examples including:
Nic Cage as Mona Lisa iPhone cases
Taxidermied alligator heads
Life-sized gremlins
Horse masks
That was 10 years ago, and in the ensuing decade, online shopping has only become more accessible, while advertisers have mastered the art of getting you to click the buy button impulsively just before bed.
Picking Individual Stocks
When reading about the day’s red-hot biotech stock that gained 40% in a single trading session while scrolling your phone in bed at night, it’s easy to imagine yourself driving a Ferrari when you retire at 35 — but only if you liquidate your exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and go all-in on that penny stock that you’re sure is going to be the next Amazon.
You’d be better served by listening to your morning brain, which picked your slow but steady index fund.
In 2017, investment guru Warren Buffett famously won a $1 million bet that the hedge-fund industry couldn’t outperform a low-cost S&P 500 ETF over 10 years — and it wasn’t a fluke decade.
In 2025, CNBC and S&P Global reported that nearly three out of four professional fund managers underperform the market, 95.5% miss the target after five years, and after 15 years, none do better than they would have with a boring index fund.
Quitting Your Job
Your racing night brain might insist that you’re worth more than you’re paid, that your company undervalues you and that you should have been promoted long ago — and it may be right. However, J.P. Morgan’s 2026 labor forecast warns that the current cooling job market is swelling the ranks of the unemployed as hiring tightens and competition for ever-scarcer jobs increases.
It’s always wise to keep your job until you have a guaranteed offer in hand, even during the best of times.
In 2022, during the post-pandemic Great Resignation era, when a historically labor-friendly market had employers competing to raise wages and increase bonuses and benefits, Forbes cautioned workers to stay put until they had another job lined up.
Those who didn’t were likely to find that long pay gaps during extended job searches, reduced bargaining leverage and subtle hiring discrimination against the unemployed were worse than their current boss — no matter how hard their overactive nighttime minds tried to convince them otherwise.
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This article was provided by MoneyLion.com for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial, legal or tax advice.
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