By ADRIANA MORGA

NEW YORK (AP) — Did you buy a new pink dress to watch the Barbie movie, only to never wear it again? An Oura ring because your favorite TikTok influencer had it? A new pair of baggy jeans because ’90s fashion is making a comeback?

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Niche trends fueled by social media can influence your shopping decisions. Participating often brings some happiness and a sense of community, but the problem comes when you do it so often that you’re not using your money to achieve your financial goals, or worse, you get into debt, said Erika Rasure, chief financial wellness advisor for Beyond Finance, a financial services company.

Whether it’s coastal grandma or clean girl aesthetic, microtrends can take a significant toll on already-strained budgets as prices rise and Gen Z struggles to pay off debt.

If you find yourself overspending to participate in microtrends, here are some expert recommendations:

Pause before purchasing

Before you click “buy” on TikTok Shop, it’s best if you take some time to reflect, said Jennifer Seitz, head of education for Greenlight, a financial literacy app for families. Pausing before a purchase can help you discern if the item is something you really want or a fleeting craving.

“Think if you want to put it in a schedule pause, whether it’s 24 hours or even a couple of days if it’s a larger expense,″ Seitz said.

Participating in personal challenges can be a good way to get in the habit of making purchases more deliberate. Back in 2022, Alyssa Barber participated in the no-buy year challenge, where she pledged to stop buying non-essential items for a year.

Barber shares sustainable practices with over 370,000 followers on TikTok, where one of her recurrent themes is how to stop impulse buying. Barber said the challenge gave her perspective on how much she was spending on things she didn’t need. Since then, she has changed her spending habits, focusing mainly on experiences.

Know your spending values

Taking a value-based spending approach can help you decide if you should participate in a trend you see online, Rasure said.

If, for example, you want to build an emergency fund, having this goal in mind while shopping can help avoid unnecessary spending.

Quynh Van, a 27-year-old UX designer from Minneapolis, was surprised by the number of ads on TikTok when she created an account after a four-year break from social media. And while being influenced by the ads is inevitable, she believes overspending comes in part from users not having defined goals.

“When you don’t know who you are or what you like, you’re so driven by over-consumerism and lifestyle creep because you don’t have your values in order,″ Van said.

Rasure recommends using your financial values as a guiding principle for your spending decisions. If you’re not sure of your values, allocate some time to map them out according to your life goals.

Create barriers to spending

If a purchase is one click away, it can make it easier to spend large amounts of money. If you consciously make it a little harder to pay for an item, you can spend more mindfully, Seitz said.

“Just that action of needing to input your payment information rather than just that simple click can help you give to really stop and think about purchases before moving ahead with them,” she added.

To add barriers, you can remove your credit card details from your computer browser or social media and disable Apple Pay on your phone.

Think of it as an act of self-care

Finances are closely tied to emotions, and often, they evoke negative feelings such as shame or guilt. However, reframing them as an act of self-care can help you spend mindfully, Rasure said.

“It can help you create boundaries around what you value spending money on, helps you choose intentionally and it feels more like freedom instead of restriction,″ she said.

Your spending habits in the present can help your future financial situation. This mindset can inspire you when you’re tempted to overspend on the newest trending electronic or fashion item.

Engage with trends with moderation

It can be OK to engage with trends if they bring you positive feelings, Rasure said.

Van decided to participate in the matcha trend, but with moderation. For Barber, physical media, such as old records, DVDs, and cassettes, is on her list of non-negotiable expenses, as she loves collecting these items.

“Trends and engaging them, engaging in them really should spark that happiness or contentment, not the debt that can go with them,” Rasure said.

The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.

Novelist Sinclair Lewis, perched on a balcony of his room overlooking Unter Den Linden, in Berlin, on Jan. 3, 1931. Lewis lived in Berlin while a foreign correspondent there. The 35th Sinclair Lewis writers conference will be held Oct. 4, 2025, in Sauk Centre, Minn. (Associated Press)

The 35th annual Sinclair Lewis writers conference Saturday in Sauk Centre, home of the first American author to win the Nobel Prize, will be bittersweet. Jim Umhoefer, who’s organized and facilitated the event since 1990, is stepping down after moving to Iowa.

The happy news is that this year’s event honoring the author of “Babbitt,” “Main Street,” “Arrowsmith” and more than 50 other books will feature poet/bread baker Danny Klecko as keynote speaker. He will be joined by Leif Enger discussing the joys and need for writing revision, Brenda Hudson explaining how writers can tell their own story, and Lillie Gardner with tips on writing dialogue. Klecko, author of 16 books of poetry, will talk about “Arrowsmith” vs. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” tracing the trajectory of the two novels celebrating their centennial year.

Umhoefer, a travel writer and photographer who has written more than 350 travel pieces published in a wide variety of publications, is proud of the work he’s done as founder of this long-running writers conference and as former president of the Sinclair Lewis Foundation.

“I have gained as much out of the event over the years as anyone,” said Umhoefer, who notes that the conference has hosted some of Minnesota’s best authors. Its aim is to mentor writers, as Lewis did.

“Sinclair Lewis was a mentor and inspiration to many novelists, such as Frederick Manfred and Jack London. His realistic satirical writing style influenced a generation of writers, including Kurt Vonnegut, John Updike and Tom Wolfe,” Umhoefer wrote to the Pioneer Press. He quotes Lewis, who did not view writing as a mysterious or elite process, but rather as hard work: “It is impossible to discourage the real writers — they don’t give a damn what you say, they’re going to write.”

The conference at Sauk Centre high school costs $85, including lunch and breaks. Seniors and college students get in for $80 and high school students attend free. For details, go to sinclairlewisfoundation.org.

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During a recent military parade in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, Russian President Vladimir Putin was caught on a hot mic saying to Xi Jinping, his Communist Chinese counterpart, “Human organs can be continuously transplanted. The longer you live, the younger you become, and (you can) even achieve immortality.” Xi responded: “Some predict that in this century humans may live to 150 years old.”

Currently, there is no credible medical basis to suggest that continual organ transplantation can reverse the aging process, but when the two most important totalitarian leaders in the world consider this prospect, we should listen because there may be more going on than meets the ear. The overtones are ominous, and the conversation takes on added significance in the wake of a report by the United Kingdom’s Daily Telegraph that the Communist Chinese Party, or CCP, is opening six medical facilities for organ transplantation in the Xinjiang autonomous region by 2030.

Xinjiang is set to become the organ transplant destination center for privileged CCP members, wealthy Chinese nationals and well-heeled international clients. Transplant teams of surgeons, anesthesiologists and related medical personnel are being recruited to serve the elite clientele, who will pay exorbitant sums to receive an organ — money added to the coffers of the CCP.

Xinjiang is a large remote area in western China, far from the metropolitan hubs of the East. Why was it selected as the organ transplant center? Likely because of a basic principle of organ transplantation: It is far more efficient to bring organ recipients to where the donor organs are rather than transport organs long distances and risk they will not be serviceable. (This is especially true of perishable key organs such as the lungs, liver and heart.) And Xinjiang is home to large numbers of Uyghurs, a persecuted Muslim minority, who are apparently a convenient source of readily available organs.

At least half a million Uyghurs are estimated to be in prisons or detention centers in Xinjiang and, if reports from international agencies can be believed, they are the victims of forcible organ harvesting — the practice of removing organs from victims without their consent. They will likely become unwilling organ donors serving a burgeoning new medical industry in China. There have been credible reports for over a decade that the CCP has been killing prisoners in this isolated region and removing their organs. Reports suggest that in some cases, the prisoners are still alive when their organs are removed, and some of them may be imprisoned merely as a pretense to securing their organs.

In America, little attention has been paid to the practice of forcible organ harvesting. It was barely noted in the American news media that in May, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2025, imposing sanctions on anyone who takes part in stealing human organs or facilitating forcible organ donation.

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., made it clear this legislation was directed at the CCP and Xi: “Every year under General Secretary Xi Jinping and his Chinese Communist Party, tens of thousands of young women and men — average age 28 — are murdered in cold blood to steal their internal organs for profit or to be transplanted into communist party cadres — members and leaders.”

Consider the enormity of the hot mic conversation between Putin and Xi in Tiananmen Square, which reveals the absurd logical extension and utter barbarity of the totalitarian socialist state. Even the most nefarious villain in a James Bond movie would not consider snatching the organs of a powerless imprisoned minority population. Sometimes, truth really is stranger than fiction.

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It is a chilling proposition, but the organs of the Uyghur prisoners in Xinjiang are not their own; those organs belong to the state. And if the hot mic conversation is any indication, they belong to the venal leaders of the state in their quixotic quest to cheat death.

Dr. Cory Franklin is a retired intensive care physician and the author of“The COVID Diaries 2020-2024: Anatomy of a Contagion as It Happened.” He wrote this column for the Chicago Tribune.

Thought-provoking reading today. A woman with a high-profile job has her life turned upside-down by a stalker and two widows tell of how their husbands died and their ways through grief.

“What Doesn’t Kill Me Makes Me Weirder and Harder to Relate To”: by Mary Lucia (University of Minnesota Press, Nov. 25, $22.95)

Going out to a show was no longer an option. Not knowing who the stalker was or what he looked like — he could be anywhere. And if a mentally unstable person warns you time and again that he’s watching you and knows where you are always, you better believe it. — from “What Doesn’t Kill Makes Me Weirder and Harder to Relate To.”

Mary Lucia (courtesy photo)

Mary Lucia was a popular afternoon drive-time DJ on Minnesota Public Radio’s music station The Current. She prided herself on connecting with listeners by sharing bits of her private life such as her love of animals, and she got great comments. Until 2014, when a package of 10 pounds of raw meat was left at the station with her name on it.  So began Lucia’s terrifying years of escalating harassment, with her stalker leaving cards and other things on her doorstep and sending messages about watching her everywhere and threatening her dogs. He was so brazen that he lurked around her house.

(Courtesy of the University of Minnesota Press)

While Lucia became more frightened, she also had to do her job interviewing rock stars, creating playlists and making public appearances. She became increasingly isolated as her family and even some close friends had a “get over it” attitude or suspected she was delusional or hysterical. And she got no help from police when she called 911. She was incredulous when one officer scolded her for having an illegal lightbulb on her porch, as if that mattered, and wanted to know if she was the stalker’s “type.”

“Paranoid or not, it wasn’t the first time there was some snide inference made based on my appearance,” she writes. “I wasn’t worthy to be stalked. I might have looked a little too punky for them to believe I could be the subject of this unwanted attention. Plus, I was in my early forties, for crying out loud. Expired goods.”

Lucia credits women with taking her seriously, including a police officer and a victims advocate. Still, she was so distraught and angry that she took a seven-month leave of absence from the station where, she writes, she got little sympathy.

Eventually her stalker slipped up, and she found evidence of his identity — Patrick Henry Kelly. There was a trial, widely covered by Twin Cities media, and Lucia was able to give her heartfelt statement in court of how she couldn’t eat or sleep and suffered panic attacks: “My whole sense of self is in question. It has left me feeling powerless.”

Kelly got five years of probation and was ordered to pay restitution. It was, Lucia believes, nothing more than “a slap on the wrist.” The man who wrote her vulgar messages was soon free to stalk a new victim, one of Lucia’s radio colleagues.

Although living in terror is the focal point of “What Doesn’t Kill Me…” Lucia also writes honestly about kicking a drug habit cold turkey and her history of self-harm by cutting. Writing in a snarky/funny style, she includes stories about her very nontraditional family, with two unhappy parents who let the kids raise themselves, as well as an anecdote about how an operating room staff had more trouble removing her belly button ring than doing the actual procedure, and how her dog ate the underside of her couch.

Lucia is now program adviser for Radio K, the University of Minnesota’s student-run radio station. For those not familiar with her musical tastes, she includes in her book the playlist for her last Current show on May 12, 2022. It begins with Keith Richards’ “Take It So Hard,” continues in the middle with T. Rex’s “Hot Love,” and ends with The Rolling Stones’ “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It).”

“In the Evening, We’ll Dance”: by Anne-Marie Erickson (Holy Cow! Press, $18.95)

During Dick’s dementia, my sense of self-esteem seemed distorted, like a reflection in a funhouse mirror. I was thrown off-kilter by fear and bewilderment, as if I, too, were trapped in dementia’s warped mirror. — from “In the Evening, We’ll Dance”

(Courtesy of Holy Cow! Press)

Subtitled “A Memoir in Essays on Love & Dementia,” Erickson gives us an intelligent and thoughtful memoir of how she and her husband, Dick, found ways to live with his dementia after years of happy marriage, and her life after his death. She relates her story to language, philosophy, science of the brain, mythologies and Biblical passages. Her style is poetic, such as her lovely memory of “waltzing” with her husband as they swayed together in his hospice bed.

So many spouses are taking Erickson’s journey now, and her experiences and insight will help anyone who picks up her book.

Erickson, who lives in Grand Rapids, is a freelance writer and college composition instructor with degrees in American studies and English. She will be at Magers & Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Mpls., at 7 p.m. Wednesday in conversation with Patricia Hoolihan, author of “Hands and Hearts Together: Daily Meditations for Caregivers.”

“His Last Breath: A Soldier, His Wife, and the Man Who Died to Save Them”: by Michele Arnoldy (Westbow Press, $16.99)

I often collapsed into God’s presence. I would curl up in our bed, pulling the comforter over me and drawing on my only comforter, Jesus. For several minutes, sometimes hours, the man of sorrows cried with me, our tears combining into huge droplets as Jesus supernaturally comforted me in ways I don’t understand or can explain. — from “His Last Breath”

Michele Arnoldy (Courtesy of the author)

In this faith-based memoir, Michele Arnoldy writes of her and her husband’s struggles to save their marriage as they grew apart. Michelle felt she had married a man of faith but he had changed. Chris was a successful corporate executive when he voluntarily deployed to Afghanistan as a liaison between the U.S. Army and Afghan village leaders. When he returned the couple had to come to terms with his mental issues, including PTSD, depression and anxiety with Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder being the predominant diagnosis. Chris eventually killed himself, leaving Michele to grieve and turn to God to heal. As she writes, “Worship is a weapon to defeat fear.”

The author has spent 18 years helping the spiritual journeys of women as they aged. She is a certified life coach, speaker and leadership trainer.

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