Avoid Emotional Spending. Emotional spending occurs when you buy something you don’t need as a result of feeling stressed out, bored, under-appreciated, incompetent, unhappy, or any number of emotions. There is nothing wrong with purchasing something you like from time-to-time, but avoid getting in debt in order to ease or satisfy an emotion. Ask yourself, what can I do right now to relax myself besides going shopping and making impulse purchases? Learning to recognize and control emotional spending is an important part of being E.I.