This is a guest article on the Aware Blog by researchers Mark Matthews and Oluwadara Adedeji from the UCD Mood and Money Lab on findings from their recent research ‘Manifestations of Mood in Money: Unravelling Financial Behaviours for Passive Assessment in Bipolar Disorder’

Penny is a young woman who sometimes finds herself buying things she does not really need, especially when she is feeling happy and upbeat. At first, these purchases seem harmless – a new outfit, a gadget, a treat for herself. But over time, the spending adds up. Bills become harder to pay, debts begin to grow, and the financial stress starts to affect how she sees herself and functions.

Penny’s story is hypothetical, but the experience is not uncommon. In fact, studies suggest that around 84% of shoppers have made impulse purchases at some point in their lives [1].

Now imagine someone living with a mental health condition that makes it even harder to resist impulses or recognise when their behaviour is changing. What happens when shifts in mood begin to shape spending decisions? Since so much of our financial lives now happen on a screen digitally, how can we design technology that helps people better understand the connection between their finances and mental health, empowering them to take control before small decisions become bigger problems?

Looking Beyond the Surface: The Complex Reality of Bipolar Disorder

Our recent study by researchers at University College Dublin, Ireland, and the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital in Nigeria set out to explore these exact questions. We interviewed 19 people living with bipolar disorder – a mental health condition characterized by periods of extreme high mood (mania/hypomania) and low mood (depression).

All participants reported that changes in their mood affected the way they spent money. One might expect that high moods lead to more spending and low moods lead to less. However, the study revealed a more complex picture.

During periods of elevated mood, participants indeed reported spending more on social activities, everyday essentials, and non-essential purchases. However, some people turned to “comfort spending” during low moods to feel better, while others withdrew from activities and spent less overall.

What drives these spending habits? The reasons were often deeply human. Participants described spending more during elevated moods in search of fun, excitement, and pleasure. Some spent to feel connected to others, gain social acceptance, cope with loneliness, or fill moments of boredom. For others, sleepless nights, generosity, or simply having easier access to money or credit played a role. Seasons such as Christmas and life circumstances also shaped spending decisions.

Yet no two stories were exactly alike. We found that the relationship between mood and money is highly personal, highlighting the need for support and interventions that are tailored to each individual’s experiences and circumstances.

Can Data Help Us Manage Our Wellbeing?

One exciting takeaway from this study is that researchers identified potential “indicators” in banking data that other researchers could use to test these patterns in real-world settings. In the future, these patterns could be used by technology to help flag when a harmful spending cycle might be starting, and even help prevent them.

Considering financial data is highly personal, the researchers asked participants how they felt about sharing it. The response was overwhelmingly positive:

• Most participants (13 out of 19) were willing to share their financial data for research or help with their clinical care.
• An additional 5 indicated willingness, provided privacy safeguards including data minimization, anonymization, and security guarantees.
• Only 1 participant was unwilling to share financial data via APIs, but was willing to share it manually (e.g., via spreadsheets) with full control and understanding of what was shared.

What’s Next?

By engaging with people who have lived experience of bipolar disorder, our study is among the first to turn personal stories about mood and spending into measurable ideas for future research. This approach helps uncover the meaning behind spending habits – insights that traditional statistical measures alone may miss.

More research is needed to test these ideas and explore how they can be used to build technologies that help people like Penny, those living with bipolar, and the wider public manage their money, whatever their mood. 

About this Research:

We’ll be presenteing this research at the 20th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare, in Beijing, China in October 2026.

Find out more about it by visting: https://moodmoney.ucd.ie/ 

We’d like to acknowledge and thank Aware, Shine.ie and the Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative (MANI) for their support during this work.  

In the near future we will be recruiting for a new study to assess the relationship between money and mental health more deeply – you can read more or subribe to our ‘Mood and Money’ Newsletter here.

[1] K. Saleh, “The State of Impulse Buying (Statistics & Trends 2025),” Invesp. Accessed: Jun. 18, 2026. [Online]. Available: https://www.invespcro.com/blog/impulse-buying/

Appendices

Looking Beyond the Surface: The Complex Reality of Bipolar Disorder 

A recent study by researchers at University College Dublin, Ireland, and the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital in Nigeria set out to explore these exact questions. They interviewed 19 people living with bipolar disorder – a mental health condition characterized by periods of high mood (mania) and low mood (depression). 

Every single participant reported that changes in their mood altered the way they spent money. While it’s easy to assume that high moods always lead to overspending and low moods lead to less, the study revealed a much more complex, deeply human picture: 

• During elevated moods: Participants naturally spent more on social activities, non-essential items, and everyday essentials in search of fun, excitement, and pleasure. For some, sleepless nights, a sudden wave of generosity, or simply having easy access to credit cards played a major role. 

• During low moods: The behaviour split. Some turned to “comfort spending” as a way to cope with loneliness, boredom, or to try and feel better. Others completely withdrew from social activities and spent significantly less overall. 

Ultimately, no two stories were exactly alike. The relationship between mood and money is highly personal, highlighting the need for support systems and tools tailored to an individual’s unique life circumstances.

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Empowering people to look after their mental health is an important part of our work at Aware including our Living Well with Bipolar Programme. A free service delivered by a mental health professional, designed to empower participants by deepening their understanding of bipolar and helping to identify personal triggers for mood changes – this programme provides a strong foundation for thriving with bipolar. Registrations for the next course and more details available here. 

For those friends and family supporting a loved one experiencing bipolar or depression, Aware also offers a Family and Friends Support Programme, a psycho-educational programme providing information, understanding and practical support. The free programme aims to equip participants with the tools to better understand and support a loved one, whilst maintaining their own wellbeing. Registration and more information available here.

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Read more resources about Bipolar on the Aware World Bipolar Day page here.