If all your money goes to food delivery- the temptation just got worse.

The Scoop: Doordash plans to offer an ‘Eat Now, Pay Later’ plan for those who’d prefer not to pay upfront for their food. Frankly, I’m not sure what to think.

The Pro: On the one hand, giving people the option to pay for purchases when they’re financially stable enough to do so always sounds great.

The Con: On the other, this is new, easy way to build debt. We are humans living in a digital world. And I’m willing to bet most of us enjoy food – especially when someone else is making it. Let alone hand-delivering it to us, without needing to dirty a single dish.

As someone who orders food delivery 4x per year – and is the dishwasher – I see the appeal. Food delivery is dangerously convenient. (And it’s been my hero when I’ve felt too sick to do anything.)

But if I were a wallet, I’d sound the alarm on this one. When something is that convenient, it becomes addicting if we’re not careful. And it’s not just the cost of the food we need to consider, but the delivery and service fees too.

The Financial Point: Food delivery costs rack up quickly for those of us who order out often. And probably moreso for those of us who have no idea how much we order out.

I also wonder how the economics work out for the businesses that use Doordash. Hopefully this doesn’t take much money away from smaller restaurants, but that would be my first guess.

Takeaway: This shift is likely to help some DoorDashers, while enabling others to make an already bad financial situation worse. I can’t say with certainty how those groups will compare. But in the interest of financial fitness – the whole reason I’m here – let me be the first person on this page to say:

If you’re serious about saving and can avoid this, avoid it. Run for the hills.

Order directly with restaurants where you can. Pick up your own food if that’s within your power. Or if you’re in way too deep with food delivery apps….I’ll lay off on telling you to cut it out. But try setting limits on the number of times you’ll order out in a week or month. It’s at least a start.

And as with any leisurely purchase gang, always aim to spend less than what you have to pay back to the bank. Or in this case, DoorDash.