Mental accounting posits that people track their expenditures using cognitive categories of “mental accounts.” The authors propose that this cognitive process can be complemented by an approach that examines how feelings about a sum of money,or the money’s “emotional tag,” influence its consumption.When people receive money under negative circumstances,this tag can include a negative affect component,which people show up contradictory behaviors in strategic consumption.The authors investigate two such strategies,hedonic amplification and hedonic avoidance,and demonstrate their effect on consumption of windfalls.The authors find that people prefer spending more negatively tagged windfalls on hedonic expenditures because of mood regulation effect in short time,while people avoid spending negatively tagged windfalls on hedonic expenditures because of moral or guilty in long time.Further discuss the mechanism of hedonic amplification and hedonic avoidance in negative windfalls.