TThink of all the money you wasted out of sheer embarrassment. £750 weekend in Ibiza You felt compelled to attend, because no one else seemed to have raised an eyebrow at spending a month’s rent on a 48-hour trip to the Balearic Islands. The time you agreed to split the restaurant bill, even though you ordered a salad while everyone else was eating steak. Now imagine if you… explained your cash flow situation and said “no.” Editing, right?
That’s the rationale behind the “buzz budget,” a concept coined by TikTok creator Lukas Battle. It’s all about being vocal about your financial constraints and prioritizing your savings goals (instead of spending money through gritted teeth on things you know you won’t enjoy). “It’s not that I don’t have enough, it’s that I don’t want to spend,” Patel said in his original post. “It was supposed to be a silly idea that would allow people financial transparency without feeling embarrassed,” the New York-based comedian later said. Evening standard.
This “ridiculous idea” certainly resonated (perhaps because Patel was merely expressing a sentiment we’ve probably all felt at some point). His video has now been viewed 1.4 million times on TikTok, and has prompted a slew of creators to share their tips on how best to bring up those awkward conversations and talk openly about your budget limits with people close to you; #loudbudgeting has 10.8 million views and is app-based. “It’s a very general declaration of what you plan to do with your money,” says Paula Saul, a financial advisor and author of the book “The Way to Go.” How to save it. “People have gotten over a mentality of silence when discussing their money, because it hasn’t always been in their best interest… a noisy budget represents setting boundaries.”
It’s all too easy to scoff at the endless stream of TikTok “trends,” which generate endless digital inches but don’t always flow from the online world into real life. But this (loudly) speaks volumes about the change in attitudes towards spending. Of course, reducing and carefully monitoring the budget is nothing new. For many of us, it’s the only way to stay out of the red between paydays — and yet, thanks to our collective sense of social awkwardness when it comes to talking openly about money, it’s never been something people proudly announce. Perhaps we were afraid that our wealthy friends would call us “stingy.” Now, though, thrifting has become something widely celebrated online, from saying “no” to those expensive social events to screaming about the deals you found on Vinted. Once your social media pages were exclusively filled with influencers encouraging you to spend, spend, spend on expensive cosmetics or fashion pieces; In 2024, you’ll also likely see quick clips run through easy ways to budget, for example, or cool infographics breaking down someone’s monthly spending. There are a lot of apps that have turned saving into a game, trying to make it something fun and not just a drag.
Financial coach and author Claire Sell is the founder of the Instagram account @myfrugalyear, which she created in 2019 to document her progress in eliminating credit card debt. She welcomes the move from over-the-top get-rich-quick advice online to more real and honest conversations. “It’s nice to see people talking about the sadder side of money, the messier side of it, rather than ‘how to make a million pounds in one day,'” she says. “A lot of people are having to cut back on their expenses, and every time I’m a little vulnerable [about money] with me [online] Society, it seems to be very comfortable for them to say, “Yes, that’s me too!” …People are desperate to talk about it. Rajan Lakhani, who works in a financial management app, adds that posting online can help create a sense of responsibility. Respectable job. “When you speak out in public and talk about budget noise, you put yourself in an awkward position — and that’s often a trick people use to make sure they follow through,” he says. “Once you say, ‘Look, I’m going to do something,’ it adds that extra motivation.”
This is, of course, a change largely rooted in necessity. No one will forget that we are currently mired in a generational cost-of-living crisis, which has seen energy prices rise and inflation jump to its highest rates since the 1980s. according to research From think tank The Solution Foundation, real wages (earnings adjusted for inflation) will not return to early 2022 levels until the end of 2027, while the Office for Budget Responsibility said He warned of a decline of 3.5 percent in living standards compared to the pre-pandemic period – this is the biggest decline since the Office for National Statistics began keeping records in the 1950s. “It’s that daily agony of having to keep an eye on the pennies — that everyone has to share in,” Seale points out.
The trend towards saving appears to be particularly evident among younger generations. a 2022 survey by PWC It found that 18- to 34-year-olds were dealing with concerns about rising living costs in “more pronounced ways” than older people, with 42 per cent planning to save money more, compared to 27 per cent of all adults. 38% plan to learn more about personal finance. “When we take a step back and look at Generation Z and to some extent Millennials as well, we find that they received less support from the state than other generations,” Lakhani says. “They have to spend more on college tuition and more on housing. So I think when we talk about these budget trends, a lot of it is born out of necessity… [Young people] “They have to do a lot for themselves.”
Louise Millar, Strategy Director at a marketing agency focused on Generation Z seed, Approves. “There is a much greater focus on good financial health from Gen Z,” she says. “They’re in a bad spot right now with the cost of living and they certainly know that some of those lifestyle milestones” — buying a home in their 20s or 30s, as their parents might do, for example — “are way out of the way.” Plus, she continues, “They’ve seen some of the mistakes that millennials made in the last recession [in 2008] Like credit card debt and 100 percent mortgages…they basically know that there are no guarantees for them at all. No record forecast [they] A lot of different things in life can be completely removed. So there is this complete change in attitude. She adds that many of them have a DIY spirit when it comes to filling in the gaps in their financial education. “And they share it with each other, because they believe in a much more democratic system.”
Hence the boom in economics-related advice on TikTok, demystifying finances. “For Gen Z tech natives, information that was previously inaccessible or cost money is now freely available online, and anyone can learn about investing or saving,” says Alice Crossley, Foresight Analyst at Trends. Future laboratory. “If you grow up with a group of creative people who are open about the way they budget, you’ll end up becoming entrenched in that,” adds Leah Karam, a behavioral scientist at Harvard University. behavior. “So, if a member of your friend group starts saying, ‘You know, I started. [turning down plans to save money]Others find it more natural. While millennials? We are used to hiding everything and anything [to do with money]She cites the example of her younger brother, who is 20. He said no to a friend’s trip to Amsterdam because he wanted to make sure he had enough money next year to do things that would give him more happiness, quote unquote… [Gen Z] They are not afraid of judgement.”
The prevalence of financial advice can be a double-edged sword: a 90-second video can’t always highlight all the nuances of an important topic like investing, while not all content creators will be qualified to give advice. Seale warns that an over-emphasis on saving at all costs is not always helpful or realistic. “Being very frugal is something people enjoy a lot. There’s an aspect of it where it’s something that people wear as a kind of badge of honour, how little they can spend, and that goes with all those ‘no-spend challenges’.” [on social media] Which I also find to be a huge problem. I’ve previously described such challenges (where people pledge to go a certain period of time without buying anything) as the financial equivalent of a “crash diet”, risking a troubled relationship with money.
She points out that the shame we often feel about our finances can be deep-rooted: It’ll likely take more than just a flurry of chatter on social media to get rid of it completely. “On an individual level, I talk to a lot of people whose life situations have changed. [But] On a societal level, I think there are still a lot of big stigmas around being “mean” or indebted. And they are still there. It’s just a case of chopping and dicing, and then maybe one day the whole thing will fall apart. For this reason, she believes that “the trends in which people start to open up and talk about how things really are for them… [are] Just something good.” So, the next time your friend tells you he can’t go out for drinks at that place you both know is a scam, don’t roll your eyes and make him feel bad: Maybe talk about something fun you could do instead. And definitely not You feel bad about answering the invitation with a “no” to the expensive chicken you do (you won’t regret it).