By Mara Mellits
Sabrina DaSilva spends about $60 a month at coffee shops even though she has a coffee machine at home and can get her caffeine fix for free at work, she said.
“Sometimes you need that little pick-me-up,” said DaSilva, 23, who works in finance.
She estimates she spends $500 to $600 a month going out to dinner and another $500 a month traveling. She tries not to feel guilty about how much she spends. But her habits are in line with others of her generation.
About 87 percent of Gen Z — people between the ages of 18 to 28 — say they are willing to spend money on nonessential items, like streaming services, dining out, and fitness memberships, no matter the state of their finances, according to a new poll. The Harris Poll questioned 2,074 US adults for Intuit Credit Karma, a personal finance platform.
The poll found that 74 percent of Gen Z-aged people said they were willing to cut back on non-essential spending if their financial situation worsened. That compares with 82 percent of millennials, 86 percent of Gen X, and 87 percent of baby boomers.
At the same time, more than half of Gen Z members say they are struggling to make ends meet, yet a majority buy themselves a small treat, such as a pastry, coffee, or sweet, at least once a week. That can lead to overspending, according to a new study of more than 1,000 people done for Bank of America.
Shikha Jain, partner and head of consumer North America at Simon-Kucher & Partners, a global consulting firm with an office in Boston, said Gen Zers spend more on experiences outside the home, such as dining out or travel. This could be due to two reasons, she said: young people can’t afford to buy homes, and social media has made travel more alluring.
The average age of a homeowner is now 38, up from 35 in 2023, according to the National Association of Realtors. Because fewer young people are buying homes, they have more to spend on experiences, Jain said.
“Gen Z does face more economic uncertainty than their older peers,” Jain said. “They tend to live paycheck to paycheck, [and] have more student debt than millennials.”
Psychology might also explain the spending. Doom-spending, or purchasing nonessential items in order to cope with unpleasant feelings, is also trendy among Gen Z, Jain said. It’s easily done, because they can buy anything at the touch of their fingertips on a phone, she said.
Greg Stoller, a master lecturer at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, said Gen Z “tends to have an impulse, on-demand approach to almost everything.”
“You see something that you like, or if you’re hungry, you just buy it, and you don’t even have to take out a credit card anymore,” Stoller said. “You swipe your phone or swipe your watch and, voila, it’s yours.”
DaSilva, the finance professional, said she’s learned how to budget through her job. Working in that industry has taught her what percentage of her paycheck to put toward expenses. She said she budgets 50 percent of her pay toward rent, bills, and food — the essentials. Another 12 percent to retirement and 5 percent towards savings.
Connor Morrow, 25, of Boston, has a TikTok account where he shares financial advice and budgeting content. A typical video of his shows how much he spends on groceries, rent, dining, health, transportation, and shopping. In one video, he shows what he spent in September — almost $1,400 on rent, $280 on household supplies, $110 on transportation, $225 on groceries, $715 on dining out, $340 on health/medical, and $460 on miscellaneous expenses.
He started making the videos because he found the tallying helpful and said transparency was important.
“There are always comments I get critiquing what I spent this month,” Morrow said. “I think that’s sort of a sign that people do want to see some fairly transparent, fairly open, but realistic information out there.”
This article was originally published on October 31, 2025.