Loud budgeting: Influencers buck big-spending trend

Social media trends tend to focus on holidays, partying and dining out - it's all about spending money to feel good. But some influencers are encouraging their followers to save money instead.

American comedian and influencer Lukas Battle went viral at the beginning of 2024 for promoting the idea of loud budgeting.

It was all about being vocal with your financial decisions.

Lara Meyer from New Zealand finance site Sorted said while loud budgeting requires some courage it was good for your bank account in the long run.

"There's always gonna be times in life when we need to make the decision that 'actually, I can't afford this', and it does take a little bit of courage."

"I'm in that situation at the moment. My dear friends are all planning a trip to Japan to go skiing in January. I thought that my husband and I would be able to go, but realistically I don't like debt, so I'm not going to put it on a credit card.

"So I've had to say to people 'I just don't think we can afford to come. I'm not going to put myself under financial pressure to come with you. We will have a lovely holiday in New Zealand'."

Napier woman Rachel Leutele started her Instagram page The Savvy Saver to share budgeting techniques with her friends.

"The first book that I ever read was The Barefoot Investor, and that was the first kind of book that set up my budgeting journey, that kind of taught me a little bit about my mindset and why I wanted to do what I wanted to do."

"One of my friends actually said 'you should just post this on social media and try and help people'. So I did and it kind of just blew up from there."

But six years ago, she had no clue about saving money.

In 2018 she was working as a lawyer and had just tied the knot with her partner, who was studying at the time.

The newlyweds moved in with family and paid $130 a week in board.

"For the first, I think three years of our marriage, we lived with my parents in Hamilton. I had just finished uni, I had been admitted to the bar. We had absolutely no savings.

"We did not know what we were doing. We wasted all of our money."

Not long after that, Leutele became pregnant, and had to quit her job due to health issues.

"I was diagnosed with this thing called hyperemesis gravidarum, which is just debilitating sickness. You just spew pretty much the whole time. So obviously I had to quit my job. My husband had to quit study and he ended up getting a full time job."

The couple's financial troubles began in 2021 when she was expecting her second child and they had to move to Napier because of her husband's job.

Suddenly they found themselves in a new city having to pay rent and bills and were thousands of dollars in debt.

"When we moved to Napier, we managed to come up with a bond and we started renting.

"We had $20,000 in debt and we were kind of just trying to figure out how can we survive on one income so that I can continue to be a stay-at-home mum."

That's when she decided they needed a budget.

"I tried a few different methods but nothing really worked for us as a one income family, because what I found was that a lot of the advice was make more money or spend less, but that is very hard to do when you were on one income."

"I was kind of forced into figuring out a way that worked for us so that I could stay home because at that time, making more money wasn't an option for us."

Three years later Leutele and her husband had managed to pay off their debt and were on track to buy their first home.

She said it was all thanks to the 'zero-based budget' method

"The zero-based method is all of our money gets pulled into one account and on payday I allocate every single dollar."

"They call it 'allocate every dollar a job', and so you essentially move all of that money out of that account into different accounts."

"I split out income into a bills account, a car maintenance account, our family fund account, [and] kids needs, so that the account that our money essentially went into is now zero at the end of payday, but all of our other accounts are now topped up with money."

Meyer at Sorted was keen on the method.

"I like her idea. I mean, that's kind of what I do, you know, I know what my utilities are. There's not money just washing around it. It's committed utilities or mortgage or rent, or I'm paying it into a savings account or into KiwiSaver or into a clothing fund - it's allocated."

There are a whole range of budgeting styles proving popular on social media.

Financial advisor William Tieu had nearly 100,000 followers on his TikTok account, The Financial Engineer.

One method he recommended is 50-30-20, needs, wants and savings.

"The 50-30-20 rule is you take your income, and 50 percent of it goes towards needs, so this is your housing, petrol, all the things that you basically need to live.

"Thirty is your wants - coffee, going out to eat, entertainment and then the remaining 20 percent will go towards either savings or setting up an emergency fund."

Tieu said anyone wanting to start budgeting should take stock of their income and spending as a first step.

"The easiest thing that most people can do is print out three months of your statement, because that's where your pay goes in.

"Highlight your income and then highlight all the expenses and then you'll quickly figure out where your money's going, cause a lot of people don't actually know where the money's going. They're just spending like crazy."

But he said the most important step is to set a goal before you start.

"With any budget, the only reason it would work is if there's a purpose behind it, otherwise it's just numbers and you just won't stick to it."