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No-Buy Months, Doom Spending & Impulse Buying—Is Gen Z Buying In?

Gen Z is participating in financial trends like doom spending and impulse buying, but it’s not as straightforward as recent headlines make it seem…

Written and Edited by the YPulse Editorial Team

Apr 8 2025
North America

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Nearly half of young adults admit to doom spending, shopping to cope with stress about the state of the world
With one-click checkouts making it easier to shop online, the majority of Gen Z are impulse buying (something YPulse predicted!)
On the other hand, some are trying “no spend” challenges to reset their habits and take back control from overconsumption

People have a lot of questions about how Gen Z is really doing financially right now —especially when every headline seems to say something different. Are they “loud budgeting” and flexing their frugality? Are they barely scraping by and struggling to save for emergencies? Are they genuinely sticking to those “no spend” challenges that keep popping up on TikTok? Plus, these viral terms and posts don’t necessarily mean Gen Z is spending or saving in any particular way; they’re more about how they view and talk about their finances in a world where every moment feels like a potential sale or a financial crisis. To get a clearer picture, in YPulse’s Finance / Spending Monitor report, we ask 13-39-year-olds directly to see which viral saving and spending habits they’re actually taking part in. Since teens aren’t usually managing their money fully yet and Millennials have had more time to find their financial footing, we decided to focus on 18-24-year-olds—young adults who are just getting started in their careers, and...