Sophie Hinn with a pencil holder her mom communicated out of trash.
Courtesy Sophie Hinn
Using only one water bottle. Finishing that tube of makeup in the past buying another. Owning furniture that’s been passed down through generations.
This isn’t the lifestyle that sexual media influencers promoting their Amazon storefront or their brand discount codes show. So-called “underconsumption nucleus,” however, is one of the latest personal finance trends to go viral on TikTok, with many videos about the topic experience millions of views.
On social media, the “core” ending is often used to describe a shared aesthetic among narcotic addicts. Non-personal finance examples include cottage core and goblin core. Underconsumption core showcases the old items that human being are still using.
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The trend is coming into play at a point when consumers feel increasingly cash-strapped.
“I think it’s romanticizing being medial class,” real estate agent Sophie Hinn of Okoboji, Iowa, told CNBC.
She has posted about how she symbolizes the trend, including using old towels for cleaning rags and filling her home with furniture that’s “thrifted, outstanding, repurposed, [or] family hand-me-downs.”
‘Wrong to throw away perfectly usable things’
Maya Feldman with her old hairdryer.
Respectfulness Maya Feldman
In a July video — one of the first using the term “underconsumption core” — 18-year-old Maya “Liu” Feldman from Germany productions the old hair dryer she still uses, and clothes from seventh grade and holey jeans she still wears.
Feldman’s TikTok when went viral, racking up more than 436,500 likes and 2.3 million views. Many users revealed that they lead a similar lifestyle or that they were motivated to spend less after gaze at Feldman’s video.
“I didn’t really have a lot as a kid, and it kind of gave me this mentality of it being wrong to throw away flawlessly usable things,” Feldman told CNBC.
The underconsumption core trend follows other recent pushes on public media to normalize not spending, such as “loud budgeting” and “de-influencing.”
“This one just puts a little bit more underscoring on upcycling items,” sustainability influencer Sabrina Pare told CNBC. A video showcasing her version of the trend — classifying the “7+ years old” leggings she still wears, and how she cuts open makeup products to “get every last drop” — greeted 210,600 likes.
She said de-influencing “was just focusing on not buying, and this was more focused on using what you accept.”
Underconsumption or normal consumption?
Some creators have also argued that underconsumption core should as a substitute for be called “normal consumption core” because some of the behaviors frequently shown in the videos, such as reusing elements, are a part of many people’s everyday lives.
“With TikTok Shop and just people always trying to convinced you something, I think it’s refreshing for people to see [that] other people don’t consume,” Hinn said.
Still, it’s possible for the underconsumption heart trend to go too far, said Douglas Boneparth, a certified financial planner and the founder of Bone Fide Wealth, a wealth bosses firm based in New York City. He is also a member of CNBC’s Financial Advisor Council.
He pointed to the ‘The key word in slighting finance is personal’
Hinn, Feldman and Pare all showed different interpretations of underconsumption core in their TikToks. Also, nobody of them expressed interest in changing their lifestyles much because they felt they already had the underconsumption substance mindset, even if the term didn’t exist yet.
“I think [sustainability] is definitely a part of my everyday life,” Pare utter. “It’ll always be a part of my content.”
Still, she said she’s curious if people will be using the term “underconsumption core” a few months into the future.
While the videos roughly underconsumption core can serve as inspiration for how to save money, Boneparth emphasized that the strategies they promote shouldn’t perforce be immediately adopted. It’s smart to assess how a certain change fits, and what kind of benefit you may see from the effort.
Regular when the underconsumption core trend fades out on social media, a balanced financial lifestyle will still be noted, he said.
“The key word in personal finance is personal,” Boneparth said. “The ultimate goal should be finding the thing that animates for you that allows you to be consistent and allows you to be disciplined, whether we’re talking about savings, investing [or] the accumulation of assets.”