Loud Budgeting

I missed this new term in personal finance: loud budgeting.

Lukas Battle (Instagram)

Loud budgeting began as a joke, said Lukas Battle, the 26-year-old comedian who coined the term in a December TikTok video after a night of overspending.

When Battle’s friends then messaged him asking to go out to an expensive Italian restaurant in Manhattan’s East Village neighborhood, he proposed they all cook dinner at someone’s house and have a game night instead. It was a riff on “quiet luxury,” the trend of favoring well-made, expensive, but understated fashions.

Battle’s video took off, generating over one million views and more than a thousand comments. Hundreds of people have shared their own examples of how loud budgeting helped them save money.

“People want a break or some sort of relief from this constant need to be spending and buying,” said Battle, who lives in New York.

Loud budgeting has helped some combat the peer pressure to spend.

Madeleine Burke (WSJ)

Madeleine Burke, 26, said her best friend visits the nail salon every two weeks for a manicure and pedicure. The last time Burke went with her, she paid $45 for a pedicure and instantly regretted the decision.

“I cannot believe I paid for that and I could’ve done it at home,” said Burke, who lives in New Orleans. The next time she was asked, she felt more comfortable declining. She credits loud budgeting with helping change how she approaches spending.

Burke said her friends now host more potlucks at each other’s homes and go secondhand shopping together.

Your humble blogger admits that during his career he yielded to social pressure by going on expensive outings that he didn't want and couldn't afford--or, to be more accurate, could pay for if he defunded activities that had a higher priority (e.g., retirement savings, replacing a 15-year-old car).

If proclaiming publicly that you don't have the dough gets your non-wealthy status out in the open, that's a welcome improvement over "my spouse and I have other plans" or "we can't find a babysitter." Any friends you may lose aren't really your long-term friends anyway.