Generation Z, born roughly between 1997 and 2012, aren’t all just kids anymore. In fact, many thousands of you now use Wallet by Budgetbakers to track your finances, set savings goals, and analyze your spending habits.
If you’re a “Zoomer,”, you’re entering adulthood amidst rising living costs, soaring student-loan burdens, and unprecedented digital transformation. Many of you will never be asked to do many of the things that previous generations took for granted. Balancing a checkbook, cashing a paycheck, talking to a stock broker, or even visiting a traditional bank branch. This situation creates a strange conundrum for your generation. You are the most digitally savvy and connected generation ever, and yet for all the information and tools at your fingertips and all the processing power on your smartphone, you won’t have the physical and psychological touchpoints that previous generations used to gain financial literacy. You may, like a great many of us, barely even handle physical currency anymore.
It’s a popular sport in the media these days to bash Zoomers for their perceived lack of work ethic. Of course, those millennials reading this – born roughly between 1981 and 1996 – will note that they too were once the targets of such attacks. Yet recent research on financial and consumer data in Europe and America paint a more nuanced picture of Zoomer finances. You face tremendous hurdles, but you also demonstrate surprising strength in the face of a rapidly changing world.
This post draws on empirical surveys and market research to unpack five key financial challenges and the opportunities imply for Gen Z.
Saving for the Future
The old discourse about younger consumers wasting their money on $10 mache lattes and avocado toast are history. The data suggests that both Gen Z and millennials are growing their savings and even feeling good about their progress. In fact, some reports even suggest that there is a trend of “revenge saving” among Zoomers. This trend is driven by your generation’s frustration with rising tariffs, and unjust criticism from your seniors. It’s also connected with the perception that consumerism and e-commerce are having a negative effect on your lives.
“No Buy challenges” and new software tools that can block ecommerce apps and websites on phones are increasingly widespread. It’s as if Zoomers are turning the technology that is driving big business against itself. They’re coming out ahead with higher savings rates and more reported satisfaction with their finances. New data on Gen Z finds that 82% are happy with the amounts they’re saving– higher than other current generations. The same report found that over half of Gen Z are optimistic about their financial future and future earning power.
The report concluded that Zoomers value transparency and peer-driven accountability more than older generations. 83% are open to discussing their savings with peers and family. Sharing your experiences and goals makes you feel less alone in their struggles. You’re less likely to feel a sense of failure in the face of setbacks. Far from the “snowflake generation:” you are resilient and prepared.
Questioning The Investment of College
In another stunning turnaround, over half of Zoomers now question whether college is worth the investment. Zoomers see the effects of long-term student loan debt on their seniors. Zoomers are thinking about college sooner than previous generations as well. 61% in the US now start their college planning as early as the 10th grade. But at the same time, there is a growing perception that a degree is less valuable. AI tools are highly prevalent in the classroom (and doing many students’ homework assignments for them). After all, how much value will employers put on degrees, if they know that many students no longer do the bulk of the work that it takes to get those degrees?
It would seem that the earlier drive toward e-learning and blended learning in college courses has backfired. It’s causing Zoomers to realize that the “college experience” is no longer much different from staring at a computer screen. The COVID-19 pandemic especially changed the way Zoomers evaluated the spiraling cost of a college education. According to the above study by Indeed, 38% of Zoomers think that their college degree’s positive impact on their careers doesn’t justify the cost of their student debt.
Colleges were quick to embrace the money and time saving advantages of distance learning. Yet the cost of education has only risen, despite those savings. Colleges will be slow to backtrack and find ways to ensure that students are really doing their work, let alone getting a college experience that is worth as much as a down payment on a large home. This problem is largest in the US. There, tuition at universities has skyrocketed by nearly 40% in the last 15 years. They’ve risen 200% (inflation adjusted) since 1963, when today’s boomer generation was first thinking about college.
Big companies like Netflix have tried to calm the fears that Ai is coming for your jobs. But the data suggest that Zoomers just aren’t buying it. They question whether tech CEOs like Netflix’s Ted Sarandos really believe, as he says, that “Ai is more of an amplifier than a pink slip.” They claim increasing engagement with Ai in the workforce won’t make Zoomers irrelevant and unable to find jobs at all. Zoomers’ suspicion seems justified in the face of real events. a
Recent experience from those same companies largely confirms these fears. Big tech companies have been laying off workers while blaming Ai. Some suggest that these layoffs are motivated by the desire to hire cheaper labor. They argue that the demand for workers isn’t dropping as fast as it seems. Many companies now threaten to lay off workers who “can’t be retrained for the age of Ai.” So is it any wonder Zoomers are skeptical?
But there may be a silver lining to digitalization. Today’s Zoomers are more able now than ever to find programs that they feel still have value. Colleges know that price comparisons are becoming more important, as college debt becomes more of a concern.
Financial Planning
Recent data suggest that previous generations, particularly Millennials and Gen X, feel they’re falling behind on the savings and financial planning goals they have set for themselves. But Gen Z are more optimistic.
M&G, a savings and investment firm in Britain, found that Zoomers there were twice as likely to feel good about their financial future than Gen X, who are now in their mid-life, and considering their plans for retirement. Reports from the US paint a similar picture. Zoomers report higher levels of stress related to finances than their counterparts in the UK and Europe. But American Zoomers still save at a rate higher than any other generation. Older Zoomers feel much more optimistic about the future than their peers. This could suggest that the older cohort of Gen Z feels more prepared for the world they’re entering. Younger Gen Z are still feeling shaken by the effects of large events like the recent pandemic.
Our experience at Budgetbakers has generally confirmed this trend. Gen Z users of Wallet by Budgetbakers seem to embrace financial planning and thinking about the future much more readily than older generations. This is driving higher adoption of financial planning tools like Wallet. This is happening even among young students who don’t yet have a large income to start saving with.
Understanding the Financial System
There’s another area where Gen Z seem more savvy than past generations. It’s choosing who to listen to when it comes to their money. Only 17% of Zoomers cite financial advisors as a primary source of advice. This may well be because experts have so often been wrong about the future during the lives of today’s young people. As the world has lurched from one crisis (like the 2008 housing bubble) to another (like Covid-19), expert advice has been generally all over the place when it comes to predicting or planning for such events.
It’s fashionable to paint all Zoomers as members of a terminally online generation. You’re identified with members of the infamous “WallStreetBets” finance community that disrupted the whole stock market by making speculative investments in the company GameStop and other stocks in the midst of the pandemic in 2020. But those so called “YOLO” investors and cryptocurrency speculators are actually a tiny minority of this generation. And what they did can better be understood as a form of protest, than an investment strategy.
The experience of “meme” stocks clearly demonstrated the power of consumers to drive financial events. This gave many Zoomers an education in the workings of the stock market that previous generations never really got. Popular films like The Big Short (based on the hit book by Michael Lewis) have popularized complex narratives about finance and business. This has gotten a whole generation interested in the broader implications of the stock market.
Online stock trading platforms have continued to proliferate. While this has mixed implications for the financial health of some (particularly those susceptible to gambling addiction), it opens up a complex world of high-level finances to many Zoomers, who use small amounts or even virtual stock tracking tools like those available from Budgetbakers to learn more about the financial system.
Marriage and Family
In one area of life, Zoomers do seem to be falling behind, or at least adopting entirely different priorities. That area is the process of marriage, starting a family, and growing their finances with a partner.
It seems intuitive that all the events and trends we’ve discussed here, from COVID-19 to the 2008 housing crisis, to the tariff shocks and the rapid adoption of Ai, along with spiraling costs of living and college, are having a profound impact on your desire to get married and start a family. Many in the media write pieces that target Zoomers for supposedly “killing” institutions and traditions that previous generations once valued. But the truth is that Zoomers are reacting in a very natural way to uncertainty about the future. Perhaps there is even a growing certainty that the future will not be as bright as was once promised.
Yet at the same time, marriage and wealth pooling is an absolutely essential way in which people establish themselves with stable finances. Marriage is often part of a prosperous future and a comfortable retirement. The Gen Z focus on “experiences” is well known, but underlying that is a realization that previous generations, now mostly married and with families, are seriously struggling to maintain their lifestyles and save for the future in an uncertain job market and a rapidly changing digital landscape. Zoomers suspect that political uncertainty and unrest may well grow. Starting a family or buying a home is a huge commitment. It may not pay off in the way some assume it will.
The data continues to suggest that marriage and family is generally a good idea on the individual level. It’s definitely a benefit to society in the long run. After all, if Zoomers envision retiring themselves in 30-40 years, they will need a generation coming up behind them who can provide the support and the economic stability they’ll need to enjoy that retirement. Starting a family is never certain to lead to a better future. But if no-one does start families, then the future is likely to be even more uncertain.
This is why Zoomers, more than previous generations, need fundamental reforms that will encourage and reward marriage and families. This includes non-traditional relationships that nevertheless establish a more solid foundation for the future.
Smarter Than You Think
If you’re not a Zoomer reading this article, we hope you’ve learned that Gen Z is a lot smarter and more thoughtful than you might have assumed, based on years of popular media coverage of Zoomer financial and work habits that portrayed today’s youth as irresponsible, selfish, and naive. Far from it, Zoomers are among the most aware, most socially conscientious, and most clever people now joining the adult world. They have been a product of uncertain times, and yet they have found ways to thrive and to embrace new identities that were previously unimagined.
They have learned how to live in the moment and embrace change.
Gen Z navigates a unique financial landscape: low baseline savings, skepticism toward costly institutions, and a DIY ethos that often bypasses traditional advisors. Yet their openness to dialogue, goal-oriented planning, and digital-first advisory tools signal opportunities for fintech innovators, educators, and policy makers to bolster this cohort’s financial resilience. As they redefine money culture, Gen Z may ultimately prove more financially responsible than most assume—so long as they pair optimism with structured support.
