When she was 26, Maria decided to stop using tampons. The prospect of toxic shock syndrome made her anxious, as did the constant waste — she went through six a day when she had her period. When a friend suggested a reusable silicone cup, she bought one for $45 and never looked back. The cup’s label advised her to replace it once a year, but Maria (who asked to use a pseudonym) figured as long as the silicone held up to regular sterilization with hot water, it was safe to keep using. And use it she did, for ten years — saving more than 5,000 tampons in the process. “I would have replaced it if I needed to, but I thought if I could save 45 bucks, I will,” Maria says. She would have used it longer, but after she gave birth to her first child in 2020, she couldn’t handle the suction and switched to a disc, which is also supposed to be replaced annually. “But I’ve had mine for two years, and it’s still fine,” she says. “So I’m continuing on with it.”
Maria isn’t really into social media — buying less has simply been part of her lifestyle for the past 14 years — but she’s what the internet might now call an “underconsumer.” On TikTok, the art of saving money has been rebranded as “underconsumption core,” a niche trend that has taken hold this year as Gen Z-ers, exhausted by the excesses of traditional influencer culture and the ballooning price of basic necessities, struggle to get their finances in order. The trend has spread from smaller sustainability influencers to beauty influencers cutting back on makeup and ex-shopaholics talking to their followers about taking their old shoes to the cobbler.
And they do want to spend less: In a recent study commissioned by Credit Karma, nearly half of Gen-Z and millennial respondents said they felt financially irresponsible, and roughly one-third said they believed they have a shopping addiction. Underconsumers address these bad habits by setting pretty basic rules for themselves the way one might discipline a spendthrift teenager: finish a makeup product before purchasing another, wear the clothes you already have, take inventory of what’s in your closet before flitting over to Amazon. Whether you’re experimenting with a low-buy month or even a no-buy year, the simple act of not shopping can feel like a radical one on a platform that inundates users with ads, paid partnerships, and its own in-app shop.
For some members of the r/anticonsumption sub-Reddit where Maria is a member (she’s not the only one who has used a menstrual cup for longer than a decade), the decision to buy less often comes from a place of environmental concern. Why, members wonder, do we need store aisles filled with Stanley cups in every color, individually plastic-wrapped vegan burger patties, and $99 Dolce & Gabbana dog perfume?
For others, the underconsumption lifestyle is a way to feel better about not being able to keep up with their peers. “8 things that are not normal in your twenties,” one underconsumer wrote on the app: vacationing in Europe every summer, taking only boutique Pilates classes, being able to afford living alone. Others entice followers with how much they would save by cutting back on smaller expenses. “This is your reminder that $10,000 a year is just $27 a day,” says one creator whose account is dedicated to sharing her frugal life as she “builds wealth” in her 20s. “I do not need an aesthetic-looking coffee glass and a glass straw,” she says, mixing homemade coffee in a mason jar. There’s also a cohort of “luxury minimalists” who call themselves underconsumers because they’re cutting back on the finer things by simply buying fewer of them. For instance, you might rotate two designer handbags instead of collecting a whole assortment of Chanel and Dior.
The trend also inspires actual minimalists whose habits veer on asceticism. Candice Ray, a 23-year-old nutrition student who runs the “nontoxic living” account @thrivewithcandice, cleans her countertops with vinegar and washes her face using only warm water and a beef-tallow moisturizer. She was drawn to underconsumption a few years ago because she was exhausted by the swarm of mousses, conditioners, and gels the internet said she needed to care for her curly hair. “It pushed me in the direction of, Do I need this product? Or can I give it up and not use a replacement?” Now, her wash days consist of a solid shampoo bar she buys once a year and a homemade leave-in curl cream she makes out of flaxseed. Sure, she’s tempted when everyone on TikTok is talking about a new product, but she’s saving upwards of $200 a year — and anyway, she tells me, without her old store-bought hair care, her “curls look more defined.”
At its best, embracing underconsumption is a more palatable way to grow up, save more, and want less. At other times, it’s just an opportunity for clout chasing. Members of the anti-consumption sub-Reddit have gotten tired of those who take it too far, such as the woman who decided to skip her best friend’s wedding because it felt wasteful to buy a dress she wasn’t going to rewear, or the man who thought he got a staph infection from using a disposable razor for too long. Last month, 32-year-old Virginia-based consultant Suzanne Lambert told CNN underconsumption videos helped reduce her monthly spending by making small lifestyle changes like canceling a beauty-box subscription. On her TikTok, however, she sounds fed up with the holier-than-thou self-righteousness of some underconsumers. “It’s just giving the girl who comes on a trip and makes the fact that she only packed a backpack for the entire two-week vacation her entire personality,” she says in one video. Commenters agreed. “Underconsumption was supposed to be ‘I don’t own 34 Stanley cups’ & it became ‘here’s the tattered moldy remnants of a towel I’ve had since 2004 that I still use on my body,” one wrote. “Like bruh just buy a towel.”
Of course, videos about spending less hit uncomfortably close to home for people who don’t have the choice. “My underconsumption core is just poverty,” one commenter wrote on a video of a creator using boiled scraps of avocado peel to dye a white shirt, set to a languid soundtrack of Norah Jones.
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