Overheard at the pub: “Guys, should we go on a girls’ trip to the Maldives???!!!” “Just send me over £500 for Flossie’s birthday present,” another voice comes from a table across the room. “Shall we get another bottle?” says a third.
Friendship can be an expensive business. It’s all very well splitting the occasional birthday brunch or sinking rounds of pints while catching up in a beer garden (arguably, what else is the point of living?), but the spending can really start racking up when you’re trying to keep up with your friends.
In a world where everyone wants to be a West Village Girl, armed with her Reformation skirt, iced matcha, and slicked-back ponytail, it can be easy to hemorrhage money just to keep up appearances. When you don’t earn as much as they do, matching the spending of your friends or strangers on the internet can become near-impossible without obliterating your budget, or resorting to petty grocery shoplifting for the rest of the month.
As someone who lacked the financial foresight to sell my soul to J.P. Morgan and instead decided to write for a living, I am usually the lowest-earner in all my friendships. Where my flusher friends jet off to gorgeous Sicilian hotels, I make do with dingy hostels and overnight buses. The gulf between my own wage and that of my friends only seems to be expanding as we enter our thirties at light speed, with weddings, hen parties, and fancy birthday dinners becoming much more regular and more expensive occurrences.
This can result in a feeling of dread before hanging out with friends who have a taste for the finer things in life, as you are met with a fork in the financial road: do you skip out on the event and protect your precious savings, or do you go, spend at their pace, and face the consequences?
“I am a very sociable person but my excitement about going out sometimes coincides with dread,” says Rebecca, who has had to tighten her purse strings after moving into a lower-paid job in publishing. “I always try to make it work, but sometimes when I do go out, it’s particularly hard when other friends talk about how ‘broke’ they are, when I know for a fact they’ve been away on a mini break to Budapest that same month.”
A study conducted in 2023 by personal finance company Credit Karma found that 88% of millennials and 80% of Gen Z have gone into debt after having spent time with a wealthier friend, and that 31% of Gen Z and 32% of millennials had at least one friend who drove them to overspend. Around 30% of respondents also said that they overspent due to not wanting to feel left out, or wanting to keep up with the lifestyle of a wealthier friend. “One of my good friends is getting married and the maid of honour is asking for a £100 deposit, along with £400 for the actual weekend. I had to ask for a payment plan, while others just paid it straightaway with no issue. It makes me feel like a charity case,” Rebecca says. “Standard financial benchmarks like income define a person’s social standing,” Sean O’Neill, a licensed marriage and family therapist, tells me. “Earning gaps might unintentionally lead to comparisons, leaving some individuals feeling less than.”
As a result, financially driven friendship breakups are becoming increasingly common. The same CreditKarma study found that 47% of Gen Z and 36% of millennials had considered ending friendships due to their friends’ spending habits. Additionally, the study revealed that 35% of Gen Z and 29% of millennials thought it highly important that their friends earn around as much as they do.
If you find yourself as the lowest-earning friend, you should remind yourself that being less well-off does not mean that you are less than. According to psychotherapist Brianna Paruolo, “Wealth is only one thing out of many things that make you rich as a human being. Reflect on your feelings towards your salary and ask yourself if your worth wasn’t tied to your job, what else do you have that makes you rich? This can be your health (physical and mental), the people you surround yourself with and the city you live in.” AKA, your friends (despite what it may seem online) are there for more than getting drunk together and reminiscing about the good old days. “Good friends do exist who would prioritize and be glad to relish good company, regardless of what needs to be spent,” O’Neill says. “Spend time with like-minded people who value you for who you are instead of your paycheck.”
I’m lucky enough that my higher-earning friends are very understanding of my financial situation but I’ve had my fair share of pals who love to splurge in the past, and I’ve had to set my boundaries, asking for cheaper alternatives or even missing out on things if the price will be out of my range. In the end, your friends might well choose to go ahead with their expensive plans anyway despite your confiding in them. This sucks, of course, but are the Instagram stories worth being late paying rent this month? And if all else fails…get new friends.
photo GETTY IMAGES