Lukas Battle, 26, recently took to TikTok to explain a concept that has recently taken over the internet. His video on “loud budgeting” has 1.4 million views.
“Loud budgeting is a new concept I’m introducing for 2024,” Battle said, adding that its opposite is “quiet luxury.” Loud budgeting includes changing your mentality from “I don’t have enough” to “I don’t want to spend.”
Battle argued that the concept is exciting and empowering and compared it to “sneaking candy into a movie theater.”
“You feel like you got away with something,” he said.
In another TikTok with more than 540,000 views, Kimberlee Mykel said she will be embracing loud budgeting this year, “mainly because it’s a hard economy, and I think we all need to be for real.”
She listed several easy ways to reduce spending, including reducing spending on nights out with friends and meal-prepping instead of ordering lunch from the office.
TikTok users get serious about finance
On the more serious end of the spectrum of TikToks about finance, Jenny Park posted a video with over 200,000 views on several practical ways to apply loud budgeting principles.
First, Park encouraged watchers to start contributing to a high-yield savings account.
She listed Discover, Ally, Marcus and SoFi as good options for starting a high-yield savings account. Ally commented on the video, “We’re here for this 👏🙌.”
Paying off debt and maximizing retirement savings were the next steps she listed.
“If your company offers some sort of employer match for your retirement, you are in a great position, and you’re gonna want to take advantage of that,” Park said.
The last step Park described was figuring out how to increase income.
“2024 is gonna be the year where you figure out a way to increase your income, whether that’s asking for a raise, changing jobs, adding new side hustles,” she explained.
Minimizing expenses can only take someone so far. “We gotta increase your earning potential,” she said.
The current economy hurts the middle class the most
“Sorry, I can’t go out to dinner, I’ve got $7 a day to live on,” Battle said as an example of loud budgeting in action.
To counter inflation, the Federal Reserve has consistently raised interest rates since 2020, and it cost the middle class “$2 trillion in wealth from July 2022 to July 2023,” as the Deseret News previously reported.
According to a 2023 Bloomberg report, the average American home lost $33,000 of real wealth due to raised interest rates from July 2022 to July 2023.
Battle encouraged people to use loud budgeting to protect their bank accounts in the current economy. He said, “Let’s send a message to corporations about the national inflation level. Let’s take a stand.”