Gen Zers Admit to Faking Their Finances to Impress Partners, Risking Debt in the Process

Why is your friend of a friend posing on Instagram with a sports car or a designer handbag? Are they actually earning that much more money than you are?

In all likelihood, probably not. A large portion of Gen Z respondents to Credit One Bank’s survey, “The Social Status of Credit: How Millennials & Gen Z View Credit Scores,” admitted that they’re willing to fake their finances in order to score dates and increase their social credibility.

Fudging Their Finances

The good news is that nearly half (49.4%) of Gen Z are honest about their finances, stating they never exaggerate their income, finances, or job titles in order to seem more financially savvy than they truly are. 

Of the 50.6% of respondents remaining, 16.9% said they’d only fibbed once or twice. 

That leaves over one third (33.7%) of respondents who flex their nonexistent finances on the regular.

Additionally, 59% state they’ve overspent in order to appear more financially successful for dating, social media, or social situations. 39.40% admit to doing it regularly.

But why would Gen Zers feel the need to exaggerate what’s in their bank accounts? More often than not, it comes down to dating.

The Toxic Dating Habit Gen Z Just Can’t Shake

According to the survey, 16.58% of Gen Z admits to taking on debt or hurting their credit score in order to buy a lavish gift for a significant other, by far the most common reason respondents went into debt for gifts. (Only 6.69% went into debt for a gift for a friend.)

Meanwhile, 37.2% said they would be willing to overdraft their account or go into debt in order to impress a date or significant other. That said, over half of that population draws the line at $100 worth of debt.

Whether or not that’s ultimately reflected in their credit card bill is another story. While we can’t know how much of the debt is ultimately attributable to financial flexing, Gen Z is incurring higher levels of credit card debt than millennials did at their age, with the average amount of credit card debt for consumers aged 22 to 24 increasing from $2,248 in 2013 to $2,834 today.

Shallow or Insecure? What’s Driving Gen Z’s Financial Fibbing

So are these Gen Zers shallow? The survey data suggests otherwise. Only 17.88% of respondents said they’d end a relationship over poor financial habits and 24.30% said they wouldn’t care about a credit score when it came to dating. Nearly half (47.9%) said they either already have or theoretically would marry someone with a bad credit score and financial history.

The Bottom Line

Though many Gen Zers don’t lie about their finances, a third admits to stretching the truth in order to seem rich, with 37.2% willing to go into debt to project this image.

Many Gen Zers claim they don’t care about their romantic partners’ financial histories, but some seem to be insecure about their own finances, going to great lengths to project wealth even when they have none.