How ‘TikTok Made Me Buy It’ mantra is destroying women’s finances – as as one mum battles £40k debt

FROM Birkin bags to high-end kitchens and luxury hols, social media dishes up an endless stream of lavish lifestyles – and it’s having a devastating toll on women’s finances.

Scrolling through her social media feed, it was a stranger pictured at Disneyland that caught mum-of-two Lauren Chambers’ eye.

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“Something about this woman and her kids enjoying this amazing holiday made me click through to her profile,” says the wedding photographer and events planner from Coleraine, Northern Ireland.

There, she found posts boasting a spotless, high-end kitchen, gorgeous co-ordinated outfits and a perfect children’s playroom.

Comparing it to her own house, with all the chaos of life with two young children, Lauren, 35, felt a mixture of exhaustion and hope.

“This woman seemed just like me,” she remembers. “I felt a rush of envy and determination. If she could whisk her kids away to Disneyland Paris, then so could I! That’s when I reached for the credit card. I was just one click closer to one day being in £40,000 of debt.”

From handbags and holidays to perfectly-put-together houses and beauty hauls, social media serves up a constant stream of lavish lifestyles.

These extravagant displays are now so ubiquitous that they’ve been dubbed “wealth porn” – and it’s having a devastating impact on many women’s finances.

That’s in part because women are on social media more.

Ofcom’s annual report on the UK’s digital habits found that in 2024, women were averaging half an hour more online every day compared to men, and that doubles among Gen Z women. And while men are checking out Reddit and LinkedIn, women are spending their days on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.

It’s these particular platforms, and the “wealth porn” content they display, that’s driving debt.

A study found that Instagram influencers who are paid to endorse buy-now-pay-later schemes have led to £652million worth of borrowing among followers looking to replicate their lifestyles.

They found that the average cost of the items in each of their posts came to £1,800.**

Meanwhile, #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt has racked up more than 12 million posts.

Lauren says: “Money has always been a struggle for me. My son Tyler was born in March 2011, when I was 21. Nine months later, my relationship broke down and I was back at my parents’ house, a single mum and counting out my pennies to buy a cup of tea.”

Determined to improve her life, Lauren graduated with a degree in criminology and met her now-husband Jason in April 2014 through a friend.

All the while, social media ticked away in the background.

“For years, that only meant engaging with friends and family on Facebook, which didn’t have any impact on my spending,” she says.

‘Instagram and TikTok were showing me a totally unrealistic standard of success’

But by the time her daughter Isla was born in September 2015, Instagram had changed everything.

“Suddenly, it wasn’t just celebrities showing off their gorgeous homes and wardrobes in glossy magazines. My phone was full of apparently normal people living this lavish life.

“These women were strangers, but I felt like they could be my relatives, colleagues or friends. The more I saw their picture-perfect worlds, the more I felt that this was the life I should be living.”

Lauren splashed out on clothes and make-up, holidays and interiors – including hundreds on a new sofa – trying to keep up with the standard she saw on her socials.

“I spent £2,000 on the family trip to Disneyland Paris and, while it was great when we were there, after that immediate dopamine hit, I was left with the worry of what that meant for my finances.

“We just didn’t have the money. Even once I’d started my photography business in 2017, Jason was working a minimum-wage job in a factory. He had no idea that the store cards, credit cards and loans were spiralling out of control.

“At the time, I told myself that it was fine, because I was meeting all the monthly repayments. But really, I was in denial and it was impacting my sleep and stress levels.

“I didn’t realise back then that Instagram and TikTok were showing me a totally unrealistic standard of ‘success’. And I just couldn’t stop scrolling, because it drew me in, even though it made me feel inadequate and unhappy with what I had.”

This is a perfect description of wealth porn, says Elaine Kasket, cyberpsychologist and author of Reset: Rethinking Your Digital World For A Happier Life.

“Comparing ourselves to others is a basic, evolutionary instinct. It was essential to our survival, because being accepted meant being kept in the tribe. If you didn’t fit in, you would be rejected and you couldn’t survive alone. But that human instinct never went away.

“By the 20th century, happiness with your life still depended largely on sizing yourself up against what other people had. In the pre-digital world, that instinct had morphed into the desire to ‘keep up with the Joneses’,” she explains.

“The Joneses were once the people in your street. Now, with social media, they’re everyone, which means that our benchmark for success is completely skewed.

Just like regular porn, wealth porn is powerful because it gives pleasure as well as discomfort

Elaine Kasket

“Just like regular porn, wealth porn is powerful because it gives pleasure as well as discomfort. We like to look at beautiful things, to imagine what our messy lives would be like if, we too, could have the Birkin handbag, Farrow & Ball kitchen or tropical holiday.”

But, Elaine says it’s very important to remember that both kinds of porn are fake.

“Porn doesn’t have any context – you don’t see a couple taking out the bins before they have sex. Wealth porn is the same.

“You see the beach, but not the nightmare flight to get there. Now you just see a post of perfection from a stranger who feels like your peer, and feel like a failure that you can’t have the same.

“Wealth porn is pleasurable because it excites you, but at the same time it makes you feel ashamed or upset, because you can’t measure up.”

For Sarah, a copywriter from Surrey, the wealth porn that really hit hard was all around motherhood.

“My daughter Poppy was born in January 2021. At the mum and baby group meet-ups, I would think: ‘I have it together just as much as these other women.’ However, I found that online, it felt so different.

I’d doomscroll for a sense of escape, but it always left me feeling inadequate – and that’s when I started to shop

Sarah

“My feeds were full of mums living this lovely life with wooden toys, Boden clothes and educational play spaces. In my most exhausting moments, I’d doomscroll for a sense of escape, but it always left me feeling inadequate – and that’s when I started to shop.”

Even as the fog of new motherhood lifted, Sarah couldn’t keep away from social media, or the buying that it led to.

“It went from wanting the right high-tech steriliser at £160 to the perfect baby carrier at £300, which all added up.”

The phrase “making memories” also loomed large for the 39 year old.

“If it wasn’t posts about a summer day at the waterpark, it was pumpkin picking in October. I’d think: ‘Well, I’ll book that too or my daughter will be missing out,’ and I’d spend hundreds.

“Of course, it often failed to live up to the dream. If Poppy cried or wasn’t in the mood, which never seemed to happen on social media, it all felt like such a waste, and like I’d failed all over again.”

‘I realised social media is not actually there to help you ­– it’s there to capitalise on you’

As Sarah’s debt increased to £20,000, her husband Harry*, 42, who works in administration, had no idea.

She says: “I felt that I was on top of it because I was meeting the minimum repayments, and I didn’t want to worry him. He still doesn’t know, which is a burden for me to carry, but I don’t plan to tell him until I’m debt-free.”

Thankfully for Sarah, that’s on the horizon. “In June last year, I joined an online course with Rebel Finance School and had to list all my debts. Seeing the total was shocking, but it spurred me on to tackle it,” she says.

Sarah took some practical steps, including a second freelance job.

But the changes she made to her relationship with Instagram and TikTok have been just as impactful in reducing her debt down to £5,000.

“I realised, as a mum, social media can become your village. But it’s not actually there to help you, it’s there to capitalise on you.

I realised, as a mum, social media can become your village. But it’s not actually there to help you, it’s there to capitalise on you

Sarah

“I suddenly understood how I was being manipulated, how it was playing on my insecurities and leading me to spend what I didn’t have. I see now that creators are never honest about the cost or debt they might be in to have this ‘perfect’ life.”

Funmi Olufunwa, founder of financial education provider Hoops Finance, agrees that wealth porn is a dangerous world of smoke and mirrors.

She says: “Many women online have built a community around the idea: ‘I’m just like you’. Then suddenly they pop up with a designer bag or the keys to a new house, but it could be from savings or maybe their partner is funding it, or the ‘bank of mum and dad’ – or it could all be debt. We simply don’t know.”

Cracks are finally starting to appear in the wealth porn facade.

In September, a TikTok video went viral when a woman revealed that her friend, a glamorous influencer with over a million followers, was actually in £7,000 of debt and her carefully curated content had all been a lie.

Still, the vast majority of wealth porn continues to peddle the fantasy.

‘Long gone are the days of seeing something and saving up for it’

And once you throw in one-click purchases, same-day delivery and credit services like Klarna, it’s little wonder so many people are getting into financial trouble.

Funmi says: “Every year we remove even more of the friction that stands between us and spontaneous spending. Long gone are the days of seeing something and saving up to pay for it.”

That was certainly true for Lauren, until the pandemic began.

“Suddenly, life seemed smaller, but calmer. My discomfort with my growing debt led me to add it all up, and discovering it totalled £40,000 was devastating. I felt sick and scared at what to do next,” she says.

“But the shock helped me face up to my spending habits and my reliance on social media. I thought: ‘Who exactly are these random people that I’m looking up to?’ Suddenly, it didn’t make sense.

Now, by following money and debt accounts, rather than influencers, Lauren has cut back hugely on her spending and worked even harder on her business.

Becoming debt-free was an amazing feeling. As a result, we were able to buy our first home in September

Lauren

When she finally paid off her debt in January 2024, Lauren confessed all to her husband.

She says: “Jason was upset I’d shouldered it all alone, but he was proud of me for what I’d done to pay it off.

“Becoming debt-free was an amazing feeling. As a result, we were able to buy our first home in September.”

Starting her own TikTok @Lifefromlit showed Lauren just how great the pressure is to feed in to wealth porn and post her riches.

“It’s the aspirational, ‘perfect’ content that gets the numbers,” she says.

“But I’m determined not to go down that path. I want to show the messy reality of life – that success isn’t counted in designer bags.”