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- "Bougie broke" is a personal finance trend dispensing advice on living the high life on a small budget.
- The trend was born on TikTok as a humorous yet critical response to the cost of living crisis.
- Hacks include peel-and-stick wallpaper, serving cheap champagne super cold, and redecorating instead of buying.
The cost of living crisis has hit everybody hard.
Enter "bougie broke," a personal finance trend dispensing advice on living the high life on a small budget, crafted as a humorous yet critical response to the cost of living crisis.
The term finds its roots in TikTok when user Josh Jacobs posted a video last year saying, "Have you ever been broke, but no one believes you because you don't look like a broke person? The thing is, like you broke, but like a bougie broke, like you broké."
After Jacobs' video — which has been shared almost 30,000 times since being posted— went viral, people on TikTok and Youtube began using his phrase and voice to showcase their own "bougie" while "broke" lifestyles.
One DIY trick suggested using peel-and-stick wallpaper to spruce up living spaces while renting to avoid losing deposits while moving out.
TikTok user groundedineutral suggested in a video posted in May that one should move furniture around if hit by an urge to go furniture shopping. "This means swapping decor around on different surfaces and different rooms. It'll feel brand new!"
Another TikTok user recommended fitting a room with LED lighting and sensors to "make it luxury but on a budget."
In a recent Sunday Times guide, writers shared tips and tricks to embrace the "bougie broke" lifestyle, as recounted to them by their friends — such as serving budget champagne super cold, to dispatching your partner to budget stores to avoid being seen there yourself.
One person the Times spoke to even confessed to adding orange food coloring to his eggs to make them appear more upmarket than they are.
A likely cause for this personal finance trend's rise in popularity is the growing concern over the state of the economy, especially in the United Kingdom.
The cost of living crisis in the UK has seen a fall in real disposable income amid growing inflation. According to the UK's national statistics office, nearly half of all adults surveyed in Great Britain said it was "very or somewhat difficult" to afford their rent or mortgage payments between June and July.
In March, the UK-based Economics Observatory's Michelle Kilfoyle wrote: "The prices of food and non-alcoholic drinks in the UK have risen at the fastest rate since 1977 in the past year."
Emily Irwin, the managing director of advice and planning at Wells Fargo's Wealth & Investment Management, told CNBC that the "bougie broke" trend helps to dismantle long-standing taboos around talking about money.
"To talk about that, to put it out there in a very vulnerable way, I think is also empowering of others to even start the conversation," she said.