Key Takeaways
- A new study shows that Gen Z is cutting back on dining out, haircuts and other everyday spending to save money for trips.
- Gen Z feels that homeownership is increasingly out of reach.
- Rather than abandoning spending entirely, many Gen Zers are reallocating their budgets toward travel.
Gen Z is cutting costs everywhere — except at the airport.
A new report from Fox Business’ The Big Money Show shows that Gen Z is abandoning everyday splurges but refuses to give up travel. According to a Future Partners study, 43.6% of Gen Z take spontaneous leisure trips very frequently or frequently compared to the 25.2% average across generations.
Gen Z is trading dining out and self-care for a passport stamp. A Skyscanner 2026 travel trends report shows that the generation consciously made financial sacrifices for their most recent vacation. More than half of the respondents (52%) said they ate out less and 40% said they cut back on haircuts.
Taylor Price, founder of Priceless Tay, a personal finance education and coaching platform, told Fox Business that Gen Z is “reorganizing the American Dream.”
“We haven’t forgotten about it,” she explained. “So back in my parents’ generation, it was work, get married, have children, get a house, retire, then go and travel the world.”
Price said that owning a house now feels outside of the realm of possibility and is “out of touch” with Gen Z’s reality. Instead, the generation is focused on achieving other, more immediately attainable goals.
“We’re beginning to travel a lot more now,” she said. “We’re just changing that reality for us.”
Moving beyond homeownership
Price mentioned that Gen Z is thinking about homeownership in a “very strategic way.” Instead of buying a home, this generation is taking their savings and investing the funds, growing them over time.
“With investing apps now, we have so much accessibility in different ways to build wealth,” Price said. “Going back to homeownership, that was a principal way previous generations were able to create wealth.”
She mentioned that now, Gen Z is looking at creating wealth by investing in the stock market.
“It’s amazing because this is one way that we’re able to accelerate our wealth-building opportunities,” she said.
Gen Z is also focused on career growth. Those who live in rural areas can easily move to cities for work without worrying about making mortgage payments on a house.
A new American Dream
Americans now expect to be about 40 when they purchase their first home, compared with 28 in the early 1990s, according to data cited earlier this year by Fortune.
More than half of non-homeowners said in the data that buying a house feels unattainable. Even renters under 40 earning six-figure salaries said they were less confident about becoming homeowners than they were five years ago.
Some Americans are turning to travel as an alternative to a grounded, home-owning version of stability that feels out of reach. They are becoming digital nomads, traveling while earning money through remote work.
An estimated 18.5 million Americans identify as digital nomads, up from 7.3 million in 2019, according to workforce consulting firm MBO Partners. Millennials and Gen Z account for 75% of that group.
Key Takeaways
- A new study shows that Gen Z is cutting back on dining out, haircuts and other everyday spending to save money for trips.
- Gen Z feels that homeownership is increasingly out of reach.
- Rather than abandoning spending entirely, many Gen Zers are reallocating their budgets toward travel.
Gen Z is cutting costs everywhere — except at the airport.
A new report from Fox Business’ The Big Money Show shows that Gen Z is abandoning everyday splurges but refuses to give up travel. According to a Future Partners study, 43.6% of Gen Z take spontaneous leisure trips very frequently or frequently compared to the 25.2% average across generations.
Gen Z is trading dining out and self-care for a passport stamp. A Skyscanner 2026 travel trends report shows that the generation consciously made financial sacrifices for their most recent vacation. More than half of the respondents (52%) said they ate out less and 40% said they cut back on haircuts.