Gen Z and millennials in the US are increasingly sharing their debt journeys on social media, breaking a long-standing taboo around personal finances. This trend comes as a Federal Reserve report from May found that credit card debt among US households reached an all-time high in 2025, with balances in the first quarter of 2026 rising by 5.9% compared with a year earlier.
Financial Influencers Gain Traction
Financial influencers, or finfluencers, have gained significant visibility in recent years. Some are licensed professionals, while others are not. They share advice on topics like Roth IRA contributions, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and maxing out 401(k)s. Popular figures include Humphrey Yang, a former financial adviser with more than 2 million YouTube subscribers, and Erika Kullberg, an attorney and financial expert with more than 20 million followers across social media.
A 2025 Gallup survey found that 20% of respondents sought financial advice on social media, and half of those individuals followed finfluencers. Debt content particularly resonates, especially as the US wealth gap reaches its widest in more than 30 years.
Debt and Shame: A Psychological Burden
Debt is steeped in emotion, and those carrying excessive amounts are often presumed to be careless or financially irresponsible. “People don’t talk about it, so that sets up a kind of container for shame,” says Thomas Faupl, a San Francisco-based psychotherapist specializing in financial therapy. “If somebody’s … getting into debt, there’s this part of people that starts beating themselves up.”
Financial analysts recognize that debt results from multiple factors, including economic policies, systemic gaps, and financial illiteracy. In their 2024 book The Political Development of American Debt Relief, Emily Zackin and Chloe N Thurston frame debt as an inevitable byproduct of US sociopolitical structures that disproportionately favor creditors. They emphasize that “when people are expected to meet their basic needs by borrowing, access to debt relief and the terms of that access are especially important.”
“As Americans, we associate our net worth with our self-worth,” says Tori Dunlap, a New York Times bestselling author and host of the podcast Financial Feminist. “The average American, in order to uplevel their life, has to take on debt, whether it’s to get a college degree, buy a home or start a business. Then, of course, we feel bad about it, but that’s the only way forward for a lot of us.”
Real-Life Debt Journeys: Erica Grace Martin
Erica Grace Martin, 43, a VP of legal at an entertainment company, started posting about her debt in February. After a divorce, she managed a formerly two-income household alone, covering $4,000 for a nanny, $3,000 for Uber trips, and $7,500 in rent for a Manhattan apartment. Despite a six-figure salary, she struggled. “I’m like, what did I buy? What am I spending? What’s happening?” she says. “I have the income.”
She put her credit card on a payment plan, took out a personal loan, and opened a home equity line of credit. When her rent increased by $1,000, she consulted financial advisers and ChatGPT. “I looked at the numbers, and I’m like, ‘You can’t do this,’” she says. To save money, she moved back into her childhood home with her children. “It was like packing up my apartment and packing up my ego too with it.”
Martin made her Instagram account public and posted a video titled “DAY 1: WELCOME TO ERICA’S DEBT TAKEDOWN JOURNEY.” Her posts included screenshots from a budgeting app: $33,575.63 in credit card debt, more than $78,000 in personal loans, and $17,193.73 on her Bilt credit card. “I was so afraid. I did not intend to be posting every day,” she says, but she wanted to hold herself accountable.
She received an outpouring of support. One commenter wrote: “This level of transparency and relatability deserves all the respect … You doing this for you is pushing people to reevaluate it for themselves too.” A popular post, where she tears up celebrating paying off her credit card on day 66, has more than 11,000 views on TikTok. There was criticism too, but Martin paid off $60,000 of her debt within 70 days. “I think people like seeing a real person talk through something in real time,” she says.
Christian Juhl’s Journey and the Risks of Sharing
Christian Juhl, 26, accumulated $80,000 in debt after graduating four years ago, split between car payments, student loans, and credit cards. “I honestly was just never taught how to use credit cards properly,” he says. In January, he started posting and set a goal to pay off $80,000 by the end of 2026. “Or I was gonna embarrass myself severely trying,” he jokes. In a debt breakdown video, he revealed one credit card carried $13,084.54 in debt; he’s since shared updates with more than 28,000 Instagram followers.
There’s an obvious liability issue when posting about financial topics: viewers might confuse content creators with licensed financial advisers. (City and state government sites have shared warnings about trusting finfluencers.) The people I spoke to say they include regular disclaimers on their posts. “I’m not a coach, but I think it’s important to share what you’re learning because people come to learn or laugh or both,” says Juhl.
Faupl warns of risks: sharing debt online can affect privacy and future employment. “A certain percentage of people who are carrying a large amount of debt repeat that experience,” he says. “It’s fine to share information. But when people get into repetitive cycles of debt, they’re not addressing the trauma or the compulsive behavior.”
Couples and Debt: Becca Droz and Nikki Nichols
On Ramit Sethi’s podcast Money For Couples, guests discuss family histories and trauma around money. Becca Droz, a rock-climbing guide in Boulder, Colorado, and her partner Nikki Nichols, a postpartum doula, applied to be on the show. Nichols discussed her $18,000 in student loan debt. YouTube commenters praised the couple’s maturity. Droz found the experience affirming: “Money is the thing we think about every day, and impacts our lives in the biggest ways,” she says. “Even if it doesn’t change anything about your reality to say ‘This is how much debt I have,’ [for that] to be witnessed is very powerful and liberating.”
Watsamon Chattroranongsak, 30, a CPA in Los Angeles, also shared her debt journey after seeing other content creators. “I was carrying a lot of shame,” she says. She pledged to pay off $35,000 in credit card and student loan debt and has since paid off $30,000. “Even though you get negative comments, you’re still going to be working toward that goal,” she says. “There’s so much more positive that comes out of that.”
Faupl emphasizes addressing unresolved trauma related to money. “If people don’t address the trauma, they’re going to be stuck in that cycle and talking about their debt a lot,” he says, pointing to resources like Debtors Anonymous. “That’s why programs have steps. Part of it is sharing. Part of it is digging deep, and the other part is the action phase. We need to internally interrogate, have some resolution, and then go back and build that literacy muscle.”
