- Who pays on a first date these days? No one, according to a recent report by Bank of America. More than half of Gen Z is spending $0 monthly on dates. The young generation is full of financial anxiety and are not prioritizing romance as a result. Disinterest in data apps and less urgency to quickly find a life partner has also contributed to the spending drought on dating.
Gen Z is focused on their finances, but one thing they’re not investing in is romance.
Bank of America’s recent Better Money Habits report found that of 915 Gen Z adults in the U.S. surveyed, 53% of them were spending $0 each month on dating. Additionally, a third of respondents said they spent less than $100 per month on dates. This dearth of dating spending was nearly identical across genders.
Gen Z, whose upbringing was marked by the 2008 financial crisis, a pandemic, and now mounting economic concerns, has developed pervasive financial anxiety, setting lofty goals of saving for retirement and investing in the stock market earlier than the previous generations. But the pressure to find financial security has meant looking for love is not a priority.
“Instead of spending big on dating in particular, Gen Z is choosing to be really intentional with their money,” Ryan Viktorin, vice president and financial consultant at Fidelity Investments, told Fortune. “They’re going for low-cost hangouts and skipping fancy dinners and also having real conversations about money really early on.”
“It’s not that they’re not interested in dating, so to speak, but it’s that we see a lot of them really thinking ahead,” she added.
While Gen Z may be already thinking about their long-term finances, delivering on the saving goals they’ve set for themselves is a different story. According to BofA, more than half of Gen Z adults feel as though they aren’t making enough money to give the life they envision for themselves. Though 42% said they saw saving for retirement as a way of achieving financial independence, only 25% contributed to a retirement account in the last 12 months. Will Smayda, head of financial centers at BofA, said the inability to see materializing progress toward these goals is stoking the young generation’s anxiety.
“The moral of the story is that ‘adulting’ turns out to be more expensive and more difficult than most Gen Z had planned for,” Smayda told Fortune.
Gen Z sours on casual dating
Across generations, economic pessimism has killed the mood when it comes to dating. A 2024 LendingTree survey of more than 2,000 U.S. consumers found that of respondents who were dating, 65% said inflation impacted their dating life. About a quarter reported trying to spend less on dates, and one in five respondents said they were going on fewer dates to spend less.
Viktorin said the desire to keep finances in check has led Gen Z to “date with purpose,” going out intentionally rather than keeping things casual. Combined with a decreased interest in one-night stands, it’s no wonder why the young generation has also snubbed dating apps, despite companies’ best efforts to woo them.
Dating sites have introduced myriad automated tools to increase engagement of young users. In January, Hinge introduced a “Prompt Feedback” feature that uses AI to nudge users to improve prompt responses on their dating profiles. Bumble similarly has AI-powered conversation prompts and photo-selection features.
According to a survey by Bloomberg Intelligence, about 50% of 1,000 dating app users said AI did not make a difference in how they made their profiles or chatted with their matches. Dating apps are feeling pressure from Gen Z’s disengagement. Despite early signs of a turnaround, Match Group, which owns Tinder and Hinge, laid off 13% of its staff in May as paid usership and profits dipped in 2025’s first quarter. Bumble similarly laid off 30% of its team in June.
Why isn’t dating a ‘little treat’?
Gen Z’s distaste for dating apps and casual flings does not fully encompass their philosophy around spending. Despite economic anxieties, Gen Z is not opposed to discretionary spending, embracing the “little treat” culture of dropping chunks of paychecks on cups of coffee, skincare, or travel. Just because Gen Z isn’t spending on dates doesn’t mean they aren’t spending.
“If Gen Z are eating out frequently and traveling, one wonders if they’re spending more time with a group of friends or family members, as opposed to on [romantic experiences],” Smayda said.
Beyond financial concerns, some of young people’s unwillingness to spend on dating could also just be because it’s just not a priority. Bobbi Rebell, a certified financial planner and consumer-finance expert at BadCredit.org, said Gen Z’s openness toward admitting anxiety around their finances is part of broader values shared by the generation about mental health, including an increased push to maintain a work-life balance. That multifaceted value system that prioritizes financial independence may also put less emphasis on the need to find a life partner, she said, even if that is something Gen Z eventually wants.
“They have less social pressure to be in what I call a permanent ‘forever relationship’—to actually get married at younger ages than previous generations,” Rebell told Fortune. “They don’t have this social pressure to be in a committed relationship at the same level that there might have been years ago.”
