The ‘girl math’ trend proves that women are still apologising for how they spend money

The ‘girl math’ trend is the mental gymnastics women do to justify their purchases to themselves and to others. But Meredith Clark writes how the popular TikTok trend is perpetuating a longheld stereotype about women and how they manage their money

Whether we know it or not, we’ve all found ourselves doing some “girl math”.

Let’s say you purchase a dress at a department store for $100, but return it the next day because it didn’t fit quite right. The store gives you a refund, either in cash or store credit, and you use that money to purchase something else, with no change in money flow entering or leaving your bank account.

Or, how about you’re in line at Starbucks and you realise that you have $10 loaded onto your Starbucks app. You use that money to purchase your $6 grande iced oat milk latte from the app, as your Starbucks account balance drops but your real-life wallet remains untouched.

This way of thinking has recently been dubbed as “girl math” and it’s catching steam on TikTok. The trend is all meant to be in jest, a sarcastic way for young women to joke about and justify their purchases.

Tori Dunlap is the founder and CEO of Her First 100K, a money and career platform for women, and the New York Times bestselling author of Financial Feminist: Overcome the Patriarchy’s Bullsh*t to Master Your Money and Build a Life You Love. For Dunlap, the easiest way to define girl math is the “mental gymnastics women do to justify purchases” to themselves, whether it’s a major purchase or one purchase spread out over a period of time.

“It’s obviously a trend that has some seriousness to it,” Dunlap told The Independent. “This is what people do in terms of their mindset around certain purchases, but it’s also like everything on the internet - clearly satirical, supposed to be funny and comedic.”

But at what point does girl math go from simply a joke to having actual real-world, financial consequences?

In one viral TikTok, a college freshman named Marley Brown attempted to explain the “girl math” trend to her father - who visibly seemed confused by his own daughter’s so-called mental gymnastics when it comes to spending.

“If I buy concert tickets for two people, and those people pay me back, the money they pay me back for is free,” she jokingly told her dad. Since the money for the concert tickets had already left her bank account and was later refunded by her friends, that meant the money they returned to her was “free money”.

While thousands of fellow TikTokers (namely, women) in the comments section validated Brown, revealing that they too apply girl math to their everyday purchases, her father seemed baffled by his daughter’s list of rules for spending. As it turns out, many financial experts are puzzled by girl math’s popularity too.

According to Pattie Ehsaei, a finance expert with nearly one million followers on TikTok, we run into problems with girl math when we begin to think of certain purchases as “free” money. When we use girl math and make justifications for our little purchases, experts agree that it stands in the way of setting ourselves up for the financial future.

“If you don’t think spending $5 a day on coffee is anything, if you don’t think you’re spending money at all, that coffee equates to $100 a month and $1,200 a year,” she said. “If you were to invest that money instead of buying coffee, after about 30 years you would have half a million dollars.”

It’s no secret that the internet has seen a recent rise in female-focused trends: girl math, girl dinner, hot girl walk, feral girl summer. Just this year alone, women like Beyoncé and Taylor Swift - whose record-breaking Eras Tour grossed $2.2bn in North American ticket sales - have dominated both the music industry and the world. Meanwhile, the Barbie film became the highest-grossing film of the year when it passed $1.342bn at the global box office. As for the film’s director, Greta Gerwig, she’s the first female filmmaker to surpass $1bn in worldwide ticket sales.

Why is it that during an inarguable year of the girl, where the purchasing power of women was estimated to generate $5bn in economic impact in 2023 alone, a trend like “girl math” has risen in popularity, poking fun at how women are irresponsible with their spending?

“It’s funny and satirical and it’s almost sometimes relatable to be broke, even if you don’t have to be,” Dunlap said. “If you’re spending your money on things that you don’t like or don’t align with your values, it’s just like: ‘Well, I’m so broke.’

“That’s not helpful, but it’s funny. It’s funny on the internet. It feels relatable and I feel like we play into that a lot. It’s almost funny to buy something that you can’t afford, or that doesn’t make sense with the rest of your goals, like: ‘I’m just going to laugh at myself as opposed to actually getting to the root of the problem.’”

The root of at least one problem is the long-held stereotype that women are bad with money. And that stigma can be dated all the way back to before 1974, when the US passed the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. Prior to the ECOA, women were unable to have a bank account, a credit card, or obtain a loan, namely because of the sexist belief that women were deemed unintelligent or too irresponsible to manage their finances.

Popular media has only upheld this belief, like in Sex and the City, where one of the persisting mysteries of the universe is how Carrie Bradshaw was able to afford all those Manolo Blahnik shoes on a writer’s salary.

Not only does pop culture thrive on the stereotype that women are frivolous spenders, but even a simple Google search on how to save money highlights the gendered ways people still think about money. The search results for “How to save money men” revolve around investing in stocks, while “How to save money women” suggests taking a break from shopping or to stop eating out at restaurants. As men are building their wealth, women are supposed to be depriving themselves.

“It’s socially acceptable for men to talk about money. We don’t shame men for that; we glorify men who make money,” Dunlap said. “But if women start making money and feel financially confident, we weaponise their altruism. We say: ‘Why aren’t you donating more? You’re really selfish.’

“It’s only acceptable for women to talk about money if it’s their spending, which plays into the very narrative that they’re frivolous spenders. We’re just doubling down on the very narratives that are holding us back.”

The girl math trend may be perpetuating certain stereotypes about women’s spending and finances, but it’s also important that we take girl math for what it is: an internet trend. If there’s one constant about trends, it’s that they come and go. Instead of admonishing women on social media for taking part in something that’s meant to be a joke, financial experts think we should change the narrative around what it means to do “girl math”.

Jean Chatzky, the CEO of HerMoney and a personal finance expert for more than 30 years, thinks we can look at girl math in a positive, financially smart way by emphasising quality over quantity. “My tote bag, which was the most expensive bag I ever bought in my life, is 10 years old. If you advertise the value of each time I have taken this tote bag out of the house and slung it over my shoulder, it’s really pennies,” she told The Independent. “If I had bought a less expensive tote bag, would it have lasted as long? Maybe. But would I have been as happy as carrying this classic for such a long time? Probably not.”

It’s an age-old trope that women are always apologising, for themselves and for others. Really, what girl math shows is that we’re even apologising for what we choose to spend our money on. We can’t buy something just because it makes us happy.

There’s two sides to the girl math coin. The girl math trend proves that women, even in 2023, are still conditioned to justify and apologise for their purchases. But it would also be beneficial for us to pay for the items we want, while also making sure it won’t break the bank.

“You have to get honest with yourself and your financial picture,” said Dunlap. “Even if that’s uncomfortable, because nothing feels worse than a piña colada on the beach with a side of guilt.”