Dating has never been free, but for Gen Z it is becoming an increasingly serious financial decision. Dinner, drinks, transportation, entertainment and even getting ready for a night out can turn an ordinary date into a significant expense for young adults already struggling with rent, groceries and other everyday costs. The result is a generation increasingly looking for cheaper ways to meet people, cutting back on dating altogether, or embracing a new trend known as “solo-maxxing,” where being single becomes a deliberate lifestyle rather than something to escape.
The numbers help explain why. A BMO Financial Group survey put the average cost of a U.S. date at $189, including expenses such as an outfit, transportation and dinner. That was a 12.5% increase from the same period a year earlier. Other BMO data cited in reports calculated the average Gen Z date at $205 when food, drinks, transportation and grooming were included. Even as the overall inflation rate has moderated, some expenses associated with dating have continued rising. Prices for full-service restaurant meals and snacks, for example, increased 3.7% over the past year.
For someone established in a career, $189 for a night out may be manageable. For a 23-year-old or 26-year-old trying to pay rent, build an emergency fund and perhaps deal with student loans, it can be a very different calculation. BMO found that 50% of Gen Z daters said dating costs interfere with their financial goals, compared with 40% of millennials.
Winston Jules, a 26-year-old medical receptionist living in Brooklyn, offers an example of what that means in practice. Last summer, he spent weekends taking dates to nice New York City restaurants and bars serving $20 cocktails. Now, while living with his mother and helping pay rent, he is searching for savings wherever he can find them.
“I’ve gone on a little walk just to get to know each other, or got ice cream,” Jules said. He has also cut back on dating and socializing in general. “I’ve kind of been sacrificing being social lately just to be financially stable.”
Jules is hardly alone. Gen Z is rediscovering the cheap date, although in many cases it may be less a romantic preference than an economic necessity. Walks, coffee, picnics, beaches, board games and stargazing are emerging as alternatives to expensive restaurants, bars and entertainment.
Kay Lee, 25, and Miguel Aragon, 27, recently took a walk through New York’s Prospect Park before getting coffee. Lee’s coffee cost $7. “We’re young people in New York, I think we’re all just kind of in this rough economy,” Lee said. Aragon, who had already moved from Manhattan to Bedford-Stuyvesant to save money on rent, agreed. “I just like chill dates that are kind of neutral and cost-efficient too,” he said.
Dating apps are seeing the trend as well. Hinge, where more than half of users are Gen Z, introduced a feature in April allowing users to list three possible date options. By the end of June, popular selections included drinks, coffee and tea, dinner and a walk. Users also suggested explicitly inexpensive activities such as going to the beach, playing board games and stargazing.
Other young couples are turning the search for bargains into part of the date itself. London couple Sophia Woodcock, 24, and Charlotte Herlihy, 26, search websites, apps and TikTok for discounts before going out. They have found discounted movie tickets, free drinks at pubs and cocktail bars, and cheaper theater tickets. Sometimes they bring friends along when a larger group is required to qualify for a deal.
“I’m doing the best I can to save money so that if something did go wrong I’ve got a bit of an emergency fund,” Woodcock said. She argues that spending less can actually make dating more interesting. “With dates, they’ve become so the same,” she said. “Whereas this way, it’s really creative.”
But perhaps the most striking evidence of the change is how little many Gen Z adults are spending on dating at all. A 2025 Bank of America study found that 53% of Gen Z men and 54% of Gen Z women spend $0 per month on dates. Another 25% of men and 30% of women spend less than $100 per month.
Those numbers fit a broader pattern. Sixty-six percent of Gen Z respondents said they do not give in to pressure from other people to spend beyond their means. Forty-two percent said they are comfortable declining social opportunities they cannot afford, and 23% said they have canceled plans specifically to save money. Forty-one percent have cut back on dining out.
The restraint is not simply about hoarding money. Seventy-two percent of Gen Z respondents said they had taken steps during the previous year to improve their financial health. Fifty-one percent put money toward savings and 24% paid down debt. For many young adults, every $100 spent on dinner and drinks is $100 that cannot go toward rent, debt or an emergency fund.
The economic pressure is also helping fuel a more unusual cultural phenomenon known as “solo-maxxing.” The term essentially means intentionally embracing single life and focusing time and money on yourself rather than pursuing a relationship.
Matthew Willner, a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist, describes solo-maxxing as “the trending name for the intentional decision to live solo and focus finances and time on yourself, rather than on a relationship.” The practice can include going to restaurants or movies alone, exercising alone, traveling alone or simply organizing a lifestyle that does not depend upon having a romantic partner.
There are many possible motivations, including dating burnout, lifestyle preferences and fear of getting hurt. But Willner believes the economic environment also matters.
“It makes historical sense that in times of uncertainty, instability, and inequality, more people would elect to live a more frugal, independent lifestyle,” Willner said. “For some it is a choice, and for others it’s a necessity.”
That last distinction may be the most important one. Choosing to remain single is nothing new, and neither is taking someone for a walk instead of buying an expensive dinner. The larger concern is what happens when economic conditions begin making those decisions for people.
Willner also warns that solo-maxxing is not necessarily healthy or unhealthy by itself. “Whether or not the pattern is healthy really depends on the motivation,” he said. Someone who genuinely enjoys independence is in a different situation from someone who withdraws from relationships because the emotional or financial risks have become overwhelming.
The financial anxiety underlying these choices is substantial. Bank of America found that 51% of Gen Z respondents consider the high cost of living a barrier to financial success. Thirty-five percent said their monthly expenses, including rent, groceries, utilities and dining out, were higher than they had imagined before becoming financially independent.
Stacy Francis, president and CEO of Francis Financial, said Gen Z is dealing with several pressures simultaneously. “They’re struggling with very high student loans, coupled with inflation, higher prices for everything, and not the best job market for the younger generation too,” she said.
That is why the changing dating habits of Gen Z may be more important than they initially appear. Dating is not merely another consumer activity like buying a television or going on vacation. For generations, dating and courtship have been part of the social process through which young people meet partners, build lasting relationships, create households and eventually form families.
Inflation therefore has consequences that cannot always be measured by the Consumer Price Index. When the cost of ordinary life rises enough, people begin changing the way they live. Dinner becomes coffee. Coffee becomes a walk. A weekly date becomes a monthly date. Eventually, for some people, dating itself can become an expense that is easier to eliminate.
There is certainly nothing wrong with a picnic in the park, a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge or an inexpensive cup of coffee. Those may turn out to be better ways to get to know someone than spending $200 at a restaurant. Nor is there anything inherently wrong with a young person deciding to remain single and concentrate on building financial security.
The cultural problem emerges when those decisions are driven less by preference than necessity.
Normal patterns of courtship developed in an environment where young adults could reasonably afford to participate in them. The recent bout of inflation and the broader rise in living costs have disrupted that calculation. Gen Z is responding rationally by saving money, reducing expenses and avoiding financial commitments it believes it cannot afford.
But rational individual decisions can still produce troubling social consequences. If young adults increasingly conclude that dating, relationships and eventually family formation are financially out of reach, the effects will not stop at restaurant tables and dating apps.
For Gen Z, the $189 date may be becoming a symbol of something much larger. The generation is not simply changing where it goes on Friday night. Economic pressure may be changing how young Americans meet, socialize, fall in love and build their lives.
