The video begins with a supermarket trolley. There are no stock charts or references to index funds.. The only thing that appears is a girl in a tracksuit who picks up a packet of cereal and says: “It doesn’t cost 3.80 euros. It costs 3.80 today… plus what you stop investing tomorrow”. Cut. Plan the mobile. And there you have it. The open compound interest calculator. END.
This video has over 200,000 likes on TikTok. He is not the only one. There are more and more creators on networks like Instagram and TikTok who don’t explain how to invest, but how to think as if you were already doing it. they call him spend like an investoror “spend like an investor.” And even if it seems abstract, the message resonates, especially with those who don’t yet have a wallet.
Most of these users probably didn’t buy stocks or open funds. But they started looking at money in a different way. And that’s precisely what’s relevant, some analysts say. Because here it is not a question of choosing between active or index funds. Nor on building a 60/40 portfolio. It’s something much more basic. And much more contagious. The idea that every expense is actually an investment decision. Or non-investment.
This phenomenon has crossed the ocean. It started in financial channels such as His first 100K either The break platformwell known in Anglo-Saxon networks. But now it’s in Spanish with an equally direct, but more local, approach.
From index fund to latte
A viral example. The Spanish designer @save.buy.invest features a series of short videos that have already racked up millions of views on Reels. In one of them, he appears asking for a takeaway coffee. “Two euros a day. That’s 60 euros a month. One year, 720. In ten years, more than 10,000 if you put them in an ETF at 6% per year. Do you want the coffee or the fund?”. That’s the logic.
This is not an isolated phenomenon. This coincides with a real rebound Searches related to index funds among under 30saccording to Google Trends data for Spain. Also with the rise of accounts on networks like @finanzasparamillenials either @investmentalitywho translate financial concepts into everyday decisions.
Perhaps the most interesting thing is not what they say, but how they say it. They do not talk about “liquid assets” or “medium duration”. They talk about “buy the future» when someone abandons an impulse purchase. Of “capitalize on your habits» when you plan the month’s expenses as if you were a manager. And they do it with rhythm, humor and good cultural references.
On the other hand, this change is not only aesthetic. Some financial institutions are taking note. According to BBVA Research, interest in automated savings and micro-investment tools increased by 27% among those under 35 since January. The relationship is not direct, but analysts highlight a clear correlation between the consumption of “light” financial content on networks and the subsequent use of investment-related products.
More data. The Spanish platform Indexa Capital recorded a rebound in account openings in the second half of the year among users aged between 20 and 30. Many of these new customers arrive after interacting with educational content on Instagram or YouTube.
As Dan Ariely, professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University, points out, one of the keys to making better financial decisions is to make visible the future consequences of each present choice. Applied to consumption, this involves linking each expenditure to what remains to be built in the long term. However, this decision is not without criticism. Some accuse him of being a moralist. Others think it trivializes complex decisions.
The economist Mihir Desai (Harvard Business School) has warned at several conferences about the risk of “dramatize” or oversimplify financial education on social media. For her part, European financial regulation expert María Demertzis stressed that these stories can generate “financial anxiety” if they are not accompanied by adequate context.
But the truth is that it accomplished something that many financial education plans haven’t done in years: sneak in real conversations, in the right tone and in the right place. The mobile. And this is where a large part of the future of savings is at stake.
So when we see a influencer Explaining that a 50 euro pair of jeans would be equivalent to 85 euros in ten years if you had invested this money in the manufacturer of the jeans, is doing financial education without mentioning it. What comes now is not advice. It’s a trend. And a sign that investing begins well before opening an account with a broker.
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