Friendflation: Am I being priced out of my friend group?

“Keeping friends shouldn’t be expensive.”

If the mere thought of getting an invite to a girl’s trip in Lisbon fills your stomach with dread instead of excited butterflies, you’re not alone. It’s 2025, everyone’s addicted to social media, the cost of living is out of control and ‘friendflation’ has entered the chat.

Friendflation, a term that emerged online earlier this year and quickly gained traction on social media, describes the rising cost of socialising and the growing difficulty of affording our friendships.

Interested to hear how others navigate the world? Head to our Life section.

Anything worth having costs something, but it wasn’t until recently that our friendships required more than our time and effort. Now, keeping friends often means spending money.

According to recent data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA), as the cost of living has skyrocketed, the frequency with which we’ve been seeing our friends has been on the decline. And while correlation doesn’t equal causation, it’s not a leap to posit that friendship has simply become financially unsustainable. 

The cost of curated catch-ups

While getting together was once as simple as dropping by a friend’s house for a chat (sweatpants on, hair up, makeup off), there’s now a growing pressure for our catch-ups to look like they were pulled straight from a Pinterest board. 

Social media has changed what it means to spend time with friends. Scroll through your FYP for a few minutes and you’ll undoubtedly find the evidence: Some (usually thin, white) micro influencer inviting you to watch as she prepares her weekly dinner party with the girlies.

Clips of a perfectly rustic, alfresco dining table, a draped tablecloth topped with whimsical floral arrangements, dozens of candlesticks and ample pitchers of sangria. Seated around it are chic women with dewy skin and designer sunglasses. In your head, you know this had to have taken hours of work (and cost hundreds of dollars), but they make it look effortless.

Hanging out has become yet another form of conspicuous consumption. Birthday bashes, hens party trips, even picnics in the park – if it’s not done in a postable (read: expensive) aesthetic, no one online seems interested in doing it. 

For those of us who can afford Instagram-worthy dinner parties, keeping up isn’t necessarily a problem. But for those who can barely afford rent, loneliness becomes a looming possibility. Even if you’re not comparing yourself to influencers, you may be using your friends as the measuring stick, especially if they’re in a different tax bracket. Not wanting to seem like ‘the broke friend’ of the group can make meeting up feel like another financial burden.

Faye*, a 33-year-old sales consultant living in Sydney, doesn’t make the same wage as her close friends. Lately, she’s been wrestling with what matters to her more – her friendships or her financial future. “It’s the frequent meetups coupled with the added pressures I put on myself to feel on the same page and look a certain way,” she says. “Keeping friends shouldn’t be expensive, but living in Sydney, it’s hard to hang out on a budget.”

Rather than feeling like ‘the broke friend’ who kills the mood, Faye opts to spend Saturday nights in and avoids checking social media. The less she knows about what she’s missing out on, the better.

Getting back to basics

Expensive catch-ups aren’t sustainable but for our health and wellbeing, our friendships need to be. So, how do we tackle friendflation? 

First comes the obvious: basic budgeting. Contrary to the very concept of friendflation, you can save money and maintain a social life. Understand how much cash you can realistically commit to activities with your friends each month, while still meeting your own needs and putting some aside for savings. 

When you’ve reached your limit, opt for free events in your city, go for walks, have a slumber party, hit the beach. Do whatever simple, no-cost pleasures bring you and your friends closer together.

But most importantly, communicate with your mates. Good friends care about your company, not your bank balance. You should never feel ashamed of setting boundaries around your spending (or anything else). Having these honest, vulnerable conversations about money may even strengthen your friendships.

For all its flaws, maybe this era of friendflation can teach us something. If the cost of showing up is continually outweighing the joy, what is that friendship really offering? 

Get back to the (please excuse the sappiness) true meaning of friendship: love, support, laughter, trust. We can’t capture these on film or share them on social media. They’re not expensive or performative, but at the end of the day, they’re the only things that really matter.  

To learn more about strengthening your friendships, try this.