Eating out less? Fine. Putting off a haircut? They’ll survive. Living with parents a little longer? Apparently doable.
Gen Z is cutting back, but not necessarily to save for the house, car, and family that once defined the American Dream. For many young adults, the thing worth protecting is travel—even as trips get more expensive. Average U.S. travel costs in August were 9% higher than a year earlier, according to NerdWallet’s Travel Price Index, with airfares up 23.4%.
Yet nearly 44% of U.S. Gen Z travelers say they frequently or very frequently take spontaneous leisure trips, compared with 25.2% of American travelers overall, according to Future Partners. If travel is getting more expensive but remains a priority, something else has to give.
Housing, the centerpiece of the old American Dream, may be where that shift is clearest.
Among Gen Z renters, 83% say renting allows them to save for life experiences rather than tie up money in homeownership, according to a January 2025 survey of roughly 2,000 Gen Z renters by property management software company Entrata and Qualtrics. Nearly half (45%) said they are prioritizing travel and career growth over buying a home. The shift extends beyond Gen Z. In a separate 2024 Entrata survey of U.S. renters, 41% said their “American Dream” has nothing to do with homeownership. So long, white picket fence.
Owning a home is still a dream, but feels unattainable
That doesn’t mean the dream is dead. More than half of Gen Z still considers homeownership part of the American Dream, Fortune has reported, even as affordability pushes it further out of reach.
Even those who still want to buy appear more willing to compromise on space. Seventy-four percent of Gen Z respondents said they would take a smaller home, compared with 64% of millennials, 57% of Gen X, and 43% of baby boomers, according to a Cotality report released in September that surveyed homebuyers in five countries. Gen Z was also the generation most willing to cut lifestyle spending to afford a home—a reminder that for many young adults, travel and homeownership are still competing for the same dollars.
For some, the compromise is even simpler: Just don’t move out yet.
Nearly half (49%) of adults under 30 lived with a parent in 2025, up 12 percentage points from 2019, according to the Federal Reserve—a shift one economist told Fortune could reshape marriage, kids, and homebuying. In the Fed’s 2019 survey, saving money was the most common reason young adults gave for living at home.
Staying in a childhood bedroom or settling for less square footage hardly resembles the postwar image of upward mobility. But it can leave considerably more room in the budget for other priorities now, rather than assets later. The tradeoffs extend from where they live to what they drive and what they are willing to go without.
In a 2023 Cars.com survey, 55% of Gen Z respondents said they bought a used vehicle, while 55% of millennials bought new. More recent LendingTree data show that 51.5% of Gen Z borrowers with active auto loans originally borrowed less than $25,000, compared with 36.2% of millennials and 31.4% of Gen X borrowers.
The tradeoffs don’t stop at big-ticket purchases. Remember the haircut? That wasn’t a joke. A Skyscanner survey found that 52% of U.S. Gen Z respondents would give up meals out if it brought their next trip closer, while 40% said they’d cut back on haircuts.
Individually, skipping dinner out or stretching another month between haircuts does not buy a trip to Europe. Together with smaller housing ambitions and thriftier car choices, though, it points to a different spending hierarchy.
Maybe Gen Z suddenly decided owning a large home is lame. Or maybe homes and cars simply got so expensive that travel became one of the few pieces of the good life they can still afford. The new American Dream might be less about owning more and more about seeing more.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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