Young women are starting to recession-proof their lives

Searches in the U.S. for “press on nails" are up 10% since February, and “blonde to brunette hair" is up 17% in the same period, according to Google.

Miranda McClellan recently started skipping manicures. She also considered going back to brown hair last month, because staying brunette is easier on the budget.

Miranda McClellan was on the fence about spending for blonde highlights.

The 30-year-old TV production-safety manager saw her rent go up by $150 a month last year, while her salary has remained flat, so she now weighs all her spending more carefully. McClellan even landed a side-hustle, babysitting, to pay down her rent and medical bills.

She also got into DIY fashion. After her sweatpants faded, she decided not to buy new ones from Nike. Instead, she dyed the old ones a deep right-from-the-store black. She also taught herself to sew from TikTok tutorials. To accessorize, she cut off the sleeves of her collared shirts and turned them into “bibs" to wear under sweaters.

“I’m trying to shop in my own closet," she says.

McClellan did end up getting those blonde highlights, but the constant budgeting has left her disillusioned. “The rules of the game have changed," she says. “I was told if I got a big corporate job I would have financial security and healthcare that would take care of everything and I could retire with a big 401(k)."

Even before President Trump’s tariff-induced financial panic, consumer sentiment had already dropped to the lowest point since 2022, according to the University of Michigan’s monthly survey. That sentiment has plunged even further, based on April’s data.

The metric has seen turbulent ups and downs since the peak of the pandemic, but men and women had been mostly in lockstep since 2021. In 2024, men started to pull away and feel better about the economy, says Joanne Hsu, director of the survey. And while both men’s and women’s sentiments are negative this year, she adds, women are still more down on the economy.

“They’re perceiving similar risks," Hsu says, “but women tend to feel a little less positive."

‘Therapy is expensive’

Aeyrn Briscoe moved back to the U.S. last November after living in Central and South America and parts of Europe for three years. She’d been fresh out of college when she lived abroad, working remotely as a quality-assurance analyst in government contracting. She ate out every day and still managed to save some money.

Aeyrn Briscoe has tightened her budget, canceling subscriptions like Amazon Prime and Netflix.

Now she is 25 and a digital marketing specialist in Chicago, and that same stability doesn’t exist.

“Things feel a lot tighter now," Briscoe says. She lives alone and doesn’t have help from her parents like so many of her peers do. Focusing on building up some savings, she has canceled subscription services like Amazon Prime and Netflix, and cut out food delivery, manicures and shopping.

In the 12 months that ended in February, female shoppers accounted for 60% of general merchandise sales, which includes apparel, footwear, home decor and more, according to consumer-analytics research firm Circana. In the three months ending February, spending on general merchandise was down 1% among women, and half of that was in lost apparel sales.

“Women are the lion’s share of the apparel business," says Marshal Cohen, Circana’s chief retail-industry adviser. So when he sees women driving a downturn in apparel, he says, “that signals to me that there is a pullback in discretionary spending."

Briscoe used to go to therapy weekly. After being briefly laid off for about a month in late February, she decided to turn to OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot for mini therapy sessions. She now uses it several times a day, bumping up against the 10-free-message limit.

“Therapy is expensive," she says. “No one has an extra $200 to spend to talk to someone."

While she acknowledges it’s maybe not for everyone, she thinks of it as akin to sending a voice memo to a friend, and an attempt to rationalize her feelings.

‘No more sober Ubers’

“Young women in particular have a better feel for something going south," says Anwesha Majumder, economist at the National Partnership for Women & Families, a nonprofit organization. When their spending starts pulling back, she says, “it’s possible that things will quickly spiral for the economy as a whole."

For Stephanie Umeh, it was the rising cost of ride-shares. Rides from her home in Manhattan to JFK Airport had cost around $80. Suddenly those same rides were hitting triple digits, and other rides seemed more expensive, too.

That’s when she declared, “No more sober Ubers."

Stephanie Umeh has started taking the subway rather than pay for rides.

The 30-year-old nurse practitioner might justify the cost if it’s late and safety is a concern. Otherwise, she takes the subway.

She has also fallen out of love with meal-delivery services, whose prices have risen as well. She’s tired of ordering out and paying $30 for a container of pad thai that’s been out of the pan for an hour, and instead opts to buy single-portion meals from Trader Joe’s.

Even during the pandemic, the economy felt stronger to her than it does now, Umeh says.

“I just pray every day that things get better before they get worse," she says. “We’re all struggling—from the top to the bottom, it’s hard for everybody."

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Write to Ann-Marie Alcántara at ann-marie.alcantara@wsj.com