As just about anyone with access to social media will tell you, influencers and everyday users love a trend.
Whether it’s posting “ins and outs” lists, embracing a challenge like 75 Hard and tracking your progress each day for people to follow along with, or adopting utterly useless new lingo (ahem, 6-7), platforms are awash with an endless stream of digital crazes.
Among the latest are “maxxing” trends. There are the looksmaxxers, who inject themselves with peptides and smash their jaws with hammers to become better-looking, and those who are chasing the perfect night’s rest in the sleepmaxxing community. The whimsymaxxing folk love to bejewel and bedazzle everyday items to make the world a bit more sparkly, and the proteinmaxxers are, as the name suggests, obsessed with maximising their protein intake. And then there’s the newest entry: “moneymaxxing”.
At its core, moneymaxxing is about, you guessed it, maximising your money and ensuring that every dollar you have to your name is working as hard as it can for you. This can be through small steps like cancelling subscriptions to services you no longer need or use, shopping around to find a cheaper utility provider, selling old clothes on eBay or Facebook Marketplace, or getting better at meal planning and using all the groceries in your pantry every week instead of having to throw out food or order takeaway.
But it can also include other actions like automating payments to ensure you never face late fees on bills, creating a direct debit each payday into an investment account (also known online as “slow saving”), making additional payments to debts in order to clear them faster, or simply putting your savings into a high-interest account to ensure you’re maximising the interest you can earn.
Now, if at this point you’re thinking, wait a minute, Victoria, that concept has been around for a very long time and is hardly anything new – you’re absolutely right. A lot of the tips being handed out on social media are tried and tested budgeting tips and tricks that have been around for decades. And so it is with moneymaxxing. Really, the only thing that’s new about it is the buzzy new label that’s been added to it.
A lot of the tips being handed out on social media are tried and tested budgeting tips and tricks that have been around for decades.
What I like about the moneymaxxing trend is that it’s encouraging people, especially younger people who are new to personal finance and still learning how to manage a budget, to be engaged with their money in a very active everyday way by promoting conscious spending and regular audits of your habits to see where small changes can be made.
Rather than laying blame at a person’s feet for not being in a profession that earns enough, or suggesting it’s someone’s fault for their financial reality not being where they might want it to be, this trend is empowering and, most importantly, achievable. Sure, it may not lead to the kind of changes where someone suddenly saves up a house deposit in two years, but these kinds of small habits are the foundations that make major long-term differences in how we value money and interact with it.
But, unfortunately, that isn’t to say the advice of moneymaxxing influencers should be taken as gospel and without question. Because as much as some of the advice being offered up on social media can be genuinely useful and provided by people who have the qualifications and knowledge to impart their wisdom, the checks and balances of online platforms can be seriously hit-and-miss.
Here in Australia, thanks to a thing called INFO 269 that ASIC introduced in 2022, there are very clear legal standards and expectations laid out about what an Australian content creator can and cannot post on social media on the topics of money and finance. The repercussions for breaking those rules are also serious, including potential jail time and fines of up to more than $1 million.
But while we have strict regulations about what Australians can and can’t say online, those same rules don’t apply to influencers in other countries. And this content, even where it doesn’t meet the local creator guidelines, can be viewed and consumed by anyone anywhere in the world.
Taking advice from questionable sources isn’t just a problem for young people, either. Last year alone, more than 43,000 online scams were reported in Australia, according to ScamWatch’s national database, costing close to $160 million. Of that amount, half related to online investment scams, where people were hoping to maximise their hard-earned money via online “opportunities”. So far this year, more than 23,000 online scams have been reported and, once again, roughly half of the $91 million lost has been to investment scams. It’s also worth remembering that those numbers only account for what was reported – meaning the true number is likely much higher.
As tempting as it may be for us to think that we’re too smart or too clever to ever fall for a scam, the cold hard truth is that as they become infinitely more sophisticated and wily, knowing what’s real, what’s a scam, what’s AI and what you should do with your money has never been harder.
Why is it, then, that so many people are turning to influencers and social media for advice? One reason is that many influencers are persuasive and engaging salespeople. But another reason is because of that pesky and lingering problem we’re all a little too familiar with now: inflation.
Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics last week show that in the 12 months between July 2025 and July 2026, housing inflation grew by 5 per cent, food and non-alcoholic beverages by 3.2 per cent, and recreation and culture by 2.6 per cent. We also saw that trimmed mean inflation (the average changes in price after removing the most extreme increases and decreases) remained unchanged over the entire year – staying firm at 3.6 per cent.
At the same time, a Finder survey from June found that almost half of all Australians (48 per cent) think a recession is likely to hit by the end of this year.
When you combine the reality of inflation with the fear of a recession, it’s little wonder that people are trying to figure out ways to maximise the money they have, and the money that we are having to try and stretch further and make more from. In this kind of environment, small cost savings can be easier to find than huge windfalls, and help us feel some semblance of control. And if tried and tested commonsense advice rebranded as a social media trend helps people do that, long live moneymaxxing.
Victoria Devine is an award-winning retired financial adviser, a bestselling author and host of Australia’s No.1 finance podcast, She’s on the Money. She is also founder and director of Zella Money.
- Advice given in this article is general in nature and is not intended to influence readers’ decisions about investing or financial products. They should always seek their own professional advice that takes into account their own personal circumstances before making any financial decisions.
Expert tips on how to save, invest and make the most of your money delivered to your inbox every Sunday. Sign up for our Real Money newsletter.
Victoria Devine is an award-winning retired financial adviser, best-selling author, and host of Australia’s number one finance podcast, She’s on the Money. Victoria is also the founder and managing director of Zella Money.