‘Side hustle’ is the most popular misleading personal finance trend on TikTok

A study into harmful personal finance trends on TikTok has found that the hashtag “side hustle” is the most common trending term. #sidehustle was found attached to millions of posts on a daily basis, with many providing misleading, incorrect or costly advice.

There has long been concern about the negative impact of social media influencers, and a key area of alarm is financial guidance. A particular worry is that Gen Z is increasingly turning to social media platforms such as TikTok for financial advice, or ideas about how to make money quickly.

A report by the TIAA Institute provides a fascinating insight into the financial literacy of Americans, with some disturbing findings relating to Gen Z. The study, Financial literacy and retirement fluency in America, found that financial knowledge is sadly lacking:

Gen Z financial literacy in each functional area is consistently lower than the other generations. Insuring is the area where Gen Z functional knowledge is lowest and correspondingly where the gap with other generations tends to be largest. Comprehending risk is the area of lowest functional knowledge for each generation except Gen Z. It’s also the area where knowledge doesn’t appear to increase with age as roughly one-third of the risk-related questions were answered correctly, on average, across generations.

The implications of this can be far-reaching, and it is something that makes Gen Z susceptible to following poor advice. The report prompted BestBrokers to conduct analysis into TikTok trends as it “reigns supreme as their go-to platform, a place where quick tips and flashy hacks dominate the feed”.

BestBrokers says:

Behind the viral videos tagged #Moneytok, #PassiveIncome, and #Debtfree, lurks a double-edged sword: many influencers doling out financial wisdom have no formal training or credible background. The allure of instant, snackable content often trumps deeper understanding.

Some creators do offer genuine insights, but TikTok’s finance content is also riddled with misinformation, scams, and get-rich-quick schemes designed more for engagement than education. This growing flood of unreliable content is part of the problem.

Part of the problem is the fact that anyone is free to proffer advice online, and social media platforms like TikTok make it easy to reach a large audience at little or no cost. Posts associated with hashtags such as #passiveincome, #debtfree and #cryptoinvesting can be genuine, honest and useful, but it is easy to ride on the popularity of a hashtag to gain traction for other content.

This can be content which is purposefully misleading, or it may mistakenly contain poor advice – the impact remains much the same. The largely unregulated world of social media is, concerningly, how Gen Z is attempting to learn about personal finance – a world where “catchy videos and trending hashtags often substitute for qualified guidance. TikTok, with its global reach and magnetic pull on Millennials and Gen Z, has become an unexpected, and increasingly controversial, classroom for money matters”.

It is not only the lack of regulation of TikTok posts that is a cause for concern, but also the lack of transparency about the people offering advice, their associations, and the lack of recourse to help when things go wrong.

It is hard to judge how to best proceed. There is a lot of valuable content on TikTok and other social platforms provided by professionals and financial experts:

Many of these creators openly disclose their credentials, which can be verified through official databases such as the Investment Adviser Public Disclosure website. Others, while not certified, are widely respected in their fields and provide practical, experience-based insight into everything from basic saving strategies to more advanced investing concepts.

Although many of TikTok’s financial trends and challenges blur the line between entertainment and education, the platform does host a vast and growing library of informative videos that help build financial literacy, especially among younger users. That said, TikTok’s primary audience remains Gen Z, many of whom are just beginning to manage their own income, savings, and credit. Even more concerning is the platform’s significant popularity among teenagers and preteens, a group particularly vulnerable to idealised notions of overnight wealth and unrealistic promises. In 2025, distinguishing between credible advice and viral gimmicks has never been more important.

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