With the camera trained on her perfectly manicured hands, Angélique delicately opens a small blue leather pouch. Inside, a dozen transparent envelopes reveal bundles of 10, 20 or 50 euro notes. “Holidays”, “Christmas”, “back to school”, “emergency fund”… Each represents the events of the year for which this mother has saved a very specific sum monthly, established in advance and withdrawn in liquid. At the start of May, the forty-year-old happily empties the contents of this “savings binder”, sorts the banknotes on an immaculate desk, and announces the amount of the loot to his 234,000 subscribers on TikTok. “After four months, we already have 1,400 euros!” she exclaims in the background. Halfway between an ASMR video and a financial advice course, the sequence is all the rage: in just three weeks, more than 35,500 people have already viewed it. “Since inflation, my number of views has not stopped increasing. Many people tell me about their difficulties in managing their money, they can no longer avoid the overdraft at the end of the month. My goal is is to help them keep a budget,” explains Angelique, whose YouTube, TikTok and Instagram accounts have nearly 350,000 users.
Like dozens of other anonymous people, this former bakery manager has recently specialized in “budget” videos on social networks. By filming short playful and educational sequences, she shares her tips and savings techniques, almost all of which are based on the distribution of certain sums of cash in specific envelopes. “The idea is to categorize all your expenses: we start by deleting unnecessary subscriptions, duplicate insurance, superfluous costs… Then we withdraw our budget for the month in cash, we classify it in the envelopes, and we sticks to it”, explains Angélique, who ensures that she saves “around 600 euros per month” since she follows this sorting system, directly inspired by the videos of American influencers. In addition to the envelope technique, the content creator also offers certain challenges to her subscribers, such as the very popular “5 euro challenge”, her “favorite”. The goal ? Never spend your 5 euro notes, and put them aside in a dedicated pocket until you reach a certain amount. “We are ready for the holidays”, rejoices Angélique, in a sequence, seen by more than 30,000 people on TikTok, in which she handles an impressive bundle of small gray bills, the total amount of which amounts to 800 euros .
It was by coming across one of these videos that Elodie, a 35-year-old teacher, decided to radically change her consumption habits. First attracted by this curious classification and the unexpected spread of the dozens of tickets handled by Angélique, she ended up taking a concrete interest in the methods of the influencer. The young woman then buys three binders – one for current expenses, one for “challenges” and one for savings – and saves 400 euros on her monthly budget in a few months. The famous challenge of 5 euros, which she follows assiduously, would also have brought her “more than 650 euros since December”, while the contents of her savings binder have reached 2,200 euros in six months. “Handling the cash has psychologically restricted me in my expenses. And the simple fact of setting and calculating my budget has allowed me to know where my money is going. It’s simple, a bit like a game”, testifies-t she, delighted to no longer end “all her months in the red”.
“Inflation has clearly gone through this”
For Sandrine Deshaies, who has more than 142,000 subscribers on his TikTok account, the fun side of these videos is essential. “People focus more on keeping their binders and the challenges to achieve than on their financial problems, it’s less guilt-ridden”, she analyzes. This former executive in a software company, dismissed for economic reasons during the health crisis, herself experienced “the galley” of difficult end of the month. “Before discovering the envelope technique by watching YouTube videos, I stupidly lost money in shopping, in subscriptions, it was a disaster!” she remembers. Convinced of the “click” that this method can trigger for some consumers, Sandrine decided nine months ago to create her own colored binders, budget sheets or challenge tables, which she sells on her website.
His “slot tree” challenge, inspired by the comments of certain Internet users who constantly remind him that “money does not grow on trees”, has thus become the favorite challenge of his subscribers. “Every day for a month, they put aside 1, 2 or 5 euros, then tick a leaf of the tree on the dedicated sheet. Once all the leaves are ticked, they have the right to access their savings , which reaches 100 euros”, explains Sandrine. “It sounds silly, but, at least, it’s accessible to everyone. There is this aspect of reward, of small daily effort, it’s motivating”, adds the influencer, who records a hundred orders per month on its site: “My number of customers has more than doubled since March, inflation has clearly gone through that.”
Ditto on Sandrine’s TikTok account, where “budget” advice has never been so successful. A video in which she explains the “50/30/20” rule – setting aside 50% of her salary for her needs, 30% for her wants and 20% for savings – has thus counted 200,000 views. Same appetite for a sequence in which she simulates the monthly budget of a subscriber with a salary of 1,700 euros per month (400,000 views), or for the video explanation of a savings technique consisting of “not buying anything “certain days of the week following a schedule established in advance (195,000 views). “Everyone is interested: there are students, working people, executives, retirees. It depends less on the salary than on the management of the latter, especially in this period of inflation”, deciphers the young woman. As proof: one of his subscribers, a doctor with a salary of 11,700 euros, recently asked him to simulate his savings in a video posted on social networks. Guaranteed success: on TikTok, 273,000 people viewed it in just one month.
“You have to be careful of everything”
Once taboo, budget management is now shared in the same way as a vacation video or a photo of the latest fashionable restaurant. On Facebook, dozens of dedicated groups have emerged in recent months. That of Christelle, which brings together 25,000 members, has continued to develop since its creation. “At the moment, we are welcoming between 100 and 150 new people a day”, testifies this mother of two children, followed by nearly 25,000 people. Over the messages, users share their tips, share their advice, their good plans or… their financial worries. “Electricity prices are skyrocketing… I find myself alone at home and I still have 125.20 euros to pay every month. Has this happened to you?” asks a retiree, calling on the community for help. “We are the 10th of the month, and I am in debt of 500 euros already. How do you manage?” asks another user, annoyed by the amount spent on his hobbies.
“Since inflation, the profile of members has changed. Even couples who earn a good living can now find themselves in the red, it’s quite frightening”, sighs Christelle, who tries to put lost subscribers “on the right tracks”. “But there are no secrets: you have to be careful with everything, establish menus in advance, calculate your fixed costs, organize filing cabinets, anticipate parties, birthdays and unforeseen events… It’s not magic, and it can take several hours a week,” she admits. For some, the result is there. In one of the last messages published on her group, a single mother shares her greatest success of the year: thanks to the famous technique “envelopes” and after three years without holidays, she managed to organize a trip to the south of France for her two children. “If everything is good, I won’t have to take out my bank card. I’ve already got everything budget-wise,” she says. Published five days ago, the testimony has already collected around thirty comments, and generated more than 300 “likes”.