I was on the couch the other night, scrolling through a TikTok my granddaughter sent me.
The video was a young woman, maybe twenty-five, holding up an almost-empty tube of mascara. She had this proud, knowing smile. The caption said: “Day 47 of using up what I have before I buy more. #UnderconsumptionCore.”
I watched it twice.
Then I laughed out loud.
Because what this twenty-five-year-old was doing was exactly what my mother did every single week of her life. And what HER mother did. And probably what her mother's mother did before that.
The mascara wasn't a movement when my mother did it.
It was just a normal day for her.
I kept scrolling. The next video showed someone proudly displaying a sweater she'd worn for ten years. The one after that was a woman cooking dinner from leftovers. The one after that was someone repotting a plant in a peanut butter jar.
It went on like this for an hour.
And it slowly hit me, somewhere in the middle of a montage of someone reusing aluminum foil, that the internet had just discovered what entire generations of women had been doing without naming.
There's a name for it now.
“Underconsumption core.”
It's a TikTok aesthetic that's been growing for the past two years. Wikipedia has an entry. The United Nations even referenced it in their Black Friday materials last year.
Gen Z and Millennials are credited with starting it.
What nobody seems to be saying, though, is that my mother lived this. My grandmother lived this. Most of the women I grew up around lived this.
And they just called it… life.
Not a movement. Not an aesthetic. Not a trend.
Just how you took care of what you had.
The thing this practice did, the thing that matters for any woman now standing in her sixties surrounded by decades of accumulated stuff, is that it kept our houses from filling up in the first place.
You can't have clutter if nothing comes in.
You can't have piles of stuff to sort through if you finished what you bought, repaired what broke, and saved what was useful.
The whole back end of decluttering, the part most of us spend our 60s and 70s working against, was prevented at the front end by a generation that bought less and used everything.
What follows are ten habits Gen Z is calling “underconsumption core” that women of my generation simply called keeping a home from filling up.
What “Underconsumption Core” Actually Means (For Those Not on TikTok)
If you're not scrolling social media every day, here's the short version.
Underconsumption core is a trend where people post videos of themselves not buying things.
Not in a preachy way. Not in a martyr way. Just showing the small choices that don't make it into shopping hauls.
Someone wearing the same outfit for the third day in a row, on purpose. Someone finishing a bottle of shampoo. Someone hanging onto a pair of shoes for nine years and getting them resoled. Someone cooking dinner from what's already in the fridge instead of buying special ingredients for a recipe they saw online.
The videos are usually slow and a little plain. That's the point.
They exist as a deliberate pushback against the “haul culture” that dominated social media for years. The unboxings. The Target runs. The closet refreshes. The pantry restocks where someone empties everything into matching glass containers and then has to go buy more groceries to fill the matching glass containers.
If that whole rhythm has felt exhausting to watch (and a little wasteful, if you're being honest), you're not alone. Underconsumption core is a reaction to that exhaustion.
The trend started picking up steam in 2024. And by 2026, it's not really a trend anymore. It's a way of living that a lot of younger women have committed to, often out of necessity, and increasingly out of conviction.
The interesting part, for women of my generation, is what they're “discovering.”
Every single one of these habits is something we already know.
Most of us learned them from our mothers, who learned them from theirs.
We were taught not to waste. To finish what we started. To repair instead of replace. To use up what we had before buying more. To borrow before purchasing. To save the jars.
We didn't call it anything. We just lived it.
What follows is what that life actually looked like. And what we know about it that Gen Z is still figuring out.
10 “Underconsumption Core” Habits My Mother Was Doing in 1962
These aren't decluttering tricks. They're small daily choices my mother made for decades that kept our house from filling up in the first place.
1. Wearing the Same Outfit More Than Once a Week
Twelve outfits. That was my mother's whole wardrobe.
Not twelve dresses. Not twelve tops. Twelve outfits. Total.
A Sunday dress. Two work skirts with three blouses she rotated. A pair of slacks for housework. Two house dresses. A coat for winter, a coat for fall, a raincoat. That was the whole thing.
She wore the same Tuesday-Wednesday outfit every single week of my childhood. Nobody at her job ever said a word. The world did not stop.
Today, women on TikTok are filming themselves rewearing outfits as if it's a small rebellion. They have a name for it now. “Outfit repeating.”
It used to just be called getting dressed.
When you wear what you own, the wardrobe stays small. When the wardrobe stays small, the closet doesn't overflow. When the closet doesn't overflow, you don't have to spend a Saturday afternoon trying to declutter the clothes you barely remember owning.
The whole problem solves itself at the front end.
2. Finishing the Lipstick Before Buying a New One
There was one open lipstick on her dresser at any given time.
She wore it down to the metal tube. She'd dig the last bits out with a little brush. Then, and only then, she'd buy another one. Usually the same shade.
She also had one bottle of foundation, one bottle of shampoo, one tube of toothpaste open at a time. When something ran out, she put it on the grocery list and bought a replacement.
That was the entire system.
Today, the average American woman has between fifteen and forty unfinished beauty products in her bathroom at any given time. Half-empty lipsticks. Shampoos she stopped liking. Serums she meant to use. Mascaras she bought because someone on the internet recommended them.
If you've ever opened a drawer and found six different lipsticks you don't use, you know what I'm talking about.
Finishing what you have is one of the most powerful ways to keep clutter from accumulating, and it's a habit that costs you absolutely nothing to practice.
3. Saving Glass Jars to Reuse as Storage
A shelf in the corner of her pantry was devoted entirely to washed-out jars.
Pickle jars. Mason jars. Mayonnaise jars with the labels soaked off. Olive jars. The occasional baby food jar saved from when one of us was small.
She used them for everything. Buttons. Loose change. Leftover beans. The bacon grease she saved for cooking. Homemade jam. Sewing supplies. Nails in the garage.
She didn't buy storage containers because she didn't need to. The jars came with the groceries.
On TikTok, this exact practice is now an aesthetic. Young women film themselves carefully arranging glass jars on shelves, captioning the videos “my zero-waste pantry.”
It's lovely. It's also what every woman over sixty was raised to do.
If you have a cabinet full of mismatched plastic containers you've collected over the years, this is a habit worth coming back to. The jars stack better, they last longer, and you can see what's inside them. My mother had it figured out.
4. Mending Instead of Replacing
A wicker sewing basket lived on the back of a chair in the den, the lid never fully closed.
When my dad's pants got a hole, she patched them. When the elbow wore through on a sweater, she darned it. When a button fell off, she sewed it back on the same week, not three months later. When the heel of a shoe wore down, she walked it to the cobbler down the street.
Replacing something was the last resort. Repairing it was the first one.
This is now a TikTok trend. There are entire accounts dedicated to “visible mending,” where people patch jeans with brightly colored thread on purpose. Repair cafes are opening in cities across the country. A whole new generation is learning how to darn a sock from YouTube.
Every one of those skills used to live in a sewing basket on the back of a chair.
When you repair what you have, three things happen. You spend less money. You keep an item that's already worked for you. And you don't end up with a closet full of “almost good” things you've replaced but couldn't bear to throw out.
The fewer things you throw out, the less guilt you carry. The less guilt you carry, the easier it gets to let go of the things that truly are done.
5. Buying Things Meant to Last Decades
A cast-iron skillet sits on my stove right now that my mother received at her wedding.
She used it three or four times a week for fifty-eight years. When she passed, I inherited it. I still cook in it. My daughter has already said she wants it someday.
That skillet has fed four generations.
She also had one good winter coat that she wore for twenty years, a Singer sewing machine that lasted her whole adult life, and a set of stainless steel measuring cups that I still use in my own kitchen.
She didn't replace these things because they weren't designed to need replacing. They were built once, well, and they did their job.
Today, women on TikTok talk about “investment pieces” and “buy it for life” products. The articles list the brands of cast-iron skillets you should consider. The wirecutter guides explain which boots will last.
None of this is new. It's just the rediscovery of what well-made things felt like before everything was designed to break.
The fewer disposable things you bring into your home, the less you'll have to deal with later. A skillet that lasts fifty years is a skillet you never have to declutter.
6. Cooking From a Small Set of Family Recipes
The meal rotation in our house was maybe twenty dishes deep.
Not twenty cuisines. Twenty meals. Meatloaf. Spaghetti. Pot roast. Tuna casserole. Chicken and dumplings. Vegetable soup. Pancakes.
She rotated through them on a weekly schedule, with small variations. Sunday was the bigger meal. Monday was leftovers. Tuesday was meatloaf. And so on.
She didn't have a Pinterest board. She didn't watch food shows. She didn't buy specialty ingredients for one recipe and then watch them sit unused in the back of the cabinet.
She cooked from a small, deep well of things she knew how to make.
On TikTok now, there's a backlash building against what creators call “recipe core.” The trend where someone films themselves making an elaborate viral dinner that requires twelve specialty ingredients, half of which will never get used again.
Young women are starting to say what my mother always knew: a small handful of dependable recipes will feed a family for a lifetime.
When the pantry isn't full of one-time ingredients, the kitchen doesn't fill up either. When the kitchen doesn't fill up, you're not standing in front of a cabinet wondering why there are three different bottles of fish sauce in here.
7. Borrowing From Neighbors Instead of Buying
Mrs. Hanson next door had a casserole dish my mother borrowed every few months for church potlucks.
When my father needed a ladder for one weekend project, he walked across the street and borrowed one from Mr. Davis.
When my parents threw a small dinner party, my mother borrowed an extra card table from her sister.
These were not big transactions. There was no app. There was no platform. There was a doorbell and a neighbor who'd known you for fifteen years and trusted you to return the dish clean.
Today, “Buy Nothing” Facebook groups are blowing up across the country. People are sharing tools, kitchenware, kids' toys, gardening supplies, all of it through neighborhood networks of strangers.
This is just a version of what every neighborhood used to do organically. It's a beautiful trend, and it's also a recovery of something we lost.
When you can borrow, you don't have to buy. When you don't buy, you don't have to store. When you don't store, you don't have to declutter.
The whole chain works in your favor.
8. Shopping Secondhand Without Shame
Half of the furniture I grew up with came from estate sales.
She bought us kids' winter coats at the church rummage sale. She bought tools at the hardware store's annual used-equipment day. She bought a coffee table at someone's yard sale for three dollars and used it for thirty years.
Nobody was embarrassed about any of this. It was just how you got things.
The word “thrifting” didn't exist as a verb. We just called it shopping smart.
Today, secondhand shopping is being rebranded as a virtue. Gen Z creators on TikTok film their thrift store hauls and call it sustainable fashion. Vintage clothing is selling for more than new clothing in some markets.
What was once practical is now aspirational.
For women in their sixties who already know how to shop a yard sale, this isn't new territory. It's a homecoming.
And if you've been buying everything new because somewhere along the way you got the message that secondhand was “less than,” I'd gently push back on that. The most beautiful pieces in my home all came from somewhere else first.
9. Drinking Water From the Tap
A plain glass. Filled from the kitchen sink. With ice if she felt fancy.
That was the whole hydration system my mother used for sixty years.
She didn't own a special bottle. She didn't have a hydration tracker. She didn't pay forty dollars for a tumbler that the internet told her she needed.
She just drank water when she was thirsty, from the same glass she always used.
The water bottle market is now a thirteen-billion-dollar industry. People own multiple bottles. They have a hydration habit and an Instagram account dedicated to their daily water intake. The Stanley cup alone became a cultural phenomenon in 2024, with people buying dozens of color variations.
On TikTok, there's now a small but growing pushback. Women are filming themselves drinking water out of regular glasses and captioning the videos “this is what hydration used to look like.”
My mother would have laughed at all of it.
If your kitchen has a shelf full of water bottles you no longer use, this is one of the easiest places to start letting go. Pick the one you actually use. Donate the rest.
10. Having One Good “Thing” Instead of Seven
One purse. Black leather. Used every day for twelve years.
That was the whole purse situation in our house.
She used it every day. When the strap finally broke, she got it repaired.
She also had one good coat. One set of company dishes. One pair of dress shoes she kept polished. One winter hat. One Sunday handbag.
She wasn't a minimalist. She just believed in owning one good version of the things she needed, and then taking care of them.
Today's version of this is called “capsule wardrobes” and “buy less, choose well.” Influencers build entire content empires around showing women how to own fewer, nicer things.
It's the same idea. It's just been given an aesthetic and a price tag.
You don't need seven black purses. You need one black purse you actually love. You don't need a closet full of “almost right” shoes. You need two or three pairs that fit and that you reach for again and again.
Less, but better.
That's the whole thing.
What Gen Z Is Getting Right (And What They're Missing)
Gen Z is right.
They're right that endless consumption is exhausting. They're right that buying more things doesn't make you happier. They're right that fast fashion is destroying the planet. They're right that there's something deeply freeing about not participating in the cycle of buy-replace-discard.
They've named something real, and they've done it in a way that's reached millions of younger women who needed to hear it.
That deserves respect.
Here's what they're missing, though.
They're missing the part where this isn't aesthetic.
A lot of underconsumption core content is still beautifully filmed, beautifully lit, set to a curated soundtrack. The aluminum foil being reused looks artful. The empty mascara tube is held just so. The thrifted sweater is photographed in good light.
It's lovely, and it's also still performance.
What my mother did wasn't performance.
It was unphotographed. It was daily. It happened in the background of her life, week after week, decade after decade, without an audience.
The deepest version of this practice is one nobody sees. It's a way of being in the world that doesn't need a hashtag to validate it.
Gen Z is also missing the second half of the story, which is this: my mother's generation was working with the inheritance of war and Depression. They had no choice. The thrift wasn't a virtue. It was survival.
When my mother saved the bacon grease, it wasn't because she was making a statement. It was because she'd watched her own mother stretch a pound of bacon across a week of dinners during the war years.
The practice was deep because the need was deep.
For Gen Z, the choice to underconsume is largely voluntary, layered on top of plenty. Which is part of why the trend can feel a little dressed-up at times. The genuine version, the version my mother lived, doesn't need to perform itself for anyone.
That's not a criticism of Gen Z. It's just a missing piece of the picture.
How to Stop Apologizing for Living This Way
If you've been doing some version of this your whole adult life and somewhere along the way got the message that it was old-fashioned, this section is for you.
Please stop apologizing.
For wearing the same coat for fifteen years.
For finishing the lotion before opening a new bottle.
For mending the seam instead of donating the dress.
For drinking water out of a regular glass.
For having one purse you actually like.
These are not the habits of a woman who is behind. These are the habits of a woman who knows what she values, takes care of what she has, and doesn't need a viral video to confirm her choices.
For decades, the culture has whispered to women that having more things means being a better, more successful, more interesting person. That refresh and replace and upgrade is how a modern woman lives.
A whole generation of younger women is now waking up to what the women of our generation already knew. That having less, owning better, and using everything is not a sign of being out of touch. It's a sign of a life that's been thought through.
So when your daughter comes over and notices you're still using the same set of dish towels you had when she was a child, you don't have to laugh and say “oh, I really should buy new ones.”
You can just say “yes, I've had these for thirty years and they still work.”
That's not embarrassment material.
That's the practice.
The same practice that, on the back end, keeps the lasting kind of decluttered home without you ever having to make a project out of it.
Ready to Make This a Habit, Not a Trend?
If reading through this list has reminded you of habits you grew up with, or made you want to lean back into them, the next step isn't another decluttering system.
It's a way to walk through your home with this practice in mind. A way to notice what's already serving you, finish what you have, and let go of the things that came in faster than they should have.
That's what my free Declutter for Self Care Checklist is for.
It's not a thirty-day overhaul. It's a room-by-room companion you can use whenever you have fifteen minutes to work through one small space at a time.
Made for women who want a home that reflects what they actually need, not what the internet told them they needed.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is underconsumption core, in simple terms?
Underconsumption core is a social media trend where people share examples of not buying things.
Wearing the same outfit more than once. Finishing the shampoo before buying a new one. Repairing shoes instead of replacing them. Reusing glass jars.
It started on TikTok around 2024 and grew through 2026 into a broader cultural conversation about consuming less.
For most women over sixty, the trend isn't new. It's a rediscovery of how their mothers and grandmothers lived.
Is underconsumption core just minimalism with a new name?
Not quite.
Minimalism, especially the version that became famous in the 2010s, was about owning as little as possible and curating a clean, often empty-looking home.
Underconsumption core is about using what you have rather than reducing to the bare minimum. It's lived-in, not curated. It's about extending the life of your stuff, not eliminating your stuff.
The two ideas overlap, but they're not the same.
Why are younger generations suddenly doing what older generations always did?
A few reasons, mostly economic.
The cost of living has risen faster than wages. Young adults are facing housing costs, student debt, and inflation that older generations didn't face at the same age. Many of them are practicing underconsumption because they have to.
There's also a growing awareness of how much fast fashion and disposable goods damage the environment, which is pushing younger women toward repair, reuse, and secondhand shopping.
What's interesting is how closely these “new” practices match the way women of an earlier generation lived. Some of the wisdom is being rediscovered out of necessity.
Can underconsumption core actually help with decluttering?
Yes. Probably more than any decluttering method.
Most decluttering tries to manage the stuff after it's already in your house. Underconsumption is about preventing the stuff from getting in.
When you finish what you have, repair what breaks, and resist buying things you don't need, far less clutter enters your home in the first place. You spend a lot less of your sixties and seventies trying to manage what shouldn't have been there.
Decluttering and underconsumption are two halves of the same practice. One clears what's already there. The other keeps the next wave from showing up.
What if I want to start but feel like it's too late?
It is not too late.
You don't have to overhaul your home or your habits. You can start with one thing this week.
Finish the lotion before you buy a new one. Mend the shirt with the missing button. Use a glass for your water instead of the bottle. Wear the same outfit on Wednesday that you wore on Monday.
That's underconsumption core.
It's also just living the way your mother probably did. There's nothing to learn from scratch. You're not starting from zero.
You're coming home.
Follow me elsewhere!
