Videos for ‘recession’ or ‘budget’ meals surface on TikTok

Some videos have focused on “stagnation” or “budget” and recipes on the famous social media platform in recent months.

They explain how to make dishes that will help viewers to extend the dollar, which feature inexpensive ingredients or people may already have regularly in their homes.

A Tiktok user shares multiple videos showing how to cook at reasonable prices, fill in “stagnation recipes” that extract recipes from depression, previous stagnation and criminal war. The dishes that show them range from a bowl of a bowl to pastries.

In a video posted early this month, a separate Tiktok user showed people how to make some foodstuffs for the kitchen – brown sugar, dried sugar and hot chocolate mixture – themselves.

Consumer confidence fell to its lowest level in 5 years in April

The user said in the video: “If we are entering the recession, then each penny is important, so here are three things that you can make at home very effective in terms of cost.”

Meanwhile, a video posted by the Tiktok user is the most prominent lentil as a way to save money. The user showed a recipe for making burger with a mixture of lentils and floor Turkey.

In recent months, “budget meal” videos have shown traction.

There was a 20 % increase in the use of the classification mark, so specifically, from late March to late April, I mentioned today.

These types of videos were floating on the surface against the background of the growing anxiety about the economy.

Psychotherapist and author Jonathan Albert Fox Business told them that they reflected “the deeper economic anxiety and cultural transformation.”

“On the one hand, it is a practical response to high costs as people try to extend their dollars,” he said. “But at the psychological level, it reveals an increasing feeling of uncertainty and the desire to control at an unpredictable times. These videos can provide a sense of proxy, especially for young generations that feel prices from the American dream.”

With economic uncertainty, Americans spend less on fast food

He said that the videos “serve a community job”, noting that people “are looking for others for reassurance” during difficult times and that “watching someone cooks with 5 dollars can be comfortable and inspiring.”

According to Albert, videos allow “people to build an identity about savings and flexibility” while also revealing that “people are not only trying to stay on the recession, but are trying to get the meaning out of it.”

Although the American economy is not currently in a stagnation, some in Wall Street said in recent weeks that the possibility of one this year has increased. In late April, an estimate of the Economic Analysis Office indicated that the gross domestic product in the first quarter of the United States “decreased by an annual rate of 0.3 %” in the first three months of 2025.

Wall Street companies see the risk of recession increasing on customs duties and commercial war

Economic uncertainty has escalated amid the Trump administration to put the customs tariff on the goods that were brought to the United States from foreign countries, such as 10 % baseline tax on countries that did not diminish the mutual tariff.

The work statistics office is scheduled to publish the consumer price index data – a common scale for inflation – for the month of April on Tuesday.

While public inflation in March witnessed a slight decrease from the previous month, food prices and many other things remained a pain point for many Americans. Food at home recorded a 0.5 % month in March and was 2.4 % higher than it was a year ago, according to consumer price index data from the Labor Statistics Office.