As soon as Matthew Robertson turned 18, he opened a tax-free savings account (TFSA), installed personal finance apps on his phone and started listening to podcasts about the stock market.

Robertson, now 21 and a fourth-year student at Carleton University, says his interest in finance is both personal and a necessity due to the economic crisis and cost-of-living pressures.

“We need to take control of our finances, so that we can buy a house or start a family one day,” he said.

Across Canada, Gen Zers are more focused than ever on ways to make the most of their income. A 2024 survey by TD Bank found that 68 per cent of Gen Z Canadians invest regularly each year, the highest rate among all age groups.

Content creators are also taking note of this trend and are trying to fill the knowledge gap through social media. Financial influencers, or Finfluencers, have become popular with their simple, easy-to-understand videos about budgeting, investing, and cryptocurrencies.

According to a 2024 report by the Canadian Securities Administrators, about 82% of Canadians aged 18 to 24 use investment advice on social media.

Alyssa Davis, founder of Mixed Up Money, a platform with more than 85,000 followers on TikTok, aims to help people have a more positive relationship with money. When she started more than 10 years ago, she says, the conversation about money was mostly “in the hands of white men who just said, ‘You need to manage it better,’” but now social media has created a more open and accessible space for talking about money.

“We prefer to get advice from people who understand us, who look like us, who talk like us, not just experts in suits who talk like us.”

Errol Oseki, a professor of management at the University of Ottawa, says that making that human connection—even if it’s one-way and through a screen—is important for a generation that has seen money as a taboo subject. However, he cautions that some young people are developing “quasi-social relationships” with financial influencers, relationships where there’s a sense of closeness but neither party really knows the other.

Robertson says she learns mostly from podcasts and doesn’t take financial content on social media too seriously. “It’s important for young people who are following advice from influencers to do their own research and not blindly trust anyone,” she says.

Michael O’Brien, a financial advisor at SunLife Financial, says many Gen Zers who come to his office are “a little confused” and don’t know where to start with managing their finances. “You can get 15 different pieces of advice about money over lunch; it’s overwhelming,” he says.

Many young people want to manage some of their finances themselves, O’Brien added, rather than have everything handed to an advisor. He also hopes the country’s education system will change so that high school students have at least the basic tools to manage money and know what’s right and wrong when searching online.

Currently, only Saskatchewan and Quebec have mandatory financial literacy courses in high schools, and Ontario plans to make it mandatory as part of grade 10 math by September 2026.

Robertson, who grew up in Ottawa, says his high school financial education lacked the practical tools needed for real-world situations. He believes this lack exacerbates the inequality between those who have family discussions about money and those who don’t.

O’Brien stressed that financial education shouldn’t be complex and abstract, but should provide basic knowledge about topics like budgeting and investing.

“It’s incredibly important to have a broad perspective and open young people’s eyes to these issues,” he said.