When Lissette Calveiro moved to New York from Miami in 2013, for an internship, she felt like she was living the “Sex and the City” dream.
The now-26-year-old was having brunch with friends and buying new outfits online — and documenting it all on her Instagram FB, +0.39% account.
“I wanted to tell my story about this young millennial living in New York,” Calveiro, who has more than 12,000 followers on Instagram, told the New York Post. “I was shopping . . . for clothes to take ‘the perfect ’gram.’ ”
Although her social media life looked glamorous, she was struggling financially, given that her internship only paid for a transportation stipend. Living off her savings, she also got a part-time retail job. Even after she moved back to Miami and landed a full-time publicist gig, Calveiro sank $10,000 into debt trying to live an Instagram-worthy life.
“I was living above my means,” she said.
As Instagram influencers show off the latest fashion trends and their exotic vacations, mere mortals are breaking the bank trying to keep up. According to Fashionista, you would need to spend about $31,400 a year to “to maintain the standards of physical beauty represented daily in our Instagram feeds.”
Calveiro can relate. While living with her parents in Miami, most of her salary went to dining out, shopping sprees and traveling — all to curate a covetable life online.
“I was living a lie,” she said. Although she was earning in the low- to mid-five figures, “Debt was looming over my head.”
Calveiro would treat herself to monthly $200 shopping sprees so she wouldn’t be seen on Instagram wearing the same outfit twice. Every month, she’d also splurge on a designer item, such as a $1,000 vintage Louis Vuitton bag or an accessory from Kate Spade, so she could show it off to her followers.
Then there was the desire to look like a jet-setter, traveling to a new location — such as Las Vegas, the Bahamas and Los Angeles — every month for a year.
“Snapchat SNAP, +4.65% had these [geo-] filters [like digital passport stamps] and I wanted to collect at least 12,” Calveiro said.
Her biggest splurge was a $700 round-trip ticket to Austin, Texas, for a Sia concert in November 2016.
Although she traveled some for work, Calveiro said, “If you break it down, a lot of the travel I was doing in 2016 was strictly for Instagram.”
She had a sobering reality check toward the end of 2016, when she landed a PR job in Manhattan.
“I knew that moving to New York, I had to get my act together or I wasn’t going to survive,” she said.
She pulled a 180 with her finances, and went into a “mini-isolation from the world,” slowing down her Instagram activity.
“A lot of it was recycled content,” Calveiro said of her posts.
She moved with a roommate to an Inwood apartment, where her rent was $700 a month. And she began cooking — giving herself a weekly grocery budget of $35 a week.
Fourteen months in, she was able to pay off her debt. After working with a financial coach, she now uses an app called Digit, which funnels money from her paycheck to a savings account after she’s paid her rent and living expenses (she keeps a cushion of $300 in checking).
Old habits die hard, although Calveiro’s trying to make them more realistic. In place of her old shopping sprees, she shells out $130 for a Rent the Runway monthly membership — so she can have a revolving door of new clothes for hire.
She moved to Soho in February, but shares a pad with two roommates; they each pay under $1,300 a month.
“Nobody talks about [his or her] finances on Instagram,” she said. “It worries me how much I see girls care about image.”
Looking back, Calveiro regrets blowing so much money.
“I had a lot of opportunities to save,” she said. “I could’ve invested that money in something.”
Now, she added, “I find more meaning in what I’m doing. It goes back to me being more authentic. Whenever someone says they like my coat I say, ‘Oh, can you believe I got this coat at H&M for $50?’ ”