Let's play Mutually-Compatible Facts:
- Housing is increasingly unaffordable.
- Millennials spend more on discretionary items like food, drink, and travel than previous generations.
In a sense, they're related. It used to be that once you were earning decent money (anything more than poverty wages) you moved out of home, started paying rent or a mortgage, and shortly thereafter started a family.
Today, because housing is out of reach, many 28 year olds with decent jobs live at home rent-free and so have loads of discretionary spending that goes to food, drink, and travel.
Would they all own their own homes if they dialed back the $300 a week drinks and eating out lifestyle? Probably not. Doesn't change the fact they spend more on luxury items than Gen Xers or Boomers did at the same age.
Quote:
Originally Posted by blankall
Coffee shops aren't a new thing. Spending $200 less a year on coffee is not going to get you anywhere near a down payment on a decent property. The bigger question is why are middle class earners now expected to live in poverty without any kinds of luxuries? That certainly wasn't the way 30 years ago.
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When I head out to 17th ave or 4th street these days I'm always astonished at the number of 25 and 28 year olds I see casually splashing out for $16 cocktails and $17 appetizers at restaurants that are a few-times-a-year treat for my wife and I.
How many pricy restaurants and bars catered to 24 to 34 year olds back in the 80s and 90s? Precious few. I lived in this city then, and you had bars and restaurants that catered to 20-somethings, bars and restaurants that catered to people willing to splash out a lot of money, but they were not the same places. A high-end bistro catering to 20-somethings would have been an oxymoron in 1995.