The criticism this guy is getting is idiotic. I'm a millennial and I'm surrounded by the poor personal financial choices made by my peers on a day-to-day basis. In fact, someone at my office recent recently purchased a $500 blender (that is being financed over a 5 year term!). It's a combination of a severe lack of personal financial education in the school system (I doubt that the average teacher would even know enough to properly teach the subject) and ease of access to credit. I'm lucky in that I've been interested in investing since junior high and I love reading and learning more about the topic.
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Originally Posted by blankall
If you actually break it down into real dollars, similar or greater subscription expenses have always existed. Instead of cell phones and Netflix, there were magazine, cable, and phone subscriptions a generation ago. Given the huge profitability of magazines 30 years ago, you can't argue that the previous generation didn't have their own vices.
Anyways, I think this is all a bunch of garbage being spewed by baby boomers to rationalize their own wealth while they create an even greater economic strangle hold over younger generations.
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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Nonsense. Spending $200 on coffee isn't an issue in an of itself, but it's exemplary of bad financial habits that are all too common amongst younger generations. Subscription services, buying new vehicles financed over long terms, constantly eating at restaurants, spending on frivolous crap etc. are all common examples of wealth destroying habits. Cutting back on these makes it easy to build investment. Furthermore, housing in Calgary is quite affordable right now, to the point that monthly carrying costs of owned property are near parity with rental rates. It's really not that difficult for a middle class earner to own a home right now.
I think this generational economic struggle myth is something created by younger folks to rationalize their poor financial habits as something beyond their control, when that truly is not the case.