
The Rise of Coffee Shaming - spking
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/07/coffee-financial-advice/594244/
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mdorazio
My biggest issue with coffee culture isn't the amount people spend on it, it's
that most coffee drinkers who frequent places like Starbucks don't actually
drink coffee - they drink coffee-flavored milk and sugar. So it's not just
expensive, it's also quite unhealthy. Ex. a tall caramel frap has twice as
many calories as a can of coke.

~~~
jchw
Secretly, that's actually what bothers everyone else, too.

People aren't stupid. Everyone knows that unless you are dirt poor, kicking a
~$100/mo habit in isolation doesn't do much, because personal finance is more
complicated than that. Likewise, kicking a coffee habit won't necessarily make
you much healthier, especially if you partake in many of the habits people
don't generally find terribly detestable that are equally poor, like sucking
down a liter of coke each day, overeating nearly every meal, hardly
exercising, or drinking booze after work.

But humans are humans, and boy does the smug superiority of telling the
entitled millennial that their bank accounts are empty because of the lattes
and not the surprise medical bills, crushing student loans, car insurance,
high rents, etc. seem to appeal to personal finance gurus.

~~~
perl4ever
You'd have to have about $50K to perpetually make $100/month risk-free, so if
you say $100/month is insignificant, it sounds to me like you're saying a lump
sum of $50K is also insignificant.

Also, even if you're going to drink coffee at retail prices, you can have the
kind that's under $2 rather than close to $5 (I'm not even aware of where to
get that where I live).

~~~
jchw
No, I didn't say a lump sump of $50K is insignificant, nor imply it. In fact a
careful reading reveals that I say nothing at all about lump sums of $50K.
That is because a lump sum of $50K is a lump sum of $50K and what we are
discussing is a recurring expense of around $100/mo. Those are two different
values with different units.

You are reading your own comparison backwards to make this point. I'm sure
$50K can make you $100/mo in perpetuity. Saving $100/mo does not give you a
lump sum of $50K. It gives you $100/mo.

Viewing it another way, At $100/mo, that'll take 42 years and 8 months to save
$50K. If we're talking about a higher yield account, let's charitably assume
2.0%, you could probably get it down to around 30 years.

Personal finance and health are both things that need to be viewed
holistically. They're lifestyles changes. Having good overall posture is more
important than individual decisions, and honestly, making more money trumps
basically anything you could ever do to 'hack' your finances. You may as well
spend less time hacking your finance and more time growing your career. Or
hell, more time working on your health, something that you don't get any
second chances to fix later on.

And let's not forget. The conditions that folks were making long-term
investments in in the past are not the current conditions. The human race is
facing seemingly-unprecedented existential threats and no doubt that is going
to affect someone's willingness to make long term investments.

And, you know, even if everything else ends up fine, you could always just get
hit by a bus tomorrow. So while you should certainly give a shit about your
overall financial and medical health, maybe living in fear of spending $100/mo
on something you enjoy isn't the best balance to life, realistically.

I'll just take the fucking coffee.

~~~
perl4ever
"That is because a lump sum of $50K is a lump sum of $50K and what we are
discussing is a recurring expense of around $100/mo. Those are two different
values with different units."

If you _feel_ like they are different, that's not something to debate.

But people trade one for the other all day, every day. You mentioned student
loans. If you have a loan, you got a lump sum up front in exchange for a
series of payments, so why are you saying you'd have to wait 40 years?

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ergothus
> That misdirection is useful for people in power, including self-help gurus
> who want to sell books. (Orman didn’t respond to a request for comment.)

You always see reporters give the "I'm going to report one watmy or the other,
dont you want to share your side?" argument when asking for comment, but I
cant recall ever seeing such a perfect example of "I told you so!"

Anyway, this article touches on a big problem with boomer <-> millenial
relations: the boomers normalized the idea of finance as morality. That is,
having money shows you are "worthy" \- hard work WILL give you success, and
therefore success means moralvalue, and poverty indicates some failing
(laziness, etc).

Millenials are not as well off, so either this pardigm is being applied (and
millenials judged as the source of their own problems) or the paradigm itself
is being judged (and boomers end up looking hypocritical and smug).

This is the problem with equating morality and finance systems. You cant
criticize a financial decision without it also being a moral judgment, which
at a minimum makes it much harder to evaluate intelligently. The truth lies in
the middle, at some point, along various axis, but because of the moral
judgements it is hard to find exactly where.

I'm curious to see how many passing judgement about coffee are comparing to
the consumption of beer and cigarettes of their own youth, versus comparing to
some platonic ideal of purchasing.

~~~
JetezLeLogin
I don't think this is a generational or age thing strictly speaking. There are
several confounding variables or you could say non-orthogonal axes.

There's a "human nature" axis that interacts with the money axis. People, no
matter the age, tend to take credit for their successes a lot more than their
failures. For example if you have a lot of money, you'll overstate the hard
work that went into it, and understate all the good luck you had. Meanwhile if
you have no money, you'll overstate all the bad luck (including blaming the
system, and I'm not saying the system doesn't suck) and understate any faults
or foibles of yours. To the extent that this becomes your paradigm, you'll
also use it to judge other people. So the richer person (who thinks they got
rich through hard work) sees a poor person and assumes they're poor because
they didn't work hard. And the poor person (who thinks they're poor because of
luck), will see someone rich and assume they got rich through luck. (Hopefully
it's obvious this paragraph is less a "truth" than a trend or tendency.)

Moving on, there's a political axis that interacts with the money axis. People
on the Republican side tend to espouse a belief in self-reliance while the
Democratic side talks more about helping each other. (Notice that I say
"espouse" and "talk about," cleverly avoiding having to talk about what their
policies actually accomplish.)

There's a power axis that quite obviously interacts with the money axis - As
people become rich they use money to get more power, and as they become
powerful they use power to get richer.

Finally (and here's where the age correlation comes in), older people tend to
be richer because they've had more time to make money. And older people _right
now_ I suspect tend to be richer than older people at other times in history,
because they reaped the benefits of industrialization and the fossil-fuel
boom.

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anm89
When did saying you don't like something become shaming?

Said: "Hey if you are tight on money and you are spending $1200 a year on an
optional purchase, you may find it benefits you to not buy that thing“

Response: "what are you saying that I don't deserve to be happy? That I'm not
worthy of drinking coffee?"

Thus the outrage machine slowly grudges forward.

I've personally come to associate a high impulse to outrage more closely with
low general intelligence and poor emotional stability than any other thing I
could judge a person on.

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dustinmoris
Coffee prices in London are absurd. A normal Latte costs on average £3.5
($4.35 at the current low rate).

I bought a Sage Oracle espresso machine for home which comes at £1300 and
order weekly 250g of specialty beans which cost £8. I drink two cups of coffee
every single day, which means that I consume on average 730 coffees a year. My
wife also drinks at least one coffee a day, which makes a total of 1095
coffees which we drink in a single year.

The coffee machine is super expensive, but has a two year manufacturer's
warranty, which means we will get at least two years use of it.

£1300 / (2 x 365) = £1.78 per day

We brew on average 3 coffees a day: £1.78 / 3 = £0.59

A bag of 250g coffee beans lasts us a bit more than one week or roughly 25-30
cups depending on the grind: £8 / 25 = £0.32

In the absolute worst case scenario, if our machine breaks beyond repair after
only two years of use, we still end up drinking every day some of the best
Central and South American Organic coffee, freshly roasted in the UK and
brewed in a top coffee machine to perfection for less than a £1 per cup.

The coffee is better than from any shops I've had in London, is right at my
fingertip at home and more healthy due to the special organic beans which we
order.

Drinking coffee at home in my garden or at my breakfast table is also a lot
more enjoyable than sipping it through an un-recycable paper cup in the rush
of the city.

In comparison, if we were to buy £3.5 coffees every day, we'd be spending
£2737 more every year.

Long story short: If you are a coffee lover, then buy yourself a fancy
expensive espresso machine and go on a two week holiday to Colombia or Peru or
somewhere with the monies which you save by not buying some shit overpriced
dirty water from Starbucks and the likes.

~~~
timerol
And if spending £1300 up front seems absurd, then a french press and grinder
combination can easily be acquired for under $100. It takes more interaction
than an espresso machine, but the overall time is comparable to waiting in
line behind 2-3 people and getting a coffee.

I'm spoiled with good coffee at work, but I still average 2-3 cups over a
weekend, and one of my roommates works from home. I do get coffee out every
couple of weeks for the atmosphere.

~~~
sjg007
Or as I've heard... Mr Coffee's are coming back into style these days.. aka
Automated pour over..

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jumbopapa
I don't think that buying coffee is necessarily a recipe for disaster
financially, but if you are strapped for cash and have a $100/month latte
habit then I think you should probably address that.

I'm all for spending money on things that bring value to your life, but I
think if people cut the latte habit they would see it doesn't provide a ton of
benefit. It's more valuable to occasionally enjoy a latte than have one every
morning.

~~~
cvwright
$100/month is no joke. That's enough to buy a new iPhone X or a Macbook Air
every year.

Edit: Obligatory MMM
[https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/08/01/a-millionaire-
is-...](https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/08/01/a-millionaire-is-made-ten-
bucks-at-a-time/)

~~~
seem_2211
I've always found this line of reasoning funny - "if you don't drink a latte
everyday you can save $1800 a year!" but I've always seen it as "for only
$1800 a year you can have a latte a day!"

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makerofspoons
Shaming what people spend on coffee smacks of the similar out-of-touch
critique that millennials can't buy homes because they spend their money on
frivolities like avocado toast. I like the authors concluding point that what
this is really about is the constant need for these gurus to be producing
content. On the other hand, some coffee shaming isn't all bad since the coffee
industry is an unmitigated environmental disaster and individuals should be
thinking about the impact of their consumption on more than their wallets:
[https://www.salon.com/2018/10/05/our-coffee-addiction-is-
des...](https://www.salon.com/2018/10/05/our-coffee-addiction-is-destroying-
the-environment_partner/)

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sjg007
I bet that as millenials age, they will consume more coffee at home rather
then when out and about. I use to like going to Starbucks etc... but now
mostly I brew at home which is a function of age and family. Just like I use
to go to bars too, but that is a rare occasion these days. The other thing
millenials could do would be to hedge their coffee habit.. so buy stock in
Starbucks! That way when Starbucks in China takes off or Starbuck in the USA
introduces boba you'll catch some of the upside.

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throwaway3627
Well it is low-value, discretionary consumption, not an essential asset or
expenditure.

Bring your own coffee cup filled with water, and you'll still fit right in,
save the environment, save money and cut caffeine and calories.

I think the best move, IMO, is to cut socially-reinforced patterns of
frivolous consumption: dining out, coffee, expensive new gadgets/vehicles,
transportation rental services, movies, drinking out. Bring your own or opt-
out most of the time.

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undoware
Don't talk to me about finances until I have had my coffee ;)

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mindcrime
I'm not a millennial, but you can have my coffee when you pry it from my cold,
dead hands. And anybody who has an issue with my coffee consumption is (not
so) politely invited to go fuck yourself. Your "coffee shaming" means nothing
to me.

