I count myself blessed for having earlier made the realization that I value financial security way more than the shiny new thing. What I also realized that often it’s not the shiny new thing where all my money goes to but it’s the repeating expenses from that daily starbucks coffee to groceries and utilities. If you find a way to save there it’ll start accumulating quickly.
A huge percentage of Americans (my family included) live paycheck-to-paycheck. There’s little or nothing left to save. They have everything from student loans to medical debts.
Criticizing someone for spending a few dollars a day on coffee to make their life a little more bearable is placing the criticism on the wrong party. You should be angry that anyone should have to make such unnecessary sacrifices. You should be angry that we can’t all get the shiny new thing if we want it.
Are we still complaining about Starbucks? Let’s call it $7 for a coffee. That comes to about $2555 a year. Sounds like a lot of money.
Say I wanted to buy a house. The median home price in the start of 2020 was $329000. End of 2023, it was $417,700 (down from its peak). An increase of $88,700. Assuming a down payment of 20%, your median down payment went up buy $17,740. Almost 7 years worth of Starbucks. In just 3 years.
But wait. Interest rates also changed. Assuming the same %20 down payment, your principle increased by $70,960. The 30 year mortgage over that time went up from around %3.72 to %6.66. An increase of about %2.9. The increased interest on the increased principle is about $2,057; so I guess your Starbucks habbit would cover that.
Of course, that is a strange metric. You pay the full %6.66 on the increased principle. The %2.9 is the additional interest you pay on the original principle. So your annual interest payments went up by $12,358 just for delaying your purchase by 3 years. If you cut off your 4.8 starbucks coffees a day addiction, you’ll be able to afford this increase.
Hey, you do you. If $2555 isn’t a lot of money to you then you’re in the 0.1% of people. Most of us aren’t in a privlidged position like that so being able to cut down in repeating small expenses like that is going to have a massive effect on our personal finances. 2.5k is about what I earn in a month. I like coffee too but not so much that I’d be willing to work for a month to pay for it. That amount of money covers my groceries for 4 months. Seems like better value for my money.
I count myself blessed for having earlier made the realization that I value financial security way more than the shiny new thing. What I also realized that often it’s not the shiny new thing where all my money goes to but it’s the repeating expenses from that daily starbucks coffee to groceries and utilities. If you find a way to save there it’ll start accumulating quickly.
That’s a big if.
A huge percentage of Americans (my family included) live paycheck-to-paycheck. There’s little or nothing left to save. They have everything from student loans to medical debts.
Criticizing someone for spending a few dollars a day on coffee to make their life a little more bearable is placing the criticism on the wrong party. You should be angry that anyone should have to make such unnecessary sacrifices. You should be angry that we can’t all get the shiny new thing if we want it.
You should never rely on luxury items to “make your life bearable”.
Pretending Starbucks makes you happy is literally half your problem.
How does it feel to be so weak your coffee literally owns you at this point.
You’re fighting giving up coffee harder than you’ve ever fought for higher wages.
You’ve shackled yourself and you blame the person pointing out your shackles?
Ignorant AF.
How is coffee a luxury item?
Should people be expected to live off of water and rice because they are poor?
Do the world a favour, go live in a cave, preferably one with no exits.
I’d love to see the starbucks/income ratio by year set next to rent/income ratio so we can finally put these kind of brain dead responses to rest.
deleted by creator
Rightwing scum will do anything except admit their system doesn’t work.
Are we still complaining about Starbucks? Let’s call it $7 for a coffee. That comes to about $2555 a year. Sounds like a lot of money.
Say I wanted to buy a house. The median home price in the start of 2020 was $329000. End of 2023, it was $417,700 (down from its peak). An increase of $88,700. Assuming a down payment of 20%, your median down payment went up buy $17,740. Almost 7 years worth of Starbucks. In just 3 years.
But wait. Interest rates also changed. Assuming the same %20 down payment, your principle increased by $70,960. The 30 year mortgage over that time went up from around %3.72 to %6.66. An increase of about %2.9. The increased interest on the increased principle is about $2,057; so I guess your Starbucks habbit would cover that.
Of course, that is a strange metric. You pay the full %6.66 on the increased principle. The %2.9 is the additional interest you pay on the original principle. So your annual interest payments went up by $12,358 just for delaying your purchase by 3 years. If you cut off your 4.8 starbucks coffees a day addiction, you’ll be able to afford this increase.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MORTGAGE30US
Hey, you do you. If $2555 isn’t a lot of money to you then you’re in the 0.1% of people. Most of us aren’t in a privlidged position like that so being able to cut down in repeating small expenses like that is going to have a massive effect on our personal finances. 2.5k is about what I earn in a month. I like coffee too but not so much that I’d be willing to work for a month to pay for it. That amount of money covers my groceries for 4 months. Seems like better value for my money.