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Comment by rainbowmverse | Hacker News Reader

I don't think I've ever seen an avocado in person. I was shocked to discover my apparent obsession with something I've never experienced was why I couldn't afford a house.

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As someone who has seen, and regularly consumes avocados for no more than about $2.50 per fruit, I too am a bit confused about what relationship this has with my inability to afford a $250,000 deposit on a Sydney 1 bedroom apartment.

What part of US sells avocados for $2.50? Sounds steep. ...or are those AUD not USD?

Both prices would be AUD (about 75% of the USD). Median house price in Sydney is 1.1M AUD/851,000 USD.

Yeah, I usually pay $0.88 each. Sometimes they are even cheaper.

It's not uncommon for a single avocado to go for A$5 (US$3.90) in Sydney. $3.50/each is the standard price in supermarkets, occasionally 2 for $5.

I'm more having a quiet giggle about what appears (from here in Australia) to be a rather noticeable wave of media coverage and memes from the US regarding "Smashed avo on toast"!

My girlfriend will violently disagree with me, but I think avocados are a bit ick really, and yet affording an actual _house_ anywhere near where work is is basically an impossible dream for nearly everyone I know... and my being able to afford one has nothing to do with my breakfast habits (or frankly, the fact I skip breakfast everyday)

>>I think avocados are a bit ick really

Don't smash the avocado. Cut it up in slices and put it in a toasted baguette. Add sliced cherry tomatoes (yellow ones are best), salt, olive oil, and onions. Maybe some cheese of your choice (provolone or feta) too if you would like, though not necessary. Delicious.

People are allowed to dislike something, lots of people hate avocado, and there is no problem with that. It means more for the rest of us.

I plan on buying a boat anyway, so much superior to a house.

Try an avocado milkshake sometime and you might change your opinion of avocado. The creaminess of avocado gives the milkshake a wonderful mouth feel.

My girlfriend say she loves your thinking, and she thinks feta is the best choice! I might have to have a go at this again, but I've always found the texture just so... odd!

The smashed avo thing is really just saying that buying your breakfast each workday at $10/pop is another $2.5k/year extra you could save for a deposit. That something that seems so inconsequential does actually add up a little bit. It's not saying "1 avocado = 1 house", as all the recent histrionics seem to have assumed it to be.

Cool so after a hundred years i can afford a down payment on the house?

This kind of petulance is why millenials have the rep they do. 2.5k would be in addition to what else is being saved, obviously. Only the most rampant idiots genuinely think the original statement meant that you could buy a house solely on breakfast money.

Right, and look I completely get that line of thinking; but pretending that it's solely down to not "saving" enough when the price-to-income ratio is so skewed in this country, with basically zero wage growth for most industries especially those that young people go into seems a little disingenuous.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-03/house-price-to-income-...

Look, I'm a senior software engineer earning an excellent salary, and at the end of the day I can afford property if I wanted to, but the sheer amount of debt required for it in 2017, coupled with the ratio above, and the honest-to-god feeling that the young are being plundered in service of the older (I'm not saying that's actually the case, but that is certain how it can feel. See the last two budgets for why), and then being told to "buck up and save more"... you can understand why it feels kind of bullshit, right?

Conversely, the young have always been plundered for the old. The old have always held the political reins. This is the bit that millenials are missing. The Xers before them were plundered and misunderstood by the old. The boomers before them were plundered and misunderstood by the old. It's not new, and the millenials aren't experiencing something that hasn't happened before. As a very simple, short example: when have post-boomers in Australia ever experience conscription? We've been involved in a few wars, but the last conscription was of the boomers, in the Vietnam war.

Yes, housing affordability is terrible in this country at the moment. But if you could choose between being a young boomer (with no foreknowledge) and being a young millenial, you'd be insane to choose the former. Especially if you're a woman or a minority. My mother was born in mid-1946 (a literal post-war boomer) and was a teacher in the 1970s, and was legally paid 2/3rds of what male teachers earned, simple because of her extra X chromosome. This is the kind of thing that never gets mentioned when millenials are bitching about how much worse they have it now; they never mention all the advances that have happened in the interim. However boomers have been through that. They know what it was like before. And that's why they grumble about millenials. Is it fair? Probably not, but neither is the millenial picture of boomers.

(disclosure: Xer myself)

And please tell me where I can get that "what else is being saved" money?

Since it's so obvious, please find me that job!

If you can only save $2.5k a year, and you're spending that instead on breakfast rather than other things, then you clearly don't have the will to save even if you earned a lot more.

Are you aware that 'being poor' existed before the modern era? And that it's normal for young adults to have a below average wage? And that while the percentage of people renting has increased a little recently, it's not that much higher than 70 years ago?

The reference is to cafes, not making it at home. Aussie cafes charge like $20 for avo toast and millennials line up to pay it.

I don't know where you're buying it but BNE CBD cafes charge barely over $10 in most cases that I see.

Still, I find avocado disgusting so I have no desire to eat it. I also own a unit though so I'm not helping whatsoever with the stereotype.

It's intergenerational cultural cringe. First it was Chardonnay socialists, then caffè latte drinkers, now it's war on avocado on toasted bread. But one might ask why avocado prices have soared from five years ago - I buy a bag of six smallish ones from Aldi these days for $6.70.

> millennials line up to pay it.

Sure, in the same way that people are lining up to pay $7 for a beer.

Where can I get that? I pay $13 a pint here in Melbourne.

Just got a schooner of Coopers from a pub near Central in Sydney for $7 at lunch today.

Millenials on average spend the smallest portion of their income on eating out of any generation since WW2 did at the same age, but sure a few overpriced cafes are why people can't afford to buy houses.

> $250,000 deposit on a Sydney 1 bedroom apartment.

Median house price in Sydney is 1.1M. Generally you need to put down a 10% deposit in AU. Just how fancy is this $2.5M 1-bedroom apartment you're looking to buy, that it's worth twice a median house?

Houses here are ridiculously expensive, yes, but let's keep it real.

Can I ask where you live? In the Americas avocado is fairly ubiquitous and for good reason: it's a relatively unique fruit that's high in fat, very flavorful, works on its own or as a condiment.

My advice is - if you've never seen one in person count your blessings. I could easily spend $200/month on avocados alone.

Why on Earth would you need to eat 3 avocados a day?

Some hyperbole was involved in that figure, but I could see myself subsiding entirely on avocado.

I've got an avocado tattooed on me and even for me 3 sounds excessive

Why on Earth would you need to eat 3 avocados a month?

"Need" is a strong word; I don't "need" to eat any one particular food. But I'm sure that between salads, Mexican food, sandwiches, and whatever else sounds good at the time, I eat at least that many.

Wife hates 'em. Son hates 'em. I picked up a taste for them in college. Tried avocado toast once though; blech.

You've never been to a grocery store? Avocados are by no means exotic...

I doubt the grocery stores carry many around here if they do at all. They probably blend in with all the other greens. I'll check for them next time I'm at the store.

Walmart's online stock search returns no avocados for the local store, so I doubt the smaller grocery stores have them: https://www.walmart.com/store/520/search?query=avocado

> They probably blend in with all the other greens.

...yes. It is a vegetable.

Actually it's a fruit.

Perhaps botanically it's a vegetable, but that doesn't stop it from being a vegetable.

A vegetable is anything edible that doesn't respond to stimulus while it's alive. Like a coma patient, or tomatoes.

It grows on a tree, so it's no less a fruit than a peach or an apple.

Remember, "exotic" depends on where you live. If you watch Iron Chef, the original one from Japan, you'll see whenever they have a dish with avocado, the guest judges always proclaim "Avocado! How Exotic!"

Even within the US the availability varies widely.

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