Households Need to Earn $300,000 a Year to Live a Middle Class Lifestyle | Hacker News Reader

Households Need to Earn $300,000 a Year to Live a Middle Class Lifestyle

financialsamurai.com

50 pointsgshakir93 comments

Because this article completely misdefines "middle class"? Being middle class doesn't mean you can afford absolutely everything you want. It just means you're financially secure enough not to have to choose between food, clothing, shelter, and healthcare with every paycheck, and to be able to save up a buffer in case of emergency.

Example: $2100/mo to feed 3 people is ridiculous. Instead of buying prepared foods, cook meals. You can feed 3 people on $750/mo. If you're spending $300/wk on date night dinner, find something less expensive to do for date night.

Similarly for some of the other budgets. Drive a used Honda instead of a new Volvo. Find less expensive ways to entertain yourselves. If you insist on living in an expensive housing market, accept that middle class family living in a dense city means (and has always meant) a (cramped to midwestern suburban sensibilities but quite livable) 2BR without outdoor space, not a house with a lawn; and consider renting instead of buying.

Middle class living means making compromises. If you're not making compromises, that's upper class living. And yeah, that can cost $300k/yr easily.

I don't know how to spend that little on food. We have a family of five (and sometimes cousins or neighborhood kids are over and playing and snacking on fruit and such) and $2k+ a month for groceries is normal. Practically every meal is home cooked. We might get take out once every couple weeks or go out to eat once a month, which is on top of that $2k. We could cut that cost in half with processed foods and a pasta heavy diet maybe, but we want to eat healthy.

That really surprises me. We are also a family of 5. Because of diet issues we even buy a handful of organic items (primarily dairy), and we easily spend less than $1500/mo on food. Oh, and I’d say our diet is above average as far as health, though it could be better. Most meals are home made.

Could it matter where we live? I’m near a big city in the midwest.

Seth's linkedin page puts him in Orange County, so I'd not be surprised if his cost of living is easily 30% higher than yours.

You’re not wrong. But you’re also attributing choice to things that may not be choice. In your description, if a tech worker wants a cheaper lifestyle and larger living space then they should move away from basically the only places they can find those highest paying careers. There are exceptions, but they are not numerous enough to dismiss that current prices exceed many explanations and leave many people wanting.

Also, long commutes to work (longer than 20 minutes) do a great harm to the world. Both in opportunity cost from being able to do other things through to things like climate change.

Edit-Also, I want to live in a world where spending the morning in a coffee shop with a scone is affordable on at least a weekly basis for people. Cafes, restaurants, and other such places are cultural bases. We should be insulating them from destruction.

There are tons of places with great opportunity for that tech worker and non-absurd cost of living. I understand ambitious people wanting to stay in the Bay Area where all the tippy-top jobs are, but there are very good jobs elsewhere. You're just much less likely to become a billionaire or a top executive or a well known name in the industry outside the Bay Area. But again, that isn't a middle class sort of concern.

Living in the Bay Area is not just about access to tippy top tech companies. It's about limiting risk.

Say I'm living in Nowhereville, USA, and working for the tech company there. If anything goes wrong, for example, an overall tech downturn, this company hits hard times, or I have a job-ending disagreement with my boss, then getting a new job likely means a 6+ month job search, uprooting my family and moving. I know this is true because I have lived in several towns like this. It sucks.

In the Bay Area, if things don't work out with a particular company, I can apply to hundreds of others next door. I'm in for a 3-6 month job search, and at the end of the day I don't have the hassle of moving to a different city.

I've lived in Atlanta GA for over 20 years. During that time it has never taken me more than 3 weeks to find a job once I started looking - always paying more.

In 2012, I walked out on a contract job on Monday during lunch (long story), called a recruiter and I had a job offer with what was then a Fortune 10 company by Thursday evening making 10K more.

In late 2014, I called recruiters and had two job offers making 25K more.

Earlier this year, it took 10 days and now I'm making yet another 20K more.

I'm no special snowflake. I'm still just making the median salary for Atlanta, a lot of my former coworkers can tell a similar story.

When I'm looking for a job, usually I'm juggling between 5-10 opportunities. I always use recruiters, so I am not blindly submitting resumes.

I think there are so many misconceptions about the rest of the country’s tech scene. I’ve been in tech for almost 30 years now. The only time I lived on the coast was in Portland Oregon. More often in the midwest. There are tech jobs, that pay very well compared to the cost of living, everywhere. I’ve never been out of work for more than two weeks.

Stay near one of the top 100 cities in the country and there are almost no issues with employment if you keep your skills somewhat updated.

Edit: I should mention I, and all my co-workers, also don’t work remote. Turns out companies everywhere use technology :)

Friends who went the Bay Area route seem to be in a much higher risk situation then those who stuck it out in the Midwest.

You might be able to pick up a new job overnight in the Bay Area, but conversely your employer can replace you overnight in the Bay Area. Friends who went out there are constantly jumping between companies as they run the risk of being laid off, of running into stack ranking, of their firm getting bought out or all other kinds of nonsense.

Midwestern friends? All still working for the same spot they got out of college. Pay might be low, but the stress is low as well since employers know that it's hard work to replace a competent developer (probably have to pay someone to move there). If they walk out, it's the firm that's going to be in a harder place then they will be -- so no one is going to ask them to work overtime, check their e-mails, or do anything to upset their applecart.

That's true, but it would be better to compare the Bay to other cities. DC for example has a robust economy, great culture, better weather than new York, and home prices 1/3rd of the Bay when looking at the surrounding suburbs.

Ah, more elitism from the Valley folk. If you were to leave your bubble for a bit, you’d find any significant urban area offers the same benefit: Chicago, NYC, Boston, etc.

With about the same cost of living. I don’t think he was referencing those cities when he said “Nowhereville”.

Chicago is very cheap.

Sure, (I live in ultra-expensive NYC because of economic opportunity) but you can still a) compromise on the type/size/cost of housing you choose within the city; b) carpool or commute by bike or transit if you're concerned about the environment; and c) cut back on the other expenses that the hypothetical family in the article is being anything but frugal about.

This is a great point. It's easy to just classify NYC as expensive, but the truth is that there's a great deal of range in living costs in NYC area, including outside of the strict definition of NYC proper, while still maintaining reasonable commute times.

Either you have denser housing near jobs with impact on living space or you have longer commutes.

I disagree. First of all I don’t think any organization, including the Census Bereau, Pew, Gallup, et al have some kind of official definition of what “middle class” is. Second, by and large most Americans seem to identify themselves as being Middle class+. I think Middle Class is strongly associated with the American dream, and typically benefits like a vacation once a year, retirement, a home, and sending your kids to College are all mentioned as being a package deal of being Middle class.

I think the biggest 2 things that have happened that requires people to have a lot more money to be part of this “dream” is the complete dissapearance of the Pension and the dramatic increase in the cost of College tuition (in the 60s-90s, sending your kid to College meant supporting them a few more years, tuition wasn’t even really a factor). The Pension being lost is a double hit, because you lost the guaranteed retirement safety net, and you have to now save a huge portion of your own paycheck to make up the difference.

+http://news.gallup.com/poll/212660/middle-class-identificati...

The problem is that there's not one definition of middle class. Most Americans think that they're middle class, whether they make $22k or $200k: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-america-divided/midd...

Everyone lives inside their own social bubbles and think that their lifestyle is average. In this bubble, vacations to Europe every year are normal; "Everyone" send their kids to private school, dines out three times a week etc.

$2100/mo to feed 3 people is ridiculous. You can feed 3 people on $750/mo.

$700/mo/person is $7.65 per meal, which is quite reasonable. $250/mo/person is about $2.70 per meal, which is not.

"In 2005, sociologists William Thompson and Joseph Hickey estimate an income range of roughly $35,000 to $75,000 for the lower middle class and $100,000 or more for the upper middle class."[0]

In 2018 dollars, that's $44,800 to $96,000 for lower middle class and $128,000 for upper middle class.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_middle_class#Income

$250/mo/person is about $2.70 per meal, which is not

It's plenty. I just looked at my mint. I've averaged $678/month on groceries for my 3 person family over the last year. One of those 3 people is a toddler so I'm obviously saving some money there. We eat out occasionally (so not part of this budget item) but rarely more than once a week. And I'm not in a position where I have to scrimp. My wife and I had lobster last night.

2.70 doesn't sound like much if by "meal" you think of "dinner" but it's a ton if you're eating eggs or cereal for breakfast and a sandwich for lunch.

Do you live in a coastal city and work a professional level job that pay $150,000 and requires intense hours at the office? And does your partner as well?

An assumption in the article was that both parents were too busy with work to cook reliably.

I agree it's plenty for most households. Just may not be for the households this author is talking about. It's a good illustration of how a higher paid job may not net that much more: you lose a lot of the income in extra taxes + extra lifestyle expenses to support the job.

Same here. Family of 4 and we rarely cross $1k/mo for our entire family.

My family of 4 does quite well on 800/month in coastal southern California. We only eat organic and eat the RDA of fresh fruit, veggies nuts, meats etc.

The only people I know that spend in the 700 / person are eating out 3-4 times a week at 20+/plate restaurants. Doesn't sound middle class to me.

Are you saying $700 per month per person is reasonable? That’s pretty insane if you are, we’re a family of 4 who live a pretty sweet upper middle class life and spend maybe that much each month on our entire family...

I cook a lot. My food budget for 4 people is about 1000/month. My cost for something like tossed vegetables tossed with pasta, chicken breast, and a cream sauce is under $2 per meal. Most meals are similarly priced. These $700/person monthly estimates are crazy

I'm a 20-something college student currently trying to strike a balance between eating out, cooking, and pre-cooked meals. My grocery costs have ranged between 300CAD and 500CAD, with the 500CAD occurring when I get lazy and eat out far more often than I feel I should.

I find it interesting that 500CAD (~400USD) is completely unreasonable to me (I frequently get frustrated with myself for spending this much when I know I could get it down lower if I stop eating out), whereas your 'reasonable' ceiling is much, much higher.

This isn't even taking into account the cost savings of cooking for multiple people, vs. cooking for one person, too! Per person costs will definitely change depending on context.

> $250/mo/person is about $2.70 per meal, which is not

Are you eating out literally every meal? Because otherwise that's not bad at all. I eat on about $5/day and I'm not even trying to be frugal about it.

A pound of ground beef is like 800 kcal and roughly $3, and more than you'd eat in one sitting. $2.70/meal is more than reasonable, you're just largely cooking stuff yourself.

To everyone responding, unless you live in a large, coastal city, your family budget is not germane to this discussion. This article is talking about middle class in large, coastal cities.

I live in NYC. Try eating less than $3/meal for a month here. Groceries cost more here. I eat at home for most meals, too.

It's definitely possible! Cost of groceries in the outer boroughs will be cheaper, but I'll use Manhattan prices. Shopping at Trader Joes + Chinatown will significantly lower costs. Fairway isn't terrible, but if you're shopping at the local market, it's super expensive. Whole Foods is insanely priced.

Breakfast will be your cheapest meal, eggs $3/dozen. Yogurt 99c each or get a larger container to save more money. Oatmeal, bananas. Bacon will be pricey, but let's splurge $6. Avocado, toast is relatively cheap.

Lunch, chicken breast, thighs whatever. You can get them for $5-6/lb and even less at Chinatown. That'll go for lunch/dinner. Toss in salad, rice, etc. Canned veggies like chickpeas and beans are just a buck each at Whole Foods. Ground beef is pretty cheap. Veggies like kale, broccoli are a bit more expensive, but again, only a few bucks and you can use it for multiple meals.

Grocery might cost more, but definitely possible to churn out meals at $3 price points. Of course there's the upfront cost of having basic things like salt, pepper, oil, spices, butter, etc.

> Instead of buying prepared foods, cook meals.

He acks that in the article,

> When you are a dual job household with a baby, there’s little time to cook. > However, food is where this family can cut expenses if they start feeling a little tight.

> It just means you're financially secure enough not to have to choose between food, clothing, shelter, and healthcare with every paycheck, and to be able to save up a buffer in case of emergency.

I would say that more accurately it means that a portion of your income is made passively (which that buffer provides) alongside having a working income. The working-class, as the name implies, make all of their income by working, and the upper-class make all of their income passively.

But the fun thing about middle-class is that it has no generally accepted definition, so it can mean whatever you want it to.

i would say working class means "not having to choose between health, clothes food and rent". in fact not having enough to cover those is a pretty good definition of poverty.

I do agree that 300/dinner and so on is choosing an expensive middle class lifestyle. But the authors argument stands - a "decent" lifestyle (non poverty) and a "middle class" lifestyle have all got more expensive without us noticing - and pay has not kept pace.

Personally I think there is something wrong with inflation measures. I should do some research but the annual 2% target or whatever is missing a lot - we should be referencing weighted decade long averages or something.

for example I found an old pub prices menu from my year of birth - a pint of well know brnad lager was 5pence. It is now heading for 5 pounds in similar outlets - that's a 100x inflation leap in my lifetime.

if inflation at 4% was shown as double the price by the time your kids reach college then it might have more "real" impact

I found the "well vetted" expense itemization to be non-reflective of my situation. I am (I think) middle class, though thanks to some crap in my recent past I had a significant issue with food/housing anxiety (very long painful story).

2100/month for a family of 3 for food. No. Not even close. If I bought the best of the best stuff from the high end grocer in my town (burbs between Ann Arbor and Detroit), I'd be hard pressed to break 1k/month for 3.

Car ... volvo? No. 1-3 year old used vehicles for me. And soon I am buying another one so I can give my daughter my 9 year old car.

Child care? She's in college now, so lets call that tuition and room/board. This works out to $30k/year in state. If I take an out of state offer, that shoots up to about $100k/year. We looked this up last night as it turns out. Tuition + room/board goes from $14k/semester to $46k/semester.

Most of the rest of the expenses are not relevant.

This all said, the point the article is making is fair and correct, maybe not quantitatively for everyone, but I'd argue the order of magnitude is correct. Some multiple of $100k is needed to raise a family in a middle class scenario while saving for retirement and servicing large debt.

One of the huge turnoffs for the left coast is the real estate issue. This forces me to ask for salary adjustments to make sure I am not impoverishing myself by taking a "better paying" job in CA. I've helped recruiters through the math, similar to this, in my last year job search. The cost of living delta, just from that aspect, was huge. I explained to them that they could leave me where I was, and not deal with that.

It is so bad right now, I could sell my $220k house, and not have enough money for a down payment on a modest similar sized house/property in a reasonable, not upscale, neighborhood in CA. Much less of an issue in NY area, though you have to deal with the traffic getting to/from the trains.

I understand the article was aimed at the left and right coast folks. And the numbers may be more accurate for young families there. For the rest of us in fly over country, this delta means that the larger salaries still generate an often (much) lower quality of life in those locations. It is far worse in CA than NY area. Definitely a disincentive to give those locations significant consideration without dealing with the massive delta in costs. Which most companies are loathe to do.

Agreed. Also, start with: don't live in one of the most expensive cities in the world and expect luxuries not typically associated with urban living, such as two cars, a spacious home, etc.

Even if you can stay in your career you will earn less as well. All you are doing is moving both numbers the cost and the income down. The article guess into this as well. What's the point of that? There is always someone lucky who can Jeep their job and salary and now work remotely. That's rare though and comes with great anxiety about finding a new, comparable job if your existing one evaporates.

Not a choice you actually have for many careers.

Which ones?

The article listed several BART workers who earn $200+k. Do you really think their financial situation will be better if they move to St Louis?

> don't live in one of the most expensive cities in the world >> Not a choice you actually have for many careers.

My question was which careers force you to live in one of the most expensive cities in the world. I don't think your example of public transportation employees is a very good one.

Politics - DC

Media - New York

Tech for a BigCo - Seattle/Bay Area.

You can of course move to Europe (Visa permitting) but you will find your salary gets much lower too.

> Tech for a BigCo - Seattle/Bay Area.

This is not accurate.

300 k is ridiculous, but in the coastal regions I would not be surprised if a family of 4 needs 200-250 to feel financially secure.

As a family of 4 who just left the SF Bay area making what you call secure. I can assure you we did not feel secure and were living paycheck to paycheck on that amount.

If you don't mind sharing, what were some of the biggest expenses you had leading to you living paycheck to paycheck?

I'm a Midwest non-tech worker. I live in one of the 5 largest cities in my state. It's very foreign to me that such a large income wouldn't allow you to feel financially secure.

A starting engineering salary in the area is ~65,000. 1, 2, and 3 bedroom apartments in my complex are $830, $1200, and $1500 respectively. I'm ~2.5 miles from work (7 minute commute via car) and <0.5 miles from a grocery store. Houses in the area with a really good school system are 200-400k typically.

200k == about 11600 take home a month after taxes and insurance

Monthly Rent : 3300 ( east bay 45 minute train ride into SF)

Utlities : 350

BART riding : 260

BART parking : 60-100

or Drive to SF and Car parking $500 ( instead of the 360 BART )

Groceries : 1400 ( 2 teenage boys eat )

Car payments + insurance : 800 ( 2 cars )

renters insurance : 120

Clothing : 300 ( teenagers outgrow stuff fast )

Cell phones : 300

6930 so far... no savings, vacations, entertainment or misc taken out

4670/4 = 1167 per person a month / 4 is 291 a week per person left for savings vacation misc and entertainment

1 family outing in the bay will run $300 to $ 500 easily

BTW to buy a house you typically had to come in with an offer 10-25% over ask and typically a full cash offer would get the house. Good luck buying a house with a mortgage ( the house across the street, in the east bay, went for 699k and it was only 900 sq ft )

Having 40% of your take-home pay after covering essentials is not living paycheck-to-paycheck.

But it's also true that if you're starting with nothing, saving for a down payment in such a housing market is unattainable.

that is 40% for 4 people or 10% each... and you will notice I left out many costs like fuel / car maintenance.

Life is different when you arent single

My home is single income, two people. I don't see the point in dividing the what remains equally amongst each household member when there are so many expenses that can benefit more than one person and there will be different wants and needs at different times.

Living paycheck-to-paycheck means if you miss one paycheck, you'll have bills you can't pay. With the numbers you've provided, I don't see how your income and essentials would force you to not have savings to cover a few months. You didn't mention how many income sources your household has; even if 75% is from one source, having a second source does add a lot of security.

> 'renters insurance : 120'

Do you really pay $120 per month for renter's insurance? To be honest, this sounds more like an annual number.

I think we should come up for a new term for working high income households, something like a "City class".

They make between 250-699k. They have mostly what they need but work very hard and aren't the leisure or power class that is associated with the upper. They don't have or really identify with the same money problems as the true middle class but they certainly don't have enough to spend frivioisly. They give up some things compared to the middle class in low cost cities though like yards and larger homes. They also have to pay expenses that other single income lcol dwellers don't like nannies.

This seems to draw a real.line between the nonworking rich and the working well off.

I think the real issue for it national debate is that the economy in different places has drifted apart so much. On one hand we have people in big cities making $300k+ and just living a normal life and we have parts of the South apparently being in a comparable living situation to the third world according to the UN. Yet we talk about it as if it's all the same. It's especially problematic for things like federal taxes.

"Upper middle class"?

"Rich" vs. "wealthy"?

I think the key here was costal living in economic hubs. I was looking a little while back to see if I should move closer to work to reduce my super commute. For the same price as a stucco 1000sqft house with near zero yard, bars on the windows, graffiti on the building with a homeless person sleeping on the sidewalk, and being right next to the freeway, you can pick up a house literally 3 to 6x larger on 10 acres in Montana that looks like it is out of a story book. It costs much, much more to live close to the economic-hub costal cities.

Yes but I live in Houston which is coastal, and I guarantee you can live like a king on much less than this. I have a 3k SQ ft home that I'm paying $1500/mo on, and that includes interest and escrowed taxes.

Houston is on a coast, but it’s not “coastal”. In this context, coastal means being on the Atlantic or Pacific Seaboard,

but can you make that in houston ?

How can anyone pay any attention to yet another west coaster who lives in a bubble?

https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/

If you make $300,000 a year in household income, you are making more than 98.9% of households in the US.

Our household income is a little more than half that, we live in a major metropolitan city, have a 5 bedroom 3-1/2 bath house in one of the affluent counties in the country that was brand new build in 2016 that costs $320k. Our mortgage is around $2000 a month.

We aren't able to max out both of our 401Ks right now, but I do max out mine and my wife works in the education system with a pension.

We are a family of 3 and our grocery build is around $800 a month.

We explicitly decided not to save for college. We are in a state that has practically free tuition to any public college as long as you maintain a 3.2(?) GPA. If our child can't keep that GPA in high school, why would we pay a lot of money for him to go to an expensive college? We can afford to pay tuition for four years out of pocket for him to go to a public two year college his first two years and then transfer.

> If you make $300,000 a year in household income, you are making more than 98.9% of households in the US.

A national percentile calculation does not meaningfully apply when the source county is on either extreme end of the income spectrum.

In 94129, for example, 40% of households make over $200k and the average household income is $250k: https://www.incomebyzipcode.com/california/94129

And there are plenty of places in the US where the salary/cost of living makes more sense.

Not denying that, but _some_ people must live in cost-of-living bubbles (otherwise how can such bubbles exist?) and comparisons for such bubbles must be made _within_ the bubbles.

This post has a bad title. HN should change it to reflect that OP is specifically talking about living in SF or NYC.

(I still have criticisms of the piece, but it's at least kiiinda understandable when talking about those two cities.)

> Yes, their total tax bill is ~$17,000 more a year than today’s median household income...

Glad to see the author pointed this out. Regardless of what you think of his budget, this basic taxation fact remains true.

My idea of middle-class existence is a thrifty but relatively happy family life with an emphasis on education. The budget could vary enormously depending on how this is implemented.

I found it surprising that the budget does not include emergency fund, gifts to charity. It does say at the end it is missing those things like that.

Middle-class is such a meaningless term now. US median household income is about $60K, that is the middle of the income distribution.

Middle-class is a function of outlook, not of income, occupation, or status. Future preference, self-discipline, social conformity, infinitely expandable material demand, and a general emphasis on externalized impersonal values are the attributes of someone in the middle class (from Carroll Quigley's 'Tragedy and Hope' from which an excerpt on the middle class can be found here: https://pastebin.com/raw/6iFPbQdp)

I think taking about financials in general terms for a place as large and as diverse as the US is a mood exercise. As the article describes the same amount of money means very different things in different parts of the US. Defining middle class by looking at the median household income is entirely meaningless for all the reasons the article describes. Many people here also have the instinct to immediately suggest to move to a place that's meant to be flown over because cost of living is lower there. The issue is that both cost and income scale to a large degree proportionally to each other. This article likely could have been titled "why middle class life now cost $40k" and be about personal finance in Baton Rouge. The real news is that $300k on one place are the equivalent of $40k in another.

I’m not middle class but if you are thrifty and can prioritize freedom over needless expenses ie $5 cup of coffee it isn’t hard to live very comfortably in many parts of the usa. I understand owning property at all can be much more challenging in europe than it is in much of the usa mainland.

Coastland and island living is going to be more expensive for various reasons.

> I’m not middle class but if you are thrifty and can prioritize freedom over needless expenses ie $5 cup of coffee

I'm not sure how the $5 cup of coffee became the symbol of financial irresponsibility. An apartment in Midtown NYC runs about $4k a month. LIC is $2.2k. Yet for some reason we blame the coffee.

It started from the "Latte Factor": https://davidbach.com/latte-factor/

I do find it absurd to pay $5+ for a few ounces of hot water poured over ground beans or chopped leaves and placed into a cup with a mermaid on it, so I don't do it.

I also don't think it's the root of people's money problems. However it, combined with 19 other small frivolities, is one branch of their problem in a lot of cases. (The branch being "unexamined, frequent, persistent leaks in the bucket".)

I disagree. It's not the frivolities that are causing people problems it's "lifestyle inflation". I know my family spends a lot on things that could be considered "frivolous", but I'm very careful about not increasing the fixed expenses - mortgage, car notes, random other debt - that you can't just cut back on at a moments notice.

I have a monthly budget and I have a "minimum budget". The minimum budget is how much it would take to survive a month if I lost my job.

Sure - but you're confusing what people are actually paying for when they buy a Starbucks.

When people buy Starbucks, they're buying 15 minutes of time to sit in a warm cafe with friends, free WiFi, a space to work, and the labour involved in having to make the coffee for themselves.

I'm still not sure it amounts to an argument why the $150 a month people would save on coffee are the root of people's money problems, or why they should give up that 19 other small frivolities just so they can afford somewhere to live.

Wait, are you really asking why people should give up unnecessary expenses if they're spending so much on them that they can't afford rent?

No, $150/mo won't get you a place to live in NYC; but 10 $150/mo habits sure will.

And maybe that single $150/mo habit is the difference between "there's literally no room in this city available to rent for $650/mo" and "I have a place to lay my head for $800/mo".

"When people buy Starbucks, they're buying 15 minutes of time to sit in a warm cafe with friends, free WiFi, a space to work, and the labour involved in having to make the coffee for themselves."

I see a lot of people do drive through. There are no friends involved and they probably can't even enjoy their drink while stuck in traffic.

> I see a lot of people do drive through. There are no friends involved and they probably can't even enjoy their drink while stuck in traffic.

My model doesn't require me prove that every single person makes a perfectly rational economic decision when buying a Starbucks - merely that people derive more than the value of the beans and the water from consuming a Starbucks.

It's fine. People just should be aware that they are spending a substantial amount of money on it. A while ago we looked at my girlfriend's Starbucks receipts and they added up to $1300 a year. That's a nice vacation or a new camera or something else she thinks she can't afford.

But that cup of coffee may bring her a little joy every morning. That vacation is maybe a weeks worth of pleasure? I'm not saying either is right, but it is about priorities.

Because of...reasons...I am having to choose between enjoying time with my wife now and saving more for retirement and retiring a little bit earlier. We have only being married 5 years and now have the flexibility to enjoy our selves more. I'm purposefully making the choice to live for the now. I'm turning down side contracts that people keep trying to throw at me because I really enjoy the now.

We all make choices.

Economic death by a hundred lattes per month.

I don't think anyone "blames the coffee", but rather identifies the coffee as something that could easily be downsized (by simply not drinking it, making it at home, or switching to a cheaper preparation). When you add in tips for the baristas a year not drinking coffee could be worth a month's rent, which is not insignificant.

People need to find a way to blame financial problems on the individuals involved without thinking too hard

Well you don't need to pay 90 dollars for a cell phone service or 120 for cable, or spend as redonculous 2100 for food either. Do you really have to eat prime beef tenderloin steak every day?

Probably a carryover from the time where upscale coffee was relatively new to the urban cores and developed some social status, but before you could buy decent coffee almost anywhere in the country (90's to early 2000's?) It was a clearly frivolous pleasure. Neee caffeine? Folgers is cheap.

$5 is definitely a lot of cash for a cup of actual coffee.

I can purchase local freshly roasted single origin coffee at $17 for 12oz and still come out way ahead of $5 per cup. Of course you need coffee gear, but that's paid for itself over the last five years.

In different places different frivilous things make sense. In high-rent, high-income cities, $5 coffee isn't going to have a financial impact but a walk-in closet is ridiculous. In other areas, the opposite is true.

why are people still trying to live in manhattan? yes the trains are starting to really suck i guess but a couple of years ago (when people were still saying this) it took me 30 minutes to get door to door from brooklyn.

Parts of Queens and Brooklyn (c.f the parts where it is easy to get the E into Manhattan) are now approaching what rents were in Manhattan a couple of years ago.

basically everything south of williamsburgh and east of parkslope is like 1/4-1/3 of manhattan costs. as i wrote in response to the person living in UWS: the only difference is the average skin tone.

Because it's great. Source: UWS

what exactly is great about UWS? i dated a woman who lived in morningside heights. it's just generic nyc things (like everywhere else). only difference between my neighborhood in brooklyn and morningside heights was the average skintone.

Ah yes. Starts off with BART salaries. Just revealed his right-wing intentions.

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