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Comment by wgerard | Hacker News Reader

Somewhat related, but I always wonder if things like this are symptomatic of something larger happening - i.e. I wonder if we're at the start of a recession of some kind, and this is a symptom of that.

Of course the more logical part of my brain says "Starbucks is over-saturated, local coffee shops have surpassed Starbucks in many ways, and people are starting to realize how horrible frappuccinos are for them."

Still, sometimes it's hard to shake this nagging feeling that things like this are dead canaries. I'm not quite sure why, though.

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28 year old here. I was buying starbucks 5 days a week and started drinking the office coffee back in january. I haven't spent a dime on starbucks ever since.

I realized at some point I want to buy a home and also retire. Tightened the belt a bit, wrote out a strict budget, and now i am adhering to it.

Also, the crazy stock market prices are making me fearful. I still have my 401k and sp500 fund contribution each month, but I sold individual stock I was holding (mostly just faang's)... some of it is now in a cash savings account, in cd's, and a bit in just some vanguard mutual funds.

Typing on phone, sorry for typos.

Unless you have insider information or are a very good part time quant, I don't see any reason to think you can time the market.

If GP had stock mostly in tech it doesn't seem like a bad idea to diversify.

It isn't necessarily "timing the market" to cash out gains after a historic, decade-long run. You don't have to get the top or the bottom exactly right.

I would classify cashing out as timing the market. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to sell at current prices, but who knows if we'll have another +25% year or a -25% year? My point is there's no reason to be fearful, just realize that it's all a gamble unless you have an edge.

"I would classify cashing out as timing the market."

Yes that was already clear.

"who knows if we'll have another +25% year or a -25% year? My point is there's no reason to be fearful, just realize that it's all a gamble unless you have an edge."

The point is, there's a lot more that you don't know. Maybe they just sold out at a big gain, knowing that the economic cycle is a real phenomenon, that interest rates are going up, and the yield curve just inverted. Maybe they were over-weighted in a single sub-sub-sector (FAANG tech stocks) that have had a spectacular run, and it's actually a good idea to diversify. Maybe they have plans for that money in a few years, and the recent sideways movement in the market is a good excuse to take gains. Horses for courses.

Even if you don't believe any of that, it isn't "market timing" to act on hypotheses, any more than it's market timing to sell a particular stock when the fundamentals change. You have no idea what the parent's situation or risk tolerance is, so criticizing with "don't time the market" is equivalent to "never sell", which is a comment with zero information content.

I remember late in 1999 I overheard a guy talking to his friends about how he just quit his job to become a daytrader.

I saw a note on Quorum yesterday saying pretty much the same thing.

Makes me think.

Euhm. Of course there's the factor that there's "timing the market" and there's realizing the current expansion has been going on 9+ years (average = 8) and just not caring you get the top wrong by ~1 year.

Timing the market is arbitrarily hard or easy depending on the time ranges involved. Saying that there'll be a recession somewhere in the next 2 years or so is almost a certainty. If you want to get it right to the day ... big problem. Month ... still serious problem. Right give or take half a year ... probably doable with enough research (though I think you'd conclude that it'll happen around the beginning of 2019, not quite now).

To be fair, 3 dollars on coffee 3 to 5 days a week is probably not eating in to your budget very much. But I guess we all focus on different things.

Starbucks is the giant profit machine it is because of the high percentage of customers who don't order a $3 coffee. Their lifeblood is the venti soy, extra whipped cream, Chai flavor shot, double expresso Frappuccino. The article specifically calls out the drop in this high-ticket-price items decline as worrisome.

$450 per year is a new phone, or a return flight to somewhere for a weekend break. Or a coffee machine. And that's just the lower end of potential outlay.

When i was at school in the 80s one of the mandatory classes we loathed was Home Economics. However many of its lessons have been fundamental to my life since. One example being to consider the cumulative cost of small daily expenditures.

450 dollars. Is 450 dollars a lot of money to you? Yes, those are all other ways to spend 450 dollars. In my opinion, getting a coffee is a quality of life boost. It takes no effort, and it increases my productivity and happiness. We are talking about 450 dollars in a year. I spend much more money on my dog and she is much less of a guarantee of return on happiness...

But, I do agree. Some people may not be able to afford 450 dollars of discretionary spending in a year. But they likely would just spend it on something else, and the yearly cost of coffee is definitely not near the cost of alcohol for anyone who drinks. It's really not something to worry about.

You're on the right track. Keep on, you'll build the future you want.

I believe in such signals. Starbucks, to everyone, is discretionary spending: pricey, single-use consumables. In the US, the stores are someplace you can sit and spend time, like a Panera, but plenty of people get their drinks to go. It'd be worth comparing drive-thru and take-out traffic with eat-in traffic at Starbucks to see if a particular category of orders is declining more.

Discretionary spending on consumables is the first thing that most people cut back when they're trying to save money. People have a fixed amount of income, and they try to allocate that to necessities first. A reduction of spending in discretionary consumables may be an indicator that people perceive their cost of living to be rising.

> Starbucks is over-saturated, local coffee shops have surpassed Starbucks in many ways, and people are starting to realize how horrible frappuccinos are for them."

isn't this true for other industries like beer and fast food though?

Mostly, yes. But market saturation isn't a hard cap on sales.

I owned a few fast food restaurants. To gain sales you either added new customers (the market saturation cap), increase order frequency or increase order size. Obvious, but the counter-intuitive part is adding customers is orders of magnitude more expensive. That's why loyalty programs, rewards, "Stars" are so prevelant; as are all the little snacks you walk by on your way to order your $1.99 black coffee - Starbucks needs you to pick up that organic, gluten-free rice krispies treat.

The eating out/burger/coffee spending pie is only so big in number of customers, so to increase your revenue you try to steal customers from other businesses and reduce the time between visits and increase the amount spent per visit.

"Only at Starbucks - Nitro cold brew", "117 stars to your next free beverage" and conveniently placed chocolate covered expresso beans are specifically targeted to these issues.

anecdotal, but i stopped having them after they were required to put calories on the menu. That and i got common sense and started making my own coffee rather than spending ~$5 per coffee everyday.

You can use the ap to order in advanced if that's available in your region

if you don't have any particular attachment to the romance of drinking coffee, a month of caffeine tablets will run you about $5 (or less)

Coffee tastes good :)

i do like the taste of coffee

If you do have a particular attachment to the taste of coffee, consider a Keurig ($120-$250) with a reusable filter. Each cup of coffee uses ~1/3 oz of ground coffee, so a 12oz bag ($6-21) gives ~33 cups.

With expensive coffee, and an expensive machine, at 10 cups per day, after 100 days (1000 cups), that's $886.36, or $8.86 per day. If you find a cheap machine and good, inexpensive coffee, you're looking at $301.82 or $3.02 per day.

Add in $13/300 paper filters for easy and compostable cleaning, and you're looking at $3.45 - $9.29 per day, depending on your coffee price. And 32oz of vinegar for the descaling ($4) for another 1000 cups, increases to $3.47 - $9.30 per day.

As a bonus, if you're also a Futurama fan, you will experience time at an unusual rate once every 10 days.

How about a nice French press (thermos-style, stays hot for a bit), a grinder and some beans?

I make a batch at a time (roughly 1 litre), call it a couple full coffee cups, without having to wank about with a bunch of tiny per-cup efforts that add up to being a pain in the ass overall. Coffee grounds can go in my compost, or feed the next batch of oyster mushroom spawn. Mmmmm.

How long does a 12oz bag of coffee last you?

Of course the more logical part of my brain says "Foobar Flappers Inc is over-saturated, local flapper shops have surpassed FooBar in many ways, and people are starting to realize how horrible FooBar flappers are for them."

This applies to a lot of things. It's a broad trend, and I hope it sinks in rather than passes as a fad.

Not a recession, not in this economy. It’s too strong right now, give it another 2 years maybe.

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