The Rise of Coffee Shaming | Hacker News Reader

The Rise of Coffee Shaming

theatlantic.com

30 pointsspking32 comments

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.

My generation mostly drank beer when socialising, I think this is an improvement.

Wouldn't surprise me if beer wasn't healthier than these sugar bombs.

Unlikely. Alcohol is just sugar that no longer tastes sweet, as far as your glucose levels are concerned, and meanwhile can destroy your life and health in lots of other ways.

There is no Latteholics Anonymous.

  that beer is less healthy
  than lots of sugar likely
  fails to surprise

ftfy (double negative)

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.

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).

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.

"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?

How does it affect you?

It doesn't. This is just another item that belongs on lists like:

If you don't like gay marriage, don't get gay married.

If you don't like guns, don't buy one.

If you don't like expensive coffee flavored milk drinks, don't drink them.

Etc.

One of these things is not like the others. Other people cannot kill me with their gay marriage or expensive coffee flavored drink.

Yes, exactly. Starbucks doesn't serve coffee as much as warm (or cold) milkshakes. And with items like the Mocha Cookie Crumble Frappuccino they aren't even pretending anymore.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Well I have bought Bialetti Brikka 2nd hand for 15 euro and new Bialetti Milk Frother for another 15 euro.

I am buying Segafredo 250g pack for 1,5 euro or Lavazza Bourbon. One pack per month.

Milk I use is expensive though - real cow's milk not pasteurized with very short expiry date for 0,9 euro per liter.

So in my garden latte is roughly 12 cents per cup. ;-)

I do not remember drinking coffee at coffee shop. My friends coming always demand my coffee, saying it is so good.

[1] https://www.bialetti.com/coffee/stovetop/brikka-c-1_7_24.htm...

[2] https://www.segafredo.it/en/espresso-casa-250g

Oh, in the past I had expensive Pavoni machines and all other kinds of other coffee utensils. I still have some of them. It was fun. But I prefer my simple current setup.

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.

$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-...

Yeah but I don't need to buy either of those once every two years.

Meanwhile it's enough to afford the down payment on a small car in... 4-5 years or the down payment on a small house by the time you retire.

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!"

I agree 100%. I've been a following FI for a couple years now (just graduated last year) and it's helped me feel a lot more secure about my future. I worry about less than my peers too.

there's also the opportunity cost of never being able to have that $100 invested and growing compoundly until you sell/die, which is an absolutely colossal loss

as einstein or someone else said, compound interest is "the most powerful force in the universe."

Or you could have a plain coffee and add milk, and consider whether a latte is enough better to justify the much higher price.

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...

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.

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.

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

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.

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