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Comment by khazhoux | Hacker News Reader

> I've been paying for a lot of things for my friends recently as there is a very large imbalance in wealth between us which is more recent... I still felt sort of akward about how I was approaching it... I wanted to let them know that I don't care about the money at all,

What kinds of things are you paying for, though? Consider there's a subtle, unintentional message if you insist on paying for their $20 burger and drink: "This $20 is a big deal to you, but not to me." Unless they are dirt poor, they can probably pay for themselves for most things.

Myself, I have friends with 10x less money (self-employed), and 10x more money (huge stock options and the company popped) -- in both cases, we round-robin the check at dinner. Now mind you, we're not going to French Laundry...

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> Unless they are dirt poor, they can probably pay for themselves for most things.

Are you saying $20 for a burger and drink is trivial unless one is "dirt poor"? That doesn't match my estimates of the distribution of wealth in the US, and certainly not the world.

No, it wasn’t about the price of a burger. My point was that just because you made a million dollars and your buddy didn’t, don’t start treating him like every simple, common social expense must be a financial burden for him.

> every simple, common social expense

I don't think a $20 burger and drink is a simple, common social expense for everyone. Certainly not on a frequent basis.

OK, forget the price of the burger and look at the actual point they're making.

Isn't the price the point? The question is whether the poorer of the two is comfortable with the expense. At many times in my life, I was the one "not hungry" when invited to a restaurant.

Fine, xapata! Yes, if you suddenly find yourself with a shitload of money, and you have friends who can't pay their bills every month, they have $0.00 in the bank, literally can't afford to ever eat out, and a $20 meal would be a grand expense and a momentous occasion for them... yes, go ahead and offer to pay for those friends every time.

Thanks, I'm glad to have your approval.

If you're curious how I handle those friendships: I invite them to dinner at my place. Much as discussed in the article.

And our friend group periodically chips in a bit so that they can make important purchases, especially health-related ones.

I picked a random food and $20 as a "small" amount. The burger wasn't the point :-)

I have some friends who aren't comfortable with any out-of-home food expenses. They exclusively cook at home.

TBH I'm not even sure what we're talking about anymore.

I sometimes have trouble with message threads, too.

Please tell me one place in the bay area where you can get a burger and a drink for $20?

The correct answer

It is, but a $20 lunch should be considered an occasion or treat and not a daily driver. Just because it's not a daily driver doesn't make it trivial.

If most people eat lunch out once a week for $20 - that's about $1000/yr. That's trivial for most people if it's part of their social/entertainment expenses (eg even making $30-40k), but it's okay that it might not be trivial for all people.

I don't think spending an extra $1k per year is trivial for someone making $40k per year.

Non-trivial spending includes expensive mandatory expenses, like rent/mortage, insurance, maintenance, etc.) Spending $20 on a lunch once a week (if that's what I wanted to do) is trivial, both in cost and importance.

Obviously trivial expenses are the first to be optimized away when a budget crunch occurs, because they are also trivial to remove/stop. It's hard to delay rent or a car payment withour real consequences, but there's no real consequence to not eating out lunch anymore.

I interpreted "trivial" as negligible, too small to cut from the budget, even in a crunch. I see you're using a different definition. However, I also think that $40k per year is a perpetual budget crunch, so not really a crunch at all.

Typical lunch in NYC can pretty easily hit $15-20.

My friends with 10X less money can't afford to eat out, so yeah, I offer to take them out if I want to go out with them.

> What kinds of things are you paying for, though? Consider there's a subtle, unintentional message if you insist on paying for their $20 burger and drink: "This $20 is a big deal to you, but not to me." Unless they are dirt poor, they can probably pay for themselves for most things.

I mean if you are stubborn enough you'd find anything innocent to be malicious but I'd wager most people would think nothing of it unless you do it every single time and also refuse reciprocal offers

The context was if someone suddenly has much more money than their friends, and then decides it’s their responsibility to pick up the check every time. It’s not, and probably wouldn’t be appreciated.

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