A Real Lack of Avocado Toast
January 3, 2018 10:21 PM Subscribe

If they're not wasting it on avocado toast, how are millennials spending their money? Let’s read their (money) diaries!

Millennial women track and report their spending for a week. Follow along as they navigate NY, Chicago, Calgary, and Homer.

Compare life on unemployment, on $12/hr, and on $138,000/year.

Peek into the logistics of life as a sex worker, and on a boat.

Full disclosure: we didn’t even make it though the first week without avocado toast.

posted by Tentacle of Trust (161 comments total) 33 users marked this as a favorite

Or cocaine.
posted by vorpal bunny at 10:57 PM on January 3, 2018

I had no idea avocado toast was supposedly a hipster/millennial thing until two weeks ago. Since then, I've seen, like, half a dozen unironic references online to how it's totally a hipster fad that needs to be derided.

I'm beginning to think that deriding avocado toast is the actual latest hipster fad that needs to be derided.
posted by darkstar at 11:03 PM on January 3, 2018 [54 favorites]

It would be so great if this thread could swerve around the "they should just..."ing, wouldn't it?
posted by rtha at 11:08 PM on January 3, 2018 [10 favorites]

These diaries are super interesting and it's really nothing to do with millennials. They are interesting people from a variety of walks of life and it's deliciously voyeuristic to see how they spend their time and money. It's why I used to read blogs, for these little windows into totally different lives from your own. I miss that.
posted by lollusc at 11:15 PM on January 3, 2018 [18 favorites]

15 May, 2017: An Australian millionaire and real estate mogul has advice for millennials struggling to purchase a home: stop buying avocado toast.
31 May, 2017 The avocado house index: how many breakfasts to buy a house?
29 June, 2017 Announced on Thursday, people who buy a home with a SoFi mortgage next month will receive a month’s worth of avocado toast delivered to their doorsteps.
posted by Thella at 12:44 AM on January 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

This meme originated in Australia. By coincidence, ABC Radio National's program The Money, a radio program about finance, has devoted their entire half hour episode to avocados and the history of this meme. Yep, 2018 is off to a good start in financial reportage:

Behold the podcast: Have we reached Peak Avocado?

Three decades ago avocados really only featured in Australian households in the form of a prawn cocktail. Things started to change at the turn of the century and Australians now each more avocados per head than any other English speaking country.

In fact the avo on toast has become a meme, a signifier for millennials, property prices and intergenerational misunderstanding. Explore the evolution of avocado economics on this week's episode of The Money.

And here's SBS's The Feed's contemporaneous look at the bullshit boomer article that sparked the outrage.

Incidentally, I was doing the groceries today and for the price of one of the jolly green giant's wrinkled testes, you can buy a mango the size of a child's head. Not just any mango, but the platonic ideal of a mango, glistening with dew and blushing pinkly as if it's just had a good fuck. The kind of mango that proves the Lord's Garden of Paradise is real and awaits us all. So fuck your avocados, it's mango season.
posted by adept256 at 1:16 AM on January 4, 2018 [18 favorites]

Back to the content of the OP, I have found these diaries fascinating. Thanks!
posted by Thella at 1:21 AM on January 4, 2018

Three decades ago avocados really only featured in Australian households in the form of a prawn cocktail

I can't speak for other Australians, but I grew up eating avocado on toast three decades ago and it seemed pretty normal? Avocado and Vegemite was the best. Now smashed avo for $15 at a cafe -- that is newer.

Anyway, loved this series. If you scroll down to the comments section on each diary, the authors often answer follow-up questions from readers, though fair warning: some people leave mean and super judge-y comments (especially to that sex worker).
posted by retrograde at 1:30 AM on January 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

Yeah, that prawn cocktail bit is off.
posted by pompomtom at 1:38 AM on January 4, 2018

Now smashed avo for $15 at a cafe -- that is newer.

My favorite naming variation for this phenomena: Avo Smash!
posted by fairmettle at 2:34 AM on January 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Metafilter: fuck your avocados, it's mango season.
posted by prismatic7 at 2:35 AM on January 4, 2018 [10 favorites]

Building on what lollusc said, would people here be interested in writing similar diary entries? I enjoyed reading them for sure.

Also now I want to try avocado and vegemite (I've had avocado but not vegemite).
posted by batter_my_heart at 3:01 AM on January 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

This article totally fails to address the elephant in the room:

Can you casserole avocado toast?
posted by loquacious at 3:52 AM on January 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

I tapped on the “New York $40,000/year” one, immediately saw that mom and dad own the apartment and provide lodging and all utilities for $550/month and literally sighed so heavily my wife asked me what was wrong.
posted by Shepherd at 4:07 AM on January 4, 2018 [73 favorites]

Every time I read about Millenials and avocado toast, I think it sounds awesome: nice toasted bread, lightly salted smushed room temperature avocado, maybe a soft-boiled egg on top... And then I realize it’s way too late, I have none of the ingredients, but I’ll do it next time.

I don't think it's the concept of avocado toast itself that is earning the scorn; I think it's the fact that twee restaurants are charging exorbitant prices for it that pissed people off. I also find that annoying, but I direct my scorn to the proper place (high restaurant prices overall). But I rarely eat out anyway, and have a frugal New Englander's idea of How Much Things Should Cost and I snort and huff a lot if things go over that amount, so it's partly my fault anyway. Blaming the avocado toast itself is like shooting the messenger, to my mind.

I saw that they were looking for Money Diaries from Women In Debt who were trying to pay that down, and I toyed with trying it out....but while I'm doing better than paying just the minimum each month, I'm not doing as well with paying things down as I think they're looking for, and I handle that with weekly automated transfers out of my checking account anyway, so it's not the kind of Conscious Spending Signifier they may be looking for.

And yeah, the "mom and dad own the apartment and fund me" stuff pisses me right the fuck off overall, and pissed me off even more when I was in my 20s myself. I cope with it by blasting "Independent Woman" by Destiny's Child a lot.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:39 AM on January 4, 2018 [7 favorites]

I think it's the fact that twee restaurants are charging exorbitant prices for it that pissed people off.

Not really, it was a boomer journo suggesting that if the kids just reused the tea-bags every now and then they could afford a house. The truth is that housing is unaffordable because boomers, who bought their property when it was affordable, now treat them like magic coin-shitting machines. They'd rather believe they were wise and the kids are dumb than admit that tax breaks and negative gearing have left them sitting pretty while housing is now entirely unaffordable for latter generations. It has nothing to do with the price of avocados.
posted by adept256 at 4:54 AM on January 4, 2018 [80 favorites]

Not just any mango, but the platonic ideal of a mango, glistening with dew and blushing pinkly as if it's just had a good fuck. ... So fuck your avocados, it's mango season.

I’m so confused. The mango already had a good fuck, so now it’s the avocado’s turn? Do you fuck one and eat the other? (And what kind of eating do we mean, if you know what I mean?). Is this the season for mango-fucking or avocado-fucking? And does it depend on if we’re in the northern or southern hemisphere? (I mean of the earth, not the fruit.)

It’s just I’d hate to end up in a Buzzfeed listicle about how You’re Fucking Your Produce Wrong.
posted by nickmark at 5:03 AM on January 4, 2018 [10 favorites]

As a millennial, so far these have just made me feel like shit for how much I spend, how little I cook, and how little I work out.

Seriously, the two I've read so far are girls who meal prep (spaghetti squash and meatballs?) and bake their own granola, do climbing and 5Ks, and spend an average of 2 dollars a day. And they are oddly cliche "millenial", from my experience: bed of nails, baking soda shampoo?

I'm sitting here, recently married, making 50k, both wife and I are still in school, and we are lucky to even get groceries every few weeks. We usually fight to avoid fast food for dinner so I run to the store for something quick and frozen instead. I haven't worked out in god knows how long but, more importantly, I haven't had time to sit down and code in forever. And the most millennial thing about us is...nope, I got nothing. No cable?

Are these average millenials? If so, I'm doing something wrong and I don't even know how to get to the spaghetti squash, baking soda shampoo, climbing kind of life.
posted by motioncityshakespeare at 5:11 AM on January 4, 2018 [15 favorites]

A Chief Marketing Officer for a software company in Barcelona only make $59K a year? A 30 year old HR manager in Brooklyn making $100K a year whose parents still pay for her cellphone?

I have so many question. First: My daughter graduates from high school this May. Am I expected to pay for her cellphone for another 10 years?!?!

Fascinating post. Thank you.
posted by mumblelard at 5:13 AM on January 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

(also I don't know how much is cost of living but these salaries seem massive to me! Joint income of 280k in London? Philly on 190, Brooklyn on 100k? I would like to be this kind of millennial!)
posted by motioncityshakespeare at 5:15 AM on January 4, 2018 [16 favorites]

First: My daughter graduates from high school this May. Am I expected to pay for her cellphone for another 10 years?!?!

It depends. Our son is 30 and is still on our cell plan, owing to the long string of low-paying jobs he's been working at since high school and technical school. He uses an old-school flip-phone (yes, Verizon still sells 'em) so there's no data expense, and he's fine with that.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:29 AM on January 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Phone Bills: $250/month for two cellphones

Canada, what are you doing?!
posted by soren_lorensen at 5:41 AM on January 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

My 20-something kids are still on my cell plan, but that is mostly because I'm grandfathered into an old T-Mobile plan where the third and fourth phones cost $10/mo each, so I just don't care.
posted by COD at 5:45 AM on January 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

Avocados Number: the number of avocado toasts you have to not consume in order to afford a down payment on a 400,000 dollar house.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 5:45 AM on January 4, 2018 [27 favorites]

A lot of them make really staggering amounts of money! Not sure what the point of this is.
posted by miyabo at 5:59 AM on January 4, 2018 [8 favorites]

Have we reached Peak Avocado?

If this isn't a sequel starring Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton rescuing their children from everything this year, 2018 already sucks.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 6:03 AM on January 4, 2018

Before avocado toast, there were lattes. I'm sure there will be a different shorthand for "LOL frivolous kids no wonder they're broke" coming along soon. (Bacon ice cream? Mango juice?)
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 6:08 AM on January 4, 2018 [10 favorites]

The 24 year old in Paris is making 80k/year , Am I really poor or are those people have crazy good salaries ?
posted by SageLeVoid at 6:11 AM on January 4, 2018 [10 favorites]

Am I really poor or are those people have crazy good salaries ?

Why not both?

I don't know who these people are supposed to be representative of, but "average" certainly isn't it.
posted by Dysk at 6:15 AM on January 4, 2018 [15 favorites]

People with internet connections and time to spare, and have the confidence to share their finances, or even think about them without falling into despair. People who aren't so crushed by capitalism they feel ashamed about ramen and living in their car. People who keep it all a secret because if people knew... they'd be pitied and that's the worst of all for some.
posted by adept256 at 6:20 AM on January 4, 2018 [13 favorites]

Mostly what I have learned from these is that I need to figure out some kind of deal where someone pays for my cell phone. Does everyone has a job/parent that pays for their phone? Am I doing it wrong?

From clicking around a bunch of them randomly, my takeaway was that I need to find a way to have someone else pay my housing. At least a third of the ones I looked at were getting free or semi-free housing (like the parents who own the New York apartment, or the woman in Miami whose husband covers all the housing costs). I'd be happy to pay my cell phone out of the money I would be saving that way.

The diaries are actually really interesting, and kudos to the people who are willing to open up their lives in that way knowing that every little aspect is going to get torn apart on social media. The ones I looked at didn't reflect much of my own life but I'm sure others would if I kept reading them.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:25 AM on January 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

The other smart plan appears to be inheriting lots of money -- one of the people had just inherited enough money to fully fund their retirement, which, like with free housing, would take a lot of the stress out of budgeting.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:30 AM on January 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

100k in a high tax city where rents for a one bedroom of 2k a month are pretty common is not "staggering". High cost of living cities generally come with high incomes. Readers of that site tend to be a better off demo.

I'm actually surprised given the sample - refinery21, willing to write about things on the internet - that there isn't more out in the right side of the income distribution. It could also be they are trying to select away from the couple making 900k crowd from an editorial perspective.
posted by JPD at 6:31 AM on January 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

Six figures is always a lot. Inner London for example has an average salary of under $50k (just under £35k) and that's an average - an awful lot of people are earning less.
posted by Dysk at 6:38 AM on January 4, 2018 [11 favorites]

The Diaries: a bunch of very rich young women and the ways they spend all of their disposable income on supporting venture-capital backed transportation services or have their incredibly expensive, bougie lifestyles funded by their work along with a few middle-class women who are struggling to pay off their loans and don't spend a great deal on gym/clothes/transportation

MetaFilter: is it cool to still talk about avocado toast and also what exactly is the cultural history of avocado toast

Refinery29: guess what kind of person makes up our audience demo lol
posted by runt at 6:42 AM on January 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

Median income in Manhattan below the top of the park and brownstone Brooklyn is around 100k. That's the refinery demo
posted by JPD at 6:43 AM on January 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

"Measured by median income, Manhattan and (especially) Brooklyn are much poorer than you think. Manhattan’s median annual household income is $66,739..."
posted by Dysk at 6:46 AM on January 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

Many more in Charlotte, from $22,000 to $850,000 and most everything in between.
posted by matrixclown at 6:52 AM on January 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

That's not.actually what I said
You can get the data by region.

Again I'll repeat. Making 100k in NYC isn't a big number.
posted by JPD at 6:59 AM on January 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

Making 100k in NYC isn't a big number.

When I was living there I made less than half that. 100k+ did and does seem like a stupendous amount of money.
posted by orrnyereg at 7:13 AM on January 4, 2018 [7 favorites]

The distinction is 'Manhattan below the top of the park and brownstone Brooklyn', as JPD said, versus NYC. 100K is nothing much in the first area, but it's a whole lot in the city as a whole.
posted by LizardBreath at 7:19 AM on January 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

This one:

Occupation: Attorney
Industry: Government
Age: 32
Location: Miami, FL
Salary: $138,000
Monthly Expenses
Housing Costs: $2,500 (husband pays)
All Other Monthly Expenses
Flywheel Membership: $300
Cable & Internet: $150 (husband pays)
Electricity: $30 (husband pays)
Netflix: $9.99 (husband pays)
Hello Fresh Delivery: $280
Contribution To Joint Savings Account: $1,000
United Way Charity Contribution: $40
Parking At Work: $50.08

When your housing is covered by someone else and you’re making well into the six figures, finances sort themselves out pretty fuckin’ easily.

4:45 p.m. — My husband and I both do well, and we more or less keep completely separate finances. I moved in with him just prior to our marriage, so he was already paying the rent and utilities. I pay for my own expenses, my own car payment, our entertainment, and most of our food and other incidental expenses. We've been meaning to work out a better system, but we at least both agree that "what's mine is yours" and vice versa.

Better system? Sounds like it working out peachy keen. It makes one want to roll one’s eyes unto retinal detachment, but it sounds like a pretty sweet deal for this individual. And that’s not a Millenial thing - it’s called privelege and inequality.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:23 AM on January 4, 2018 [17 favorites]

Not really, it was a boomer journo suggesting that if the kids just reused the tea-bags every now and then they could afford a house.

He was neither a boomer nor a journalist.
posted by ernielundquist at 7:26 AM on January 4, 2018

(also I don't know how much is cost of living but these salaries seem massive to me! Joint income of 280k in London? Philly on 190, Brooklyn on 100k? I would like to be this kind of millennial!)

Fuck, I know, right? I was sitting here glancing through the article and going "holy shit those salaries are high, but maybe it's cost of living...?" And then I got to the bit with the joint $84k salary in Austin and had to sit down, because my partner and I make quite literally half that. We do own a house, but honestly buying it and putting in the work it needed to be livable might have financially strained us beyond fragility--and we bought it in basically the cheapest part of town that would let me continue catching the bus to work, because we just have the one car, and immediately found a roommate to help with the mortgage. And this is me considering myself privileged because I don't have to deal with rent hikes of a hundred dollars a month every year anymore.

I had a crisis of budget yesterday because we are so fucking broke that I'm honestly going "holy shit holy shit unless student loans come in soon we literally have no spendable money after the mortgage payment goes out and the assorted fixed debt payments get made, and the plumber just told us there's an $1800 bill coming in and I gotta figure out how to pay him" and I was berating myself for buying Christmas presents and participating in secret Quonsar and somehow being so ridiculously fiscally irresponsible and terrible with my money.

And then I took some deep, deep breaths and did the budget I've been hiding from in terror for weeks and found out that, ah, actually it's just that we spent something in the neighborhood of $2000-$3000 on medical bills and stuff necessary to get my partner back into school in the last two months, and maybe that's why we're fucked and not the $300 tops we spent on having a fucking holiday.

$100k isn't that much, my ass. I feel irresponsible for buying a home on a joint $53k income. I know for a fact my experiences have terrified at least one fellow millennial away from owning a house, possibly permanently.

Jesus. I can't even look at the diaries. Just the salaries are making my gut hurt.
posted by sciatrix at 7:31 AM on January 4, 2018 [36 favorites]

A data point on the cell phones: I'm 34. I was on my parents' cell-phone plan until I was 30. I think they were grandfathered into some sort of good plan. I only got my own cell phone plan when I: (1) moved from SF to Atlanta and therefore didn't have to pay SF rents any more and (2) started working for the phone company, so it would be really dumb to not take advantage of the employee discount.
posted by madcaptenor at 7:32 AM on January 4, 2018

I just read the Chicago -- $35,000/year entry because I thought it might be most comparable to my situation at her age in 1992, when I was newly married and making $21,000/year jointly with my husband. How could she possibly be living alone in a $975 apartment in Uptown? Why would she go out for a coffee and bagel that you could make at home for a fraction of the cost (and the bagel wouldn't be stale)? Why would she drop $28.00 on a bowl of ramen? Last night I made tonkatsu ramen for two (with fat I'd saved from a $1.99/lb pork roast from a couple weeks ago, panko-breaded chicken, seaweed, fishcake, miso, and dried cordyceps mushrooms) for about $8.00. Which I admit is a vast improvement over the packaged ramen and can of tuna that I had every day for lunch when I was her age ($0.75).

Honestly, I know no one cares what Generation X thinks, but I just don't get all the complaining. We knew our futures would suck for a while (maybe forever, if we even had a future after the inevitable nuclear apocalypse), and we just dealt with it and ignored the sneers and condescending "slacker" epithets from these people's yuppie parents, who brought us the crash of 1987, the ensuing recession, and a president who had never seen a grocery scanner before, and went about our work. I'm sorry, but millennial reportage has reached peak saturation, and I am really sick of hearing about them and their apocryphal avocado toast.
posted by filthy_prescriptivist at 7:37 AM on January 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

I'm sure there will be a different shorthand for "LOL frivolous kids no wonder they're broke" coming along soon. (Bacon ice cream? Mango juice?)

Bacon is coded masculine, so nobody will ever, I mean ever blame it for any societal ills, even though the fucking horrible obsession with with putting bacon in every goddamned thing you could possibly put bacon into is a far worse trend than avocado anything ever was.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:42 AM on January 4, 2018 [29 favorites]

People with internet connections and time to spare, and have the confidence to share their finances, or even think about them without falling into despair.

Some of us just don't want to admit to ourselves how much we spend a week on beer.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:44 AM on January 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

I lived alone in Uptown in 2002 on $35k. It was fine, but not great. I could pay my bills but had no savings or retirement and would have been SOL if I'd had a major medical expense or other crisis. I could afford to go out occasionally. There are plenty of pockets of Uptown, likely even to this day, that have fairly affordable rents. Not sure what's so unbelievable about it.
posted by misskaz at 7:44 AM on January 4, 2018

soren_lorensen: Phone Bills: $250/month for two cellphones

Canada, what are you doing?!

Living under the yoke of a telecommunications oligopoly.

I mean, $250/month is a bit steep, especially since - according to that monthly breakdown - they were paying $90K/month for internet as well (i.e., not part of a bundle with their phones), but it's still very possible.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:50 AM on January 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

In 2002 there were parts of Uptown that were downright sketchy. I'm not sure how it is now, but if I moved back I would live on the West Side anyways.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:51 AM on January 4, 2018

And I mean, I'm not even fucking working class. My partner is/was, and so are some of my friends, and like. Like.

I know an awful lot of people who started out with so much less than me. My sister and her husband travel literally all over the country on a regular basis, in part because her husband makes quite a bit more than either me or my partner and in part because she lives with my parents, who can give her a rent free basement in the middle of Atlanta. And I mean, my mother spends literally every second we're in contact needling me for not being the other pretty compliant daughter she wanted and/or attacking my spouse, so like. That wasn't so much an option for us, although I judge myself sometimes for walking away from that safety and control. It's harder if you're queer; it's harder for trans folk in particular to count on that kind of support. I came from the kind of place, I suspect, that these people did. I know how they got where they are.

I can find so many reasons to blame myself for where I am, but what it comes down to it that these are people with the advantage of considerable support from wealthy parents or spouses, and all the class privilege in the world won't save you if you don't have that. Poor me, I guess? There are plenty of folks who have it so so much worse and I'm so acutely aware of that every time I think about my finances.

Seriously, I keep a You Need A Budget. If people want it, I'll set out my own financial diary for an average month. We maybe spend too much on groceries, I guess. You can judge it if you want.
posted by sciatrix at 7:52 AM on January 4, 2018 [10 favorites]

I pay $65/mo for my mobile here in Ontario, but believe me, I have no illusions whose carrier Virgin uses.
posted by Kitteh at 7:55 AM on January 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

my favorite part is where none of the 6-figure makers that I read donated any of their money to local non-profits or activist groups working on alleviating income inequality while at the same time LOL-ing away their extravagant expenses

I know a good number of people who make a conscious effort either donating their time or their money to these causes who make far less than a lot of these people so don't mind me seething at capitalism backed rampant consumerism over here

@sciatrix - I'd join you there. my partner and I make comfortable money but holy shit do these people make me feel like I'm living a beggar's life
posted by runt at 8:01 AM on January 4, 2018 [11 favorites]

That's not.actually what I said
You can get the data by region.

Again I'll repeat. Making 100k in NYC isn't a big number.

Making 100k in NYC is a lot. It's about one and a half times the median income in the most expensive borough. I'm sure if you narrow your geographic area to the most expensive few blocks in the entire city, you can find an area that's got a six figure average, but that would be representative of nothing, other than the fact that rich people congregate. Nobody needs to live in a specific neighbourhood of Manhattan, and nobody who would be rich five streets over ceases to be so if they move those five streets.
posted by Dysk at 8:01 AM on January 4, 2018 [22 favorites]

In 2002 my husband and I had a huge old two-bedroom in East Rogers Park for $975, when we were making a joint salary of $70,000. Uptown hadn't even been gentrified yet (and gentrification hadn't yet destroyed the Chicago housing market as a whole). I guess I'm staggered that anyone would pay that much in rent to live by herself anywhere on that salary, especially with student and tax debt. I spent a year there by myself in the 1990s while my husband was doing a postdoctorate elsewhere and rented a room in someone's house with kitchen privileges and it was fine (especially because I got to share her fine fuzzy grey cat while missing mine).
posted by filthy_prescriptivist at 8:07 AM on January 4, 2018

Six figures is always a lot. Inner London for example has an average salary of under $50k (just under £35k) and that's an average - an awful lot of people are earning less.

Ha, remember when Labour announced that policy of raising taxes above £70k and half the country (or at least half the papers) were up in arms over it? I am amazed to this day how many people believe simultaneously that a) £70k is basically bare minimum subsistence level pay in London and they could not possibly even survive off less than that, and b) all those young people complaining about the housing crisis could absolutely afford to buy a house if they just spent a bit less at Starbucks.
posted by Catseye at 8:09 AM on January 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

In my day, we are the fuck out of avocado toast and believed we had invented sex.

If millenials believe their generation invented avocado toast, what are they thinking about sex?
posted by janey47 at 8:28 AM on January 4, 2018

"LOL frivolous kids no wonder they're broke"

What's really confusing to me is that avocado on toast is close to bread and butter level of ordinary.

It's avocado on toast. I refuse to believe Americans/Australians/Canadians did not think to put a damn piece of avocado on a damn piece on toast until the twenty first century.

It's always been a staple snack in my South American country. You can dress it up with bacon/prosciutto or a poached egg if it's Sunday and you feel fancy, but it's not a sous vide type of thing. All you need is a fork. In Peru it's a typical working class breakfast for about 75 cents with a cup of watery porridge.

Like people in the seventies were swimming in Cointreau and fondue but avocado on toast is too decadent and luxurious?
posted by Tarumba at 8:49 AM on January 4, 2018 [15 favorites]

I thought avocado toast started being a thing because avocados are cheaper in many parts of the country than butter.
posted by Autumnheart at 8:52 AM on January 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

If millenials believe their generation invented avocado toast, what are they thinking about sex?

I am STILL salty over a comment I saw here last year, something like, "a 55-year-old doesn't know anything about sex anyway."

A 55-year-old was a young adult in the 80s. They invented the graphical web so it was easier to watch porn. They had to be begged and cajoled and terrifying-PSAd into using condoms. I know the hairstyles and fashion might lead a young person to believe that nobody could have possibly ever fucked then, but I have terrible news for you and it's probably about your parents.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:03 AM on January 4, 2018 [33 favorites]

The point of the 'avocado toast' thing was that that guy (who was a millennial, BTW) said people were paying $19 for it, the implication being that they were being overcharged, just like people complain about people paying too much for coffee or whatever. The fact that avocados and bread aren't expensive was his point.

It was a dumb point, and it didn't seem to have much basis in reality, as the guy is a real estate developer whose parents lent him a bunch of money to get started and he seemed to lack basic self awareness about his own lack of real world experience. But pricing out bread and avocados isn't really a rebuttal.
posted by ernielundquist at 9:10 AM on January 4, 2018

I have a lot in common with the folks they're profiling - I'm from a white upper middle class family, I've gotten very lucky in terms of housing (I live with my best friend and her husband; they're not charging me full-market rent), occasional help from my parents (when I was making $1100/month in grad school), and I have an aspirational upper middle class job (postdoctoral researcher - now making almost three times as much as I made in grad school!) - but I don't feel like this captures my relationship with money and the purchases I make.

This is representative of a particular subset of millenials, but I don't think it can really be used to generalize about our generation's spending habits and relationship with money. It'd be interesting to get the perspective of millenials who aren't childless, millenials who are working minimum wage jobs, millenials who aren't working aspirational upper-middle class jobs, millenials who don't have expense accounts.
posted by ChuraChura at 9:16 AM on January 4, 2018 [8 favorites]

"We knew our futures would suck for a while...and we just dealt with it"

Uh-huh. Gen X is definitely known for sucking it up and coping, and not for creating an entire cottage industry out of griping about Boomers. That definitely never happened. Stiff upper lip, and all that.

Millennial reportage is, indeed, dumb, and I, too, wish it would stop. But it is also dumb that an entire generation is saddled with six-figure college debt and few prospects for living-wage work or property ownership.

As such, millennials can't depend on things merely "sucking for a while," and you might have to just deal with hearing about it.
posted by evidenceofabsence at 9:43 AM on January 4, 2018 [11 favorites]

The Denver one really rankled me, like it was finely honed to hit a bunch of weird pet peeves, none of which even had to do with money.

I'm just going to point this one out because it requires some local knowledge:

Once he picks me up, we head to the Queen Soopers in his neighborhood and he buys stuff for dinner.

She's referring to the Capitol Hill King Soopers. Assholes have been calling it "Queen Soopers" since at least the 80s because a) Capitol Hill was known as a gay neighborhood, and b) it was one of the first 24 hour grocery stores in the area. So there were these ridiculous rumors that it was some orgyfied pickup spot, because why else would it be open at night? What will all the gays and all?

Back in the day, it was considered a kind of shitty thing to say in any context other than reclaiming.
posted by ernielundquist at 9:46 AM on January 4, 2018 [10 favorites]

Uh-huh. Gen X is definitely known for sucking it up and coping, and not for creating an entire cottage industry out of griping about Boomers. That definitely never happened. Stiff upper lip, and all that.

Millennial reportage is, indeed, dumb, and I, too, wish it would stop. But it is also dumb that an entire generation is saddled with six-figure college debt and few prospects for living-wage work or property ownership.

As such, millennials can't depend on things merely "sucking for a while," and you might have to just deal with hearing about it.

How about Gen-X and Millennials unite against a common enemy instead, because many of us Gen-X still have the same complaints about debt and cost of living as the Millennials.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:02 AM on January 4, 2018 [20 favorites]

I knew a hedge-fund manager in NYC. Not a friend, an acquaintance. She simultaneously complained about being poor more than any other human being I've ever seen complain about it (and I grew up in serious poverty) while discussing literal class warfare against the poor. I'm certain she made well over a million dollars a year (and chose her husband based on his prestigious last name).

"Making 100k in NYC is a lot."

I think the thing is in NYC, more than most places in the US the wealth inequality is on full display. So even if you are making 100k, you are probably still taking the subway, eating out - but at modest restaurants/bars, you don't have a car (because that's ridiculous). But then you see the wealthy around you - you see where they live, you see the private cars that are bringing them places, you see the designer stores they shop in (that you could never afford), you see the galleries whose art they purchase. You see all that, and if you are making 100k a year, you know you will never in your life be eating in those restaurants, have that car with driver, live in those condos you see, etc, etc.

I have a friend who probably makes 100k a year in NYC. He walks up 3 stories of stairs each day (and has the calves to prove it) to his modest studio apartment in Brooklyn that gets cold in the winter, and is thrilled to have his apartment. He doesn't wear fancy clothes, go out to fancy eateries, etc. He probably sees what he makes as a good wage, as his social circle probably makes significantly less than him (although that outlook would probably be different if he had a different social circle), but I doubt he thinks of his wage as 'a lot'.
posted by el io at 10:22 AM on January 4, 2018 [16 favorites]

runt - my favorite part is where none of the 6-figure makers that I read donated any of their money to local non-profits or activist groups working on alleviating income inequality while at the same time LOL-ing away their extravagant expenses

How many people make weekly charitable donations? Everyone I know does it once or twice a year in a big chunk and/or does it in support of someone doing a fundraising run/bike type thing...
posted by Grither at 10:23 AM on January 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

Oh, or monthly repeating donations. Which I suppose should probably have been included in those budgets.
posted by Grither at 10:25 AM on January 4, 2018

it's privilege not to be aware of the work that's being done to uplift marginalized communities in your area, to not know how dire some of those causes are or even how close some groups are to mounting successful actions but just happen to be missing the resources. many of the people in my life regularly donate or volunteer because they are intentionally confronting that privilege, as, imo, we all really should be
posted by runt at 10:34 AM on January 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

If you're going to complain that these profiles don't represent an entire generation, maybe consider that the same would apply to those you're criticizing as well.

Not every 'boomer' is a middle+ class white person in a stable heterosexual relationship, and much of the success of those who were came on the backs of the less privileged members of those generations. The people I know right now who are the worst off are all older. (Or "knew," I guess, because a couple of them just sort of disappeared.)
posted by ernielundquist at 10:43 AM on January 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

Oh, thank god, I was afraid we wouldn't get a #notallboomers comment in this thread.
posted by tobascodagama at 10:48 AM on January 4, 2018 [13 favorites]

I mean, it's just ludicrous that people might blame the people who have been in charge of the world for their entire lifetimes for the problems they've inherited, right? I mean, who does that?
posted by tobascodagama at 10:50 AM on January 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

Being Gen X, I don't want to get into the whole "Gen X vs. Millennial" nonsense, but as a middle-aged person, I'd like to say, "For God's Sake, do some goddamn budgeting and little freaking planning ahead."

I'm not saying you have to live on lentils and ramen, but you're spending $10 on breakfast toast and $16 on lunch because you can't be bothered to shop for groceries?
You have a metro card but the subway is too much bother so you take a $25 internet cab ride?
C'mon!

If student loans are 20% of your take home pay, I'm sorry, you can't afford to jet over to the other side of town for $50 worth of drinks.
Find a local or drink at home, it's a time-honored tradition.

Young people, I say this as someone who didn't follow his own advice, save every dollar you can.
You're living in one of the longest bull markets in history, you won't get many chances at it.
Every dollar you send to Uber is $5 you won't have to live on when you're 70.
Every overpriced coffee is groceries for a week when Social Security won't cut it.

Seriously, think ahead, have a 10 year plan, a 20 year plan.
I didn't. And it sucks.
posted by madajb at 10:56 AM on January 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

Have they named the group that comes after the Millennials yet? There are some little kids in my family and I want to be prepared.
posted by JanetLand at 10:57 AM on January 4, 2018 [7 favorites]

Oh, thank god, I was afraid we wouldn't get a #notallboomers comment in this thread.

In response to the #notallmillennials? Yeah, it's pretty fucked up that it's even necessary to point out the hypocrisy.
posted by ernielundquist at 10:57 AM on January 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm beginning to think that deriding avocado toast is the actual latest hipster fad that needs to be derided.

The inimitable John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats, at a concert after someone threw panties: "Did you know that in Sweden, panties are called hipsters? Now you know…That’s the first hipster whose existence I will acknowledge…I have a theory about the word ‘hipster’ which I’d like to now share with you--it’s a boring theory--if you don’t mind…There’s no such thing as a ‘hipster.’ The word ‘hipster’ exists so that people who consider themselves members of that category can deride others for being in that category. So when a person says, ‘Oh, I hate this place, it’s all full of hipsters,’ what they mean is, ‘I am a hipster. And you should recognize, because I was able to identify all these other hipsters, whom I hate.’ It’s a very complicated linguistic operator, but I’m pretty sure I’m right about it."

Nobody needs to live in a specific neighbourhood of Manhattan, and nobody who would be rich five streets over ceases to be so if they move those five streets.

I think your notion of NYC geographic affordability is a touch outdated. Landlords in NYC require that you make 40x the monthly rent. $100K, therefore, allows you to rent a place for no more than $2500/mo. That sounds high, but Harlem is the only neighborhood south of 168th St. where that currently exceeds the median rent of a non-doorman 1-bedroom. Since the subway is not a magic teleporter, you do need to live in a neighborhood in some proximity to your job.

I make almost exactly $100K/yr. without any external financial support and live in Manhattan. I am not in a financially precarious position, at least no more than anyone is in the no-safety-net world of late capitalism. I am grateful to be able to take an occasional vacation and to eat out at a fairly nice place from time to time. I used to laugh at private-sector colleagues making 3x what I do now who claimed not to be well-off. But, no, it's not a "lot" of money. A combination of luck and ability to spot good microneighborhoods means I have a tiny (can't be more than 450 sq ft), somewhat rundown (the cabinet laminates in pure late 70s shit brown are peeling off, and the shower handle likes to fall off) one-bedroom that costs about 30% less than the average rent for my neighborhood. (It's a 40-minute commute to work each way.) That helps a lot. But my actual take-home is about $56,500. My rent (without utilities) is 44% of that. I don't own a car; 95% of my transport is by foot or subway. I'm on a cheap prepaid phone plan. I don't have cable. If I hadn't paid off my student loans, it would be a much tougher world. If I could move five blocks and become rich, I certainly would, but I don't think I qualify for NYCHA.

It's about one and a half times the median income in the most expensive borough.

No, it's not...Manhattan median income is about $75K.

So, yeah, the person making $100K is doing okay for NYC, but it's very recognizably a middle-middle class existence without loans, and with, much more fragile. I'm big on self-sufficiency, but I can't blame that person for accepting parental help.

Can you casserole avocado toast?

No, the real question is whether you file it on your shelves toast- or avocado-side out!
posted by praemunire at 10:59 AM on January 4, 2018 [12 favorites]

I'm sure if you narrow your geographic area to the most expensive few blocks in the entire city, you can find an area that's got a six figure average, but that would be representative of nothing, other than the fact that rich people congregate.

To be fair, “Manhattan south of the park” isn’t “the most expensive few blocks”, it’s literally half the island. As someone who grew up in Manhattan and still has family there, it’s hard to overstate quite how insane wealth concentration and the associated housing nonsense has made... pretty much the entire borough (plus huge swaths of Brooklyn).

On preview, what praemunire said.
posted by Itaxpica at 11:03 AM on January 4, 2018

Electricity: $30 (husband pays)

OK, that has to be bullshit. FPL (the utility) has a monthly customer charge of $5.90. Their total volumetric charge (fuel plus non-fuel) is $0.08556 per kWh according to their sample bill. So even ignoring franchise fees, taxes, surcharges, etc., for that $30 to be accurate they'd need to be using about 280 kWh per month. That's insane; we know it's not true just based on the fact that she mentions a fridge, freezer, and TV. And I doubt a lawyer in Miami is living without AC. 280 kWh? That's like 25% of what the average Floridian uses per month, according to the EIA. The average Florida residential customer spends closer to $2,000 a year ($167/month). And those numbers are from 2009.

So either she's completely ignorant of how much they're actually spending on electricity because her husband pays the bills, or the figures in the diaries are completely untrustworthy, or both of those things. For me, it just demonstrates how how of touch you can afford to be when you make $138,000 a year.
posted by nickmark at 11:07 AM on January 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

No, it's not...Manhattan median income is about $75K.

It's $66k. I linked a source upthread. That is also less than somewhere else that was about 70k median. Somehow, literally half of people l living in Manhattan make it work with less than 66k. And 100k isn't a lot?

You think we don't have arduous comutes or minimum earnings to rent places in the rest of the world? Because we do. 40 minutes door-to-door is generally thought of as reasonable in a lot of places, not on the upper end or extraordinary. Hell, jobseeker's in Britain is offered on the premise that you'll take any job offered to you within an hour and a half (and that's transit time, not door-to-door).
posted by Dysk at 11:08 AM on January 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

Every dollar you send to Uber is $5 you won't have to live on when you're 70.

I think I mostly agree with what you're saying here, but when you live in a shitty quasi-dangerous neighborhood because you are poor (as I have done), every dollar you spend on Uber or a cab so you won't have to take the subway home at 1AM (as I have done; the only other person in the car was a 6'something'' man who stared at me from Bed-Stuy to Washington Heights) is absolutely, 100% worth not having $5 when you're 70.

The biggest takeaway I seen in these diaries is that having disposable income buys you freedom. Sometimes it's frivolous freedom, like the freedom to order delivery instead of walking a mile to pick up your food/groceries. Sometimes, though, it's the freedom to put your own safety/comfort first.
posted by basalganglia at 11:11 AM on January 4, 2018 [22 favorites]

So I too am an 'old' millennial with a shit-ton of debt and to me the answer re frivolous spending is that people need treats, psychologically. My student loan debt is several times more than my best yearly salary has ever been. I've been paying student loans for ten years and I have at least ten more. Probably more if we ever decide or can afford to buy a house. I go out for food at least once a week partly for escapism. If I stopped or drastically cut it, maybe I could pay my loans off in 18 years instead of 20. Nobody can go 18 years denying themselves every treat in the world though. For a lot of millennials, I think the treat is food because we're tired and we live in cities where interesting food that's hard to cook for ourselves is available. But it could be makeup or seeing new movies or whatever. I just went on an overnight trip with my wife, we stayed in a cheap motel and did mostly free things and I still felt really guilty about spending money that we don't really have. But shit, I'm 32 and I'm keenly aware that I'm already starting the age where people you know suddenly drop dead of heart attacks, and if I make some small stupid decisions to eat a nice meal, I'm doing the best I can to save for the future responsibly but have some fun experiences for the next 10+ years while I do it, because literally more than a few of us are going to die before we ever pay off our student loans.

NB that I think there's also been some time dilation where people still think of millennials as just-out-of-college naive kids. "Old" millennials according to many sources are now in their early to mid 30's. I assure you many of us are past the age where we'd probably have liked to buy a house or have a kid. We're not overwhelmingly postponing those things because we take too many Ubers.
posted by nakedmolerats at 11:31 AM on January 4, 2018 [46 favorites]

You think we don't have arduous comutes or minimum earnings to rent places in the rest of the world? Because we do. 40 minutes door-to-door is generally thought of as reasonable in a lot of places, not on the upper end or extraordinary

Of course you do, but not for people who have a "lot" of money. My point, as I think I said up-front, is not that I am suffering on that income (I'm not!), but that it yields a lifestyle that is very recognizably middle-class, not what anyone would call wealthy, and that is without student loans, which most of these young people are still dealing with--probably several hundred dollars a month, if not more. If they're struggling, it's not because they're mindless spendthrifts who insist on living in the hottest neighborhood in town on account of thinking they're too good to live five blocks over.

And my commute is not extraordinary, but I also live a good half-hour closer to my work than the only moderately affordable parts of Manhattan (Inwood/Washington Heights). Anything over an hour each way, even on the subway where you can work, seriously affects quality of life, I don't care where in the world you are.
posted by praemunire at 11:31 AM on January 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

$100k isn't that much, my ass. I feel irresponsible for buying a home on a joint $53k income.

Ironically according to this cola calculator making 50k in Austin is like making 117k in Manhattan. 90k in Brooklyn.
posted by JPD at 11:42 AM on January 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

Also sure maybe there was some frivolous spending in those profiles, but I also saw quite a few "I made a huge batch of Meal and ate it 4-5 times through the week".
posted by nakedmolerats at 11:45 AM on January 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

praemunire: "No, it's not...Manhattan median income is about $75K. "

According to the 2016 ACS, median per capita income in Manhattan is $68k. Though median household income is $78k, so perhaps you're thinking of that number. In any event an individual making $100k in Manhattan is doing considerably better than the median (even though they may not feel like it -- but that's class and social sorting for you).
posted by crazy with stars at 11:48 AM on January 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

She's referring to the Capitol Hill King Soopers. Assholes have been calling it "Queen Soopers" since at least the 80s because a) Capitol Hill was known as a gay neighborhood, and b) it was one of the first 24 hour grocery stores in the area. So there were these ridiculous rumors that it was some orgyfied pickup spot, because why else would it be open at night? What will all the gays and all?

Back in the day, it was considered a kind of shitty thing to say in any context other than reclaiming.

Yeah, this happened with the now closed Kroger on Ponce in my old home of Atlanta. Everyone called it Murder Kroger because of someone getting shot there in the 90s, I think, and it was just a shitty racist thing to say. See also: Disco Kroger up near Ansley because of the gayborhoods around there. IIRC, another Kroger somewhere around Moreland or East Atlanta is called Ghetto Kroger. Just...for serious, STOP IT.

/sorry about derail
posted by Kitteh at 11:50 AM on January 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

Here is the link to income by nabe.

https://project.wnyc.org/median-income-nabes/
posted by JPD at 11:55 AM on January 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

According to the 2016 ACS, median per capita income in Manhattan is $68k. Though median household income is $78k, so perhaps you're thinking of that number.

Yes, I was looking at the wrong number...thank you for finding the "correct" wrong number, because I was starting to wonder if I'd hallucinated it!

33% or 50%, it's still obviously a decent chunk more than the median. I personally would not recommend someone, even a single person, to move to NYC entirely on their own with a salary at the median per capita, unless it was in a field where they could reasonably expect fairly rapid salary escalation (or with a job located somewhere that let them easily live in the outer reaches of the boroughs and basically avoid Manhattan and western Brooklyn altogether). That would be challenging to maintain long-term. Below the median includes the very roughly 9-10% of all NYC residents who live in public housing or on Section 8; about 30% of public housing units are in Manhattan.
posted by praemunire at 12:04 PM on January 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

The "funny"/ not funny thing is, I used to routinely shop at a Giant Eagle in Pittsburgh that I suspect was often called the "ghetto" one, and it was the nicest one to shop in by far. The ones in the gentrified neighborhoods were insanely crowded with cars and people and the whole store was a maze of dragonfruit islands instead of normal damn aisles.
posted by nakedmolerats at 12:07 PM on January 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

Comment removed, cool it a little.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:07 PM on January 4, 2018

Ironically according to this cola calculator making 50k in Austin is like making 117k in Manhattan. 90k in Brooklyn.

Costs of living calculators are so terrible.

For 'transportation', what they are actually comparing according to Nerd Wallet, is specifically gas prices, not transportation costs. At various lower incomes in NYC that might mean a subway pass, but in Austin it always means a car and insurance.

Also, it compares the median prices, but that's not of much use unless you make the median income, so the sliding scale is actually completely useless and inaccurate at any other income.

Also the things it compares (bowling, Pizza Hut pizza, eggs, and milk) are definitely chosen by some boomer.
It's also not at all scaled, so the doctor visit (for example) plus Lipitor costs more in Austin, but since a dental visit costs less in Austin than in NYC (the rest of the medical cost the same as NYC or more Austin), the total comparison is 11% less in Austin.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:22 PM on January 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Man, sciatrix , I dunno. You bought a house, that's what you did. That was your priority. I'm 36, and I'll never be able to afford a house, ever, anywhere. I'm fine with that. Wave nicely to the guy living in his van (when I buy a van - I've basically have never owned a car), and I'll wave back.

But if you have so much anxiety from home-owning, you know: you don't have to. But I get why it's probably a GREAT idea to own one.
posted by alex_skazat at 12:29 PM on January 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

She's referring to the Capitol Hill King Soopers. Assholes have been calling it "Queen Soopers" since at least the 80s because a) Capitol Hill was known as a gay neighborhood, and b) it was one of the first 24 hour grocery stores in the area. So there were these ridiculous rumors that it was some orgyfied pickup spot, because why else would it be open at night? What will all the gays and all?

I dunno, I thought it was tongue and cheek (like how the f calls someone that's gay, "A Queen" anymore?). When I would routinely hang out at the coffee shop next door, which was a gay hangout, we'd all call it that too. I'm not sure if I'd use the word, "Orgified", but if you were looking to pay for some... services, I'm positive I could point you to the right gentleman on which to inquire.

All the supermarkets had stupid names. "Unsafeway" near Five Points. "Kings Soopers of the Future" had the entrance underneath like a parking garage, which gave it this Bladerunner feel, etc. I lived in Capitol Hill for years - nice neighborhood, and lots of wonderful gay neighbors totally crushing on fixing some of those really amazing homes up. The hardware store was across the street from that King Soopers, too (on Cap. Hill).

I think things have really changed, though.
posted by alex_skazat at 12:34 PM on January 4, 2018

the answer re frivolous spending is that people need treats, psychologically.

SO MUCH THIS. The women in the labor movement even had a song about that.

And seriously, insofar as treats go, vegetables on bread is miniscule. We're crapping at each other over whether to DIY or order Seamless for your avocado toast, while meanwhile there are people who are giving each other his-and-hers convertibles or trips to French vineyards to design their own champagne or something.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:52 PM on January 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

Have they named the group that comes after the Millennials yet?

The way we're going, I'm going to put my money on "Skullthroners".
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:08 PM on January 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

Yeah, this happened with the now closed Kroger on Ponce in my old home of Atlanta. Everyone called it Murder Kroger because of someone getting shot there in the 90s, I think, and it was just a shitty racist thing to say. See also: Disco Kroger up near Ansley because of the gayborhoods around there. IIRC, another Kroger somewhere around Moreland or East Atlanta is called Ghetto Kroger. Just...for serious, STOP IT.

Here is a map of kroger names. "Ghetto Kroger" is the one on Moreland. They tried to rebrand the Kroger on Ponce as "Beltline Kroger", but that didn't stick.
posted by madcaptenor at 1:22 PM on January 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

I dunno, I thought it was tongue and cheek (like how the f calls someone that's gay, "A Queen" anymore?). When I would routinely hang out at the coffee shop next door, which was a gay hangout, we'd all call it that too. I'm not sure if I'd use the word, "Orgified", but if you were looking to pay for some... services, I'm positive I could point you to the right gentleman on which to inquire.

No, I mean I lived there, that was my grocery store, and a lot of people literally thought that it turned into an free for all pickup spot after dark. I had plenty of neighbors who wouldn't go there at all, or at least not after 7PM or so because they thought people were literally having sex in the aisles.

Gay and adjacent people did reclaim the term and I had friends who called it that too, but there was some real, hardcore homophobia behind that name, and I thought it had mostly disappeared.
posted by ernielundquist at 1:23 PM on January 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

When I spent the Dot-bomb years being repeatedly laid off with long stretches of unemployment between jobs, I found myself having to get really, really granular with finding “treats” that cost as little as possible. I did things like challenge myself to re-read all the books I owned, went “shopping” at the $1 clearance rack at Half Price and at Goodwill, stuff like that. It was a rough time, but I have to say, that lesson stuck with me the most. I spent the next several years basically creating a “layoff hoard”. I have a huge collection of books, movies and TV shows, video games, etc. plus a lot of small kitchen appliances, so that if, god forbid, I do have to engage again in Extreme Penny Pinching and entertain/feed myself with only what I have in the house, I can enjoy months of “new” content and ways to try new things without having to buy something (except ingredients, for the food part).
posted by Autumnheart at 1:30 PM on January 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

I had avocado toast for the first time recently and it was delicious. If avocado toast is a millennial thing then all I can say is "Well done you, you clever sausages!"
posted by octobersurprise at 1:32 PM on January 4, 2018 [7 favorites]

I had to stop reading these when I saw how many people's parents paid for part or all of their housing and some other expenses. If your nominal salary is $50k, and housing + utilities would be $1000 if you were paying them, you're really making $62,000. The median student loan payment is $200, so if mom and dad paid for college, there's another $2400. I mean, whatever, it's none of my business, but I better not hear any whining.

I'm on unemployment so 100% of my income goes to food, rent, utilities*, household and pet supplies, and gas. Maybe I go out for a beer twice a month. My weakness is this soy coffee creamer which costs $3.99 at Target and I feel guilty every time because vanilla soy milk + sugar would cost less (but doesn't taste as good).

Anyway I probably should have done my blood pressure a favor and skipped the links.

*I don't have cable or Amazon or Hulu, so Netflix is a utility, don't @ me.
posted by AFABulous at 1:36 PM on January 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

Ironically according to this cola calculator making 50k in Austin is like making 117k in Manhattan. 90k in Brooklyn.

Which is still a joint income for me--it includes everything my partner makes, plus everything I do, plus rent from the roommate. It's about to go down significantly, which is part of why I'm freaked. Even if I'm fairly sure I'll work out how to survive long term with loan money and, uh, possibly some Craigslist sales.

My point is that even if that COLA calculation is 100% accurate, per adult I'm not making an equivalent salary or anything close. In fact, the Austin woman literally makes twice what I do when you compare our incomes head to head--she has a $52k salary, and mine is $26k. I actually make a bit less than her husband.

I get the "still got it better than me" sentiment, though. Like I said, the fact that we could buy at all is privilege--and the fact that we did was actually primarily valuing the ability not to have family push me into spending more money and time on travel. Security is and has always been my priority, which... doesn't mesh very well with family. That's sort of my point.

I'm scared and angry. I have a lot of privilege, and I played by the rules these guys are pushing. and I had a lot of levels up provided by wealthy parents, even parents whose support was fraught with emotional abuse and no longer available after I left college. Which is not the case for many of the people in these diaries--the lack of support, I mean, not the emotional abuse. I've been pretty open about thinking of myself as having some significant advantages that not everyone has access to.

That's my point: this system sucks, and the millennials being shown are those who can capitalize on fairly astounding levels of support from wealthy families. That shouldn't be like this. A couple of bad months of medical costs, with good insurance, shouldn't fuck anyone over like that. And posting these diaries to get a sense of how "fiscally responsible" people live is flat out insane.
posted by sciatrix at 1:37 PM on January 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

adept256: "... it was a boomer journo suggesting that if the kids just reused the tea-bags every now and then they could afford a house." ... "They'd rather believe they were wise and the kids are dumb than admit that tax breaks and negative gearing have left them sitting pretty while housing is now entirely unaffordable for latter generations. It has nothing to do with the price of avocados."

ernielundquist: "The point of the 'avocado toast' thing was that that guy (who was a millennial, BTW) said people were paying $19 for it, the implication being that they were being overcharged, just like people complain about people paying too much for coffee or whatever. The fact that avocados and bread aren't expensive was his point. "

It was a Boomer first, followed by a Millenial*. And the second fellow's point definitely wasn't that people were being overcharged for inexpensive-to-make restaurant food. He was openly saying that other people in his generation and younger are entitled and lazy.

October 2016: Boomer journalist/author/demographer Bernard Salt says...

"I have seen young people order smashed avocado with crumbled feta on five-grain toasted bread at $22 a pop and more. I can afford to eat this for lunch because I am middle-aged and have raised my family. But how can young people afford to eat like this? Shouldn't they be economising by eating at home? How often are they eating out? Twenty-two dollars several times a week could go towards a deposit on a house."

May 2017: Millenial* property developer Tim Gurner says...

Interviewer: "So you think that young people have now got the prospect of never owning a home?"

Gurner: "Absolutely! When you're spending $40 a day on smashed avocados and coffees and not working, of course! When I bought my first business [a gym] when I was 19, I was in the gym at 6am in the morning and I finished at 10:30 at night, and I did it 7 days a week, and I did it until I could afford my first home. And y'know there was no discussion around could I go out for breakfast or could I go out for dinner, or whatever it was, I just worked.

Interviewer: "So what you're saying is you're a bit more driven than other people in the current generation..."

Gurner: "Look, I wouldn't say that they're not driven, I just think that the media and the current environment and lifestyle changes has definitely changed the next generation. I think it's very dangerous. I think its dangerous for the economy. I think it's definitely dangerous for their ambitions of owning property. And I think the problem with this generation is they want the 3-bedroom home in [expensive real estate markets] and it's just not sustainable or realistic."

[...]

Gurner: "When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn't buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each”

Interviewer: "So you reckon that's real? That people actually... young people... actually end up just spending their money and then whinge about the fact they can't get into the property market."

Gurner: "Oh there's not question it's real. I think until the generation realizes that people that own homes today worked very very hard for it, saved every dollar, did everything they could to get up the property ladder... It might be, you might have to buy an investment property first. You might have to share with Mum and Dad. You might have to buy with a friend. But you've got to get your foot in the door, and you've got to slowly get up the ladder."

Nobody can go 18 years denying themselves every treat in the world though.

Indeed. I've noticed this coming up a lot in discussions about the housing crisis here - "well people need to scrimp and save a bit, we lived off beans on toast and didn't go out for a whole year to afford our house!" And I think a lot of people could do this for a whole year, but the same thing would now take eighteen, twenty years, and that is different. That's no longer a temporary project, that's a lifestyle. Even if you could guarantee a house at the end of it, you can't blame people for going "eh, if it means being miserable for the next two decades that is just not worth it."

(This is the same reason I dislike those kind of 'this boss/politician spends a week living off the average pay of a poor person, what life lessons will they learn!' experiments. It's like saying 'we sent this person on a camping trip, so now they know what it's like to have to live in a tent for five years!')
posted by Catseye at 1:39 PM on January 4, 2018 [26 favorites]

ha, I didn't see Secret Sparrow's comment just above until after posting, but YES. THAT.
posted by Catseye at 1:42 PM on January 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

And I think the problem with this generation is they want the 3-bedroom home in [expensive real estate markets] and it's just not sustainable or realistic."

oh this is one of my other pet hates, the 'you want a house that's too fancy, we started off with a 1-bedroom place in a shitty area!' thing. Yeah because you could afford to buy your 'starter' place when you were 22, and the people you're preaching to couldn't afford it until they were in their 30s with kids.

ANYWAY I did really like reading these diaries, though. There is something hugely fascinating about seeing the everyday detail of other people's lives like this. Like lollusc way upthread, this is one of the things I used to love about old-style blogs, and it's kind of lost now that remaining blogs tend to be so heavily monetised (not ads as such, but the 'brand partnerships' and sponsored posts stuff).
posted by Catseye at 1:46 PM on January 4, 2018 [9 favorites]

Re both cocaine and voyeuristic glimpses in other peoples' lives, this is my all time favorite money diary. This woman has a $100K+ job in construction management, and spends her time calling in for weed and coke and wearing her swimsuit to work because she has no clean underwear. It is a totally different life than the one I lead, and I read it with a combination of horror and something like admiration.
posted by Tentacle of Trust at 1:58 PM on January 4, 2018 [13 favorites]

And I think the problem with this generation is they want the 3-bedroom home in [expensive real estate markets] and it's just not sustainable or realistic.

LOLLLLL. Have any of you ever actually met millennials? Ever? Are you kidding? You honestly think there are people in their late twenties to mid thirties who think that they are going to magically purchase 3 bedroom homes in major US cities?

We can't even find studio apartments to rent at manageable prices in the cities where we need housing-- and we live in those cities because those are the only places where jobs exist. This perpetual insistence that all millennials are manic pixie dream idiots wandering around looking for instagram style homes and lives is utterly at odds with literally every person I know in the age group. "Maybe someday I will be able to rent longterm in a building that is less than a mile away from public transit and not entirely riddled with vermin" is aspirational for a lot of them.

Looking at these accounts of people making six figures and paying no rent as "representative" for millennials is like reading the NYT society pages to get a glimpse of "average" New Yorkers.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 2:03 PM on January 4, 2018 [10 favorites]

If your nominal salary is $50k, and housing + utilities would be $1000 if you were paying them, you're really making $62,000.

More than that, actually, since the housing/utilities, when given to you by your parents, is post-tax! Add probably 25% to that number.

And I think a lot of people could do this for a whole year

I try to do a "stuff diet" every February: no purchases of books, movies, music, yarn, non-work-required clothes, or other entertainment items. It really is a good thing to do to reset spending expectations and cleanse the palate after the holidays. But I would find doing it for even a year psychologically challenging.

Life is extra hard if you're broke. That means it's extra hard to resist comforts. And doubly so to deny them to someone who's dependent on you.

Re both cocaine and voyeuristic glimpses in other peoples' lives, this is my all time favorite money diary.

That's a....very honest diary! Whew!!!
posted by praemunire at 2:07 PM on January 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

I was really into reading these for a few months and even submitted my own. I still read them from time to time but I found that I was reading them sort of aspirationally-- someday I, too, can run every morning and eat salads and go out every night but still kick ass at work-- and most of the salaries seemed way higher than those of any women I knew who were early/mid twenties, and that kind of got me down after a while.

But I still think they're pretty interesting, and I think there's a fair amount of diversity in the lifestyles and financial situations. A few of my favorites were from this woman in Alaska, these from mothers and then the sex worker diary linked in the original post was pretty fascinating.
posted by geegollygosh at 2:07 PM on January 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

This is inspiring me to make a detailed inventory of my family's expenses, because it seems like we spend a figurative shit-ton on living (probably 60-80k/year) without a particularly extravagant lifestyle. Major expenses include daycare (12k/year for 3 days a week for one kid), property tax and home maintenance (13k/year amortized), health insurance and health care (17k/year... and we're all reasonably healthy). I often wonder how the hell people in this area get by on less, or alternately what the finances look like for the owners of the shiny Teslas in the parking garage at work.

I do note that most of these millennial diaries are of singles or couples not trying to support children.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 2:25 PM on January 4, 2018

Now, anywhere in this did anyone actually define what constitutes a "millenial?"

Because I'm not one. I refuse the moniker. Absolutely refuse it. If only because I have never eaten avocado toast.
posted by Armed Only With Hubris at 2:26 PM on January 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

I think I mostly agree with what you're saying here, but when you live in a shitty quasi-dangerous neighborhood because you are poor

I would never begrudge anyone spending money for safety or overcoming unforeseen circumstances.

But a lot of the spending (on cabs especially) struck me as impulsive, I'm running late/I don't feel like walking /it's just easier rather than actual need.
It's the kind of spending that is easy to underestimate but adds up.
posted by madajb at 2:30 PM on January 4, 2018

Gurner: "When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn't buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each”

This is proving my point - Gurner isn't tut-tutting the avocado toast itself, he was tut-tutting the spending $19 for the avocado toast.

Frankly, I also think that $19 for smashed avocado is ridiculous too, but the people I'm tut-tutting are the restaurant owners who charge that much. Don't blame the customers, seriously. Regardless how old they are.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:39 PM on January 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

It's all housing, at least here in NYC. You can go from 66k median, barely scraping by in a shitty studio hours from work to 100k (an extra ~$1600/month after taxes) and blow that on luxuries like a bedroom door or a 59 minute commute. If you have a grandfathered, rent stabilized, family subsidized or other housing boon, actually living in the city isn't super expensive.
posted by Skorgu at 2:44 PM on January 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

I think that the overarching point about the avocado quote isn't about the price, or whether restaurants are overcharging - the reason it resonates as a talking point for so many millennials is because it a) shows how out of touch people complaining about millennials are and, more importantly, it b) demonstrates how millennials are told to give up their frivolous luxuries when even decades of scrimping and saving doesn't exactly change the reality that makes owning a house/having a career/living the sort of life our parents had completely out of reach.

It's not that millennials are fools, spending too much on avocado toast (or even buying much avocado toast at all). It's not that avocado toast has gotten more expensive than it was back in the good old days. It's the fact that not buying a coffee or making your avocado toast at home just isn't enough to close the gap anymore.
posted by sagc at 2:56 PM on January 4, 2018 [12 favorites]

It is impulsive spending, but I think the point I'm trying to make is that if you're already taking 20 years to pay off an avalanche of debt, and if you're a good girl and walk every single day instead of taking an Uber, maybe you'll pay it off in 17 instead. I don't think it makes you entitled or selfish if you simply can't do that every single day for 17 years. This is why #millennials cry when money-saving tips are "stop buying Starbucks!" If I drank a $5 Starbucks every single day for a year, that'd be maybe 3% of my total debt. And I don't have one every day. But if I'm gonna be paying these loans for at least 7 more years anyway, yeah I'm getting a stupid mocha every once in awhile.
posted by nakedmolerats at 3:00 PM on January 4, 2018 [20 favorites]

For me, a cab/rideshare to my home from my work is the difference between a 20-25 minute ride and a 70 minute ride plus 5-20 minutes of wait time (public transportation). There aren't very many circumstances where I can spend $20 and literally get 45+ minutes of my life back.

I totally get that it's a luxury and that better time management would save me money. If you want to say that taking a cab means I am lazier and worse at planning than someone who never takes cabs, then great, I willingly concede that I am lazier and worse at planning than people who never take cabs. But taking a cab is also not a completely irrational choice, and is not even close to the biggest line-item in my budget. That would be (wait for it) rent.

As countless financial advice-givers have stressed, including Elizabeth Warren, young people are not going broke because of avocado toast or its predecessor, the dreaded latte. They are going broke because the costs of the fundamentals (housing, transportation, health care, education) have ballooned out of control.
posted by en forme de poire at 3:07 PM on January 4, 2018 [22 favorites]

Honestly, all this intergenerational sniping does is divide a group of people who are largely screwed by our current economic system regardless of how old we are and what the economy was doing when we graduated from high school. I'm so tired of the nitpicking back and forth about who had it worse and who is making what irresponsible choices and losing sight of the fact that these problems are systemic and no matter how much avocado toast I forego or how many times my parents spot me $50 for my cellphone bill or whether or not I take the subway or an uber, Social Security and medicaid will be gone by the time we need access to a social safety net because all the banks and markets will have been completely deregulated and all the capital will have accrued to even fewer people than hold onto it today.
posted by ChuraChura at 3:19 PM on January 4, 2018 [24 favorites]

Elizabeth Warren in Salon: Americans are not going broke over lattes! And this was back in 2003, way before the Great Recession kicked the legs out from under the financial table of so many people (of all ages). In fact, Elizabeth Warren gained fame for her book, The Two-Income Trap - detailing the reasons (housing, healthcare, education) that Americans found it hard to make ends meet - long before she became a Senator. In fact, it was this book that launched her on her political path.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 3:20 PM on January 4, 2018 [11 favorites]

This is proving my point - Gurner isn't tut-tutting the avocado toast itself, he was tut-tutting the spending $19 for the avocado toast.

I thought Gurner was just modestly suggesting that all millennials should start selling avocado toast and make a fortune.
posted by FJT at 3:22 PM on January 4, 2018

I wonder how true any exercise like the money diaries really is. I am pretty sure that if I committed to writing down everything I purchased for a week, my awareness of that project would shift my spending behavior—doubly so if I was planning on making the information public.

I call this effect "Schrodinger's avocado toast."
posted by evidenceofabsence at 3:33 PM on January 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

I totally get that it's a luxury and that better time management would save me money. If you want to say that taking a cab means I am lazier and worse at planning than someone who never takes cabs, then great, I willingly concede that I am lazier and worse at planning than people who never take cabs. But taking a cab is also not a completely irrational choice, and is not even close to the biggest line-item in my budget.

The first NYC person linked here does take a lot of cabs/Uber just because she feels like it in a number of circumstances where it looks like it'd have been quite manageable to do the subway--normal hours, not vast distances, not some inaccessible area, not an emergency that required no time be lost. That was the one item that, if I were asked to review her spending, I'd tell her she's not getting good value for money on. She's clearly rationalized it so that a $10 or so Uber doesn't seem like much more than the subway fare of $2.75, and a $5 fare seems cheeeeeeap OMG!. But, even if you exclude the past-midnight Uber/taxis (probably not necessary where she lives, but okay), she spends $73.77 on other transport. An unlimited MetroCard costs ~$4/day...over a week, that's $45 extra. That is a meaningful amount. Leisure taxis/Ubers are NYC budget-killers. When I changed jobs and took a vast pay cut, they were the first thing to go.
posted by praemunire at 3:37 PM on January 4, 2018

I think part of the problem is that even in nominally-"liberal", fully blue places in the USA, the conversation seems to be controlled by wealthy landowners who have convinced themselves that they, the people who want to be able to e.g. drive from their currently-valued-at-$1M home to anywhere in the city and easily find free car storage at their destination, are the real persecuted class, and young people today just need to scrimp and save a little, like they did when they bought their house for $200K in today's dollars, or else should just move somewhere cheaper and stop acting like they're entitled to find housing near where the jobs are. (For a fun drinking game, open the SF Examiner and drink every time you read an op-ed protesting an improvement to public transit in a way that transparently appropriates the language of the left to defend the right of rich retirees to park their Priuses in every available inch of road space, and then go immediately to the ER for alcohol poisoning. Oops, I'm getting cranky because I missed my afternoon avocado toast!)
posted by en forme de poire at 3:41 PM on January 4, 2018 [15 favorites]

Honestly, all this intergenerational sniping does is divide a group of people who are largely screwed by our current economic system regardless of how old we are and what the economy was doing when we graduated from high school.

Agreed; speaking strictly for myself, the biggest motivator I have for ever pulling the "what about Gen-X" card isn't so much "we had it worse" as much as it's "we have had the same problem too, let's team up".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:39 PM on January 4, 2018 [11 favorites]

EmpressCallipygos: we have had the same problem too, let's team up

It's staggering how much time and money is spent by vested interests to distract everyone else from having that epiphany.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 5:11 PM on January 4, 2018 [7 favorites]

Building on what lollusc said, would people here be interested in writing similar diary entries? I enjoyed reading them for sure.

Ok, I'm willing to do one, but I'm redacting my actual salary information because for some reason that feels too private. I'll just say it's well above the median Australian salary and puts me in the top tax bracket. But it's just salary - there's no further income from investments, gifts, parental help, etc.

I've been travelling for the holidays the last few weeks, so it's not representative, so I went back to the last week before I went away and pulled all my bank statements and combed them for this info. I never use cash, so I think this is a reasonable approach (and I am pretty sure there was no extra cash spending because there were no cash withdrawals the previous week before this, so I wouldn't have had any cash with me).

My husband and I share finances, but I've split shared bills and food costs etc below and just counted my half. I use our car about once a week at most, and if I had my way we wouldn't have a car, but just use carshares, taxis or rental cars when we really need them, so I'm counting all car costs as his apart from the tolls and parking on the day I used it. (I have much higher public transport costs and occasional bike costs instead).

Other monthly costs not mentioned below:
Mortgage payments: $2000 (so my half = $1000 I guess). We were lucky to be able to only take out a small mortgage (about a third the cost of our house) because we had previously owned a place in our last city that was almost paid off by the time we moved (which in turn was because we didn't buy property until we were in our 30s/40s and had had two incomes and no kids for long enough to save up a large deposit). So we put down a very large down-payment on this house too. A mortgage payment in Sydney would usually be a lot higher than $2000 a month.
Electricity: about $400 quarterly (split = $67 monthly for my share)
Water: $175 quarterly (split = $30 monthly for my share)
Rates: $324 quarterly (split = $54 monthly for my share)
There's also big annual costs like home insurance, travel, gifts, etc, but since the other diaries don't include those, I haven't either. I am fortunate not to have student loans, as I had scholarships throughout my tertiary education that covered everything except some of my living costs, and I worked summers and 15 hours a week during the semester to cover the rest of the living costs. I know I am very lucky to have been able to do that.

Sunday:
We had friends visiting from out of town, so this was a spendy day, foodwise. We walked to the bakery near our house in the morning and bought pastries. I paid for theirs as well (total $18.60). We went to the French bakery because it's fancier even though actually the Vietnamese bakery next door is pretty good too and would have only cost half as much.

We then spent the day lounging around at home playing board games and eating the pastries plus cherries they had brought with them, but then we went out to dinner in the evening. My friends had very specific dietary requirements that limited our options. After walking around for about 30 minutes looking at menus, we finally found somewhere that suited, and they said they were too busy to let us order off the menu, so we had to do the banquet meal at $80 a head. This is about twice what I'd usually pay for a dinner out, but we were hungry and tired and desperate, so we did it. It was a great meal, but I'm still a bit horrified at the cost.
My regular metafilter donation of $5 also went through that day.
I also had a $10 charity donation come out of my account.
Our fortnightly private health insurance payment was debited from my account today as well: $45.45 for my share. Private health insurance is not really necessary in Australia, but we just finally switched to it because my husband had a lot of health problems in the last couple of years and the waiting times for surgery are a bit insane. A current problem he has will have a wait of over a year for surgery, while the waiting time for pre-existing conditions with private insurance is less. I still feel like a spendthrift forking out for private coverage, though.
TOTAL = $159.05

Monday
The three-monthly gas payment was debited from my account ($43.89). This is a bit frivolous because we only have gas for the stove and BBQ, and if we switched to electric or induction for the stove and gas bottle for the BBQ, we'd save pretty much this entire bill, since most of it is the fixed connection cost. But we love cooking on gas so much, and are procrastinating on making decisions about replacing the stove.
I went bouldering at a bouldering gym next to my work. It cost $20, but I paid for a friend to come too, which would have been $40, but then we got a discount from a coupon, so it worked out to $31.68 in total. I'm thinking about getting a membership, but I don't know if I'd use it enough to make it worthwhile.
I packed a lunch and my husband cooked dinner that night from food in the pantry, so no food costs.
TOTAL = $75.57

Tuesday
I had to pay for an annual professional membership today. It is tax deductible, so I'll get 30% of it back later. $108.44 (weird non-round number is because it was in a foreign currency and converted back to AUD).
Today was a writing retreat at work, which was fully catered, thanks to a small grant we got to run it. And due to small numbers, fully catered meant we could just buy whatever food and drinks we liked at the cafe next door and the university paid! So no food costs, and by home time I was too full to want any dinner.
However, the retreat happened in the middle of the city, which meant I passed tempting shops on my way home. I stopped at Daiso bought a selection of face masks, make up brush cleaner and delicious Japanese sweets. ($14)
In the evening, I impulsively spent $4.94 on a Steam game that came on sale. It wasn't very good, but I guess I got $4.94 of entertainment from it.
TOTAL = $202.95

Wednesday
It was too hot to bike to work (38 C) so I was lazy and took the bus. My Opal card was low, so it auto topped up ($40)
No other expenses that day. I was on an interview panel to recruit new teaching staff most of the day, which meant the university once again fully catered meals and my husband cooked dinner when I got home too.
TOTAL = $40

Thursday
I worked at home today and didn't even leave the house, so no need to spend money, or opportunity to do so. All meals were from the pantry/fridge.
TOTAL = 0

Friday
I had a meeting out at one of our more distant other campuses today (40km away) and I decided to drive instead of taking the train/bus because I was feeling super lazy. ($9 parking). I don't have a monthly parking permit because I mostly bike or take the bus to work. I probably would have ended up buying food out there but all the food outlets were already closed down for Christmas or something, so I avoided that expense.
My husband cooked dinner, so no extra food costs there either.
TOTAL = $9

Saturday
I went surfing. Spent $10 in road tolls driving to and from the beach (I have to drive because of transporting the surfboard(s)).
I found a spot with free parking, amazingly.
After surfing I was starving, so spent $14.50 on chips and an iced coffee.
Had to stop at a cheese shop on the way home to stock up for CHEESE PARTY 2017, which was happening the next day. Also bought a bottle of fancy cordial as a gift for a friend. ($22.07)
My husband cooked dinner at home.
That evening we did the weekly grocery shop. We usually go to Aldi because it's cheaper, and get away with spending about $100 (for two people), but about once a month we have to go to Woolworths to get all the things that Aldi doesn't stock. That was this shop, so it came to $76.31 for my half.
TOTAL = $122.88

Total for the week = $609.45.
If you include the weekly proportion of the monthly bills listed above, it all comes to about $900.
posted by lollusc at 5:26 PM on January 4, 2018 [7 favorites]

The number one thing Millennials can do to help themselves is to vote. Millennials already outnumber Boomers by several million but vote at much lower rates. If just a few percent more Millennials had voted in the last election, Donald Trump would not be in the White House.

It's sort of pointless to complain about Boomers when Millennials out number them and could outvote them. If you want better policies, you have to vote for them.
posted by JackFlash at 5:34 PM on January 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

Oops, I included Monday's costs twice, as I added them into Tuesday's total too. So deduct $75.57 from Tuesday, and from the grand totals at the end.
posted by lollusc at 5:34 PM on January 4, 2018

And under monthly expenses I forgot all my media expenses: $24 for phone, $10 for YouTube Red/Google Music, $35 for my share of our internet connection cost = $69 a month.

These things are hard to do!
posted by lollusc at 5:53 PM on January 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

Note that bit about how you might have to buy an investment property first and how he bought his first business at 19? Gurner got his start as a property developer by getting a $34,000 loan from his grandfather to buy a gym (he flipped it a year and half later by selling to a competitor). You'll see articles talking about how he "started with nothing" though. That's a "nothing" that I think a lot of people would appreciate having handed to them.

I wonder if his data-points are from talking to his upper-class friends about how their children live. They too are given a ton of money from their parents and squander it - when he was a kid, he used that free money to enable him to work super-hard and build something better.

I think its possible, and is probably common with pundits like him, that they are actually utterly clueless about the plight of most americans, because they don't know them, haven't spent time with them, etc... So they know about the children of their well-to-do social class and extrapolate about 'kids these days', when actually he's talking about 'rich kids these days'. Truth is, he undoubtably was a hard working kid, but a hard working kid that was given a huge break, and probably was in a position to fail gracefully (if that gym didn't work out he wouldn't be homeless).

Anyway, given that relatively kind assessment of his perspective, it's probably still utter bullshit... Most of the kids of the wealthy when he was a 19 year old given 34k (in those dollars) to start a business were probably just as ill motivated as rich kids these days.

Don't get me wrong - fuck that guy and his rhetoric, but I can sort of understand how he might have gotten that ill informed perspective. That being said, I'd be willing to bet he's being wildly hyperbolic when talking about this friends children's spending habits (two levels of the telephone game going on there) - no matter how much you love avocado toast (I've never had it, but i'm starting to be sold on it) would you really want 40$/day worth of it? Wouldn't you want some other luxury item for variety?

What I'm saying, is that man cannot live on avocado toast alone.
posted by el io at 5:58 PM on January 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

It's sort of pointless to complain about Boomers when Millennials out number them and could outvote them. If you want better policies, you have to vote for them.

Millennials did outvote boomers in the 2016 US election in terms of number. Turnout was lower as a percentage and that's not unique to today's young people.

I'd argue that a big problem is that there still aren't a lot of politicians doing a great job representing the interests of lefty millennials. The success of the Reaganesque "tax revolt" ideology left such a long shadow that the number of Democrats who will publicly support even Diet Scandinavia levels of social spending is still tiny. Keep in mind also that the oldest millennials are still in their mid-30s; the average age of senators is 62 and rising, and the fact that incumbency is such a huge electoral advantage gives parties zero (short-term) incentive to support younger candidates. This will hopefully change eventually (see the previous thread about DSA membership demographics, for instance) but it'll be a prolonged process.
posted by en forme de poire at 6:01 PM on January 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

Millennials did outvote boomers in the 2016 US election in terms of number. Turnout was lower as a percentage and that's not unique to today's young people.

The demographic tabs don't exactly match up with the generational definitions but only 42% of people 18-29 voted in 2016. 72% of those over 65 voted. That's a 30 point difference. Boomers vastly outvoted Millennials even though Millennials outnumber Boomers.
posted by JackFlash at 6:40 PM on January 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Reading this thread gave me cravings, so I just had avocado toast for lunch.

(Avocados were 6 for $8; toast = $3.50 a loaf; total = $1.60, or 0.0007% of the deposit on a median-priced Sydney house).
posted by lollusc at 6:45 PM on January 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

It turns out that millennials vote at pretty much the same rate that baby boomers did at their age. Or at least, they did in 2012... and in 2016 they actually came in at 49 percent, at least according to Pew. Not 42%. Given record attacks on access to votes, especially on polling day; attacks on things like early voting that usually allow younger workers who are more likely to have unpredictable and flexible work schedules to get to the polls, and the gutting of the VRA, I'd say we're doing okay.

I literally had a 22-year-old student climb into a chair in my last genetics lab and exhort her entire class to get out and vote and did you know how to register and what obstacles are you facing, let me know, I'll help you not two months ago. I'm going to say that voting habits among the Youth are all right, if we can get to the damn polls. And it's not like my kids were rolling their eyes at her, either--one asked her advice on a change of address issue, and two others were nodding and cheering her on and adding to her points. That was my less overtly political section that semester.

I see public announcement posts circulating on places like Tumblr which are highly used by people my age and younger exhorting people to vote and reminding folks about voting. It's everywhere among my grad student colleagues. It's a message my circle of queer meetup friends pass along. People bring registration sheets to coffeeshops and register people right then and there if they want.

I see this massive, concentrated effort among people my age to vote, is my point. It's just that I also see a massive, concentrated effort by the GOP to restrict our access to the election, and that's a fucking problem.
posted by sciatrix at 7:04 PM on January 4, 2018 [8 favorites]

Ah, I was looking at millennials + Gen Xers vs. boomers and older, mea culpa. However, the point I was making that that millennial turnout is on par given their age still stands. Turnout among 18-29-year-olds has been stable since 1980, when that same demographic was made up of exclusively trailing-edge boomers (birth years 1951-1962). Or on preview, what sciatrix said.
posted by en forme de poire at 7:09 PM on January 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

I had a great-Aunt tell me once that the surest path to madness was trying to suss out why other folks spent their money the way they did.
posted by thivaia at 7:20 PM on January 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

millennials vote at pretty much the same rate that baby boomers did at their age

I don't think saying "Millennials are just like the Boomers 30 years ago" is very encouraging. If Millennials want change, they need to get busy with politics now, not 20 years from now when they become the next "Boomers."
posted by JackFlash at 7:25 PM on January 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Have you been paying any attention to political activity since the 2016 election? Millemnials - like lots of people who felt disaffected and cynical about politics - are now organizing, participating, running for office, donating, joining DSA at impressive rates. Sorry we disappointed you before, but I bet the midterm elections will have pretty high millennial turnout.
posted by ChuraChura at 7:51 PM on January 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

JackFlash, you've made your point, let it go now. Thread is about budgets/diaries.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 7:55 PM on January 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

From clicking around a bunch of them randomly, my takeaway was that I need to find a way to have someone else pay my housing.

Yea. Living in your boomer parent's spare bedroom makes things a lot easier* financially. I'm hopefully wrapping up a six month round of unemployment shortly, and living in another state while my parent's houses are foreclosed upon kinda ruled the move in with your parents option out.

I'm not gonna detail my personal finance situation in minute detail, because it comes across as humblebragging, but Oregon's max UI payment is like $610 weekly, and my circumstances are not dire. AFIACT, anyone earning more than like $50k a year qualifies for the max. After taxes, $500 a week is enough to pay rent, food, phone bills*, etc. The only major thing I'd say I do differently is I make my own lunch now, since I can't walk across the street to restaurant row. But you might also say I had been cutting and preparing for this for months*, so there wasn't a lot to change.

And then I got to the bit with the joint $84k salary in Austin and had to sit down, because my partner and I make quite literally half that.

I guess I am a bit surprised, not by the salary but who's making it -- I assumed a household of one engineer making $54k a year in TX, and a spouse making an additional $30k. Glassdoor says Freescale is paying Admin Assistants 50k, so I guess I know my fallback career. Though, sounds a bit risky, given how many times Freescale has changed hands in the past few years*.

They claim to want kids and the fact that mom-to-be is the household breadwinner is gonna be a shocker terms of lost income, potentially lost job, and childcare expenses. Maybe she'll pitch working part time post-kids, since her boss and her agree there's not a lot of work.
posted by pwnguin at 8:47 PM on January 4, 2018 [1 favorite]

Oregon's max UI payment is like $610 weekly

Holy shit. The max here is $370/week, which is what I've been living off of for months. $610 sounds like luxury (though I suspect your rent is higher).
posted by AFABulous at 9:04 PM on January 4, 2018

It is high. After briefly wondering how bad it would be if I took a tech job in the bay area and found myself in the same situation a year later: Calfornia's max is $450 per week. Even my birth state is higher than them at $474. Looking at this chart, there's not a straightforward CoL explanation.

> (though I suspect your rent is higher).

$1100 a month in a metro area of 50k. I could probably cut that a bit, but my theory has been that I'm leaving town when I get a new job, so signing a long term contract is dumb when I am more or less getting by without dipping into savings.
posted by pwnguin at 9:20 PM on January 4, 2018

One thing that I have definitely learned from Metafilter is that it is very, very difficult to discuss money in even-slightly-diverse company. And that's too bad, because I actually think it's really important to discuss money in diverse company. But hoo boy, are we coming from different places.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 1:37 AM on January 5, 2018 [9 favorites]

Premises: Work gives me food, bus pass, gym, home internet, as well as a salary.

I live with my partner in a 700 sq ft co-op; my share of the monthly payment (with no ownership interest, i.e. rent) is $800, including utilities. I leech off his Netflix and Spotify subscriptions, and he probably pays for groceries more than I do. I probably eat more in volume (fruit, cereal) and less in cost (meats). With him and his brother, we have a rotating dinner, which is ~$70 every three weeks, averaging between the times during which I cook and the weeks during which we go out to a restaurant and I pay.

Thursday: Last work day before a rather long weekend; I took the bus to the library to get books to read over the weekend, and took a Lyft home ($6.83). My partner made dinner, which was this extravagant golden cauliflower soup with seared scallops; my "contribution" was having made some bread earlier in the week that we sliced and used as croutons.

Friday: Got the day off; I must not have done anything except read this day, since I have no record of spending, nor does my Google maps timeline show that I'd gone anywhere. I remember thinking about getting coffee somewhere, but I think I got demotivated and just made tea at home. Maybe this is when I baked the cheese bread. It was my partner's week for the rotating dinner, so he made a souped up miso soup, and we ate a chocolate orange that we'd had for a while.

Saturday: I rented a car for $67 and went to Olympia to sing and gave $12 towards convention expenses; I brought a cheese bread and some quinoa. I ate the rest of the quinoa for dinner; my partner roasted himself some lamb chops. The rosemary is always nabbed from a neighbor's yard.

Sunday: On call today, and nothing much happened despite much preparation to the contrary. After my shift ended, I joined my partner and his brother at our friend's NYE party. We went to a park to see fireworks.

Monday: Sigh, last day of vacation. Partner and I attempted to play tennis on our local underutilized tennis courts and then walked to the park, and I think we made waffles for breakfast. I gave $5 to Metafilter! He refuses to engage in commerce on holidays, so I didn't go to the grocery store as I might have otherwise. I went to a friend's birthday party; he requested no gifts.

Tuesday: Back to work. After, I got a lip wax ($10 + $3 tip); I bought a gift certificate for $150 worth of services for $120, so maybe that is technically an $11 depilation. I also picked up a set of toy handbells from the neighborhood Buy Nothing group.

Wednesday: Went to therapy ($350, cash; insurance kicks in after a while but not anytime soon). Discovered that a defrosted bag of frozen broccoli + sesame oil + teaspoon of chili garlic sauce was shockingly delicious; went to neighborhood council meeting by bikeshare, though I definitely could have walked. This was a 'free' ride; I put in $20 in July and still haven't used all of it because they keep giving me free rides, and I use it quite heavily.

After the meeting, I went to the grocery store and got 2 lb carrots and canister of oatmeal (I am a horse), two boxes of tea, ground ginger, 5 lb of flour and 1 lb butter (supplies depleted from holiday baking), pork loin (deeply discounted; this was at the request of my partner), oranges ($.59 / lb and super delicious! it must be orange season), and jalapenos for $24.91.

Thursday: I went to sing with a friend who was back in town for a wedding, so that was another walk + bus ride; a fellow singer offered me a ride home, and I accepted. My phone bill posted today ($34.03).

In total: $161 in like, general spending, $350 for medicine. If I highball to $250 / week in spending to account for clothing / shoes / lessons, then I guess my annual spending is $13,000 (general) + $17,500 (health, without going into the vagaries of insurance) + $9,600 (rent) = $40,100 per year. Damn, I hope I'm not in therapy forever...
posted by batter_my_heart at 3:45 AM on January 5, 2018

OK, that has to be bullshit. FPL (the utility) has a monthly customer charge of $5.90. Their total volumetric charge (fuel plus non-fuel) is $0.08556 per kWh according to their sample bill. So even ignoring franchise fees, taxes, surcharges, etc., for that $30 to be accurate they'd need to be using about 280 kWh per month. That's insane; we know it's not true just based on the fact that she mentions a fridge, freezer, and TV

I just went back through the last 6 months of our electric bills and we've used 108-223 kWh per month depending on whether we used our window AC. Largish one bed apt with two adult occupants, electric stove and oven that we use quite a bit, gas hot water and heating, no washer drier but definitely a fridge, TV, laptops etc. Pretty normal lifestyles.
posted by geegollygosh at 5:42 AM on January 5, 2018

"Young people, I say this as someone who didn't follow his own advice, save every dollar you can."

But wait, why should we follow your advice if you didn't even follow it yourself? You're clearly establishing a double standard. Honestly, your advice sounds patronizing and unrealistic, and I think even those who aren't middle class deserve understanding when they decide to use Uber instead of the subway after a long day at work.

I say this as a millenial who has 6 months' expenses worth of savings. I am obsessive about budgeting and seeing how much discipline and dedication it takes (not just with record keeping, but also with implementation), I cannot hold it against my friends who have no insurance but choose to self medicate and are underemployed but saddled by debt and so decide to eat takeout instead of home-cooked stuff.

In summary: your advice sounds good on paper and it's "common sense" but if it were that simple we wouldn't be were we are now.
posted by Tarumba at 6:25 AM on January 5, 2018 [6 favorites]

If your nominal salary is $50k, and housing + utilities would be $1000 if you were paying them, you're really making $62,000.

Since I know what most of my coworkers are earning (since we can all see the budgets), and I have a pretty good idea of what lifestyle costs are like, it is really apparent who either has significant family support and/or is financing things with debt. I'm not judgmental about it (though I'll admit to being envious of the people with the family money), but it is something I notice and find interesting. The spread between nominal salaries and real income (with family money, etc., added in) can be really large, and magnifies the inequality that we see in the income distribution in this country.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:21 AM on January 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

I had to end a friendship in part because he lives entirely off of his family and doesn't seem to realize his privilege. They rent him a $1200 apartment which is way above median for the area; I live half a mile away in a perfectly fine $600 one bedroom. He doesn't drive so he takes Uber everywhere (the bus line runs literally in front of his house and goes to grocery stores, the mall, library, nightlife, etc.). Most nights he doesn't cook and orders delivery.

This will eventually bite him in the ass; his parents are elderly and don't have infinite amounts of money, and he has zero work history or volunteer experience. But for now, I can't help being envious and perturbed when he invites me out for sushi. Dude I am living off $370/week. I don't get to eat sushi when I feel like it.

My other friends have roughly the same lifestyle I do - they have more income, but also a lot more debt so it comes close to evening out. I find it really difficult to be friends with someone who has a much different socioeconomic status. Either I'm envious or we can't do anything unless I pay for it.
posted by AFABulous at 7:57 AM on January 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

Since I know what most of my coworkers are earning (since we can all see the budgets), and I have a pretty good idea of what lifestyle costs are like, it is really apparent who either has significant family support and/or is financing things with debt.

This is really why transparency in salaries needs to become a thing. Companies will never do it unless a situation like yours forces it, but workers need to start talking about their earnings with their peers.

Not that it solves the problem of inequality due to outside/family support. Lord knows I was in my career for several years, squeaking by, while my coworkers bought cars and houses and went on vacations and bought second houses. I was making ~40K per year and was just like -- HOW?!?

It wasn't until much later that I learned they basically had all married moderately-to-fairly wealthy people, and a couple had trust funds. They were astonished to learn that I was actually attempting to support myself in our field.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 8:07 AM on January 5, 2018 [14 favorites]

It wasn't until much later that I learned they basically had all married moderately-to-fairly wealthy people, and a couple had trust funds. They were astonished to learn that I was actually attempting to support myself in our field.

This is the biggest reason I had to drop out of stage managing. It pays nothing close to a living wage; and one day I looked up and realized that of the four other women I knew who were stage managers, two were married to people who could support them both so they could take temp gigs and drop them in between SM gigs, one had to move to Albany to do regional theater instead, and one was in LA and married. Whereas I was single, and was always going to have to have a day job, most likely. I couldn't handle that schedule, so I let it go.

Since then one of those married SMs has made it as far as being an ASM on them musical for Groundhog Day when it was on Broadway. It's the kind of thing that I could have been getting up to the point of doing by now if only I'd had someone supporting me like she did. The jealousy sometimes makes me seethe.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:22 AM on January 5, 2018 [6 favorites]

It's the kind of thing that I could have been getting up to the point of doing by now if only I'd had someone supporting me like she did. The jealousy sometimes makes me seethe.

Word. Though actually, more of my coworkers are in my same boat now, than they were ten years ago or so. The folks who married rich generally bailed on our "genteel poverty prestige job" before too long -- either they got hit in layoffs and figured why bother, or they had kids, or they took some other all-volunteer prestige gig. The ones who are left, like me, often have a partner but not necessarily one who brings more earnings to the table.

It's still such a grind. And I hate that all of our hard work -- mine, my partner's, my coworkers-- is rendered moot by gentrification and the insane housing market. I got a raise this year and was so excited -- I thought oh! When our lease is up, we can move, and maybe even get a place with a kitchen built after 1962!

But no. Our apartment is falling apart, but we can't afford anything better -- just tradeoffs that amount to a lateral move. So, looks like another year of begging the building super to please, please, please put the tiles back on the bathroom wall, fix the broken oven, turn on the goddamn radiator for once. Hoping that soft spot in the floor doesn't cave in and kill the cat. It's just demoralizing.

I feel like "demoralizing" is the most appropriate word for literally everything, these days.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:45 AM on January 5, 2018 [6 favorites]

It wasn't until much later that I learned they basically had all married moderately-to-fairly wealthy people, and a couple had trust funds. They were astonished to learn that I was actually attempting to support myself in our field.

It took me years after I left grad school to realize that I was basically the only poor fool in my immediate cohort trying to do it on her own.

Me, too. I was utterly naive and had no idea how much, or what kinds, of support my friends and colleagues received from their families in order to have (or at least appear to have) the kind of lifestyle that seems to be a prerequisite in my field. I think that it's part of the reason that my advisor found my inability to finish my dissertation so baffling. There were certainly other people in my program who had a year or two when they did not receive a fellowship. To him, it looked like they simply got on with it, but every single one of them was married to or living with someone who earned enough to cover their bills for four or nine months until the next round of applications or teaching gigs opened up. Not paying my rent or other bills for a semester was not an option for me.

In my current line of work, I've gotten a bit of crap for not doing my share of the entertaining for visiting colleagues or hosting things like farewell get-togethers when our interns or staff move on. My (boomer) coworkers have all owned their homes - some within walking distance of work - for years, and their picture of what's possible for people my age is skewed by the fact that my millennial colleagues live in beautifully appointed homes in Silver Lake or West Hollywood that their parents or spouses have helped to pay for. They truly seem to think that my decision to live where I do is some kind of eccentric dodge in order to try to get out of social obligations, and they don't understand why I don't travel more to attend exhibitions or special events on our (meager) salary. It's definitely one of the reasons that I'm trying to get out of this line of work.
posted by Anita Bath at 11:06 AM on January 5, 2018 [10 favorites]

So I got curious and looked at Mint. This is an average of my monthly expenses from October-December. (August & September were outliers for Reasons.)

$610 rent + insurance
$315 auto lease + gas + parking + insurance
$280 food (includes occasional coffee, tacos, going to bars etc)
$80 internet + phone + electric/gas
$75 health insurance (subsidized)
$50 misc shopping (pet food, household)
$100 other misc (haircut, vet bill, etc)
$100 credit card payments (minimums)

Total $1610. The lease ends at the beginning of February so subtract $315 and add $72 for a monthly bus pass. That's also when my unemployment checks stop so the health insurance cost will go away (I'll be on Medicaid) and I should get food stamps which will help with the grocery bill.

Honestly I don't feel as deprived as I thought I would living on under $20k/year, but I haven't had any major emergencies. When my income increases, my credit cards will get paid off first and then additional money will probably be spent on better food and replacing some household goods.
posted by AFABulous at 11:27 AM on January 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

It took me years after I left grad school to realize that I was basically the only poor fool in my immediate cohort trying to do it on her own.

That was our experience as well. We were trying to figure out if we could afford a "starter" house down the street from a meth dealer, while it felt like all our peers were buying glorious large historic homes and going on amazing vacations. It took a few years (helped by people being indiscreet after drinking too much) to figure out that those people had all kinds of help. I would have felt a lot better about myself and where we were at if I had understood that at the time.

Over time, it also came out how others were giving the appearance of having money, but were in fact leveraged to the point of collapse. I wish people didn't ever feel like they have to maintain those kinds of Potemkin lifestyles.

This is really why transparency in salaries needs to become a thing. Companies will never do it unless a situation like yours forces it, but workers need to start talking about their earnings with their peers.

Something I've really liked about most of my working life has been the accidental salary transparency caused by having multiple people working on budgets. You can't hide salaries when everyone can see the line item for each person.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:03 PM on January 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

I live in seattle, gross $93K a year, am the sole breadwinner in my fam of 3, and live less than paycheck to paycheck- I accrue about $200 mo debt every month. Can I blame someone please? (Please; it’s killing me)
posted by clseace at 4:52 PM on January 8, 2018

And we don’t have a car payment, we don’t go on vacation, our appliances are dying, we shop at goodwill, and we eat out a lot. Really??
posted by clseace at 4:54 PM on January 8, 2018

Seems like Seattle's going through a revival right now, in contrast with the distant past. I just got off the phone with a Facebook recruiter, and after they mentioned the positions were in Seattle or Menlo Park, they mentioned the compensation was the same for either one. So... I imagine they'll be growing their headcount, and your rent will be increasing without fail.

$93k feels like it should be doable in Seattle. But I could also see where having to buy your family insurance on the public exchanges without employer coverage tips the scales the wrong direction, or any myraid of unforeseen expenses. It still does feel weird to say '$93k is poor' in any metro area, so if you legit want mefi to debug your budget, probably best to move the conversation to AskMefi.
posted by pwnguin at 9:47 PM on January 8, 2018

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