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Multiple times now, I've had people on Lemmy tell me that I am either not caring about my future or not caring about my child's future because I buy myself an occasional chai latte and her an occasional smoothie or some Taco Bell food.
I hate this idea that you should deny yourself any and all pleasures in life so that you can have a decent 10-20 end-of-life years when you retire. People made fun of the avocado toast guy, but suddenly now he's got the right idea?
I'm not going to have major retirement savings if I put the maybe $20 a month at most that this costs and it makes our lives a little less miserable right now.
Yeah, generally agreed.
I think more people should actually track what they're spending, though. Sometimes what feels like "just $20 every once in a while" isn't. A coworker of mine realized he was spending a lot more than he thought on fun food and drink when he actually added it up and put it in a spreadsheet.
Not saying that's you! But actually checking your spending in detail every once in a while I think is a good idea for everyone.
I definitely track spending. I'm just tired of people acting like that. I'm talking to someone in this very thread who is saying $7.99 for a Netflix account is not something you should pay for if you're poor as if not spending $7.99 a month to make your life a little better would cover any medical bills or car repairs or anything else that might qualify as an emergency.
Their reasoning was "I was poor once and I saved money and I did fine." Too bad they mentioned that they had a color TV when they were poor, as if you could still even buy a black and white TV in the last 20 years.
I really agree with you. There needs to be a balance between saving money and living your life.
I put $25/ week into a college savings account for my 4 year old. I do weekly for dollar cost averaging, rather than trying to time the market. I started it with a few $k and it's up to about $5k right now. It's tax deductible and is invested with a target date fund. Even if the investment only keeps up with inflation, that's $25k or so in today's money. Probably enough for at least a semester or two.
Taco Bell used to be what you bought because it was dirt cheap. Is it supposed to be a luxury now?
No, is basically dog food.