You don't need that: Average American spends almost $18,000 a year on nonessentials

Lather that shit up with some butter and add bacon. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

 

Now do my parent's cigarettes and booze.

 

The last three years before I retired, I worked from home. Leftovers for lunch saves money. But the basic premise of that article is the usual crock of shit that the economy is all your fault, dear reader. If you only cut the things you find enjoyable from your life, you'd have more money to enjoy life.

 

I wonder if the cost of bread and lunch meat has risen astronomically compared to wages over the past 30 years?

 

It has.

I'm much more apt to do leftovers for dinner. I also like to get the hell out of the office for an hour for lunch. Another caveat: In tournament season, I eat a lot at the course and if I'm on the road, everything is paid for. So that helps with my thoughts on spending money on lunches during the winter. It all seems to even out.

 

I was told there has been no inflation.

 

Millenials may as well spend freely and not worry about student loans - global warming will end the world before they come due.

 

In the mid-70s, my parents bought a small, cabin-like house on a lake for about $25,000. It was their first home after renting a house for their first few years of marriage. My dad had a union job, and my mom worked part-time as a beautician. Using an online inflation calculator, that house would be about $110,000 today. But it wouldn't be. On a lake, in the state that it was at the time, it would still be $250,000, probably much, much more. I'm 47 and with my newspaper job and my wife's full-time career job, a lake home of anything more than a tiny cabin is a pipe dream at best. Then do college. Many boomers went to state colleges at very low costs, $100 a credit in some cases, even free in some states, right? That's changed, too, clearly. I have one kid at a state school and another one going, and they will have student-loan debts, even as much as we've tried to squirrel some money away.

Do we spend too much money on food — coffees and lunches here and there, some takeout dinners, some unnecessary fast food between events on a busy sports/school/work night? Absolutely. Do we spend too much on TV that we don't watch? Yes, I need to assess that and do some cord-cutting. Could I be walking/biking to my job on some days instead of driving? Sure. Should I start drinking Coors Light instead of craft beer? Um ... never! Could I find $18,000 a year in the couch cushions by doing all of that? Seems like a stretch.

Oh yeah, my parents had a boat, too. I can't afford a boat. A generation or two ago, the middle class could live on a lake and have a boat and provide for their kids to go to college and go on a vacation every year or two. And many people did it on a single-income union job! But, yeah, it's my wife's haircuts and stop at Chipotle that are my plight.

 

I hate this shit that millenials are lousy people.

 

Boomers don't want to take responsibility for ruining the planet, so they need someone to blame.

 

My grandparents bought a 1,345 square foot house on two acres in 1966 for $8,500.

After they had both died, we sold it for $115,000.

 

My grandfather was a bricklayer at US Steel for 44 years and my grandmother was a homemaker. He put one daughter through college and helped another buy a house. He had about $400,000 in cash in the house because his generation didn't trust banks (my mom and aunt finally coaxed him into putting most of it into an interest-bearing account in his late 60s).

They'll be lucky to find $4,000 when I'm gone. And clearly it's because I bought that new Pitt Nike t-shirt and went to Outback.