Great writing on a fascinating topic. One note — that screen grab you shared of the woman who invoices another mom for a playdate was rage bait from that creator. It was such a bonkers TT that I had to dig deeper on her page and it turns out that she makes her money with various rage bait posts. Which is ALSO bonkers to me. Making people furious for cash — cool cool cool cool cool.
ANYWAY, a thing I find myself saying to my friends any time I see a peer living a life that seems truly economically out of reach for me is, I just want to know HOW. I’m not resentful or jealous (though I am envious), but I am deeply curious and want to know HOW they can afford multiple homes and multiple kids in private school and multiple high-end vehicles. The ability to afford necessities — let alone luxuries — is so inconceivable for so many that I find myself constantly wanting to get to the root of everyone’s personal finances. Which is, of course, none of my business. But I am nosy and social media is performative and I want some facts with those performances!
FWIW from a random internet stranger, I too have had this desire to know “how??” And honestly, I think people should talk about it! However, I get the feeling that the “how” is potentially obscured from some of these people. Yes, some may have worked hard and gone to prestigious schools and gotten six-figure jobs, but what family support (emotional, financial, social connections, health, socioeconomic status) was in place to make all that happen? I don’t think some well-off people realize how deep the rabbit hole goes.
I think that rabbit hole is really what I’m interested in. For me, I guess as a way of not beating myself up over not being in the financial place I feel like I should be, I tell myself that when I see a midwestern family of six with a single-income household once again traveling to the European countryside for a month, there simply must be hidden support to which I don’t have access. But instead of reassuring myself of this, I want people to be open about those supports! Give me the FULL picture.
But that’s — *gasp* — gauche to talk about! I truly think the wealthy don’t talk about how they’re wealthy because on some instinctual level, they know it’s unfair, and if enough of us knew the details, we’d riot.
One of my friends who had a prestige job that was notoriously low paid and traveled constantly. I discovered she could afford it because she received a payout from an airplane accident.
Such a good idea to look to dating discourse as reflection of what the economy is like for people in their 20s and 30s!
Two anecdotes: I once went on a first date in NYC and we went dutch on PANINIS. I always thought this was outrageous (I think mine was $13) Thanks to your post, I now realize this was during the recession lol
My sister is getting married this weekend and we have close family friends coming from France. The French mom asked to see the photos from my wedding so she could figure out what to wear. They just do not have anything like our wedding culture in France. What we think of as “but this is what a wedding IS!!” is American wedding culture
I've been in personal finance since 2012. I've heard a lot of this, but I've also seen a lot of receipts. They tell very different stories.
I think we all know that people routinely lie to others about their finances and spending. What shocked me is how much we lie to OURSELVES.
As a percentage of the hourly wage of blue collar workers cost of food from the grocery store is near its all time low.
I'll repeat that. In the history of the country an hour of work at the blue collar wage has never, ever bought as much food.
Yet, in 2008 food bought away from home passed food bought at the grocery store as a fraction of household budgets. (USDA ERS)
More anecdotally door dash does tens of billions of revenue annually in the US. What do you think the median age of door dash customers is?
Median personal incomes adjusted for inflation (including the cost of housing) excluding covid benefits are at an all time high.
Millennial income is at an all time high.
Homeownership rates are at an all time high.
Homeownership rates amongst millennials are at an all time high.
Net worth amongst millennials adjusted for inflation is higher than boomers and Gen X at the same age.
Housing affordability as measured by the median monthly income divided by the 30 year payment on the median priced house is indeed very low right now! Similar to what it was in the early 1980s.
People forget. People trick themselves.
It's the same stuff. People complain about lack of time and spend an average of 5.5 hours per day on their phone.
When the data says one thing, and social media tells you another my bet is always, "the people on the internet are lying to you".
This is true when it's out-group people claiming the covid shot killed their second cousin and it's true when in-group people claim the economy is the worst it's ever been.
Thank you for providing data and receipts! This is fascinating. It's such a tricky subject bc so many people are crying out, but I can say cereal at Target is $9... things are genuinely more expensive and I'm also just a bit skeptical of numbers from people with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Maybe just a bit of delusion on my end, but I can't believe that every single person I know is lying about not having a cent to their name, and I live in New York (although most of my circle consists of people born and raised here, children of immigrants with completely different financial considerations than most Americans).
TLDR: I don't know what to believe! Economists will say one thing but people are miserable. Not refuting your data points (except for the cost of food) but back where I started.
I think inflation is certainly bitting (my grocery bill has gone up by about 50% since the start of pandemic, which is not nothing), but I think there's also a lot of lifestyle inflation going on. My expenses have ballooned from about ~2k/month to over 3k in the past year. Inflation for essentials can't explain this: my grocery bill has only gone up about ~200/month, and rent has only increased by 25/month. What's actually happened is I've been eating out more, taking Spanish lessons, and spending a bunch of money on running races. What might be happening is people coming out of the COVID low spending lull of not doing anything out of the house, and realizing they can no longer afford to live like they did before the pandemic. In my situation I'm totally fine, but for someone with new expenses since COVID (kids, mortgage, etc.), it may be a wake-up call that they can't spend like they used to.
I frankly think a lot of this is budgeting/personal finance related. As a single person you can live pretty well on 35k/year (although maybe more like 70k in places like NYC/SF). But you have to track where your money is actually going. And that takes discipline and hard work, which our generation has a harder time with.
Such an excellent read, THANK YOU. I immediately upgraded to a paid subscription.
I'm with you that the issue here is nihilism... how we FEEL about money is grim. I'm less convinced that the nihilism lines up with our current economic realities but that may be my white gen X privilege talking.
Have you ever read any work by David Ariely? He gets into the psychology of economics and it's pretty fascinating stuff... I think you might enjoy!
Also, just sending some love from a fellow human. I don't doubt that writing this was depressing. You deserve a walk and a hug!
Covid was tough for everyone socially. but for some it hit harder. Kids who were supposed to enter school for the first time are one group, who lost a lot of crucial social development time that we can’t get back.
I think people moving out of home for the first time (or who were planning to) got it bad too. Not only did they miss out on finding a community in those first few years, but for college kids the people who could have showed them how to were all graduating. There’s no guidance on where to get the cheapest drinks, where on campus or around town is best to chill, or what movie theatre has the cheapest tickets. Building community is a lot harder when you don’t have that time period where you’re surrounded by others who are equally invested in making new connections and banding together.
I think this has led to a lot of the nihilism as well. There is an actual break between what there was before and what there is now because some knowledge was not passed on. You can see it in the fall of people just hanging out and in the dating discourse you discussed. You could also tie in the lack of third spaces anymore. Of course this is biased towards cities or at least sizeable towns, idk what’s going on in smaller places.
I've been depressed about this since the covis crisis and I really don't know what to do with all this feeling. I've been away from internet twitter etc and it helps sometimes but constantly I remember that life out there is not easy and will get worse (maybe??). Great writing as always!!!
Great writing on a fascinating topic. One note — that screen grab you shared of the woman who invoices another mom for a playdate was rage bait from that creator. It was such a bonkers TT that I had to dig deeper on her page and it turns out that she makes her money with various rage bait posts. Which is ALSO bonkers to me. Making people furious for cash — cool cool cool cool cool.
ANYWAY, a thing I find myself saying to my friends any time I see a peer living a life that seems truly economically out of reach for me is, I just want to know HOW. I’m not resentful or jealous (though I am envious), but I am deeply curious and want to know HOW they can afford multiple homes and multiple kids in private school and multiple high-end vehicles. The ability to afford necessities — let alone luxuries — is so inconceivable for so many that I find myself constantly wanting to get to the root of everyone’s personal finances. Which is, of course, none of my business. But I am nosy and social media is performative and I want some facts with those performances!
Whew. This was a tangent. I apologize.
FWIW from a random internet stranger, I too have had this desire to know “how??” And honestly, I think people should talk about it! However, I get the feeling that the “how” is potentially obscured from some of these people. Yes, some may have worked hard and gone to prestigious schools and gotten six-figure jobs, but what family support (emotional, financial, social connections, health, socioeconomic status) was in place to make all that happen? I don’t think some well-off people realize how deep the rabbit hole goes.
I think that rabbit hole is really what I’m interested in. For me, I guess as a way of not beating myself up over not being in the financial place I feel like I should be, I tell myself that when I see a midwestern family of six with a single-income household once again traveling to the European countryside for a month, there simply must be hidden support to which I don’t have access. But instead of reassuring myself of this, I want people to be open about those supports! Give me the FULL picture.
But that’s — *gasp* — gauche to talk about! I truly think the wealthy don’t talk about how they’re wealthy because on some instinctual level, they know it’s unfair, and if enough of us knew the details, we’d riot.
One of my friends who had a prestige job that was notoriously low paid and traveled constantly. I discovered she could afford it because she received a payout from an airplane accident.
omg
See! These are the details The People NEEEED!
Such a good idea to look to dating discourse as reflection of what the economy is like for people in their 20s and 30s!
Two anecdotes: I once went on a first date in NYC and we went dutch on PANINIS. I always thought this was outrageous (I think mine was $13) Thanks to your post, I now realize this was during the recession lol
My sister is getting married this weekend and we have close family friends coming from France. The French mom asked to see the photos from my wedding so she could figure out what to wear. They just do not have anything like our wedding culture in France. What we think of as “but this is what a wedding IS!!” is American wedding culture
I've been in personal finance since 2012. I've heard a lot of this, but I've also seen a lot of receipts. They tell very different stories.
I think we all know that people routinely lie to others about their finances and spending. What shocked me is how much we lie to OURSELVES.
As a percentage of the hourly wage of blue collar workers cost of food from the grocery store is near its all time low.
I'll repeat that. In the history of the country an hour of work at the blue collar wage has never, ever bought as much food.
Yet, in 2008 food bought away from home passed food bought at the grocery store as a fraction of household budgets. (USDA ERS)
More anecdotally door dash does tens of billions of revenue annually in the US. What do you think the median age of door dash customers is?
Median personal incomes adjusted for inflation (including the cost of housing) excluding covid benefits are at an all time high.
Millennial income is at an all time high.
Homeownership rates are at an all time high.
Homeownership rates amongst millennials are at an all time high.
Net worth amongst millennials adjusted for inflation is higher than boomers and Gen X at the same age.
Housing affordability as measured by the median monthly income divided by the 30 year payment on the median priced house is indeed very low right now! Similar to what it was in the early 1980s.
People forget. People trick themselves.
It's the same stuff. People complain about lack of time and spend an average of 5.5 hours per day on their phone.
When the data says one thing, and social media tells you another my bet is always, "the people on the internet are lying to you".
This is true when it's out-group people claiming the covid shot killed their second cousin and it's true when in-group people claim the economy is the worst it's ever been.
Thank you for providing data and receipts! This is fascinating. It's such a tricky subject bc so many people are crying out, but I can say cereal at Target is $9... things are genuinely more expensive and I'm also just a bit skeptical of numbers from people with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Maybe just a bit of delusion on my end, but I can't believe that every single person I know is lying about not having a cent to their name, and I live in New York (although most of my circle consists of people born and raised here, children of immigrants with completely different financial considerations than most Americans).
TLDR: I don't know what to believe! Economists will say one thing but people are miserable. Not refuting your data points (except for the cost of food) but back where I started.
I think inflation is certainly bitting (my grocery bill has gone up by about 50% since the start of pandemic, which is not nothing), but I think there's also a lot of lifestyle inflation going on. My expenses have ballooned from about ~2k/month to over 3k in the past year. Inflation for essentials can't explain this: my grocery bill has only gone up about ~200/month, and rent has only increased by 25/month. What's actually happened is I've been eating out more, taking Spanish lessons, and spending a bunch of money on running races. What might be happening is people coming out of the COVID low spending lull of not doing anything out of the house, and realizing they can no longer afford to live like they did before the pandemic. In my situation I'm totally fine, but for someone with new expenses since COVID (kids, mortgage, etc.), it may be a wake-up call that they can't spend like they used to.
I frankly think a lot of this is budgeting/personal finance related. As a single person you can live pretty well on 35k/year (although maybe more like 70k in places like NYC/SF). But you have to track where your money is actually going. And that takes discipline and hard work, which our generation has a harder time with.
Such an excellent read, THANK YOU. I immediately upgraded to a paid subscription.
I'm with you that the issue here is nihilism... how we FEEL about money is grim. I'm less convinced that the nihilism lines up with our current economic realities but that may be my white gen X privilege talking.
Have you ever read any work by David Ariely? He gets into the psychology of economics and it's pretty fascinating stuff... I think you might enjoy!
Also, just sending some love from a fellow human. I don't doubt that writing this was depressing. You deserve a walk and a hug!
[edited because things got garbled!]
really interesting read! it’s so interesting how so many things are connected online and offline
Covid was tough for everyone socially. but for some it hit harder. Kids who were supposed to enter school for the first time are one group, who lost a lot of crucial social development time that we can’t get back.
I think people moving out of home for the first time (or who were planning to) got it bad too. Not only did they miss out on finding a community in those first few years, but for college kids the people who could have showed them how to were all graduating. There’s no guidance on where to get the cheapest drinks, where on campus or around town is best to chill, or what movie theatre has the cheapest tickets. Building community is a lot harder when you don’t have that time period where you’re surrounded by others who are equally invested in making new connections and banding together.
I think this has led to a lot of the nihilism as well. There is an actual break between what there was before and what there is now because some knowledge was not passed on. You can see it in the fall of people just hanging out and in the dating discourse you discussed. You could also tie in the lack of third spaces anymore. Of course this is biased towards cities or at least sizeable towns, idk what’s going on in smaller places.
I've been depressed about this since the covis crisis and I really don't know what to do with all this feeling. I've been away from internet twitter etc and it helps sometimes but constantly I remember that life out there is not easy and will get worse (maybe??). Great writing as always!!!
Wasn't there an official lipstick index for recessions? Did I dream it?