Gen Z - the choice of a shit generation

[Dave Gray]

shall I go on?

No, please don't.

[pondwater]

There are more people complaining about things they can't afford because things are far more unaffordable now.  And I'm not talking about frivolous cravings; I mean basic fundamentals like housing, education, healthcare, and retirement.  50 years ago, a family with a single income from a high school graduate could comfortably afford all those things and more.  Now, that thought is almost laughable.

So I have very little patience for the Grandpa Franks of the world lecturing their grandchildren about wasting money on a Netflix subscription, when Grandpa Frank hasn't gone a week without watching ESPN (on his cable TV service) since Reagan was in office.

Well it's not 50 years ago, it's 2026. We can't control the price of things. However, we can control what we spend our money on. You either handle your money or your money handles you.

[pondwater]

Read the story again.   Grandpa Frank didn't have cable TV, nor did he go out to eat very often, let alone have food delivered.   And while a Netflix subscription is one thing, it can add up when combined with subscriptions to Hulu, YouTube, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, Paramount Plus, Peacock, Discovery, shall I go on?

You're spot on. Everytime I have this conversation in person I get nothing but eye rolls and sighs. Then I get the "quitting starbucks/netflix isn't going to help me buy a house". The thing they miss is the totality of their spending. The eating out multiple times a week, $8 coffee every morning, multiple subscription services that probably aren't being used, trading up everytime a new iPhone comes out, etc, etc, etc.

Then when you chalenge them about their spending, they play the entitlement card and throw out the "I deserve happiness/enjoyment/reward for existing" nonsense. After that I don't even really listen to it anymore. If someone as an adult, is too ignorant to be able to support themselves and/or handle money. AND won't take any advice from a person that doesn't have those problems. That's fine, stay living with Papa Frank, Aunt Becky, or in a cardboard box under the bridge. You can't fix people, that's their job

[Spider-Dan]

Everytime I have this conversation in person I get nothing but eye rolls and sighs. Then I get the "quitting starbucks/netflix isn't going to help me buy a house". The thing they miss is the totality of their spending. The eating out multiple times a week, $8 coffee every morning, multiple subscription services that probably aren't being used, trading up everytime a new iPhone comes out, etc, etc, etc.

Let's talk about real costs.

"$8 coffee" every morning = $2,922/year
Disney+ & Hulu ($240), YouTube Premium ($168), Amazon Prime Video ($108), Paramount Plus ($90), Peacock ($80), Discovery ($120) = $806/year
With an annual phone upgrade plan like Verizon offers, you pay 50% of the phone's cost and get a new phone every year - we'll call that $500/year

Total between daily Starbucks, all the streaming services, and every new iPhone = $4,228/year = $353/month

So if you cut out all those things, you'd have $350 extra dollars in your pocket each month.  Is that enough to let you qualify for a mortgage?  Fuck no!  But at least you'd be properly miserable, which is the only point of this sort of "Today's youth are pampered and selfish" whining.  If someone who makes $55,000/year is living with their grandparents, it's not because they're $350 short of affording a mortgage.

[Dave Gray]

What's weird is that I am all about not spending excessively.

But if you take out "$8 coffee" and just think about it as coffee, boomers had a house and still went out and had coffee at restaurants.  The idea that this generation doesn't have houses because they have coffee is absurd.  ...or streaming.  Or avocado toast...or whatever.

You can cut out all the gymnastics about spending and just look at what a house, or medical care, or a car, or college -- as a percentage of the average income.  That's the story.



All that said, I am a generally frugal person and I hate excess spending.

[Spider-Dan]

I mean, I'm a homeowner, I haven't subscribed to cable TV in almost 20 years, I buy a cup of coffee less than 3 times a month, and the only streaming service I pay for is YouTube Premium Lite.  But I'm not delusional enough to think the reason I can afford A is because of B.  I was just lucky enough to be ready to buy a home in 2008 when the market was crashing.

Criticizing zoomers for $40/month in streaming services when they have a $500 monthly student loan payment is missing the point.  It's "If you're supposedly 'poor,' why do you have a DVD player?"-level discourse.

[Dave Gray]

I remember that this discourse was around cell-phone a decade or so back.

Being a grumpy old person must be a miserable fucking existence.

[pondwater]

I remember that this discourse was around cell-phone a decade or so back.

Being a grumpy old person must be a miserable fucking existence.

Well to be fair, I think you have it backwards. Listening to grumpy younger people complain about their miserable existence is exhausting. Maybe they should keep their personal problems to themselves if they don't want advice. Go get an emotional support coffee and a cat or something.

[Spider-Dan]

Well to be fair, I think you have it backwards. Listening to grumpy younger people complain about their miserable existence is exhausting. Maybe they should keep their personal problems to themselves if they don't want advice.

This comment would be better suited to a thread titled "Selfish boomers have ruined our society" or "Why is everything so unaffordable for younger generations?"

But instead, it's posted to a thread created for the purpose of whining about Gen Z.

[pondwater]

This comment would be better suited to a thread titled "Selfish boomers have ruined our society" or "Why is everything so unaffordable for younger generations?"

But instead, it's posted to a thread created for the purpose of whining about Gen Z.

Not really. I didn't create this thread and was responding specifically to the quote:

Being a grumpy old person must be a miserable fucking existence.

Also, let's keep in mind that this whole discussion would largely not exist if a certain percentage of grumpy young adults didn't feel the need to offload their failures at life onto another group of people that have nothing to do with their life choices. I'm not a boomer, I'm not miserable, and my life is just fine. I just don't buy into the victim mentality so prevalent in todays society. Most of the US citizens complaining and blaming other people live a far better life than the majority of people in human history and a large portion of the current global population. They just don't have what they "think" they deserve. So I guess keep crying if a miserable fucking existence is your thing.

[Spider-Dan]

Again, this thread wasn't created by a zoomer complaining about their lot in life.  So your displeasure with whiners seems misdirected.

[pondwater]

Again, this thread wasn't created by a zoomer complaining about their lot in life.  So your displeasure with whiners seems misdirected.

No, it was created about zoomers complaining by someone that's not me. And I'm here discussing it, just like you are. So what's your issue? Seems like deflection to me LOL