5 ms·

My biggest issue with coffee culture isn't the amount people spend on it, it's that most coffee drinkers who frequent places like Starbucks don't actually drink

My biggest issue with coffee culture isn't the amount people spend on it, it's that most coffee drinkers who frequent places like Starbucks don't actually drink coffee - they drink coffee-flavored milk and sugar. So it's not just expensive, it's also quite unhealthy. Ex. a tall caramel frap has twice as many calories as a can of coke.

tonyedgecombe 7y ago
My generation mostly drank beer when socialising, I think this is an improvement.
- nn3 7y ago
  Wouldn't surprise me if beer wasn't healthier than these sugar bombs.
  - wastage 7y ago
    that beer is less healthy than lots of sugar likely fails to surprise ftfy (double negative)
  - undoware 7y ago
    Unlikely. Alcohol is just sugar that no longer tastes sweet, as far as your glucose levels are concerned, and meanwhile can destroy your life and health in lots of other ways. There is no Latteholics Anonymous.
  - theWino 7y ago
    You gotta be fucking kidding me. For the duration of the 20th century, Drunk driving alone probably claimed more lives than all of the diabetes in the same time frame. Add all other accidental drunken errors for all areas of human activity. And then fetal alcohol syndrome. And then all the actual direct physiological health effects suffered by the imbibing individual. This is not even a contest. You are out of your depth.
jchw 7y ago
Secretly, that's actually what bothers everyone else, too. People aren't stupid. Everyone knows that unless you are dirt poor, kicking a ~$100/mo habit in isolation doesn't do much, because personal finance is more complicated than that. Likewise, kicking a coffee habit won't necessarily make you much healthier, especially if you partake in many of the habits people don't generally find terribly detestable that are equally poor, like sucking down a liter of coke each day, overeating nearly every meal, hardly exercising, or drinking booze after work. But humans are humans, and boy does the smug superiority of telling the entitled millennial that their bank accounts are empty because of the lattes and not the surprise medical bills, crushing student loans, car insurance, high rents, etc. seem to appeal to personal finance gurus.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  You'd have to have about $50K to perpetually make $100/month risk-free, so if you say $100/month is insignificant, it sounds to me like you're saying a lump sum of $50K is also insignificant. Also, even if you're going to drink coffee at retail prices, you can have the kind that's under $2 rather than close to $5 (I'm not even aware of where to get that where I live).
  - jchw 7y ago
    No, I didn't say a lump sump of $50K is insignificant, nor imply it. In fact a careful reading reveals that I say nothing at all about lump sums of $50K. That is because a lump sum of $50K is a lump sum of $50K and what we are discussing is a recurring expense of around $100/mo. Those are two different values with different units. You are reading your own comparison backwards to make this point. I'm sure $50K can make you $100/mo in perpetuity. Saving $100/mo does not give you a lump sum of $50K. It gives you $100/mo. Viewing it another way, At $100/mo, that'll take 42 years and 8 months to save $50K. If we're talking about a higher yield account, let's charitably assume 2.0%, you could probably get it down to around 30 years. Personal finance and health are both things that need to be viewed holistically. They're lifestyles changes. Having good overall posture is more important than individual decisions, and honestly, making more money trumps basically anything you could ever do to 'hack' your finances. You may as well spend less time hacking your finance and more time growing your career. Or hell, more time working on your health, something that you don't get any second chances to fix later on. And let's not forget. The conditions that folks were making long-term investments in in the past are not the current conditions. The human race is facing seemingly-unprecedented existential threats and no doubt that is going to affect someone's willingness to make long term investments. And, you know, even if everything else ends up fine, you could always just get hit by a bus tomorrow. So while you should certainly give a shit about your overall financial and medical health, maybe living in fear of spending $100/mo on something you enjoy isn't the best balance to life, realistically. I'll just take the fucking coffee.
y_tho 7y ago
How does it affect you?
- mindcrime 7y ago
  It doesn't. This is just another item that belongs on lists like: If you don't like gay marriage, don't get gay married. If you don't like guns, don't buy one. If you don't like expensive coffee flavored milk drinks, don't drink them. Etc.
  - schwartzworld 7y ago
    One of these three things is not like the other. Other people getting gay married or drinking milkshakes has never killed anybody else.
  - upvotinglurker 7y ago
    One of these things is not like the others. Other people cannot kill me with their gay marriage or expensive coffee flavored drink.
toddmorey 7y ago
Yes, exactly. Starbucks doesn't serve coffee as much as warm (or cold) milkshakes. And with items like the Mocha Cookie Crumble Frappuccino they aren't even pretending anymore.

tonyedgecombe 7y ago

My generation mostly drank beer when socialising, I think this is an improvement.

nn3 7y ago
Wouldn't surprise me if beer wasn't healthier than these sugar bombs.
- wastage 7y ago
  that beer is less healthy than lots of sugar likely fails to surprise ftfy (double negative)
- undoware 7y ago
  Unlikely. Alcohol is just sugar that no longer tastes sweet, as far as your glucose levels are concerned, and meanwhile can destroy your life and health in lots of other ways. There is no Latteholics Anonymous.
- theWino 7y ago
  You gotta be fucking kidding me. For the duration of the 20th century, Drunk driving alone probably claimed more lives than all of the diabetes in the same time frame. Add all other accidental drunken errors for all areas of human activity. And then fetal alcohol syndrome. And then all the actual direct physiological health effects suffered by the imbibing individual. This is not even a contest. You are out of your depth.

jchw 7y ago

Secretly, that's actually what bothers everyone else, too. People aren't stupid. Everyone knows that unless you are dirt poor, kicking a ~$100/mo habit in isolation doesn't do much, because personal finance is more complicated than that. Likewise, kicking a coffee habit won't necessarily make you much healthier, especially if you partake in many of the habits people don't generally find terribly detestable that are equally poor, like sucking down a liter of coke each day, overeating nearly every meal, hardly exercising, or drinking booze after work. But humans are humans, and boy does the smug superiority of telling the entitled millennial that their bank accounts are empty because of the lattes and not the surprise medical bills, crushing student loans, car insurance, high rents, etc. seem to appeal to personal finance gurus.

perl4ever 7y ago
You'd have to have about $50K to perpetually make $100/month risk-free, so if you say $100/month is insignificant, it sounds to me like you're saying a lump sum of $50K is also insignificant. Also, even if you're going to drink coffee at retail prices, you can have the kind that's under $2 rather than close to $5 (I'm not even aware of where to get that where I live).
- jchw 7y ago
  No, I didn't say a lump sump of $50K is insignificant, nor imply it. In fact a careful reading reveals that I say nothing at all about lump sums of $50K. That is because a lump sum of $50K is a lump sum of $50K and what we are discussing is a recurring expense of around $100/mo. Those are two different values with different units. You are reading your own comparison backwards to make this point. I'm sure $50K can make you $100/mo in perpetuity. Saving $100/mo does not give you a lump sum of $50K. It gives you $100/mo. Viewing it another way, At $100/mo, that'll take 42 years and 8 months to save $50K. If we're talking about a higher yield account, let's charitably assume 2.0%, you could probably get it down to around 30 years. Personal finance and health are both things that need to be viewed holistically. They're lifestyles changes. Having good overall posture is more important than individual decisions, and honestly, making more money trumps basically anything you could ever do to 'hack' your finances. You may as well spend less time hacking your finance and more time growing your career. Or hell, more time working on your health, something that you don't get any second chances to fix later on. And let's not forget. The conditions that folks were making long-term investments in in the past are not the current conditions. The human race is facing seemingly-unprecedented existential threats and no doubt that is going to affect someone's willingness to make long term investments. And, you know, even if everything else ends up fine, you could always just get hit by a bus tomorrow. So while you should certainly give a shit about your overall financial and medical health, maybe living in fear of spending $100/mo on something you enjoy isn't the best balance to life, realistically. I'll just take the fucking coffee.

y_tho 7y ago

How does it affect you?

mindcrime 7y ago
It doesn't. This is just another item that belongs on lists like: If you don't like gay marriage, don't get gay married. If you don't like guns, don't buy one. If you don't like expensive coffee flavored milk drinks, don't drink them. Etc.
- schwartzworld 7y ago
  One of these three things is not like the other. Other people getting gay married or drinking milkshakes has never killed anybody else.
- upvotinglurker 7y ago
  One of these things is not like the others. Other people cannot kill me with their gay marriage or expensive coffee flavored drink.

toddmorey 7y ago

Yes, exactly. Starbucks doesn't serve coffee as much as warm (or cold) milkshakes. And with items like the Mocha Cookie Crumble Frappuccino they aren't even pretending anymore.