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lettuceLeafer wrote

Reply to comment by !deleted31767 in friday free talk by emma

The problem is that usually with the whole, "don't spend money on coffee" speech they aren't really giving the finance 101 advice they appear to be giving. They aren't really saying, "don't spend money on frivolous shit". What their really saying is this: first if your poor its always your fault, second if your poor you should never buy anything that isn't strictly necessary (such as coffee or fast food or really anything enjoyable whatsoever) to do so is a moral failing, third you could be rich if you stopped wasting your money and instead made that money work for you.

Even if this was good advice, and even if a person meant well the third point makes it absurd because for most people simply not buying coffee and investing that money, even if it may improve their situation, won't improve their situation enough to matter. The real purpose of this advice is to distract poor people from a real systemic issue and to push the blame onto the poor person. For boomers in particular this advice is a way to explain why they are so rich and millenials (who are often the target of this advice) aren't. This also ties a lot into ways some conservatives view coffee as well

Yep, I agree completely.

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