To cancel my guardian supportership

[SmallBuisnessOwner]

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/money/2018/jan/29/can-you-really-save-for-a-deposit-by-ditching-coffee-and-avocado-toast-i-tried-to-find-out

Ridiculous story's like this of someone 26 with a well paid job working in the media and London spends over 500 a year on coffee. Outside London I don't know anyone like this. Most go out once a week to the pub and get a cheap takeaway occasionally as a treat. I don't think articles like this help anyone.

She clearly couldn't save a house deposit by dropping buying a coffee but she does seem to waste a huge amount of money. If she wants to save she should be putting a set amount into savings when she is paid eg £1000 and making sure she lives within what she has left. You can buy 2 bedroom flats in London for £350,000 and less - not in central London but places like Harrow , Stockwell, Sydenham.

Off topic, but does anyone else imagine history programs in 200 years visiting an Original Costa, as they explain the coffee culture of the 2010's? Showing different types of take away cups and explaining the cultural significance of carrying one as you went about your business? It makes me smile every time I think about it.

I prefer this from The Daily Mash

www.thedailymash.co.uk/features/the-spending-diary-of-a-millennial-who-doesnt-live-in-london-and-therefore-doesnt-matter-20180129143358

I bought the Guardian for twenty years, I wouldn't use it to line my cats litter tray these days as her arse deserves better.

I think the article is true. I spend a fortune on coffee and lunches. Around £20 a day and I think that's pretty normal for many in London. Most of my colleagues do the same. Its hard to stop as going for coffee is such a big part of socialising at work. I don't go out drinking after work and most people I work with hardly drink, so I think coffee is the new pint.

The thing I don't understand is I don't buy a coffee every day, I don't drink alcohol, I don't smoke. I should be a millionaire shouldn't I? But I'm not.

@InionEile - the journalist needs to learn how to save first before she even identifies what she's saving for. Whatever way you look at saving £400-£600 pcm is better than saving £100 pcm (example given in article).

London makes the point about savings a special case. I think she'd need to find someone with the same savings habit and co-purchase.

I think learning about money is vital and I look back at what I used to spend money on and cringe. Really cringe. I wonder if the journalist had had a shortcut to that realisation?

My app makes it sound like London is a person 🤦🏼‍♀️. I meant London as a place... D'oh.

@grannytomine I often think the same, I work 80 hours a week, only ever shop in the diacounters, maybe go out for a cheap meal once a month (less than a tenner) and holidays are on budget airlines for 20 quid return staying mainly with friends. I should be a billionaire but instead I struggle to heat my home and only buy reduced avocados.

I don't think the journalist particularly wants to save, she's single, living in London and working in the media. Why shouldn't she be out doing things while living in an exciting city?

I'd rather do that than spend 10 years on porage not going out only to just afford a deposit then have 30 more years of payments until I own a shitty flat in a shitty area.

SmallBusinessOwner, so it isn't just me then. Where has all that money gone? it is a mystery.

@SmallBuisnessOwner @grannytomine Did we read the same article????? It stays

"After rent, heating, electricity, groceries, internet, mobile phone and public transport costs, I am left with a bit over £1,000 each month. Of that, I save about £100 every month. The rest goes on, mostly, coffee, food, alcohol and travel."

A bit over £1,000 on fun??? Every month???? (Okay except food 8 grant you that) Travel is listed separately from public transport costs.

Surely you could save £400 pcm and still have fun on £600?????

SciFiFan but if I'm not spending all that money on coffee and alcohol don't you think I should be rich? I should be able to save most of the £1,000.

I'm not sure what you find wrong with what SmallBusinessOwner and I said? We weren't saying she shouldn't be able to save. I'm confused.

Ok I'm confused too!

Wow she is just frittering away money like the new time....

Oh good, I have a duo with someone who thinks that if we don't spend money on all this stuff then where is it and now I have another confused partnership with you. It's all bonding stuff today.

Maybe we will understand when we have had a sleep, I'm shattered but I have a strong urge to go and spend some of the money I don't' spend on coffee or booze on a big bar of chocolate.

We're all in agreement then? Saving for a house deposit is actually by-the-by. But the journalist should be able to save...it's a choice not to? (Ahhh now I get @SmallBuisnessOwner point I think?)

I just can't understand it;the journalist has more in disposable income than some people earn to care for a family.

Oh and being a millennial isn't relevant either.

SmallBusinessOwner - check out the book 'Pound Foolish' by Helaine Olen. It is US-focused but still lots of good information there about how the consumer finance industry likes to sell the line to people that pennywise saving is the only way to secure your future. In reality, of course, you need to do what capitalists and bankers do to become rich and speculate to accumulate. I used to hate BTL landlords and the like but nowadays, I admire them for being a small-scale, achievable version of what City bankers do every day.

And yes,SciFiFan , of course trying to save some money for emergencies or just to be prudent is fine. There is no harm at all in advising this young woman to save 500pcm instead of 100pcm by being more careful with her money. The pretense that this will enable her to become a homeowner is what bothers me. The young people out there who are becoming homeowners in London at 26 are either doing it with parental help / inherited wealth or are very high earners.

That parental help can be in the form of living rent-free with their parents for years to save up or it can be actual cash transfers from parents / grandparents. Either way, a few coffees are neither here nor there.

SciFiFan yes I think she should be able to save more, if she wants to.

So all of you supposedly lapsed Guardian readers - what are you all reading now for your news, seeing as there is such choice for those with left of centre views in our very fair, balanced and not at all right-wing media we enjoy in this country?

It's well known that as you get older, you're views generally become more right-wing (and definitely more difficult to sway) so I tend to think that it's not the Guardian that's changed - it's you.

@grannytomine we got there in the end. More than £1,000 in disposable income? . Wow. Wow.
Do we think she has a pension???

Do you think I deserve that big bar of chocolate now?

I should add that there are many things that I disagree with the Guardian about (particularly their position on the whole trans thing) but they are generally still head and shoulders above the rest of the dross on the newstands (or online, except for maybe the beeb).

@grannytomine I think we all deserve a big bar of chocolate 🍫 now...

Cancelled my supportership after the My Experience: I had a freebirth debacle of an 'article'