@zabindya
Haha, obviously I definitely should spend less on coffee. Actually the reason I checked in the first place was that I realised how many daily shots of coffee I was having and had a heart attack about that, so I think my immediate solution will be to just cut back on coffee overall!
If I'm looking for advice, maybe it's something along the lines of how do you know when lifestyle inflation is properly becoming a problem?
I have a 2-year plan to pay off my loans which so far I'm on track to do (using the other 95% of my salary). 5k a year would help me pay it a couple months faster. But working in the City there are so many things you need to do to keep up. Brunches, drinks, coffees... I don't want to turn down the chance to network because of a £3 latte, which would have seemed ridiculously expensive to me before. But equally the same logic applies to spending £3k on a ski trip with the same people, so where does it end?
But is it 5% on coffee, 95% on loan repayments? What about other living costs? Even if you live at home rent free, you must be paying for travel, clothes, phone as a minimum.
What are you planning to pay off in 2 years? Are these official student loans or something else? It's not generally advised to pay off student loans but, as a high earner, you could be one of those where it's actually beneficial, although you should consider it alongside other priorities at your stage of life, eg house deposit.
Because, while the student loan company interest rate may seem high, it should be considered alongside the cost of rent that you may pay while saving for a house deposit, ie it may be worth paying the interest and save for a house deposit as fast as possible, because this reduces the amount of rent you pay. But this is probably only a consideration for the minority who are expected to pay off their student loans.
But it is an interesting question, especially amongst the wider 'I always thought "stop buying lattes so you can afford a house!!" was an out-of-touch boomer thing to say, but now I'm wondering if they were right' consideration, because it depends what you are spending your money on in general.
If it's not just a couple of daily coffees, but those and a whole host of other 'lifestyle' expenses that the young commonly spend their money on that mostly didn't exist or were much less widespread when older people bought, then it could make a huge difference to your finances depending on how often you do/buy those things and it's really worth looking at how much you spend on things like coffees, lunches, takeaways, mobile phones, clothes, beauty treatments etc, going out, holidays, cars, etc etc, because some people can be spending £1-2k+ on these every month, so there really is significant scope to cut back without having to do without completely, so is likely to be worth doing if you have a beneficial financial goal such as getting out of debt or saving for a house deposit.
Food for thought?