Avocado Toast Advice: Millennials need to stop telling other millennials not to millennial

Don’t do boozy brunch.

Don’t use a credit card.

Don’t drink expensive lattes.

Whatever…

I’ve done all three, and my wallet isn’t hurting because of it. Yet every few weeks someone has an opinion on how millennials should live differently. This week, it’s Sarah Berger with a piece called, “We’re Spending a lot of Money on Vices. Let’s Start Adulting.”

The piece is extremely reminiscent of the “avocado toast reprimand” that went viral after billionaire Tim Gurner said that Millennials can’t afford to buy houses because they buy “$19 smashed avocado.” It turned out that this claim was mathematically absurd. The New York Times suggested that “if millennials assumed the eating-out habits of baby boomers, it would take around 113 years before they could afford a down payment on a home.” Time explained, “ you could be looking at skipping roughly 10,000 and 21,000 avocado toast servings for a down payment.”

Nonetheless, Berger’s piece is that much more irritating because the BankRate author isn’t a billionaire giving out financial advice… she’s a 24 year old who admits to doing all the same things she tells us not to do.

Berger calls unnecessary expenditures a vice, stating that younger millennials (ages 21 to 26) are:

…“falling victim to vices that may feel good in the moment, but are far from worth it in the long run:

• 54 percent of people in our age group eat out at least three times per week.

• 51 percent of us typically go to a bar at least once a week.

• Even further, a whopping 29 percent of millennials say we buy coffee at least three times a week.

Bottom line: We’re spending a lot of cash on vices.”

I don’t see it that way. A vice might be spending superfluous amounts of money every week or not knowing how to say no to an urge to purchase that got-to-have item the day before the rent is due. But spending money on quality time with friends, happy hours for networking, or heaven forbid a coffee to wake you up and get your brain going for work in the morning doesn’t sound like a vice to me.

In fact, Berger doesn’t even suggest eliminating your vices… she just says do it on the cheap.

However even when you eliminate fancy brunches, expensive lattes, and other millennial purchases, the economy is still in poor shape for our generation. The vast majority of millennials pour their savings into paying off student loan debt, and the global economy is going through a de-industrialization process that limits good job prospects. The millennials that I know who do have a job work pretty darn hard, and sometimes it’s absolutely worth the money to reward yourself for a long but productive work week.

Berger writes, “while I may like my mimosas, I like money even more.”

I agree with Berger’s value statement. Money is greater than a mimosa. But while I may like money, I like my happiness the most.

Berger and I do agree on our love for Shake Shack and Starbucks. However, she looks at these as vices and I see them as rewards.

So here is my ONLY advice to millennials on how not to millennial… to each his own. Don’t take every whim of advice like it’s personally written for you. We all have different budgets, different routines, and value things differently. So instead of changing ourselves to reach some hypothetical level of “adulting,” let’s just be the best millennials we can be.