Why millennials spend like they do
There are two cultural narratives about how millennials spend their money adjacent to the recent cultural conversation about work, productivity and burnout.
The first is that millennials are responsible for killing various industries — most of them already unsustainable, or just unappealing — from paper napkins to denim to brick-andmortar retail to family restaurants to cars — in favour of consumer choices that are fast, abbreviated, disposable or shareable.
Rarely included in this narrative is the extent to which life is fundamentally different for millennials, who have been messed with by have-everything baby boomers. We simply can’t afford the things that used to mark stability and success, from cars to houses to furniture, even if we want them.
The second is that millennials are lazy, entitled do-nothings, blithely ordering in single servings of ice cream (or nondairy frozen desserts spiked with superfoods) or ferried around via Uber, ordered with just a few gestures on a smartphone. (I will admit that I once had a copy of Vogue and two coffees delivered to my apartment from the market downstairs, but in fairness, it was because I didn’t want to get them myself.)
Both narratives, of course, reflect others’ judgments of millennials — particularly boomers, the parents, grandparents and bosses — but also the millennial generation’s tendency to dunk on itself, in meme-ified jokes on social media and in practice, a dark manifestation of the egos that we need to keep inflated, just to survive, because the only people who seem to be looking out for us is us.
Where these two narratives come together is in a shared, persistent anxiety about how millennials spend the notgreat money that was earned in a series of precarious, uncaring, short-term gigs with no benefits and no futures.
Like judgments about basically anything, these impulses come from misplaced fear, sadness or loss and, in this case, a cross-generational misunderstanding about how limited and unstable the lives of 20-to-40ishes are, particularly when it comes to money.
These feelings usually land on expenditures having to do with health, wellness and pleasure, all of them familiar avenues of judgment. Many or most are the kinds of things that a boomer never bought or paid for because they didn’t exist or, like avocado toast, the exhausted symbol of millennial excess, didn’t exist as a trend.
Lattes and juices, too, have been a useful vehicle for complaint about what other people buy — a concept that refreshes itself every time “oat milk!” or “cold-pressed!” or whatever new version catches the attention of anyone looking for something to be mad about.
Spending is indicative of individual tastes and desires, and it’s an easily identifiable way to connect a person, or a generation, to an assumed set of values.
So, when millennials buy good, organic, expensive food, or experiences that provide some level of care, it’s perceived as being the opposite of, or the corrective to, a historically achievement-oriented purchase, like a four-door sedan, or a house and expensive stuff to fill it.
So, the people doing the judging feel their own values, desires and lifestyles are being judged en masse, even though what they wanted and bought and might still be paying for are things that don’t align with millennial needs, wants or possibilities.
Millennials have, effectively if not voluntarily, shifted from lives and lifestyles being about settling down, riding out a pension, and building something out of bricks and wood and Buicks, to constant unpredictable movement. Brief pleasures of the moment and the body, including opportunities to heal and feel better, are more important and more available than the pleasures more particular to boomers and older generations.
The only thing millennials have is freedom. Without social pressure to accrue things and achievements and, honestly, without the opportunity, a millennial can spend their money on delivery, on their dog, on their dreams. If only everyone else would just chill about it.