The Average American Spends Almost $18,000 a Year on Nonessentials

[Remarkableriots]

Quote

NONESSENTIAL ITEM	AVERAGE COST PER MONTH
Restaurant meals	$209.38
Drinks	$188.68
Takeout or delivery	$177.88
Buying lunch	$173.62
Impulse purchases	$108.97
Rideshares	$96.11
Personal grooming	$94.25
Subscription boxes	$93.96
Cable	$90.57
Online shopping	$84.11
Gym classes or memberships	$72.53
Paid apps	$23.24
TV or movie streaming services	$23.09
Music streaming services	$22.41
Coffee	$20.25
Bottled water	$17.47

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/the-average-american-spends-almost-18-000-a-year-on-nonessentials/ar-AAAYrbd?ocid=AMZN

[CitizenVectron]

You'll pry cosmetic DLC from my cold, dead hands!

[CayceG]

How dare they classify Coffee as "nonessential"

[Keyser_Soze]

Rideshares?

 

I guess not essential because you can walk 20 miles every day instead.

[SilentWorld]

Personal grooming lol. I’ll just apply for a job looking like a caveman.

[Nokra]

14 minutes ago, CayceG said:

How dare they classify Coffee as "nonessential"

I am disappoint. But I'll try to give them the benefit of the doubt that they mean frou-frou sugary coffee from Starbucks, Dutch Brothers, etc. No way you would even spend $20/month on coffee at home.

[CayceG]

Well, at one point I went into a coffee shop every morning for 4 years to get a drip. It was mainly the company in the shop that I enjoyed. Coffee was good too. But it added up to roundabout $800 a year. 

[Bloodporne]

17 minutes ago, CayceG said:

How dare they classify Coffee as "nonessential"

Was totally outraged when I hit this bullet point. 

 

Git fukt, study. 

 

Also gym nonessential, k. 

[Nokra]

1 minute ago, CayceG said:

Well, at one point I went into a coffee shop every morning for 4 years to get a drip. It was mainly the company in the shop that I enjoyed. Coffee was good too. But it added up to roundabout $800 a year. 

Yeah I also must admit to spending too much money on cafes here. The cafe culture is ubiquitous and inescapable. Every day after lunch people go to a cafe. So you either sit there and drink nothing or you don't go. A cappuccino costs €2.40 * 5 days per week * 52 weeks per year = €624. Technically unnecessary because I could bring coffee from home, but that basically never happens.  

[SilentWorld]

Whenever people talk about money wasted on activities (like eating out or getting coffee) that are primarily social in nature, it reminds me of this passage by Marx: 

 

Quote

The less you eat, drink and read books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save-the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor dust will devour-your capital. The less you are, the more you have; the less you express your own life, the greater is your alienated life-the greater is the store of your estranged being.

 

 

[Chris-]

1 minute ago, Bloodporne said:

Was totally outraged when I hit this bullet point. 

 

Git fukt, study. 

 

Also gym nonessential, k. 

 

Healthy living is just for millenials who are bad with money.

[SaysWho?]

I look forward to when Millennials cut out all spending on those items and the "Millennials are killing restaurants, drinks, delivery service, lunches, impulse purchases, rideshars, personal grooming, subscription boxes, cable, Amazon, gyms, apps, Netflix, Spotify, coffee, and bottled water simultaneously" headlines emerge.

[PaladinSolo]

"Buying Lunch" is nonessential?   Also Cable?  For 90 dollars that absolutely is including internet.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

So the average American spends about $1500/month on these things? What about the median American? If you report the average and not the median you're trying to lie about something. This would need to be broken down by item as well because some people spend a lot of money eating out, but don't have subscription boxes, as an example

[CayceG]

1 minute ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

So the average American spends about $1500/month on these things? What about the median American? If you report the average and not the median you're trying to lie about something

 

I bet they actually asked "how much do you spend on the following things". 

 

For me, it'd be more for restaurants/lunch and TV streaming and almost none for drinks, rideshares, personal grooming (haircuts?), cable, etc. 

But for someone else, they may not eat out for lunch every day and they go to the gym. 

 

The article just takes the results and averages the responses to get how much is spent on each thing. It doesn't present what a normal person actually spends.  

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

Just now, CayceG said:

 

I bet they actually asked "how much do you spend on the following things". 

 

For me, it'd be more for restaurants/lunch and TV streaming and almost none for drinks, rideshares, personal grooming (haircuts?), cable, etc. 

But for someone else, they may not eat out for lunch every day and they go to the gym. 

 

The article just takes the results and averages the responses to get how much is spent on each thing. It doesn't present what a normal person actually spends.  

I think that's what happened, and it's lazy writing.

[CayceG]

Lazy writing is to be expected. 

 

Overall, my favorite part of these studies is picking out the weird assumptions (like how $90 is called Cable, but it OBVIOUSLY includes internet, and therefore is not nonessential). 

[GeneticBlueprint]

Non-essentials AKA like half the economy. Keep spending peeps.

[mclumber1]

37 minutes ago, SilentWorld said:

Personal grooming lol. I’ll just apply for a job looking like a caveman.

 

[Bloodporne]

33 minutes ago, Chris- said:

 

Healthy living is just for millenials who are bad with money.

This list basically amounts to:

 

Living life is just for millenials who are bad with money.

 

Anything that's not directly linked to working and being in debt is a waste of money.  

 

[5timechamp]

seems low... while some of those would be zeroes, others would be significantly higher.. impulse purchases in particular looks low..

 

they should have put going to movie theater on there to really raise that number

[AbsolutSurgen]

I spend a lot more than that on non-essentials (based on those criteria).  However, if you divide it by the 5 people in my household, it's less than that.

[mclumber1]

24 minutes ago, Bloodporne said:

This list basically amounts to:

 

Living life is just for millenials who are bad with money.

 

Anything that's not directly linked to working and being in debt is a waste of money.  

  

 

I mean, that was kind of the way of life prior to the end of WWII for most Americans.  People who grew up during the depression in the 30s had it pretty bad. 

[Bloodporne]

1 minute ago, mclumber1 said:

 

I mean, that was kind of the way of life prior to the end of WWII for most Americans.  People who grew up during the depression in the 30s had it pretty bad. 

I'm aware, I just don't see how it's relevant to our current living standards here. 

[mclumber1]

Just now, Bloodporne said:

I'm aware, I just don't see how it's relevant to our current living standards here. 

 

It's because a lot of what we consider essentials are not essentials at all.  It's not that hard to grasp. 

[Joe]

Bottled water, lol ok.

[Bloodporne]

7 minutes ago, mclumber1 said:

 

It's because a lot of what we consider essentials are not essentials at all.  It's not that hard to grasp. 

True, yeah. I grasped it now.  

 

Edit: You're going to hell for calling coffee non-essential. 

[RedSoxFan9]

grooming the public to live on less

[mclumber1]

5 minutes ago, RedSoxFan9 said:

grooming the public to live on less

 

Isn't that what socialists and greenies want doe?  

[RedSoxFan9]

13 minutes ago, mclumber1 said:

 

Isn't that what socialists and greenies want doe?  

 

No

[mclumber1]

11 minutes ago, RedSoxFan9 said:

 

No

 

Conspicuous consumption.  Got it. 

[Dodger]

I definitely spend too much money on some things. Between cable/internet and my cell bill I spend about $500 a month. Part of that is because I'm spending like $50 a month each for the latest iPhone for me and my gf. My goal is to keep these phones as long as possible, because all I really do is basic use with them. Probably need to drop cable tv and just have internet. Also need to cut back on eating out, I definitely spend a  couple hundred a month on that. 

 

I think the "buying lunch" catagory means going out to lunch and spending money on lunch when you could just be bringing leftovers or sandwiches or something every day instead. 

[mclumber1]

7 minutes ago, Dodger said:

I definitely spend too much money on some things. Between cable/internet and my cell bill I spend about $500 a month. Part of that is because I'm spending like $50 a month each for the latest iPhone for me and my gf. My goal is to keep these phones as long as possible, because all I really do is basic use with them. Probably need to drop cable tv and just have internet. Also need to cut back on eating out, I definitely spend a  couple hundred a month on that. 

 

I think the "buying lunch" catagory means going out to lunch and spending money on lunch when you could just be bringing leftovers or sandwiches or something every day instead. 

 

We just moved to the Vegas area and Cox is the local cable/internet provider. A cable/internet package was outrageous if you wanted more than 1 box and dvr capability - Like $180 a month.  So we just went with a 300 MB/s internet plan for $80 a month and have youtube TV for $50 a month.  Youtube TV is pretty good because you get 6 simultaneous streams with unlimited DVR.  It's sports heavy, which isn't a big selling point for me, but it does have all of the channels I would normally watch.  The DVR is awesome. 

[Dodger]

3 minutes ago, mclumber1 said:

 

We just moved to the Vegas area and Cox is the local cable/internet provider. A cable/internet package was outrageous if you wanted more than 1 box and dvr capability - Like $180 a month.  So we just went with a 300 MB/s internet plan for $80 a month and have youtube TV for $50 a month.  Youtube TV is pretty good because you get 6 simultaneous streams with unlimited DVR.  It's sports heavy, which isn't a big selling point for me, but it does have all of the channels I would normally watch.  The DVR is awesome. 

 

 

We have Cox here as well. I pay $172 a month but I did get the gigabit internet, which  I could probably scale back to 300 mb/S and basic cable. Sports is one of the reasons I keep cable around, but I see youtube tv and hulu offer sports now, so I need to look into that. Plus I'll have been here a year already in July and that's when my 1 year "introductory" rate with Cox ends and I hear they jack your bill up quite a bit and don't care when you call to threaten to cancel. 

I already have MLB TV to watch most Dodger games, worst case scenario I ditch cable I just don't get the 19 games a year against the Diamond Backs which isn't that big of a deal. 

[SuperSpreader]

What a load of ass