Ramit Sethi argues that "cut the coffee" advice is lazy boomer nonsense. Real wealth comes from automatic saving, high income, and structural advantages, not from depriving yourself of small daily expenses. The psychological cost of constant restriction outweighs the negligible money you'd save.
Stop buying lattes every day and save that $5. In 30 years, you'll have $100,000. What the hell kind of advice is this? I find this trope so tired, so old, so lazy, as if young people are just sitting around splurging on $5 coffees and that is why they cannot buy historically expensive housing. What it really does is it is a lazy way for typically older people to look down at younger people and say, You're so irresponsible. It's just lazy. And the biggest result is more people walking around feeling guilty every time they buy a coffee. This is what I call the frugality trap. The idea that if you just deprive yourself enough, just restrict yourself enough, just feel bad enough, somehow you'll become successful. Wow. Now that I think about it, it sounds quite similar to a lot of the religion in America. Let me be blunt. Cutting out coffee is not going to make you rich. I'm rich. And the reason I'm rich has zero to do with coffee. It has much more to do with automatic investing, automatic saving, building a high salary. And in fact, if you go way back, being lucky enough to be born to two educated parents. You know what cutting out coffee will do every single day as you feel guilty about it, even though you really want it? It'll just make you feel miserable. Be honest. Are you really going to take the $5 every single morning that you restricted yourself from spending coffee on and then turn around and invest it? Of course not.
