Financial celeb Suze Orman really wants everybody to ease up on their Starbucks intake. In fact, the best-selling author says the younger generations could be “peeing $1 million down the drain” if they don’t kick that daily latte habit.
Former Starbucks barista and Minneapolis millennial Mae Rice doesn’t see it that way, and she explained why in a piece for Vox Tuesday:
‘The best $20,000 I ever spent: Starbucks every day of my adult life.’
Rice says she orders a venti iced coffee with hazelnut, soy and caramel drizzle pretty much every day. And she’s being doing that for the past 12 years.
She’s not sorry about it either.
“Paying for a tiny dose of luxury doesn’t make me an irresponsible millennial,” she wrote. “Still, there’s a certain dysfunctional ring to it: I’ve spent more than a year’s graduate school stipend on my Starbucks habit.”
Also read: ‘Radical savers’ shred one trader for backing Suze Orman, who says you need $5 million in the bank to retire
Rice acknowledges that her daily dose arguably holds her back, whether it’s getting in the way of buying a home or saving enough for retirement — that $20,000 would have seen some nice returns over the past decade. But she also says it’s a critical part of her living in the moment, and she wouldn’t trade it.
“My Starbucks habit feels like the spinal cord running through my life, holding it together as I move from place to place, from school to job to job to graduate school,” Rice wrote in defense of her daily splurge. “Starbucks is my loophole, pleasurable in the present and in the future.”
Funny thing is that she doesn’t necessarily even love the coffee.
“I don’t recommend Starbucks unreservedly, exactly. The coffee isn’t excellent; sometimes, it tastes inexplicably floral,” Rice wrote. “It doesn’t offer the same predictability to all its customers, and it has made its former CEO, Howard Schultz, a possible presidential candidate, to the chagrin of everyone.”
Nevertheless, she’s ready to spend thousands more.
“Starbucks is the faintly irresponsible thing that makes me responsible, the routine that props up all my favorite delusions: that I can, and do, live a life of sustainable luxury; that I can predict the future, at least a little bit,” she said. “At least I know I’ll go to Starbucks tomorrow.”
Clearly, she’s not alone in embracing the “sustainable luxury.” Starbucks SBUX, +0.33% has been on a roll lately, with its stock, up about 30% over the past year, riding same-store sales momentum to record highs.
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