I was walking through my local Target store when I noticed a 20 ounce bottle of Coke now costs $3.19? And that is before tax! I am old enough to remember when 20 ounce bottles were 99 cent. A dollar bill at the vending machine was enough to obey your thirst.
Talk about things I am priced out of. Buying soda drinks at a store is one of them. Filtered water is just fine, thank you very much.
But then people would argue that saving that three dollar on a daily soda (or four dollars on a daily coffee) is not going to get me to buying a house. The math on that in the San Francisco Bay Area is indeed tragic. Those people are right: keeping that $3 in my pocket is merely pissing in the wind of houses that start at a million dollars.
A better use for that $3 is to buy the lottery. At least there’s a infinitesimal chance!
In the grand scheme of things, buying a soda bottle here and there is not going to monetarily affect me one bit. But it’s the mindset that counts here. We can all agree that spending money is easy. The American credit system is fantastic in that regard. Therefore I think we have to train our resistance muscles (not to be confused with resisting a certain presidency). The calculus has to be more than: can I afford it, if yes, then buy!
Saying no to the $4 coffee helps me say no to a new iPad Air I’ve been eyeing, or a newer laptop to replace this “aging” M1 MacBook Pro. Those are the money decisions that really slice chunks: the hundreds and thousands of dollars at a time. Money that can otherwise grow significantly if put to proper investing.
If I really want to drink soda, I’d go buy in bulk from Costco.
Material gains.