You Can Pry My $6 Coffee From My Cold, Dead Hands

I’ve seen some of the best minds of my generation lost to some finance guy on YouTube, hoodwinked into hustle culture and penny-pinching. They’ll tell you to get a second job and a side hustle. They’ll make you save even your loose change. They’ll convince you to care about crypto. They’ll have you rising, and, God forbid, grinding.

I, on the other hand, am adamantly against locking in. I am very pro lying down (I’m a Taurus, after all). As a daughter of parents who grew up capital-p Poor, the scarcity mindset is plenty familiar, but while I believe in saving for a rainy day, the truth is most days feel pretty overcast as it is.

As the ancient proverb goes, we are here for a good time not a long time. So while many worker bees might still aspire to be a girl boss, you could instead aspire to something simpler yet more powerful: a girl who is going to be OK.

In order to persist, sometimes I need the serotonin rush of a little $25 pick-me-up. I won’t encourage you to live beyond your means but I will ask you to live a little. There have been times I’ve been inches away from a mental break, but then I stumbled upon a silly little reason to live — and sometimes that comes in the form of a Mary Kate and ashtray or a Farfalle pot holder. (Did you click those links? Did you feel that rush? Exactly. You can’t put a price on pasta-shaped pot holders!!! Though if you must, I guess $16 feels fair.)

My true capitalist vice of choice, though? An overpriced latte, which I buy daily. I know, I know. But hear me out!

Someone once told me that sitting is worse for your health than smoking; unfortunately, I do both. Work forces me to sit. Drinking “forces” me to bum a cigarette. So the very least I can do to offset these habits is to get up and go for a walk. (Before you lecture me on the existence of standing desks, know that I will happily add to cart once someone invents one that isn’t ugly. Like I said, I’m a Taurus.) As both a former office worker and current freelancer, my morning coffee stroll has always forced me to get up, get out of my office, and go engage with the world. I need to feel the air. I need to force myself to momentarily pause and unplug. And I really need to take more screen breaks, as my optometrist can attest. Yes, engaging with society unfortunately costs money. Even breathing seems to cost a buck these days. But breathing is essential, and so is my expensive coffee ($6 before tax and tip).

So I get my steps in, get away from my desktop, and if I am lucky, I get a compliment from my local barista. And while spending an exorbitant amount on coffee feels bad (yes I’ve done the annual math, leave me alone!), spending it here feels good. The familiar faces, the usual suspects, the side-eye exchanged over a complicated order, the talk about the weather, and the occasional comped shot of espresso fuels me, reminds me I am not just a cog in a machine — or, maybe, that this is the machine where I’m good with being a cog.

I’m shopping small! I’m doing my part! I’m a girl about town! My six-odd bucks support a local coffee business, and my tip for the 20-something working there supports their own small spending habit in return. Or their rent. (Maybe both but probably not.) A small, fleeting world is built between me and my barista during this daily exchange, based on a $6 latte and its accompanying milk alternative. And though I do wish we existed on a barter system, for now, I’ll stick with legal U.S. tender.

Not everyone will understand what makes my daily coffee so special. If you’re too busy focused on labor and locking in, how can you pick up what I’m putting down? A sweet-treat spending habit may not support your Roth IRA, but that’s OK! Balance is important and sometimes you have to spend to save… your sanity. I am not a financial advisor, and I know money doesn’t grow on trees — I’ve seen Industry and had a Discover credit card I used way too liberally in college — but we’ve all been too busy pocket-watching each other, and occasionally ourselves.

I’m bravely coming out as a millennial when I say Donna from Parks and Rec had a point: You need to treat yourself. I am cringe. And I am tapping to pay. But I am free.