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Wanna Be Rich? Just Skip 115,000 Lattes! Easy!
That’s how Bill, Warren, and Elon did it, right?
(Strangely) Contrarian Take: There’s a better way to become a millionaire than to deprive yourself of expensive lattes for 40 years.
Or giving up other small indulgences you might actually really enjoy.
“Oh but if I give up everything I love for just a few decades, I’ll have $1,000,000 saved up and I can take that gold watch the company that doesn’t give two s***s about me gave me in exchange for 40 years of dedicated service to their shareholders’ profit-machine and finally start living.”
-Someone Who Will Never Get Rich
No. Just no.
Listen: I saw a post recently from a guy on X (formerly Twitter) who spent $8.70 on a latte and said that it’s a small price to pay in order to sit in a quiet place and get 3 hours of deep work done.
Noise-canceling headphones, a nice coffee, an empty afternoon…that’s a great deal!
The “conventional” wisdom says that what he did that afternoon was a waste of money, an indulgence that could have been deferred indefinitely in favor of accumulating a few cents in some index fund that he wouldn’t touch for 40+ years.