Maligned millennials, rejoice: Cutting out avocado toastfrom your breakfast regimen will not buy you a house, orfinance your retirementr.
|So your savings habits have been vindicated.
|Thanks to the avocado toast index, that is.
|A major fracas erupted recently in the press after an Australiantycoon, worth somewhere around a half billion dollars, scoldedmillennials for indulging in trendy items and failing to save enough money to buy a home.
|Millennials have already been criticized for not saving enough for retirement, despite theirhaving to deal with lower-paying jobs and loads of studentdebt.
|Life can be pretty bleak under those circumstances, but manyhave criticized millennials anyway for seeking to relieve the gloomby occasionally indulging in avocado toast brunches and coffee frombaristas instead of a coffeepot on their kitchen counter.
|One might think they’d be allowed a tad of indulgence, sincethey’re trying to survive an average of more than $30,000 instudent debt and still have a life, pay their bills and put away apittance for retirement.
|But Tim Gurner said in an Australian version of 60 Minutes thatmillennials are too busy scarfing down that expensive toastslathered with mashed avocados, and washing it down with equallypricey lattes, to bother engaging in responsible self-denial andput that money into a fund for a down payment on a house.
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Gurner, a property mogul, called millennials’ expectationsunrealistic and said they have to buckle down and start saving. Hewas quoted in the report saying, “When I was trying to buy my firsthome, I wasn't buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at$4 each. We’re at a point now where the expectations of youngerpeople are very, very high.”
|Gurner didn’t stop there, adding that millennials “want to eatout every day, they want travel to Europe every year. The peoplethat own homes today worked very, very hard for it [and] savedevery dollar, did everything they could to get up the propertyinvestment ladder.”
|Related: Dealing with the millennial 'advicegap'
|Well, the BBC took pity on the poor millennials after all thisabuse and decided to see whether it truly was realistic to believethat an indulgence in avocado toast and coffee was enough to shutyoung people out of the housing market in 10 different citiesworldwide.
|And so it came up with the avocado toast index. Pure genius!
|And while it’s not exactly comparing apples to apples, wethought it was worth taking a look to see just how much money thoseavocado toasts add up to, lest they also be preventing millennialsfrom working toward a financially comfortable retirement.
|It seems fair to say that even a taste for an exotic breakfast(well, not too exotic—after all, these are avocados we’retalking about, not Beluga caviar, thank goodness) is going to takea lot of meals before it consumes one’s retirement fund.
|Here are the cities, relative costs of avocado toast, and thenumber of years (yes, years) it would take to come up witha 20 percent down payment on a house simply by abstaining.
|House prices are based on the average price for a90-square-meter apartment outside the city center, the BBC says, asreported by users of cost-of-living website Numbeo. That’s 968.752square feet, by the way, not quite double the size of the typicalstudio apartment, so not exactly on the scale of Mar-a-Lago.
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10. Mexico City
Cost of avocado toast: $3.50
|Apartment price: $85,883
|Number of avocado toasts required to make up 20 percent deposit:3,123
|Number of years to give up avocado toasts to save that deposit:9
|At a single avocado toast breakfast per day, even in MexicoCity, the least expensive housing market on the list, it would takea person 9 years of abstinence from avocado toast to come up with a20 percent down payment on an apartment.
|That’s a long time to go without breakfast.
|Related: Women unprepared to inherit wealth or passit on, study says
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9. Johannesburg
Cost of avocado toast: $5.50
|Apartment price: $69,364
|Number of avocado toasts required to make up 20 percent deposit:3,964
|Number of years to give up avocado toasts to save that deposit:11
|So breakfast is pricier in Johannesburg, but apartmentsaren’t.
|Even at that rate, it would take someone 11 years to save up foran apartment by eating at home. One’s own kitchen walls willprobably look pretty boring after staring at them for that manyyears.
|Related: 10 best places to relocate to retire in2017
|
8. Berlin
Cost of avocado toast: $9.00
|Apartment price: $313,577
|Number of avocado toasts required to make up 20 percent deposit:6,968
|Number of years to give up avocado toasts to save that deposit:19
|You’ll have your work cut out for you in Berlin trying to affordbreakfast every day, never mind that apartment. It will take nearlytwice as long to buy a place in Berlin, even going on thatfinancial diet.
|Related: Millennials weigh paying off student loansversus saving for retirement
|
7. Tokyo
Cost of avocado toast: $10.50
|Apartment price: $605,761
|Number of avocado toasts required to make up 20 percent deposit:11,538
|Number of years to give up avocado toasts to save that deposit:32
|Tokyo is known to be a pricey city, so don’t get your hopes upthat just by cutting out one little luxury you’ll be able to putdown roots.
|After all, that little apartment will cost you double here whatit would have in Berlin. And if you ever expect to retire, youmight want to think about a second job after you “retire” from thefirst.
|Related: The new top 10 best places toretire
|
6. Sydney
Cost of avocado toast: $10.00
|Apartment price: $590,726
|Number of avocado toasts required to make up 20 percent deposit:11,815
|Number of years to give up avocado toasts to save that deposit:32
|Technically Tokyo and Sydney are tied for how long it willtake—32 years; millennials will be ready to retire by then!—to savefor a home just by stinting on breakfast.
|Either way, that’s a long time to do without a favorite. A dualcareer might be useful, so that you can have some income once youmove in.
|Related: Financial stress hazardous to emotional,physical health
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5. New York
Cost of avocado toast: $10.00
|Apartment price: $606,726
|Number of avocado toasts required to make up 20 percent deposit:12,135
|Number of years to give up avocado toasts to save that deposit:33
|Surprisingly, New York is not the most expensive city on thelist, despite the fact that its housing costs are high and squarefootage is small.
|But still, good luck trying to put together that 20 percentdeposit just by skipping breakfast. Really. Good luck. You’ll needit. And maybe a third job.
|Related: 10 cities with an olderworkforce
|
4. San Francisco
Cost of avocado toast: $9.00
|Apartment price: $718,870
|Number of avocado toasts required to make up 20 percent deposit:15,975
|Number of years to give up avocado toasts to save that deposit:44
|Even though breakfast is cheaper here, housing certainly isn’t.It will take a lot more effort than focusing on a single smallindulgence to sock away enough for a home in the city by thebay.
|Never mind the second and third jobs. Write a killer softwareprogram, or find a rich spouse.
|Related: 10 cities adding the most millennials tothe workforce
|
3. Vancouver
Cost of avocado toast: $14.00
|Apartment price: $435,518
|Number of avocado toasts required to make up 20 percent deposit:17,421
|Number of years to give up avocado toasts to save that deposit:48
|In Vancouver, it’s more a function of how expensive breakfast isthan how expensive a home is—but it still won’t get you to closingany time soon if you switch to scrambled eggs at home.
|In fact, if you rely solely on skipping those avocado toasts tofinance your home, you could be celebrating your golden weddinganniversary with your kids and grandkids—and maybe evengreat-grandkids!—just shortly after you have your housewarming.
|Oh, wait; no time to celebrate. You’ll still be at work.
|Related: Could homesharing solve millennials' andseniors' housing problems?
|
2. Hong Kong
Cost of avocado toast: $14.00
|Apartment price: $1,387,130
|Number of avocado toasts required to make up 20 percent deposit:19,816
|Number of years to give up avocado toasts to save that deposit:54
|Never mind saving or retiring; you’ll still be working if you’rerelying on breakfast savings to get you a home or a retirement.Better pick jobs you like, because you’ll be working at them for along, long time.
|Related: Older people also mired in studentdebt
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1. London
Cost of avocado toast: $7.00
|Apartment price: $857,473
|Number of avocado toasts required to make up 20 percent deposit:24,499
|Number of years to give up avocado toasts to save that deposit:67
|Even though both breakfast and housing are cheaper in London,you’ll spend the rest of your natural life just trying to scrape upthat down payment using avocado toast as a measure for saving.
|And once again, forget about retirement. Maybe you could rentyourself out as an exhibit in a wax museum as an example of how notto save for a home or for retirement.
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