It's not all sandwiches and city breaks: How millennials really spend their money
Millennials are terrible savers, we are told. The generation born between 1980 and 2000 has attracted a barrage of criticism. We are terrified of socialising in real life, it is said, and prefer to spend our lives stuck to our smartphones instead, killing a host of industries that rely on physical customers (including chain restaurants, the wedding industry and, of course, capitalism itself).
The latest cycle of millennial bashing was sparked by some controversial advice from estate agent Strutt & Parker, who castigated young urbanites for wasting too much money on sandwiches, nights out, and city breaks. If we just cut back on these luxuries, the firm explained with an exasperated sigh, we could save ￡64,000 each year - enough for a first house in London, after a fleeting five years of saving.
But does a group of (presumably) middle-aged estate agents really understand how young people spend their money?And even if they’re right, are millennials really so wrong to opt for a few more vodka-tonics at the weekend over years of miserable penny-pinching?
We separate fact from fiction...
Strutt and Parker's estimated annual spend per millennial
Social life
Young people could, it is claimed, save more than ￡6,000-per-year by cutting back on just one night out each week. Each millennial, Strurr & Parker calculated, spends an average of ￡115 on one night's clubbing - a sum that is, to quote an adage popular with millennials themselves, huge if true.
Here, I must discount personal experience: I know nobody my age - absolutely nobody - who would consider spending that much. But perhaps I move in tight-fisted circles. By this calculation, a London-based twenty-something could take a return flight to Berlin for half the price of a night in their home city.
That's if we can even find somewhere to have fun - in 2015, it was reported that half of all Britain's nightclubs had closed over the previous decade.
Even if we do go out, the story of millennial clubbing habits is a lesson in how sensible and frugal we have become.
Millennials - Materialism
Over the last 20 or 30 years, bars have become exorbitantly more expensive. Rising rents and declining competition mean the super-cheap student pubs crawls enjoyed by previous generations have all but disappeared. The average pint of lager now costs twenty times more than it did when my Dad started university in the early 1970s.
Now, a night in a big British city means ‘cover charges’ of up to ￡20. Once inside, a trip to the bar will set us back, too - the average cost of a pint in the capital is supposedly ￡4.20, but many places charge upwards of a fiver. Little wonder millennials have adapted: downing shop-bought booze before leaving the house. The term 'pre-drinking' has even found its way into English dictionaries. And even Strutt & Parker would probably agree that it's tough to spend ￡115 in the corner shop.
We shouldn’t be hounded for spending too much on a night out, but praised for stealthily adapting to market incentives.
Lunch, doorbells and the EU: 34 things millennials have been accused of killing
Expensive food
Another vice of our generation, according to Strutt & Parker, is our addiction to extravagant food. Takeaways alone cost us more than ￡2,000-per-year, they calculate, and the mere habit of popping out to buy a sandwich at lunchtime equals more than ￡2,500 of lost income, which could instead be squirreled away for house-buying purposes.
I won’t challenge the mathematics behind such claims: they are the estate agent, after all, and I a millennial with little understanding of the real world.
But I do think they have missed the key point. Because millennials are, by and large, eating more healthily than any previous generation. We’re careful to get our five fruit and vegetables a day, far more so than our parents were. In the US, a study found that under-40 year olds were consuming 50 percent more fruit and vegetables than they were a decade ago.
We also eat more ethically. Veganism is undeniably good for the environment, and sharply on the rise among millennials. So, put down your pitchforks Strutt & Parker: we may spend more on food than we need to, but at least we eat better than your generation ever did.
Millennials - Housing
Holidays
“Your lot go to far more exciting places than I ever did as a student,” my dad told me last summer as I was packing for Indonesia. He’s right. Cheaper flights have made travel more accessible, and the internet has opened up a world of new accommodation providers. Most British millennials would rather take regular holidays than save for a home or car, according to market research institute GfK, with the age group spending around ￡150bn globally on tourism each year.
Alas, I fear this is the Achilles heel of my millennial defence: many of us do, however you look at, spend an unnecessary amount travelling to far-flung locations when a cheerful week in Cornwall would suffice.
Thailand and Bali - both popular tourist destinations for under-30s Brits - would have been unthinkable choices for many of our grandparent’s and even parent’s generation. Indeed, Britain has some of the most beautiful countryside in the world, as any visitor to the Lake District will tell you. Just why do we need to board a 13-hour flight to southeast Asia? This love of travel probably helps to explain why the Conservative government believes extending the Young Person’s Railcard will win over young voters.
Revealed: where millennials want to go on holiday
Of all of Strutt & Parker’s criticisms, this is by far the hardest to refute. I will cautiously venture, however, to say that our love of adventure has arguably made millennials more open-minded toward other cultures. Poll after poll shows us to be less racist, and more tolerant of cultural difference, than older generations.
Perhaps there are advantages to our spend-happy habits after all?