Frugality Myth of Boomers - Austerity for thee, but not for me

[GGSurvivor]

Over the last few days, X is having the "boomer vs youth" discourse yet again. It began with Kevin O'Leary (boomer) stating that Gen Z can't be investors because they waste all their money on eating out ($28 a day!!!):

Spoiler: Kevin O'Leary

0:15

This has led to many Conservatives(tm) coming out of the woodwork to defend the boomers, stating that if Zoomers just saved up then they'd have the same economic prosperity of the boomers; inflation isn't real! The decline in purchasing power is a smoke screen!

Spoiler: Just save up, zoomer

I was going to try to make this neutral, but I've been getting ragebaited by this topic for the past two days. Every time I go on X it's either a boomer or a Gen X slave who tries to make the argument that inflation isn't real and that zoomers just need to pick themselves up by their bootstraps. This isn't even to mention the predatory practices of the retirement industry, ACA, or immigration. I used to think post-2016 that the issue with boomers was primarily just political, they don't "understand" politics and are stuck in the 80s, but as the years have gone on it has become increasingly clear to me that it's a difference of existential magnitude. They are literally in a different reality from younger people.

 

[Rei is Shit.]

I've learned that boomers idea of self is actually based on their parents.

Lots of unbelievable shit;


EDIT: Hey, poor person struggling to get by. You should purchase a bunch of potato chips

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

It boggles my mind that these people think "just cook at home" is an answer to the actual complaint
Like, of course it's stupid to waste money on delivery apps, and few people pretend otherwise
But frugality does not explain away debased purchasing power, inflated housing, cartelized healthcare, taxes, regulation, not to mention decades of policies supported by the older voting blocs who are now lecturing everyone else about sandwiches

I'm not denying that packing lunch can help a person survive a worse environment, but in no way does it prove that the environment wasn't made worse

 

[rel=alternate]

Rule of thumb is never take anything you read on X too seriously.

If they are not trying to sell you something one way or another, they are just people who are probably not in a position to give insightful advice. O'Leary is a bottom feeder on fucking Cameo, not quite the person he portrays himself to be.

 

[Fishnumm]

my elders are aware of the inflation problem

dunno why the normie ones aren't probably because their morons glued to the cnn's abd such lol

 

[Sargon's wife's son]

The Boomer. Needs to have all the wealth confiscated. We would do it on a case by case basis. If you did not help your kids with your I'll gotten gains, you will have your wealth confiscated and you will spend the rest of your days in a work camp. Working off your debt to society.

 

[Asian tech support]

Lots of unbelievable shit;

Boomers grew up with soda fountains, what is this even. "Nine out of ten doctors recommend Dr. Spurt" and the like. Like those were their idea of a fun place to take your girlie to. Catch a root beer float, then catch a titty at the drive in.
Domestic soft drink sales are propped up by the nigger tax as surely everyone who still had their head under a rock last november learned. It's quite literally a consequence of giving the useless eaters someone else's money. MOST people don't drink soda with every meal, but the ones that do drink so much they wind up with medical conditions that are also paid for by the taxpayer, thanks boomers.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

My Pa - and it's kind of hurt reaching the age of realizing when your parents are... not as smart/knowledgable as you thought they were - has this pet theory that a lot of affordability problems come from people having a wider range of things they purchase these days. (Debatable, the economy itself is dematerializing, phones alone do the functions of dozens of different computer electronics, but whatever, sure, let's still go with that.) And it's like talking to a brick wall trying to explain that real incomes have stagnated since the 1970s, that housing prices are way, way, way higher than everything else (the whole necessities are expensive, luxuries are cheap inversion... and no, it's not just bigger houses, you CAN'T in many places buy those old-fashioend houses anymore), same with college tuition. It's not delusion as such, it's just pure ignorance from people that achieved financial stability many decades ago.

But with younger people there'd often be a sheepish sense of acknowledgment when your knowledge is wrong, outdated or irrelevant. Old people - and it's nothing new, every generations does it, we'll do it - feel that they're a special exception. It isn't interesting to them to talk about the ways that society might be failing because they're already too old for them to have skin in the game, the idea that the country has been actually materially getting worse for regular people - not just "the music sucks and rude wah" but that the world is objectively worse for normal workers - strikes at their whole civic faith. And it requires cognitive effort that, the more senile you get, the less you want to expend.

So instead you just get this masturbation.

Have you tried eating less avocados and buying less stuff, OP?

 

[User names must be unique]

On one hand shit is expensive, on the other I've seen enough retards interviewed by Caleb Hammer.

 

[JimJams1998]

Why are the elderly so terrified of admitting things are worse? Do they think if they admit it gen z is suddenly going to enact der boomernacht and put them all into labor camps? (they will all go into immigrant staffed care homes anyway, so they are already getting this ending). It's such a weird thing to see constantly, some young kid goes "hey things kinda suck it sure would be nice if I could afford rent" and like immediately some gen x neo boomer chimes in with how everything is great actually and you just need to be superman harder.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Why are the elderly so terrified of admitting things are worse? Do they think if they admit it gen z is suddenly going to enact der boomernacht and put them all into labor camps?

I don't think there's a real fear of what young people will do to them
Rather, once you admit that material conditions got worse, the cheap character explanation stops working
"Stop buying avocados" only sounds profound if the problem is personal discipline. It's straight up useless when the issue is rent, housing supply, debased purchasing power, healthcare costs, taxes, regulation, and a labor market shaped by political decisions
That's why the conversation often stays at the level of consumption habits. It simply is the safest level of analysis for people who do not want to discuss the machinery

 

[JimJams1998]

I don't think there's a real fear of what young people will do to them
Rather, once you admit that material conditions got worse, the cheap character explanation stops working
"Stop buying avocados" only sounds profound if the problem is personal discipline. It's straight up useless when the issue is rent, housing supply, debased purchasing power, healthcare costs, taxes, regulation, and a labor market shaped by political decisions
That's why the conversation often stays at the level of consumption habits. It simply is the safest level of analysis for people who do not want to discuss the machinery

It makes sense but I just won't ever be able to really empathize with their viewpoint. They are all so utterly terrified of discussing or admitting that there may be any issue with society or its systems even though they spent the entirety of their youth doing just that and not much more than that, and then they go out and join that no kings protest. Like sure, the USA is in such a state that we have a rogue president making himself a king, but somehow you can't even begin to think that if shit is so bad you are getting a king that maybe it also contributes to why your grandson timmy can't afford rent. The sky is falling but its your fault for not making it because everything is fine actually despite the sky falling.

 

[Chuck McGill]

The insistence on the part of boomers that it's just a deficiency of character is their worst character trait by far. If they were at least willing to admit "Hey, we got hoodwinked in our youth, we're real sorry about it and we want to fix it in the time we have left", I would embrace them with open arms. I've managed to get admissions close to this from family members in my life. It's the fact that they will never, ever, ever, EVER admit that a dollar doesn't buy what it used to that makes them so infuriating to deal with. It's the fact that their cope is so deep they think their children living on baloney and cheese is actually based and builds heckin' character.

Also boomer frugality is such a cope it isn't funny. Most of the time, the only reason they didn't participate in the same vices you did is they weren't physically available to them at the time. Just remember this is the self-same group that got one-shotted by Farmville and slop mobile games. A boomers' conception of frugality is "only one case of beer a week and a pack of cigarettes every other day". They don't even have the same concept of scrimping that you do.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

It makes sense but I just won't ever be able to really empathize with their viewpoint. They are all so utterly terrified of discussing or admitting that there may be any issue with society or its systems even though they spent the entirety of their youth doing just that and not much more than that, and then they go out and join that no kings protest. Like sure, the USA is in such a state that we have a rogue president making himself a king, but somehow you can't even begin to think that if shit is so bad you are getting a king that maybe it also contributes to why your grandson timmy can't afford rent. The sky is falling but its your fault for not making it because everything is fine actually despite the sky falling.

Yeah, that contradiction is the important part
They can admit "the system is in crisis" when the crisis can be safely pinned on one villain, one party, or one president. Doing so keeps the machinery itself innocent, and the problem is the bad driver rather than the vehicle
But the things I mentioned force attention back onto normal policy, normal institutions, and decades of accumulated decisions, many of which were made precisely by boomers, and that is much less comfortable
So the explanation gets split into two. When it flatters their political narrative, society is collapsing, but when a younger person asks why basic adulthood became so expensive, everything is fine

 

[Rotting Femcel]

I wonder if they tend to blue screen because the costs of necessities vs luxuries (luxuries for the 20th century) have been swapped. The prices of necessities (food, housing, cars, insurance) has skyrocketed while things boomers considered a luxury in their youth are now quite cheap (televisions, consumer electronics, appliances, media, some kinds of clothes, for example). I don't think this is the sole reason but rather one of many reasons why they are so goddamn retarded

Either way boomers have been the worst custodians of society and have raped our economy just to piss away any wealth they have left in their twilight years instead of setting their families up for success. I wonder if they know that many of them will not be missed.

 

[Anime Waifu NFT collector]

People hate boomers talking about frugality because they were never frugal in the first place, when they were young they would spend their money on the following:

• Big houses they did not need
• Muscle cars and everything related to customizing them, also road trips which is related to this.
• Alcohol, cigarretes and entertainment (clubs, bars, concerts, movies, etc.). How is going out all the time being frugal?
• Home decoration and electronics that were much more expensive in the past that they are now, they talk about frugality but did the equivalent of buying a gigantic TV because shitty TVs were super expensive back then, same thing with stereos and home appliances.
• Constant vacations, have boomers ever skipped vacations in their younger years to save money and to deal with responsibilities? (such as fixing things in the house, etc.). I don't think so, how is going on vacations all the time being frugal?

And there is probably a lot of stuff I'm missing, boomers were never frugal, they just had much more disposable income, it is true that a lot of young people are stupid and can't manage their money, they will complain about how life is hard while spending their money on what's basically toys, if you google statistics about median income it was $9870 in 1970, adjusted by inflation it would be $84,000, the median income in 2026 in the US is $63,000.

Not only the median income in the US objectively lower, around 25% less in 2026 that in 1970, but to add to that the value of things such as housing increased more than inflation, so you are making 25% less money and the important stuff got more expensive, but TVs and air conditioning got cheaper so I guess that makes it ok, right?

 

[The Last Stand]

So the explanation gets split into two. When it flatters their political narrative, society is collapsing, but when a younger person asks why basic adulthood became so expensive, everything is fine

Always has been. Political reform, especially for inflation or cost of living, is a pipe dream because it would need long term effort to resolve. If politicians do what they promise, they'd be out of a job.

 

[The Hardest R]

Why are the elderly so terrified of admitting things are worse? Do they think if they admit it gen z is suddenly going to enact der boomernacht and put them all into labor camps? (they will all go into immigrant staffed care homes anyway, so they are already getting this ending). It's such a weird thing to see constantly, some young kid goes "hey things kinda suck it sure would be nice if I could afford rent" and like immediately some gen x neo boomer chimes in with how everything is great actually and you just need to be superman harder.

Because to them it means everything they’re about is bullshit. The average boomer, regardless of political affiliation, has the Spirit of ‘68 mindset burned into them. The mindset that everything done in the past was bad, everything they do is good, and that they know best because their formative years was listening to Bruce Springsteen and Pink Floyd. If the system is going to shit, then it means they don’t know best and there’s nothing worse to a boomer than not having all the answers. They’d rather opine about consumption of avocado toast than say “I don’t know.” They’d rather sound like a retard than admit they don’t know.

 

[Attempt Turd]

And there is probably a lot of stuff I'm missing, boomers were never frugal, they just had much more disposable income, it is true that a lot of young people are stupid and can't manage their money, they will complain about how life is hard while spending their money on what's basically toys, if you google statistics about median income it was $9870 in 1970, adjusted by inflation it would be $84,000, the median income in 2026 in the US is $63,000.

The silents or greatest could be frugal to an absurd degree. They would make poverty cookies with half the butter and fewer eggs. Water down their sauces or just be generally frugal. Some of them would wash out plastic bags and hang then to dry because why spend money when you don't have to.

The greatest fault with boomers is that they will only ever look at the price of things. "Why would I buy a scissor for $50 when I can get this other one for $20? They both cut stuff." but the difference is that the expensive one is fastened with bolts and can be dissassembled for sharpening or tightened when it gets loose and is all steel and made in the US and will last more than a lifetime. The cheap one will cut like shit, is riveted and will invariably get loose, the plastic handle will break from age in a decade or so. Their grandmothers scissor they threw away because "It would cost more to sharpen then get a new one."

I worked for a boomer builder who got his tools stolen. Some of the designs of handtools are still the same 50 years later but they are four or five times more expensive than the chink shit. Instead of biting the bullet and buying the same tools that got stolen and had served him for decades he tried to save money on chink shit. Some of the things were not fit for purpose and he now had to buy the proper ones in addition to buying the chink shit. Some of the chink shit would work but took longer to use so whatever he saved on the purchase he would lose in paying us by the hour.

They do not understand inflation.
They do not understand total cost of ownership.
They do not understand that time is money in the sense of opportunity cost.
They think new by definition is better at the same time they believe that they don't make them like they used to.

 

[The Hardest R]

Some of the things were not fit for purpose and he now had to buy the proper ones in addition to buying the chink shit. Some of the chink shit would work but took longer to use so whatever he saved on the purchase he would lose in paying us by the hour.

This is the “penny wise and pound foolish” mindset in action. Washing plastic bags is retarded. Buying cheap chink shit several times over versus higher quality tools once is also retarded. Boomers will act like cheapness is a point of pride but they lose money in the long run.