IDL how "cut back on small luxuries" became the solution to a housing crisis

Read an article last night. "How I saved $30,000 in one year." The tips: Stop buying coffee. Cancel subscriptions. Meal prep. Buy generic. "Small changes add up!"

I did the math. I spend $4 on coffee, three times a week. That's $12. $624 a year. My rent went up last year. Not $624. More. The coffee isn't the problem. The coffee was never the problem.

But we keep talking about the coffee. The avocado toast. The Netflix subscription. Like these are the reasons young people can't buy houses. Not the median home price that keeps climbing. Not the wages that haven't kept up with inflation for decades. The coffee.

My parents bought their house in 1995. $120,000. Dual income, neither college-educated. I make more than both of them combined, adjusted for inflation. I have a master's degree. I rent a one-bedroom. No yard. No garage. No savings. And I'm supposed to feel guilty about the $4 coffee that gets me through the day.

The "cut back" advice is insulting because it pretends the math works. Like if I just try hard enough, sacrifice enough, stop enjoying anything, I can overcome structural problems with personal discipline. I can't. The gap is too big. The coffee is a rounding error.

The affordability crisis isn't a personal failure. It's not about individual choices. It's about a system where housing is an investment vehicle first and a place to live second, where wages stagnate while costs explode, where the solution is always "spend less" and never "pay people more."

But "spend less" puts the blame on us. "Pay people more" puts it on them. And they write the articles. So we get coffee.

I still buy the coffee. It's the only thing in my budget that feels like living. And I'm tired of being shamed for wanting to feel alive while everything else is just survival.