Just lost a few braincells reading an nyt article about gen z "treat culture" and I can't even fathom that this is a thing. We're living in a dystopian hellscape where someone spending $5 a week on a cookie is considered a wasteful brat because they should have just gone for a nice free walk instead and saved the $250 a year that roughly equals four days' rent. That's why these ungrateful kids can't buy a house, naturally.
I am ALL for free treats, like hiking or reading in the park. But at some point you can't budget your way out of poverty, and you will literally go mad if you deny yourself basic pleasures that are literally all around you. They even lamented that little treats could snowball into doing something absolutely unforgivable like learning how to play the guitar or buying concert tickets.
At what point do we just start saying out loud that living an enjoyable and fulfilling life is now only acceptable at a 100k+ salary, and if you're one of the millions of people unlucky enough not to be in that category you should just eat dirt and be grateful?
