So, it's apparently terrible to tell millennials to save their money or invest their money these days. On Monday, news broke worldwide that an Australian real estate developer Tim Gurner had explained that one of the secrets to financial success was saving and investing rather than spending. Quote, when I was buying my first home, I wasn't buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each, Garner explained, or at a point now where the expectations of younger people are very, very high, They want to eat out every day.

They want to travel to Europe every year. I think until this generation realizes that the people that own homes today worked very, very hard for it, saved every dollar, did everything they could to get up the property ladder, they won't get ahead. You might have to buy an investment property first. You might have to share with mom or dad. You might have to buy with a friend.

But you've got to get your foot in the door and you've got to slowly get up the ladder. This was apparently a terrible thing to say. Never come between a millennial and her avocado toast. But obviously, Gurner was talking about the choice by some young people to spend repeatedly on lifestyle rather than saving. He didn't restrict his comments to the rather silly example of avocado toast.

He talked about European vacations too, which are a little bit more expensive. Naturally, to avoid the implications of Garner's correct statement, the New York Times fact checked him, they wrote quote, the truth is, even if millennials assumed the eating out habits of baby boomers, it would take around 113 years before they could afford a down payment on a home, assuming a 20% down payment on the median price for a home in the U.S., $315,000 in March 2017 and a 1% yearly yield rate.

The average price of a single avocado in March was 125, according to the Haas Avocado Board.

One Twitter user, Nora Biet Timmins, calculated that a serving of avocado toast cost her about 165 or one, 477, 896,000th, the average price of a home in Brooklyn.

But does the New York Times have any decent advice for millennials, other than snarking about avocados?

Of course not.

Here is the fact.

Everybody is spending more now, but millennials cannot afford to do so because they are younger and poorer. While the New York Times acknowledges that all generations of Americans are eating out more, for example, it fails to evaluate whether younger people can afford to do so in the way older people can. When we were younger, my wife and I didn't eat out nearly as much as we do now. We also had a lot less money. Overall, young people are racking up debt much faster these days. Here's ABC News from several years ago. Quote, the percentage of students holding at least one credit card in 2001 rose 24% since 1998, according to the latest figures from student loan provider Nellie Mae. The median debt level among card-carrying undergrads rose to $1,770 in 2001 from $1,236 in 2000, an indicator that more

students are using their cards regularly and may not be paying off the balances each month.

Here's CNBC from 2015.

More than half of millennials, people aged 18 to 34, reported a credit score below 670.

Millennials are even turning to payday loans and pawn

shops to put cash in the bank. Millennials aren't getting married or buying homes thanks to cost

and they're not putting money in the stock market, but they are spending money on travel.

Some millennial money travel comes from the global financial downturn, of course, but to neglect

personal decision-making in terms of investing is a mistake. Why wouldn't investors tell kids

to save up? Because it might hurt their

feelings and suggest that they have agency in their own lives. When I told a group of students

in a downtrod in public school, Otey Ranch High School, that in a free country like America,

permanent poverty is a function of making poor financial decisions, the high school principal

...