Taxis and takeout are not the problem
A few days ago, I returned to the office with a $17 “warm harissa bowl” — the kind of purchase personal finance experts love to wag their fingers at.
In the lunchroom, I ran into a colleague who waved at me excitedly. She’d brought her lunch that day for the first time, to help offset a new expense: $60 a week on taxis.
“Isn’t that crazy,” she said, her voice lowered apologetically. “I mean, to spend that much money on a taxi when there’s public transport right outside?”
Absolutely not, because here’s how I see it: her taxi rides weren’t a problem, and neither was my salad.
Standard personal finance advice has lots of rules about how to spend your money.
Skip the take-out salad – make your own lunch instead.
Skip the after-lunch coffee shop run – make it at home in the morning and carry it around with you.
Skip the avocado toast – that’s the reason you can’t afford a house.
But here’s what real life looks like.
My colleague works her butt off all day at the office and then heads uptown to teach. She could take a cross-town bus and then a subway uptown, but nailing the connections to arrive on time is tricky. Plus, it’s stressful, as anyone who has navigated midtown Manhattan at rush hour knows.
The taxis not only get her there without the hassle, they also provide a small respite on a busy day. A chance for her to catch her breath. A transition period from one job to the next.
I bought a $17 salad because that morning my partner came home from pulling an all-nighter at the office, and we spent an hour gabbing over coffee. Because our work schedules don’t overlap, I take those moments to connect when I can.
As a result, I didn’t make my own lunch and chose to outsource it instead.
Too often, standard personal finance advice shames us for our choices. If you’re meeting your commitments and moving towards your goals, then you’re not doing things “right” if you skip the taxi or the take-out. What matters is whether you did so intentionally. It’s whether your spending lines up with your values.
I’m not saying you should always say yes to taxis and takeout. I’m saying there is only value in saying no to those things if you’re saying yes to something else that’s more important to you. Otherwise, you’re just paying lip service to doing what’s “right”.
Real wealth doesn’t come from skipping lattes or always taking the subway – it comes from directing your money to what’s important to you.
