In an age where we hear about lazy Millennials, I wanted to take a moment to analyze what exactly we are working towards. Not only has the cost of living increased, but the standards of luxury vs. necessity have as well. Cell phones are no longer a luxury, as they are essential and expected for anyone wanting to be successful in education and business as well as having a reliable internet connection and much more. Considering that Millennials are the most educated and most underpaid generation, this is no easy task.

Housing

Within the past five years, rent rates have increased by at least $400 a month for a one bedroom or studio apartment in my area. I now have a 3 bedroom house with a pool in a good neighborhood for the same price as my 800 square foot apartment where I was nearly robbed. Housing and a meal plan at the University of Houston costs the same as my house payment, taxes, and insurance for an entire year.

Cell Phones

The previous generation had home phones and slowly became introduced to the convenience of cell phones. By Millennial standards home phones are almost obsolete. I don’t need to pay $40 for a phone that will sit at home when I’m never there and blast my voicemail proclaiming that my prescription is ready for pickup. I don’t have a fancy $100 cell phone plan that upgrades every other year. I paid for my phone in cash, and have a prepaid plan. It does what I need to get the job done.

When I first started community college, I had a flip phone with no data. I was sitting in the counselor’s office referring to an email that she was having trouble finding. She gestured to my bag and asked if I could pull it up, to which I shook my head in disappointment. In this day and age, people expect you to have instant access to data. Between work, school, being a contributing editor, and having my own on-line business, I don’t see how I could manage with anything other than a smartphone. I don’t want to hear anything about being glued to my phone. My work is 24/7. Going to school with a flip phone, for me, was almost impossible. Plus, Teachers primarily correspond via email. There’s nothing like trekking to school to find out that your class was cancelled at the last minute (been there).

Cable

I don’t have it. I can’t afford it. For decades cable has been a major staple in households. I have a Roku, and a subscription for Amazon Prime that costs me $49 a year (student discount). I don’t have time to take advantage of everything cable has to offer, nor can I currently afford it. For a frame of reference, my mom had a cable subscription in the 80s that cost her $8 a month. Her cable bill is as much as my Subway sandwich today. What once was a standard of living is slowly becoming obsolete with low-budget streaming subscriptions like Netflix and Hulu.

Cars

I’m not going to get into the car ownership thing. Car payments can vary greatly depending on buying, leasing, used, etc. Just to drive you need more than liability insurance if there is a balance on your car payment. Even when I had liability insurance, I was looking at over $100 a month. Many companies wouldn’t even let me have my own policy because I was too much of a risk solely based on my age.

Internet

I’m paying close to $50 a month for standard internet that buffers regularly and has terrible customer service. Before I get a lecture about your company that you love, let me start by saying I’ve probably had them, and they suck. Company A increased my rate after the first year pretending they “forgot” to add the current promotion for three months in a row, lied about servicing my new address, and gave me my money back after wasting a week of my time claiming I was an idiot and didn’t know how to plug in a modem. Company B neglected to inform me of the $13 in random fees, increasing my bill 33%, for the slowest service I’ve had in my life. Company C sends out reject modems and adds charges on your bill that you didn’t pay for, and claims *whoopsy*. If you exchange the bad modem yourself, you take a number and wait in the incessant purgatory that they call a service center until you can trade it for another sub-par modem that will need replacing in a few months. Before you say internet isn’t a staple to education, and tell me to go read a book, consider that most universities require on-line submissions for assignments. My school is completely on-line. With my career and educational workload, there is no way I could be popping into the library or local coffee house 24/7 to access free Wifi.

Even with all these mandatory expenses, we are all doing the best we can. On top of all this, we are one of the first few generations that can’t pay for tuition and books from working a summer job. School for Millennials typically means working full time, or signing ours souls away to crippling debt. As a self-sufficient Millennial, I wanted to address these to prove that we are hardly comparable to the generation where the income from a trade-school education provided for a family of four. These are weird times, but I don’t see the point in shaming people. I’m here to say you can do it. Slowly but surely, you will do it.