Don’t Blame the Latte: Your Burn Rate Is Eating You AliveThe Silent Reason You’re Always Broke

There’s a meme that won’t die: “Don’t blame me for my daily latte—it’s not why I can’t afford a house in America.” But here’s the rub: it isn’t the latte by itself. It’s the latte plus the Starbucks sandwich, the DoorDash dinner, the Amazon Prime, the Netflix, the Disney+, the YouTube TV, the Hulu, the gym membership you never use, the $1,200 phone you upgrade every two years, the Uber rides, the subscription boxes, the automatic monthly charges you don’t even notice anymore. Add them up, and suddenly you’re living like a Gordon Gekko yuppie from Wall Street—without actually being rich. That is your burn rate. And your burn rate is the silent killer of wealth.

Most people don’t even know the term. In business, burn rate is how fast a startup burns through its cash. If your expenses outpace your revenue, the company dies, no matter how good the pitch deck looks. Now zoom out: your life is a company. Your paycheck is your revenue. Every “normal” convenience you’ve convinced yourself you’re entitled to is an expense. And most Americans are burning cash at a startup’s pace without ever realizing it.

Think about it: a Starbucks venti caramel macchiato with extra pumps? Call it $7–$8. Add a pastry—because of course you did—and you’re at $12. Do that five times a week, and you’ve quietly spent $250 a month on coffee shop culture. That’s three grand a year. Add DoorDash: one burger meal for $14 becomes $28 after delivery fees, service fees, and tip. Do that three times a week? Another $350–$400 a month, five grand a year. Now add streaming: Netflix, $16. Disney+, $14. Hulu, $18. HBO/Max, $17. Paramount+, $12. YouTube TV, $73. Amazon Prime, $15. Suddenly your “cheap entertainment” costs $165 a month, nearly $2,000 a year.

Keep tallying. The $1,200 iPhone with $40 monthly insurance. The $80 unlimited data plan. The fast fashion wardrobe that falls apart every season. The gym you don’t use. The Uber you grab instead of the bus because it’s “just ten bucks.” Before you know it, your “burn” is $3,000–$4,000 a month just to maintain a lifestyle you think of as normal. That’s $36,000–$50,000 a year—money that could be a down payment, an index fund, or a cushion against the next emergency.

Contrast that with 1965: Dad made $6,900 a year. Mom stayed home. They had two or three kids. One family car, maybe a black-and-white TV. Vacations were once a summer, maybe to the beach or Grandma’s house. There was no burn rate in the modern sense. They didn’t pay subscriptions for entertainment—they had three channels. They didn’t replace phones every two years—they had one rotary phone on the wall for decades. A “splurge” was meatloaf with ketchup or maybe a color TV. Today’s “middle-class normal” would have looked like Rockefeller living to them.

Now, I’m not wagging my finger. I’ve lived both sides. I rent a studio apartment. I cook bulk ground beef, eggs, and butter. I buy my watches used on eBay, my bags secondhand. My coffee is Café Bustelo brewed at home. My rower is a 20-year-old Concept2 I got for cheap. And still—I fall into the same trap as everyone else. I subscribe to every damn streaming service. I justify little “conveniences” that pile up. I know the burn rate game.

Here’s the brutal truth: if you make $70k a year and your burn rate is $50k, you’re broke. If you make $200k and your burn rate is $190k, you’re broke. And no revolution, no socialism, no political system is going to fix that. Because the second you normalize luxuries as entitlements, you’ve built yourself a treadmill. And treadmills don’t make people rich. They just keep you running.

Stop telling me a $7 latte doesn’t matter. Stop telling me the subscription stack doesn’t count. Add it up. Run the numbers. Look at your burn rate. That’s why you’re not rich.