This 25-year-old's unusual budget has sent the internet into a tailspin

Before you freak out, read beyond the tweet.
 By 
Marcus Gilmer
 on 

Nothing gets people riled up like a peek into other people's budgets.

On Friday, much of Twitter went into an uproar when CNBC shared a mind-boggling pie chart that laid out a monthly budget for a 25-year-old who happens to make $100,000 a year and is "excellent with money."

The outrage was instant, with many wondering what 25-year-old makes that much money and how does he or she pay such cheap rent and internet and have the money for $615 a month in donations?

It makes for funny tweets, sure, but the problem is that, in this case, CNBC was talking about one very specific 25-year-old: A Boston-based entrepreneur named Trevor Klee, and those are his real expenses, according to the corresponding story.

Klee's salary is so high because he's gone into business for himself, doing tutoring and consulting, and he works long hours. The cheap rent and internet are thanks to Klee living with four roommates. While the grocery expenses seem a bit high -- more than the average two-person household in the United States -- it's also not too outlandish for a major U.S. city.

But these are all specific to Klee. And good for him! That's pretty darn impressive for a 25-year-old and it's a reflection of his personal success. But it's hardly typical for others his age, and CNBC got tripped up by suggesting Klee's circumstances are obtainable for other 25-year-olds and by presenting the breakdown in their tweet as if it was a more general budget not one belonging to just one specific person.

It's easy to take this kind of tweet as delicious outrage bait and, well, lots of people did. I did. And so did many, many others who probably didn't read the story associated with it.

It's true few 25-year-olds (or workers of any age, really) could afford to set aside $615 per month for donations, totaling nearly $7,500 a year. But, again, it comes down to this being one specific person whose circumstances (high salary, no student loan debt thanks to likely support from family) don't match that of a large amount of his peers.

So, in the end, we've only spun ourselves into another cycle of Twitter outrage that escalates until no one can hear anything for all the shouting in the echo chamber. Happy holidays.

Topics X/Twitter

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Marcus Gilmer

Marcus Gilmer is Mashable's Assistant Real-Times News Editor on the West Coast, reporting on breaking news from his location in San Francisco. An Alabama native, Marcus earned his BA from Birmingham-Southern College and his MFA in Communications from the University of New Orleans. Marcus has previously worked for Chicagoist, The A.V. Club, the Chicago Sun-Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.

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