A couple weeks ago, I was waiting for my drink at the bar at Balboa Cafe. I noticed a well-dressed man in his 30s sitting next to me — I couldn’t help but eye his Rolex.

You can imagine my surprise when the bartender returned his credit card, relaying that his card was declined. How can someone who can afford a Rolex not be able to pay off his credit card bill?

According to a friend of mine who bartends at popular trendy bars in San Francisco (like Peacekeeper and The Lot), this scenario plays out more often than you might think.

Status symbols like a Rolex, a brand new Mercedes, and a wristband to Coachella don’t paint a picture of someone with a high net worth. It simply paints a picture of someone who spends their money on these things. As Morgan Housel of Collaborative Fund put it, “If you see someone driving a $200,000 car, the only data point you have about their wealth is that they have $200,000 less than they did before they bought the car.” (I can’t recommend “The Psychology of Money” enough).

In short, having a high income does not equate to having a high net worth. And honestly, who cares if you’re pulling in six figures if you’re broke?

So… how could someone possibly own a Rolex, yet not be able to pay for a round of espresso martinis at Balboa?

I think there are a few elements at play here:

Lack of financial education. I‘m continually surprised by how seemingly little other millennials know about basic money management. Many of my peers either don’t contribute to their 401(k) or hardly contribute anything at all (of course, there are many people who are working hard to pay off student loans or are in other difficult financial situations— I don’t intend to criticize or question why these people are not contributing to their 401(k)).

Tax free income paired with compounding creates a glorious snowball effect. Staying on the sidelines now, especially in your 20s, means losing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars years down the line.

It’s hard to blame anyone for their lack of financial acumen. It is not common knowledge, and it will stay that way until we bake it into the public school curriculum.

False beliefs about how wealthy people actually behave with their money. In today’s world, there is no formal education on personal finance, and pop culture isn’t helping the matter, either. The popular Instagram account Betches had a bout of posting memes seemingly making fun of being fiscally responsible a few months back (*cue facepalm emoji*).

I’m all for using humor to lighten serious topics, but language is powerful, and far-reaching posts like this propagate beliefs that being responsible with your money is unimportant, and even something to be made fun of.

In addition to influence from popular media outlets, young San Franciscans (and millennials in general) are constantly barraging each other with our own pressure around how we should dress, dine, or spend our weekend. Our typical morning commute on the 30X bus consists of scrolling through pictures of friends on lavish European vacations on Instagram, then looking up from our phones to see multiple women with Louis Vuitton totes on their laps.

What many young people don’t realize, though, is that the vast majority of those who actually have high net worths don’t spend their money on luxury handbags. In one of my favorite books, The Millionaire Next Door, readers learn (among many other surprising statistics) that most millionaires in the United States have never spent even $500 for a watch. Wealth is accumulated through years and years of patient investing, budgeting, and frugality. This isn’t sexy or exciting, which is why there isn’t a Netflix series starring the midwestern couple who budgets every Sunday and clips coupons out of the local newspaper.

This also can be tied to the truth that social media is a surface-level snapshot that lacks critical context about a person’s real life. For example, I was extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to go on many vacations this year. What people probably don’t realize is that one of those vacations I won at an event, another was a work trip and was paid for by my company, and a third I was invited by my friend’s parents to stay at their vacation house for free. I shudder to think that anyone scrolling through my Instagram would think that I paid for all those trips myself (and God forbid try to emulate that).

Lifestyle creep at an extreme. As a 25 year old in San Francisco, many of my friends have only been out of college for a few years, but are already making nearly six figures or well over the $100,000 mark. Going from being a broke college kid with zero income and barely enough money for groceries to getting a hefty direct deposit every two weeks is not something any of them were prepared for. San Franciscans in their 20s are like kids in a candy store — they have never seen this kind of money or had access to this kind of freedom before.

You might be thinking, why can’t I live in the moment and enjoy every penny I have now? Why should I care about my future financial state?

I don’t know. Maybe you shouldn’t care. It really depends on how much you value your freedom.

I care because I‘d like to retire early and not work well into my 50s or 60s. I care because I love waking up every single morning knowing that going into work that day is a privilege and a choice, not an obligation. I care because I want to put my future children through college one day (something my parents were able to do for me that I will forever be grateful for, as it has gifted me a huge financial advantage in life). I care because I want to allocate my time and money to who and what I want to, at a time of my choosing.

Life is unfair, unpredictable, and complex enough as it is without worrying about whether you’ll have enough cash in the bank to handle the next curveball, whether that’s losing your job or having to take care of a sick family member.

How you choose to spend your money is your own personal choice that is dependent on a vast amount of factors that are unique to your life. Staying true to your own financial goals and desires (whether you’re frugal, indulgent, or somewhere in between) is no easy feat, especially with popular culture and our own peers bombarding us from every angle.

The next time you’re sitting at the bar at Balboa Cafe and see the glint of a Rolex next to you, don’t secretly hope that he’ll buy your drink for you. He might not be able to afford it.