You work hard to keep yourself afloat financially. You get to work on time (well, most of the time, anyway), and you work long hours. You put away money and you’re careful about what you spend on most things. And to have the energy to do all of this, you rely a bit on your coffee habit.
There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. Coffee is a wonderful drink, and there are plenty of us who wouldn’t be nearly as productive without it. But you should be careful, because spending a few bucks at your favorite coffee shop every day can really add up.
A quiet drain on your finances
When we drop by a Starbucks or a Dunkin’ Donuts on the way to the office, we usually don’t think much of it. These places charge a few bucks for a cup of coffee, which really doesn’t seem like much in the grand scheme of things. We buy lots of things that are more expensive than that.
But we don’t buy those other things every single day! With coffee, our little expenses can start to add up as we look at the situation by the month or by the year. You could easily end up paying $70 every month or $840 every year on your simple coffee order. And if you’re ordering a fancier drink, forget it: costs for those concoctions can run in the thousands of dollars per year! It’s time for a financial intervention, because you need to spend less on coffee.
Ways to save money on coffee
You shouldn’t be spending thousands of dollars on coffee. But what can you do to save money? Here’s one major way: start making your own coffee. Coffee that you buy at home can cost as little as a few cents per cup, making it one of the most effective ways to cut coffee costs.
This doesn’t mean that you have to give up on your chain coffee. You can get coffee grounds produced by your favorite chains if you want, and you can also save big by opting for budget brands. But you’ll still save money even if you opt for fancier coffee options, which makes brewing your own coffee a win/win situation. Why not get some fancy whole-bean coffee and grind it up yourself?
Coffee subscriptions
Or why not subscribe to a fancy coffee delivery service? Yep, that’s right: you can subscribe to coffee. A coffee subscription box service will deliver new types of coffee to your door on the regular, meaning that you’ll always have a convenient source of high-quality coffee. That’s a cost-saving move that can make it a little easier to enjoy your coffee.
Coffee subscriptions are just one way to get more out of coffee than you ever did when you wasted time and money at the coffee shop. Instead of waiting in line, you could be using a French press or perfecting your pour-over technique.
Turning savings into wealth
These two things might not sound like they’re connected, but saving money on coffee is also a great way to build wealth without really trying. Try taking whatever you would have spent on coffee and investing it. Sure, it’s not quite as fun in the short term as putting the hundreds you saved into a new TV, but investing will help you build wealth and beat inflation.
Imagine retiring earlier because you saved on coffee? It sounds silly, but little decisions like this really do matter. And you’ll be doing the opposite of what many people do: a third of Americans spend more on coffee than they put into investments. Little costs add up.
Who knows, you might even get more seriously into finance. You could become a day trader or a financial pro who works with a firm. You could get certified (you would also eventually need Securities Industry Essentials (SIE) exam prep, but that comes later). You could end up rolling into the office ready to make big financial moves, all while carrying a coffee that you brewed at home.
