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Does Buying Coffee Every Day Keep You Poor?
How much money you would save/earn if you stopped buying your everyday coffee
“Don’t talk to me until I’ve had my morning coffee,” people (annoyingly) say, as coffee has become an essential part of an everyday morning for many. Most likely, you yourself started the day with a nice cup of joe, but did you buy that coffee or make it at home?
Many American’s buy their coffee from the shop, but I like to make my coffee at home in my overly priced New York apartment. I rarely go out to buy a cup of coffee and if I do I usually get it from Starbucks. Starbucks to me is a luxury which I only reward myself once in a while. For me, their drinks are a little too expensive to enjoy regularly, but I still often find Starbucks suffocatingly busy every weekday morning. This makes me wonder if these are the same people who buy their coffee every day. How do they afford rent?
Mr. Wonderful’s Philosophy
I’m not the only one who views buying coffee as an unneeded expense. Shark Tank investor, Kevin O’Leary famously said, “Never do I do that. That is such a waste of money for something that costs 20 cents.” O’Leary is an avid coffee drinker, but never buys his coffee at coffee shops that mark up the cost. Instead, he makes his morning coffee at home every day and invests the difference.
According to NBC, an average cup of coffee is about 30 cents. In my experience, a cup of coffee goes for $4 or more. That’s more than a 30% price hike! So maybe O’Leary is on to something after all.
Put it into your savings
But how much can one actually save, or even earn, from not buying coffee? Let’s do a quick calculation for if we were to skip buying coffee for a whole year. Since Starbucks is the most well known coffee shop, we will use it’s average price for cup of coffee in our calculation. This is going to be around $5. Keep in mind that most people who go to Starbucks rarely buy an ordinary cup of coffee, but instead buy one of their specialty drinks. If you buy a morning…
