How much is your coffee addiction costing you?
There’s no denying that a cup of joe has plenty of benefits. Besides the buzz of energy you feel with each sip, you are also lessening your chances of contracting a laundry list of diseases, including diabetes, cancer and Parkinson’s disease. You might enjoy the flavour of coffee, and look forward to wrapping your hands around a warm cup each morning.
Unfortunately, coffee has a few cons, too. Perhaps its biggest drawback is the cost that you have to pay to pick up your favorite brew each day. You pull a few dollars out of your wallet, so you probably don’t think about the cost that you’re incurring. However, it’s worth tallying up how much your coffee addiction is costing you.
How Much Do You Drink?
You’re not alone if you’re shaking in your boots right now: Globally, 400 billion cups of coffee are consumed each year. Obviously, this breaks down to more than one billion cups of coffee per day worldwide. The average American contributes to this factor by downing an average of 2.1 coffee beverages per day.
According to research, this number only goes up as we age. Maybe we need more of a caffeine kick, or we need more coffee to feel the same energy that we did when we first started drinking it. Clearly, coffee’s not going away anytime soon, so it’s time to take a look at what this drink is costing you.
What’s the Bottom Line?
In order to compute how much money you spend each day on coffee, you first need to consider how many beverages you order per week. We discussed this above, so you’re probably already tallying the number of coffees, espressos and lattes that you’re ordering. For women, the drink of choice is typically a latte, followed close behind by a classic cup of coffee. Men prefer the latter, although their second-favourite way to drink coffee is through a strong shot of espresso.
Pull out an old receipt to find the cost of your go-to beverage and multiply that by the amount of drinks that you order each week. Although you probably don’t work every single week of the year, multiply the weekly cost by 52 to get an idea of how much you shell out each year to fuel your work or school day.
Are you seeing more numbers on the bottom line than you thought you would? You’re not alone. As of 2012, the average American paid an average of $1,092 per year on coffee, and we all know that coffee-shop prices have only risen since then. Younger buyers between the ages of 18 and 34 spent more than those 45 and older. Perhaps a fancy coffee order is to blame.
How Can You Spend Less?
For some, the yearly expense of coffee is worth the quadruple-digit bottom line, but you might be a bit shell-shocked from the number on your own tab. If you fall into the latter category, there’s good news for you: It’s easy to slash those digits down to a much more manageable number.
The easiest way to cut costs is to brew your own coffee at home rather than purchasing it from a coffee shop. Let’s imagine that your favorite latte costs you $3 each day, which adds up to $21 per week, $84 per month. A one-pound bag of coffee, on the other hand, could cost anywhere between $7 and $12, depending on where you buy it. Even if that lasts you only two weeks, that means you can brew 14 cups of coffee for less than a dollar a day.
Sweeten the deal by investing in a new set of coffee mugs that you’ll look forward to using each and every morning. If you miss that special touch that your local barista puts on your coffee, you don’t have to give it up entirely: Treat yourself to a professionally brewed cup, say, once a week as a reward.
No matter what, you can breathe a big sigh of relief, as you don’t have to give up your love of coffee in order to pad your wallet. Just brew wisely, sip on and do big things with that little burst of energy you’re now feeling.
