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EaAre you a daily coffee lover? Has your daily coffee habit taken over your budget? Do you need to save more money on coffee?

Anyone who knows me knows that I love a good coffee. My love of coffee has gone through different stages over the past couple of years. I have enjoyed work supplied coffee, home-brewed coffee, and specialty coffee from local coffee shops. Many of these daily habits have had both a positive and negative impact on my personal finances. There have been times when we could save more money on coffee and times when we busted our budget on coffee.

When it came time for us to get truly serious about budgeting, we had to analyze all of our expenses. We had determined what non-essential expenses we could sacrifice while on this debt repayment journey. Even with my love of coffee, I had to analyze this daily habit subjectively. I had to determine how much this daily habit actually cost me and determine if I was ready to emotionally and mentally cut this habit out.

Coffee and Money

During this process of calculating my daily coffee expenses my interest in understanding how coffee impacted other’s personal finances grew. After some research, I discovered American’s spend on average $1,100 a year on coffee according to MoneyMatters a report conducted by Acorns.

My favorite daily mocha beverage was costing us $1,971 a year which was considerably higher compared to the American’s average. According to a poll conducted by Amerisleep, I further discovered that 25 to 34-year-olds spend on average $2,008 a year on coffee. This was compared to those aged 35-44 who spent on average $1,410. All other age demographics in this poll spent below $400 a year based on 1,008 different responses.

After realizing how high my annual coffee expenses were, I began finding ways to cut back on my coffee habit. Cutting back on the number of days I visited a local coffee shop a week was my first step. However, I had to work on my relationship with coffee for this action to be successful. Coffee became a morning experience and routine that shaped the rest of my day. Cutting back on the number of days meant a disruption to the daily experience and routine I had. This also would have an impact on my day-to-day experience.

On the days that I avoided my favorite local coffee shop, I took a different route for my morning commute. Just making this simple actionable change helped curve last minute temptations. Through decreasing our number of visits to the local coffee shop, we expected to see our coffee expenses decrease greatly. At the end of 2017, I successfully managed to cut back more than half of our previous year’s coffee expenses. We expected to spend around $950 on coffee for the year, but we actually only spent $757!

Our annual expenses in 2018 decreased even further. This was due to us making a few additional changes and me being pregnant for half the year. After calculating our end of year expenses, we managed to only spend $476 on coffee for the year. Much of our success now is contributed to us consistently budgeting and gaining more control of our spending. By changing our relationship with coffee we found ways to reduce our overall coffee expenses.

What we have done to lower our coffee expenses?

Complimentary Coffee

Even with the changes in my routine my love of coffee still persisted. My mission now involved finding a way to save money and still enjoy a cup of coffee or two. Many times I would opt to enjoy a cup at my workplace. My workplace offers complimentary coffee in the lobby to staff, members and guests. Since we are a non-profit organization we make donations available.

With my weekly coffee donation, supplying my own creamer and providing k-cups, enjoying workplace coffee helped us save more money. Our budget saw an average weekly savings of $12. This may not seem like a lot but these savings allowed us to double a minimum debt payment.

Coffee Shop Specials

On other days, I would still enjoy visiting many of the local coffee shops throughout the year. These days were especially lucky when they had specials. My favorite go-to shop is always Caribou Coffee. Caribou houses my favorite specialty beverages such as their peppermint mochas, campfire mochas, and their turtle caramel mochas.

Within the first month of making Caribou a part of my daily routine, they had a barista who noticed. One day she mentioned that I could receive free any size beverages and size upgrades by joining Caribou’s Perks program. That barista turned out to be one of the best baristas there in my opinion. Every day she made me feel valuable and anticipated my needs. She provided a personable experience and recognized how I could benefit from their rewards program.

When I visited Caribou about 2.5 times a week, I earned around 13 free specialty beverages that year. As a daily coffee drinker, this was an awesome deal that saved me about $75 a year. This doesn’t even include the amount of savings from the free size upgrades and the buy one get one promotion.

Rewards Programs

Caribou Perks is just one way that we saved money on our daily coffee expenses. Their rewards program can benefit anyone as you can earn points by purchasing their products, breakfast items, and baked goods. Many popular coffee shops like Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts and Panera Bread offer rewards programs. Each program has different benefits but they are FREE to join and they help you save money!

If you are interested in saving even more on your daily coffee consider downloading the Level Up app and the Cups app. Each app provides a unique experience to purchasing coffee while also saving you money on every cup of java.

These are just a few steps that we have taken to reduce the daily cost of our coffee. However, we realize there are more opportunities to save more money with our daily coffee.

How we plan to save even more money on our daily coffee habit!

We knew now that in order to gain more control of our coffee spending we had to make some changes. We could stop consuming coffee altogether, or find healthier alternatives to consume or start brewing coffee at home. After we realized we were not ready to give up coffee, we decided to start brewing at home.

Perhaps you are wondering why I haven’t started brewing at home sooner. Well, believe it or not, I have not owned a coffee maker in the last 5 years. My previous coffee machine decided that it was done brewing after just a few years.

At that point, I decided that it was time to give up coffee versus buying a new coffee machine. My intention at the time was to save counter space, get healthier and save on my budget. Well, that lasted for about a month at the most. For the remainder of that year, I enjoyed iced mocha coffee as a morning protein shake.

After this phase, we begin enjoying coffee from our local coffee shops and the occasional workplace coffee. This means that since we decided to brew at home, we will need to determine the equipment we will need. First, we needed to determine what our budget and coffee needs were. After that, we could then research the various equipment available.

We are hoping this will be a one-time investment that will save us more money in the long run. With any investment, there may be a short term loss. In our case, we will most likely not see our annual coffee expenses decrease for 2019. However, we expect that this will be temporary and we will begin to see tremendous savings in 2020. Overall, the goal is to lower our coffee expenses while still enjoying delicious coffee every day.

What home brewing supplies do we need?

Coffee Machines

Almost 10 years ago I bought my first very own coffee machine for $10 from the local Family Dollar store. That coffee machine lasted me 4.5 years before it completed its final brew. Being in the market for a coffee machine has made me realize the variety that is available to consumers. A few choices are espresso machines, Keurig machines, and good ole’ fashion coffee brewers.

We had to start thinking about our relationship with coffee. Through this process, we hoped to understand how our coffee habit would develop in the next few years. Our relationship with coffee is determined by our “why” we drink coffee, how we like to enjoy our cup of java and where we get our coffee the most. Once we understood our relationship with coffee we could make a better purchase decision.

After evaluating our budget and our relationship with coffee we decided to choose a single serving Keurig machine. Between the two of us, we do not consume a whole pot of coffee in a day. Due to this fact, we decided the single serve would save us more money. Additionally, we hope to reduce coffee waste as well.

By purchasing a Keurig machine we will now have the ability to use K-Cups, Coffee Beans or Ground Coffee. In order for us to make coffee beans or ground coffee work, we will need additional coffee supplies.

Coffee Types

Our Keuring machine brews coffee with K-Cups which are a single serving size of ground coffee in a plastic cup. Most of our local stores sell K-Cups in a variety of brands and flavors. On average we expect to spend anywhere from $5.00 for 12 K-cups to $20 for 48 K-cups. Using just one K-Cup a day will decrease our daily coffee spending to $.45. This is over $4.00 less then what we were spending at our local coffee shop. This is incredible savings for us for just utilizing Keurig’s disposable K-cups. The opportunity to save even more on our home brewing coffee experience would be to purchase a reusable K-cup.

If we choose to invest in a reusable K-cup, we can then save money by purchasing ground coffee. We would expect this option to really reduce our annual coffee spending. Using the recommended serving size we could make around 295 10 oz cups of coffee. These recommendations are based on a 48 oz container of Folgers Classic Roast coffee. We are able to purchase a reusable K-cup anywhere between $7 and $15. When this cost is added to the $12 for a 48 oz container of coffee we found significant savings.

By utilizing a reusable K-Cup and a 48oz container of coffee, we expect to spend roughly $.15 a day. Mind you, this also allows us to enjoy a cup of coffee for about 295 days. By choosing this brewing method we expect our annual cost of coffee to be around $50 a year. This is over $400 in savings compared to our 2018 expenses. The savings from this method is amazing considering that we also still enjoy a cup of coffee a day.

Overall, our daily coffee expenses will be impacted by the brands and the type of coffee we decide to purchase. We understand that our daily coffee expenses would increase beyond $.15 a day by choosing specialty coffee. Specialty coffee can be bought from a store grounded or as coffee beans to be grounded.

The average daily cost per cup of coffee will be very dependent on the type of coffee we purchase, the brands we use, the amount we buy at once and how often we consume coffee within a given day. Needless to say, by investing in a home brewing system we expect to cut over 80% of our coffee expenses.

Coffee Extras

Now I am not a black coffee drinker. I have always added a small serving of delicious creamer and a spoonful of sugar. Since we are potentially saving more money by brewing homemade coffee, we can afford to splurge on creamer. However, we can save even more pennies by making our own creamer with our daily coffee habit. There are many benefits to making your own creamer at home. Some benefits of DIY creamer is choosing the flavors you love, saving money and it is a healthier alternative. We found 4 amazing recipes for homemade creamer over on the DIY Natural site here. My personal favorite is the French toast flavor.

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Will we save more money on our daily coffee?

Our goal was to save more money on our daily coffee while also still enjoying a cup a day. We set out to understand our relationship with coffee to truly help us reach this goal. Taking the time to analyze our relationship with coffee was beneficial. We ended up discovering why we liked coffee, how we enjoyed our coffee and where we purchased coffee the most. This process then allowed us to redefined these responses. This resulted in the decision to begin brewing our coffee at home. Brewing our coffee at home meant we could still enjoy a cup of coffee with our favorite flavors.

We are excited to save more money on our daily coffee. By making just a few small changes we can gain more control of our money. Additionally, we hope these changes will help us improve our health and increase time in our day.