Spending Less & Traveling More
Part I, Coffee
Does every piece of financial advice start with cutting your coffee budget now? Seriously, every "finance guru" acts like making coffee at home will make the down payment for a $300,000 home sprout from your pile of used coffee grounds.
Since both of us are huge coffee drinkers, I am going to share some real life things that we are doing to reduce our coffee expenditures instead of rattling off statistics about what the average American spends at Starbucks annually.
We love visiting different coffee shops and supporting small businesses. Sometimes you just crave something a little too complicated to be made at home. We also use coffee shops as a place to catch up on work, planning, or just spend some time inside when the weather is bad.
Because of all this, we have no intention of completely axing coffee shops entirely from our budget. That said, we have been trying to space our visits out a bit more. I look at it as "making them count." Instead of running into the coffee shop for a few minutes after work, I try to go on days we are actually planning to spend some time there, whether to catch up on work or because we just need to get out of the house for a bit.
#2 - Making *Good* Coffee at home
We didn't buy a Drunken Donuts level espresso machine / milk frother and 62 syrups to sit on the kitchen counter. While I have seen people create elaborate home coffee shops, I question whether this actually eliminates pre-made coffee purchases since convenience and atmosphere are also factors. What we did do is invest in some high quality coffee and creamer. It can be mentally tough to spend $15 on a bag of coffee in the store, but remember that the whole idea is to keep from spending $5 on a single cup of coffee.
We have also upped our coffee mug and travel cup game because yes, it DOES matter what you drink out of! Treat yourself to an insulated cup with a cool design and a straw (if that’s your thing). Not only will it encourage you to actually make coffee at home, but you can opt for refills and help the environment when you do go to the coffee shop.
#3 - Spending less when we do buy coffee
Since we still buy coffee on a semi-regular basis, it is worth mentioning that there are a few ways we save on our order (without aggressively smashing the “no tip” button after paying $14 for two lattes).
Simplifying our orders is one of the least surprising ways we have cut down on the tab. Opting for a non espresso drink usually saves 40 to 50 percent. As an added bonus, your body will thank you for not starting the day with a latte induced sugar rush. Don’t feel like stepping all the way down to basic coffee? Cold brew is my happy in-between, with the smoothness of espresso at significantly lower cost.
The biggest savings for us has been our coffee subscription service. We are not sponsored by anyone who is trying to sell coffee (yet?). Many small coffee shops are starting to offer deals where you buy their cup and get free or discounted refills. We opted to keep our Panera subscription even beyond the free trial period. It costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $22 a month for both of us, and we can get free hot or iced coffee, tea and charged lemonades for free as often as every two hours. This one has been huge, because it allows us to get coffee on the go without breaking the bank. Panera is also generally a pretty nice place inside (as I write from inside of Panera).
So there you go, it’s not earth shattering, but our coffee spending has gone down pretty significantly in 2023 without having to sacrifice any of the sacred bean juice!
~ Noah Winslow
@The_Broke_Globetrotters on Instagram
https://thebrokeglobetrotter.blogspot.com/
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