One of our guilty pleasures / go-to comfort items is coffee. Not just regular old black coffee with a splash of fancy creamer. No. Like the multitude of people who wait in line at Starbucks (or whichever coffee seller you choose), we like the "Grande, 2-pump, vanilla latte, with whip." The coffee "splurge" that costs around $4 a cup and makes you feel all warm and fuzzy because whether your recognize it or not, you're part of a kaffeeklatsch. A gang, if you will, or a coffee tribe.
But what do you do when you need to cut back on that habit?
Do you limit yourself to just one trip a week? That works until you're stressed out or running late and you tell yourself you need a quick fix, just this one time. Turns out, you're more stressed than you realize because a week later, you're back to old habits. (not that I'm speaking from experience.)
It may be easier (in the long run), to just cut off that habit completely and start making your own coffee drinks at home. If you want to still feel like you're a part of your coffee tribe, you can buy one of your kaffeeklatsch's reusable to-go mugs and sip your home brew out of that.
This is how much money we spent on coffee last year
Okay, I know it's not sexy, but here's what we spent on coffee drinks in 2015 (when our lives were perpetually stressed) and 2016 when we tried the "once a week" trick:
- 2015: $1,436—Yep, you read that right. We spent over $1,400 on coffee drinks.
- 2016: $746—still a nice chunk of change, but noticeably reduced from the previous year
Whether you have an espresso maker, a coffee maker, or (my honest preference) a French press you can make a decent home brew. Add in a good ground coffee, some simple syrup, and foamed milk and you won't miss your store-bought brew at all. In fact, we discovered that we liked our home brew far better than the Starbuck's coffee.
How to make your home brew taste better and cost less than Starbucks
- Buy a really good coffee. Seriously. Even when we bought a $15 bag of coffee, we were still spending far less per drink than we were when we'd buy our grande lattes at Starbucks. Initially, we figured if we were replacing Starbucks-brewed coffee, why not buy Starbucks coffee beans? What we discovered was, we didn't *love* the Starbucks roasted beans (and they cost us about $15/lb.). We started trying other brands and were happy with Gevalia ($7/12 oz.) for a while, but now we buy a medium roast fair trade coffee (for about $10/12 oz.). — a side note: if you love Starbucks blend coffee, buying the 2lb. bag of beans at CostCo or Sam's is the way to go. Just know that you'll have to grind your own beans.
- Make your own simple syrup. It's actually quite easy and costs far less than buying the pre-made simple syrup from the store (which is still cheaper than buying drinks from Starbucks). The recipe is essentially 1 cup water to 1 cup sugar, heated in a pan on the stovetop until the sugar dissolves. From there you can add 1/2 teaspoon of whichever flavorings you like.
- Simple Syrup recipe: 1 part water to 1 part sugar. Heat in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Let cool.
- Add flavorings (optional):
- Peppermint: add 1/2 tsp. peppermint extract
- Vanilla: add 1/2-1 tsp. vanilla extract
- Almond: add 1/2 tsp. almond extract
- Froth your milk. This is absolutely not a necessity, but it's fun and makes you feel like you're drinking those fancier coffees. If you don't have an espresso maker with a frothing attachment, you can buy frothing wands (not an affiliate link) fairly cheaply and they're super effective. You can also microwave your milk for 20-30 seconds and that will add a bit of froth to it (though nothing like the other frothers).
The cost per drink will depend on how much you spend on the ingredients and how large a drink you make, but we now spend about 90¢ for our grande lattes (made with fair trade coffee & organic milk) vs. the $4-ish we were spending.
As for the equipment—we're using a 21 year old espresso machine that my parents handed down to me 15 years ago. When that breaks (as it does on occasion) we switch to a plain old coffee maker. We put in enough coffee for a full pot, but use only a half a pot of water (so it's a bit stronger). What we don't use, we refrigerate (or freeze) for later.
How to extend your coffee to save even more money
Once this habit becomes routine, it's normal to think, "yes, but... how can we save even more?"
For me, this question popped up when our second income ebbed a bit. Rather than give up coffee altogether, I looked for ways to stretch the coffee budget a little further.
Note: we decided long ago that we wouldn't forgo organic milk—even though it was more expensive, because we found that it didn't upset our stomachs (whereas the cheaper, non-organic milks did).
- Buy coffee beans only when on sale (or with a coupon or rebate). We now stock up when there is a really good sale and put the ground coffee in the freezer.
- Mix it with cheaper coffee. Supplement your really good coffee by mixing it with a cheaper (but still good) coffee.
- Make New Orleans style coffee by mixing in some chicory. (Skip the 6.5 oz box from Coffee Partner, which costs about $8, and look for bulk chicory root online. A good price is between $8-$12/lb.) I use 1 part chicory to 2 parts coffee. It adds a slightly mellow flavor but doesn't overwhelm.
- Use less milk in your coffee.
- Use cream instead of milk. Instead of a half cup of milk, use a tablespoon of cream.You lose the frothiness, but it works just as well to cut the acidity and mellow out your coffee.
- Cut out the sugar. It doesn't save you a ton of money, but it's better for your health and you get used to the stronger taste.
And if you're interested in cutting the coffee habit even further—start replacing one of your daily cups of coffee with a cup of tea. Tea is much cheaper than coffee and you can still make a latte with tea as the base. This is basically what a chai latte is. It won't be as robust as the coffee, but it can still fill that need. If you take the tea latte route, I would start with a strong black tea and experiment from there.
In the end, we saved a load of money by changing our coffee habits and brewing our own coffee drinks at home. If we'd adopted this habit 2 years ago, we would have saved over $1,000 on that $1,400+ coffee bill.
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