Financial pundits suggest you’re losing $1M by buying a daily cup of coffee while noting the average millennial spends over $2,000 each year at coffee shops. Others say you deserve your cup every morning or point out the financial experts’ math is flawed. Is purchasing a simple cup of coffee the difference between a million dollar retirement and the poor house?
What it is
In his book The Latte Factor, David Bach discusses the idea that regularly spending small amounts of money can add up to massive sums, perhaps even delaying or reducing your ability to be financially comfortable. Suze Orman went even further with her claim that you could be wasting over $1M by buying your coffee every morning.
Savings from skipping your daily coffee
The best way to determine the cost of skipping your daily coffee is to put some numbers to it. Here are the parameters: You purchase coffee every day for $5, you have 40 years until retirement, and you’ll earn 8% on your investments over that time. If instead you took that $5 and invested it, in 40 years you would have earned a little more than $486,000. Not the millions that some people suggest, but still a large amount of money for a seemingly small input every day. Obviously if you spend less on coffee or earn a different rate of return, your results will vary.
However, not all of you are coming to this discussion with 40 years to go until you retire, and you may be spending less than $5 per day, or maybe you only purchase coffee on weekdays. So, let’s look at another example: you spend $3 per day for black coffee, you only buy it on the way to work five days per week, and you have 20 years until you retire. We’ll keep the earnings rate at 8%. In 20 years, you would have earned around $34,000. While this may seem a small amount of money, consider the effect it could have on any outstanding debt you may have.
These two examples assume that you invest your coffee savings every month. The $5 coffee would add up to $150 invested per month, based on a 30-day month. The $3 coffee would total just $60 per month because you’re saving $15 per week for four weeks (remember, no weekend coffee!).
It’s not just coffee
While The Latte Factor grabbed a lot of attention, coffee is just one example of a small purchase that may have an outsized effect on your savings. Some other areas to watch for include:
- buying lunch every day instead of bringing food from home
- purchasing magazines or books when you’re waiting in line at the grocery store
- paying for unused subscriptions
- paying bank fees, especially for ATMs
You don’t have to give up your coffee…maybe
What this really comes down to is two things: are you paying your bills in full every month, and are you making conscious decisions about your spending?
Paying your bills. If you’re spending money on small things, whether it’s coffee or a subscription to a streaming service that you rarely use and you cannot pay your bills, you should cut back immediately. The savings – no matter how small – will help reduce your debt quicker than if you keep spending. And honestly, if you’re not using a service you may not miss it at all when you cancel.
Spend on what you really want. Are you someone who loves the smell of coffee? Does the aroma put a smile on your face when you walk into your coffee shop? Is coffee one of your most important expenditures? Or are you buying it because there’s a coffee shop right next to your office?
I get it – sometimes you oversleep and barely make it out the door, meaning you a) may need coffee due to lack of sleep, and b) didn’t have time to make it. For those rare instances, buying a coffee shouldn’t concern you. However, when you regularly let the $5 coffee grow cold and pour it out, it might be time to consider its importance to you. That said, if your financial house is in order and it’s truly something you’ve thought about and want to spend money on every morning, more power to you.
If you find that you’d like to cut back on some of the small expenditures, consider trying a short-term break to see if you even miss the item. Maybe you cancel a couple of the streaming services you haven’t used recently. Perhaps you make coffee every morning for a month. Not only will this save you money, but it will also help you decide between things you really want to spend money on and those items that you can do without.
Photo by Blank Space