Year: 2018

It’s almost as much of a savings cliche as checking out books at the library instead of buying them: Making coffee at home is a big money saver over going to Starbucks.

It seems like a no-brainer that making coffee at home is a lot less expensive than paying someone else to make it for you, whether that’s at Starbucks, Peet’s or your local doughnut shop. It’s an easy way to bash Starbucks — which I still visit too often while still making my morning coffee at home — by pointing out the obvious savings.

Pretty much anything you do at home is going to be a lot cheaper than going out for it. That includes meals, washing clothes and growing your own produce.
What I wanted to do, after talking up the savings of making coffee at home for years, is actually add up the costs and see if it’s really worth your time. If the savings isn’t too big, such as within a dime or so, you might as well save some time and go to Starbucks or wherever each day for your cup of coffee. Your time is worth money, but sometimes it’s worth it to pay someone else to do the service for you. That’s partly how restaurants stay in business.

Before I get into the costs of how I make coffee at home, here’s a video lesson from Matt Giovanisci of Roasty Coffee (which isn’t quite yet a live site, though you can sign up for updates) on my preferred method of using a French Press:

I should point out that I’m not getting paid by Roasty to promote it, but think it’s a great idea.

The costs

A French Press can cost $ 20 to $ 50. I’ve bought a few of the $ 20, 8-cup Recycled Coffee Press by Bodum. I say “a few” because while they’re dishwasher safe, they’re made of glass and shouldn’t go on the bottom rack. Put them up high in the dishwasher, where there’s less chance of breakage.

The next big cost is coffee. I go with whole beans at Costco because buying more expensive ground beans seems like a waste of money when you can ground the whole beans for free at Costco. I pay $ 20 for a 3-pound bag, which easily lasts my wife and I two months.

Matt at Roasty recommends also having a grinder, scale and kettle at home. Those are too expensive for me. I grind my coffee for free at the store, scoop it out with a tablespoon as my measuring instrument, and heat tap water in the microwave oven.

Do the math

Now comes the main mathematical question of how much coffee can I get out of a 3-pound bag of coffee beans?

According to Askville by Amazon, the usual formula is that one ounce of coffee is used for every 16 ounces of water. A pound of coffee will make 256 ounces.
That equates to 32 eight-ounce cups of coffee.
A Starbucks Grande size is equal to 16 ounces. So my one pound of coffee at home would equal 16 16-ounce cups of coffee. Multiply that by three pounds of coffee beans, and you’ve got 48 cups of 16-ounce coffee, or 48 Grandes at Starbucks for $ 20 worth of coffee.

Divide that $ 20 by 48, and it costs 41 cents per 16-ounce cup of coffee.
A Grande Cafe Mocha at Starbucks costs $ 4.15, according to HackTheMenu, which is an order I assume people are more likely to make than the $ 1.95 Grande size of regular coffee at Starbucks.

Savings of making coffee at home: $ 3.74
The savings of making coffee at home equates to $ 3.74 per 16-ounce cup.
Here’s the math: 4.15 – 0.41 = $ 3.74.

That’s how much more it costs to buy it at Starbucks. At 41 cents per cup of coffee, my wife and I drink at home probably six days per week, adding up to $ 4.92 per week, or $ 19.68 per month.

These expenses don’t include the upfront costs of a coffee press, electricity and any extras you add to your home-brewed coffee, such as flavorings or creamer. And they surely don’t include the cost of your time.

Other benefits of making coffee at home

If the money saved by making coffee at home adds up to enough of a savings for you, then it’s worth it. But if your time is worth more than the $ 3.74 saved, then it’s worthwhile to go to Starbucks or elsewhere for your coffee.

But even with that extra time and effort of making coffee at home, I think it’s worth it to make it at home. Without getting all Zen about it, there’s something relaxing about cooking — whether it’s a complicated dinner, a simple sandwich for lunch, or a pot of coffee. There’s also the knowledge that you know exactly what’s going into your cup of coffee, and the pride in making it yourself.

This isn’t to say that an occasional trip to Starbucks or a meal out isn’t a worthy expense. We all deserve a treat.

But remember that it is an expense. Making coffee at home an average of six days per week saves me $ 3.74 per day, or $ 22.44 per week, or $ 89.76 per month, or $ 1,077.12 per year. For my wife and I, that equates to $ 2,154.24 per year in savings by making coffee at home.

That’s a lot of cash. What would you do with that cash? Spend it or save it? We throw out some options in this post.

Don’t you just love to grocery shop? “What,” you say, “love grocery shopping?” The truth is that very few people love to grocery shop. It’s just another chore that needs to be faced once a week – if you’re well organized – or several times a week if you’re not. Of course, the big problem is really not grocery shopping. It’s making a grocery list, which means meal planning and scanning your pantry or closet to see which items you’re short on. Then maybe there’s lunch for the kids or even for you to take to work. Yuck.
While there’s no way to make grocery shopping a breeze, there are things you can do to make it easier and here are 13 of them.

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1. Buy in bulk
When you buy in bulk you not only save money it can help cut down on your grocery shopping. Of course, to do it right you have to do some thinking. For example when something goes on sale you know you should buy as much of it as you can and then store it. But you need to think what would make sense to store. When frozen vegetables are 10 for $10 it would make sense to buy 20 or 30 but do you have room to store that many? The same is true of frozen chickens. When they’re on sale for 99 cents a pound you might want to buy a lot but do you have enough room to store even three?

2. Talk among yourselves
Do you remember this line from Saturday Night Live? Well, even if you don’t it makes sense to keep it in mind. It can be very annoying when you do a week’s worth of grocery shopping only to see your spouse come home the next day with a gallon of milk that you don’t need. That’s just a waste of money. It’s important to communicate with each other about your groceries and your meal planning as this can prevent wasteful spending.

3. Label stuff
When you buy ingredients for meals you plan on fixing later in the week it’s a good idea to label them. That way you won’t reach into your pantry for those cans of tomato soup you need only to find one of them has already been consumed.

4. Play favorites
Do you shop at the same supermarket every week? When you do this you get to know the store’s layout as well as the prices of the things you buy most often. Then when the store offers something “on sale” you’ll know whether it’s a really good bargain.

5. Put your grocery list online or on your smart phone
You could make your best grocery list ever but it won’t do you much good if you forget to take it with you. It’s just very hard to remember 30 or more items. But if you put your list online or on your smart phone it will always be there. We have a shopping list app right on our phone, which makes this very simple. If you don’t have such an app you could put the list on Google Drive and then access it from anywhere.

6. Look for discounted items
When products, especially bakery items, are about to expire your grocery store will discount them. The same can be true of canned food and meat. Look for these items in your store because the discounts you’ll find are usually substantial and the food is still okay to eat. Don’t forget generic brands, as they will always be cheaper than brand name items. We probably buy one third of our grocery items as generic and have never had a problem with their taste or freshness.

7. Use your smart phone for something besides phone calls
There are apps available like Fresh 20 and Emeals that will provide recipes, a weekly menu list and even a grocery shopping list. In fact, if you follow the suggestions you’ll find on these apps you may never have to worry about dinner again. There is also Plan to Eat and Ziplist, which will organize your recipes for you and then convert your favorite meals into shopping lists and meal schedules. In short, these apps will do almost all the thinking for you – at least when it comes to grocery shopping

8. Make sure you store food correctly
It can be very depressing to buy a whole week of food and then end up tossing away half of it because it went bad. A good investment is to spend a few minutes learning how to keep your food fresh for longer. As an example of this, you could stand fresh herbs in water. This will be pretty and is also practical.

9. Make a week’s worth of meals
Do you have friends that set aside one day a week such as Sunday and then make a week’s worth of meals and freeze them? You could do it yourself at home or go to services such as Dream Dinners or Wildtree. Check out your Yellow Pages and you’ll probably find other stores near you that offer the ingredients and workspace you would need to do this.

10. Let the family help
You really don’t have to do all the meal planning yourself. Ask your kids what they would like for dinner. Or give them a couple of cookbooks and let them look for stuff they would like. Be sure to tell them that desserts are not entrées or you could end up with suggestions of cupcakes for dinner.11. Create themesConsider having themed meals. For example, Tuesday could be taco night. Thursday could be spaghetti night. Wednesday could be what we call upside down dinner, which is basically having breakfast for dinner. These will be meals that everybody loves and when you do them weekly, it will take a lot of the stress out of menu planning

11. Create theme nights
Consider having themed meals. For example, Tuesday could be taco night. Thursday could be spaghetti night. Wednesday could be what we call upside down dinner, which is basically having breakfast for dinner. These will be meals that everybody loves and when you do them weekly, it will take a lot of the stress out of menu planning.

12. Become a coupon Queen or King
These days there are coupons available that will save you money on almost everything you buy. Your favorite supermarket may even be sending you coupons personalized to your buying habits as ours does. Plus, there are sites like Thecrazycouponlady and CouponChef where you’ll find thousands of coupons that will save you money and help with your menu planning. For example, if you were to find a coupon that would save you $2 on a pound of steak why not plan a meal around it instead of the fish dish you had been planning?

13. Go really big
We realize this doesn’t work for everyone. In fact, it may work only for a select few. But if you plan your meals for an entire year, it will be over and done with for 365 days. Then when Saturday rolls around instead of having to sit down and think about what meals you’re going to fix that week all you’ll have to do is make a grocery list.