Over $1,300 bucks a year for coffee??

[Cyrano]

That's what I'd been spending either at Starbucks or some other "gourmet" coffee shop.

There I was, a full-time devout liberal, standing in line every morning and too many noontimes, waiting for the privilege of throwing away money. And one day it occurred to me that there are too many people in the world who don't make that much in a year.

My liberal guilt got to me and I started buying coffee in the supermarket, making it myself, and taking a thermos full of it along with me.

It hasn't helped those who earn too little, but it sure as hell has helped me to stop hanging up so quickly on charity calls, or throwing away "junk mail." Much of the money I was literally pissing away, now goes to organizations like Doctors Without Borders.

Perhaps I'm not saving the world, but at least I've assuaged my "liberal guilt." And I just might be making a tiny bit of difference with those contributions.

Think about it the next time you're standing there waiting to pay far too much for a hit of caffeine.

[Auggie]

1. Amazing, isn't it? I was spending over $2000 a year on cigarettes

until I quit.

Congratuations.

[karlrschneider]

3. Same here! I quit last summer and bought a 42" HDTV with the money I saved

:-)
edit: by the way, I have never been inside a Starbucks. In fact I'm not sure I've ever even seen one.

[proud patriot]

14. my husband and I spent a fortune on smokes before we quit

:hi:

[Auggie]

18. Congratulations all around

[XboxWarrior]

60. Coffee is "ok" as a stimulant......

But Cocaine is way better.

and about the same price as "starbucks", used moderately.

Go Cocaine!

[Avalux]

2. I don't spend a nickel at Starbucks.

I buy my beans at Costco, grind them myself and make my own coffee with my french press. The money I save is used for better, more purposeful things, like contributing to Barack Obama. :D

[canoeist52]

4. Good for the both of you!

Though I never smoked I still have a coffee habit. But the only money I spend on coffee is in the supermarket. Love my thermos!

[Lex]

5. Starbucks coffee sucks so bad they'd have to pay ME to drink it.

Over-roasted beans are their specialty apparently. No wonder people have to put all the sugar and whipped cream and vanilla syrup in it to stand it. Ugh.

[marmar]

6. I kicked my $20 a week soy latte habit at 'Bucks....

... and honestly, if it wasn't for all the soy milk taking the bite out of their over-roasted beans, their coffee would taste like a cup of dirt water.

[roseBudd]

7. I've always been too cheap for more than occasional Starbucks.. I have a

12 cup aluminum stovetop expresso pot from TJMaxx. I buy my coffee at TJMaxx and I carry a travel mug to work every day

On the weekends I froth my milk with a frother from TJMaxx.

[canoeist52]

8. Dunkin donuts coffee used to be good years ago

but the last time I tasted it it tasted like old chock-full-of-nuts. I like home ground better.

[Kittycat]

13. Home Ground & a French Press - can't beat it anywhere.

[stillcool]

21. spoiled me...

the only coffee I drink comes from my home.

[Fresh_Start]

9. gave up may starbucks fix about 3 years ago

like you I upped my charitable donations

and while I'd always volunteered, I increased my volunteering especially in getting food, clothing, school supplies, baby supplies in addition to the toys I'd previously regularly donated. Even here in California people need winter clothing especially now while heating is so dear

[Cyrano]

11. Talking about charities, here's an interesting story.

After Hurricane Katrina, I made a contribution to Doctors Without Borders. About a week later, I tried to make another and was told to hold up. They said they had enough money for the time being!!!

When's the last time you heard that from any charitable organization?

They are the absolute best. And many doctors have risked their own lives for years in the genocidal slaughter houses of the world. A couple of years back, the TV show "ER" highlighted the kind of work they are doing under extremely dangerous conditions in Africa.

Think of them the next time you make a contribution. They put it to good use.

[Fresh_Start]

15. I got them in December

while most of my charitable giving is US (since there is plenty of suffering here)...
I support Doctors without Borders, World Food Programme, and Feed the Children continually.

[anamandujano]

10. I'm glad I never developed a Starbuck's or cigarette habit.

Just thinking about all the money I saved that I never earned in the first place makes me giddy.

(I do get Starbuck's gift cards from the richer end of the family though.)

[AlCzervik]

12. their coffee hurts my stomach, like actual pain. I brew my own plain old coffee

flavored coffee at home. no half caf double decaf soy mocha latte chai for me, just some black coffee.

[proud patriot]

16. I'm glad you found a more fullfilling way to spend that money

:hi:

[L. Coyote]

17. And, if you don't know, find out what "fair trade" coffee means

[Hekate]

31. Trader Joe's carries fairly-priced Fair Trade, Shade Grown, and Organic whole bean coffees...

They taste good, too! My neighborhood TJ's is a great resource.

Hekate

[yellowdogintexas]

57. So does Central Market if you live in a Texas city that is lucky enough to have one

I only buy Fair Trade coffee at CM and have discovered some wonderful coffee there. I brew my own, and when I want coffee at work, I keep my own good cream in the frige and take the free coffee service coffee. I will have a Starbucks when I am on the road, or out shopping as a treat.

[tyedyeto]

19. Never had the habit and never will but....

my s/o would buy coffee when we'd 'go to town'... at one of the bookstores we frequent. He'd always ask for COFFEE and they'd always ask, "What kind? Or What do you want in it?".


His reply....... Regular coffee, black, nothing in it, no extras.


They always look at him as if he's from another planet! LOL

[Lorien]

20. I have a friend who is still renting a crappy duplex at age 46

he and his wife have long dreamed of owning a home, but they don't have enough squirreled away for a downpayment. He spends roughly $7 a day on Starbucks chai. Even at only 300 day of buying chai per year, that's $2,100.00. They've been in the crappy duplex for 10 years. Had they set aside his chai money alone, they would have had 21,000.00 for a down payment by now. Add her Starbucks habit into the mix and it would have brought them to about $34,000.00. The little things really add up! When I mentioned this to my friend he became somewhat depressed about it-but he still has two chais each day. :shrug:

[Cyrano]

22. I guess that just goes to prove that we have a deity who can't see the future.

What a screw up. You'd think He/She/It would have come up with an Eleventh Commandment telling people to avoid overpaying for coffee.

I'm not sure whether we should blame Charlton Heston, C.B. Demille, or the Spaghetti Monster.

[Dorian Gray]

44. A Chai a Day

Keeps Owning a House far away!

(I have a Starbucks coffee about once every other week. It is a splurge, but not an every day splurge.)

[conscious evolution]

23. I spend that much myself

Not at starbucks though.My money goes to a small locally owned shop which buys fair trade coffee.
Coffe growers and barristas got make a living to, you know.

[spooky3]

24. I've never bought a coffee at Starbucks.

I'll admit to being smug about it!

Glad to hear you've assuaged your guilt.

[ordinaryaveragegirl]

25. Gave up my Starbucks fix almost 2 years ago.

And have saved a bundle. I've put it toward paying off some of my bills. It's amazing what giving up something so small can do for your budget. If I get coffee out of the house, it's usually somewhere like QuikTrip, where it's less than $1 for a vanilla cappuccino. And for the price, it's not half-bad!

[EFerrari]

26. Isn't it great to be free of that stuff?

:toast: to you, Cyrano.

[Djinn]

27. you couldn't PAY me to drink the dishwater

Americans think passes for coffee.

You should be fined for ever drinking anything made by starfucks or any of the other "coffee" chains that think it is acceptable to pour sweet sickly chemically enhanced "flavouring" in coffee.

I live in Melbourne and if it's not illegal to dislike coffee here it might as well be. Never pay more than a couple of dollars and it's REAL coffee not the over ground, over roasted, percolated abomination I was served in the US (this wasn't backwater mid west either)

Yes I could spend the money I spend on coffee, cigarettes, restaurants, shoes, perfume etc on something more worthwhile but where do you draw the line. 95% of the crap we buy in the west isn't neccesary.

[leftofthedial]

28. good for you.

:thumbsup:

[El Pinko]

29. I've never felt rich enough to buy coffee at Starbucks.

More power to them that they're a slightly progressive company, but I have always brewed my own and it's delicious, thank you.

[BobTheSubgenius]

30. "not saving the world"?

Let's say that you devoted that money to Good Works, whatever they might be. Let's also say that a mere one person in 300 did the same. In the US alone, that would come to a billion and a half dollars a year, doing good in the world.

I'd say that was more than a tiny bit of difference. Nice, Cyrano.

[pnorman]

32. I don't really care for Starbucks coffee, and if I'm on the street, I'll go elsewhere if possible.

But I don't really understand the smug self-congratulatory glee that some people here on DU display when bashing Starbucks. It isn't really Walmart! As for myself, I haven't bought GROUND coffee in over 40 years. It's been all BEANS, with most being ordered by internet, mainly from Gevalia.com. But I occasionally order elsewhere, with my latest one being Fair Trade Organic Ethiopian Yirgacheffe from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. Ymmmmmm!!!

I have almost every conceivable coffee maker in my tiny kitchen, including a very nice Capresso espresso maker, but this is what I use about 99% of the time: http://www.aerobie.com/Products/aeropress_story.htm Read it carefully, and consider giving it a try. You will NOT regret it!

I just LOVE it when the chatter at DU turns to coffee!

pnorman
On edit: Here's the Amazon description & reviews: http://www.amazon.com/Aerobie-Aeropress-Espresso-Maker/dp/B000J17FI0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1202374567&sr=8-2 That's five stars out of five, from 85 customer reviews! Consider giving it a try. And YES, it DOES look a bit like a "P*nis Pump", but ONLY to the dirty-minded!

[orleans]

33. i'm on the aeropress site you linked too--it looks really interesting

do you boil or heat water or is this electric and the press heats the water?

i'm also on amazon--they are selling it for 25.99

[pnorman]

35. I have on my kitchen table, ranging from left to right:

A mid-range priced burr-type grinder, a Brita water filter, and a Zojirushi hot water maker. The beauty of this device is that you can carry it ANYWHERE, with the heating of the water being a separate but trivial task. But it WILL use more beans per cup of standard octane coffee, than other makers. The output is LOW-acid concentrate that I dilute w/hot water. Mmmmmmm!!! And being low-acid, the concentrate should store very nicely in the fridge for several days. (Haven't tried that yet).

I routinely discard the filter when discarding the 'puck' into the trash-bin, but it's supposed to be sturdy enough for many rewashings.

pnorman
PS: When I first came to Seattle in 1981, the downtown tapwater was just fine. But no longer; the Chlorine odor is now quite noticeable. So I now use that Brita filter for all my coffee & tea usages.
PPS: I was about halfway through the Amazon reviews, when I stopped to check DU. (A compulsive tic, that I can NOT break!)

[orleans]

36. thank you. n/t

[chelaque liberal]

41. Thanks-I just ordered it. You should get a commission.

I looks like the perfect gift for a friend I have been wanting to thank.

[pnorman]

47. I don't recall a product that was so well designed, and pleasingly "minimalist"!

And it's not only very easy to clean, but appears to be nearly indestructible. But as I had indicated, you'll be using noticeably more coffee per serving than with other brewing methods. I generally start the morning off with THREE measures of bean in the grinder, and then put the device over a 14 oz. mug, diluting to about 3/4 level. STRONG, but enjoyable! I really haven't experimented yet with grind and/or water temperature.

My earlier "favorite" was a vacuum method by Hario (Japan), that used a spirit lamp at the base. That one was not only tedious cleaning but FRAGILE! I've already gone through 2 lower bowls, 1 upper bowl, and the filter holder device. But it hasn't been used since I got this Aeropress, about 8 months ago!

pnorman
PS: Please send my "commission" to DU at the next fund-raiser!

[pnorman]

55. If anyone is still monitoring this Starbucks thread, here are a few more observations:

This is NOT Seattle-style "coffee snobbery" --- use fresh-roasted BEANS, and use a grinder so that they'll be ground just before you start the brewing. Both points are very important!

Whirling blade "grinders" are okay, but they don't yield consistent grinds; very important with some brewing methods. Burr-grinders are much better in that respect, and aren't much more expensive ($40~$60). The ones that are in the $100 and up price point, are of the slow-grind variety. Reportedly, they don't "burn" the coffee while grinding. I can only guess about that. If you're out camping, hand grinder are available. Slightly tedious but well worth the effort (unless you're making coffee for a passel of ornery cow-punchers!)

Here's a website I check from time to time: http://coffeegeek.com/. And here are the Aeropress reviews: http://coffeegeek.com/search?DO=&Search_SearchForm_Query=aeropress&Search_SearchForm_Submit.x=18&Search_SearchForm_Submit.y=11
Check out the other articles and reviews. You can admire the enthusiasm, without (hopefully!) getting sucked into the fanaticism.

The next logical step would be ROASTING the beans. Roasters can be "pricey", but decent ones are quite affordable. The main problem would be the smoke. I don't have a convenient back porch to my 2nd floor studio apartment, so I'd probably be setting off the smoke detector each time. But for others interested, here's another good website: http://www.sweetmarias.com/

And here's something absolutely WILD --- civet-cap poop!: http://www.lifeaftercoffee.com/2005/09/16/the-straight-poop-on-kopi-luwak-coffee/ ENJOY!

pnorman
On edit: That damn kitty poo-poo coffee is $180 a pound!: http://www.animalcoffee.com/products.php?cat=12 And here's what it looks like in it's "natural" state: http://www.animalcoffee.com/natural.php

[quark219]

34. Tea's better for you

...although it stains your teeth more. What little coffee I drink I get free at work.

[krkaufman]

37. You can save the world by buying shade grown coffee. : ) n/t

[La Coliniere]

38. Bravo!

Starbuck's coffee always seems bitter to me and way over priced. I purchase Fair Trade coffees from my local food co-op. I go through phases; right now it's shade grown organic sumatran, yum!!! Ethiopian and Guatemalan are also quite nice. These beans cost a little more, but nowhere near if you were to buy your java at Starbuck's, not even close.

[KharmaTrain]

39. Wow...I'll Spend The Savings On A $2 Bottle Of Water...

I'm proud to say I never found a need to go to a Starbucks...my Mr. Coffee and travel mug do the job for me.

[Snarkturian Clone]

40. I know what you mean

I stopped at 'bucks and started buying coffee from sav-a-lot which got me down to like 3 cents a cup....

then a local business about 20 ft from my house opened that serves good coffee for $1.35 and I started with them.

[chelaque liberal]

42. I had the same problem with Diet Coke

I knew all of the health reasons not to drink it.
I knew all of the economic reasons not to drink it.
I knew all of the political reasons not to drink it.

But is was truly addicted. It was a hard habit to kick.

[DeeDeeNY]

43. Another expensive habit is bottled water

People should stop and think every once in awhile what they're paying for.

[madinmaryland]

45. And a horrible waste of natural resources!

[DeeDeeNY]

46. Yes, definitely

I should have mentioned that as well.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

48. For several years I was spending about $2 a day on coffee and I woke up to smell

the Folgers. I purchased a good coffee maker (my old one never got the coffee hot enough) and only when I run out of milk and have to run to the local gas station, do I buy a cup before going home. This has saved me a whole bunch of money.

[mondo joe]

49. Sadly, I'm spending a bt more than that - but mostly on coffee at home, not out.

About a pound of Caf and a pound of Decaf a week totals over 1 grand a year.

I can hardly believe it, but I'm not giving it up.

I do buy a few drop coffees during the week as well, but that pales beside the cost of what I buy for home.

[blondie58]

50. yeah, it is quite an extravaganz

there is a good book out there by financial author David Bach called "the latte factor.



http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/millionaire/1287


This describes this to a T.

[Kolesar]

52. Cell phones. Cable TV.

There are now three digital public-television channels in the era of HDTV. I would have to give up The Weather Channel, Stewart/Colbert and Keith Olbermann, though.

[NNN0LHI]

51. I drink three cups of "gourmet" coffee every morning

Costs me $162 dollars a year. Make it myself. Kauai Blue Mountain Dark delivered fresh every month. Best I have ever had. Drinking some now.

Don

[originalpckelly]

53. I know, coffee shouldn't cost that fucking much. Starbucks is overpriced crap!

It sucks that they're everywhere!

[Trailrider1951]

54. Here you go, sweetie

I have two of these, a small one for myself, and a large one for when company comes to visit.


http://www.1-800-espresso.com/bialetti-espresso-maker.html

I never buy Starbucks anymore.

[ileus]

56. I've spent 0.00 lifetime so far on coffee...

Why would anyone buy a cup of hot shitty tasting water?

[krabigirl]

58. I prefer tea, anyway. :)

[NuttyFluffers]

59. go KIVA, share the wealth!

$1300 can definitely start up an entrepeneur elsewhere in the world!