The price of coffee
Dec. 4th, 2025 08:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickTwo years and change ago, I discovered coffee at home as a doable, cost-saving thing. Sometimes I am a little late to the party of Obvious Things, but better late than never.
I ran some preliminary numbers on the cost to determine that yes, it was boatloads cheaper to make coffee at home. To that end, I have been making a concerted effort to do my coffee at home instead of buying it out and about. And I have better numbers now on how that is going.
In 2025, I had four Dunkin charges on my credit card. (I do not generally carry cash, so while there MAY have been some cash-based Dunkin in the budget, most of the time I don't have cash so it is unlikely that these were very frequent.) All of the purchases on my CC were for an extra-large coffee at least and some had a snack to go with. The coffee part of those orders is $4.55, I'm pretty sure.
My at-home coffee comes 283 grams of beans to the bag. A bag costs $9.39. I use 20 grams of beans per coffee in the morning (it makes a huge sippy cup of fairly robust coffee). So, that's 14.15 servings per bag and a cost-per-serving of $0.66 -- there is no waste and coffee beans are easy to measure because I pour them in my handheld grinder thing and it only fits so much coffee.
I also put cream in my coffee. A thing of cream lasts for two weeks and it costs about $8.00 (depends on which kind they have in stock). That's another $0.57 per serving.
*sigh*
I can hear you, you know. You think you're being all subtle and shit with Eight dollars? Wtf is "a thing of cream" if it costs eight fucking dollars? It's a quart. Eight dollars buys a quart of whipping cream. How much of that are you putting in the coffee? A lot. I don't measure, I pour until the color is correct.
But... if you know how big the container is and how many days it lasts... Fine. (math noises) It's slightly more than a quarter cup of cream per coffee. I don't want to discuss this. Can we call it a low-carb breakfast and move on? You know, you could slice an easy two hundred calories off your daily diet if... Fuck you. Back to the math.
During the year, which is 365 days, I spent $1.23 per day (per diem cost) on coffee except for the four days that I had Dunkin charges on my card. I used my Cosori carafe thing and the stainless steel filter that I bought for it back when I started playing coffee for real. They are rinse-n-reuse permanent items. I also use my stainless steel reusable sippy cup that I've had for about two years (still works great). I feel like I've worked off the cost of these permanent items, so we can ignore them for this year's calculations.
This year I have spent $444.03 on coffee made-at-home. (Using 361 days because I had four days where I bought coffee out and about. This probably is a little off because does not account for vacation to Arizona, but it's pretty close.)
Yikes. That seems like... a lot, given that I only have one cup a day. However, if I bought that coffee out at the Dunkin, it would have been $1642.55. Coffee at home is saving me $1200 a year, just about. Still cost effective to make coffee at home. I've made a note.
I ran some preliminary numbers on the cost to determine that yes, it was boatloads cheaper to make coffee at home. To that end, I have been making a concerted effort to do my coffee at home instead of buying it out and about. And I have better numbers now on how that is going.
In 2025, I had four Dunkin charges on my credit card. (I do not generally carry cash, so while there MAY have been some cash-based Dunkin in the budget, most of the time I don't have cash so it is unlikely that these were very frequent.) All of the purchases on my CC were for an extra-large coffee at least and some had a snack to go with. The coffee part of those orders is $4.55, I'm pretty sure.
My at-home coffee comes 283 grams of beans to the bag. A bag costs $9.39. I use 20 grams of beans per coffee in the morning (it makes a huge sippy cup of fairly robust coffee). So, that's 14.15 servings per bag and a cost-per-serving of $0.66 -- there is no waste and coffee beans are easy to measure because I pour them in my handheld grinder thing and it only fits so much coffee.
I also put cream in my coffee. A thing of cream lasts for two weeks and it costs about $8.00 (depends on which kind they have in stock). That's another $0.57 per serving.
*sigh*
I can hear you, you know. You think you're being all subtle and shit with Eight dollars? Wtf is "a thing of cream" if it costs eight fucking dollars? It's a quart. Eight dollars buys a quart of whipping cream. How much of that are you putting in the coffee? A lot. I don't measure, I pour until the color is correct.
But... if you know how big the container is and how many days it lasts... Fine. (math noises) It's slightly more than a quarter cup of cream per coffee. I don't want to discuss this. Can we call it a low-carb breakfast and move on? You know, you could slice an easy two hundred calories off your daily diet if... Fuck you. Back to the math.
During the year, which is 365 days, I spent $1.23 per day (per diem cost) on coffee except for the four days that I had Dunkin charges on my card. I used my Cosori carafe thing and the stainless steel filter that I bought for it back when I started playing coffee for real. They are rinse-n-reuse permanent items. I also use my stainless steel reusable sippy cup that I've had for about two years (still works great). I feel like I've worked off the cost of these permanent items, so we can ignore them for this year's calculations.
This year I have spent $444.03 on coffee made-at-home. (Using 361 days because I had four days where I bought coffee out and about. This probably is a little off because does not account for vacation to Arizona, but it's pretty close.)
Yikes. That seems like... a lot, given that I only have one cup a day. However, if I bought that coffee out at the Dunkin, it would have been $1642.55. Coffee at home is saving me $1200 a year, just about. Still cost effective to make coffee at home. I've made a note.
no subject
Date: 2025-12-07 04:56 am (UTC)I think "make more coffee at home (using a real coffee maker)" is probably going to be one of my New Year's resolutions. This will require investing in a functional coffee maker (since the like, third-hand one we had finally gave up), but hopefully we can then set ourselves up for success, haha.
I've had a couple fancy expensive roasts that I've enjoyed, but often pretty basic stuff tends to appeal to me way more than the pricey stuff. And yes, adding real cream is absolutely a worthwhile upgrade.