I was doodling in my mind on a boring train journey the other day and somehow wandered on the cost of my coffee. Now not talking about any bought in a coffee shop or trips, or visiting etc, but just at home.
We have a Tassimo machine (there are other brands LOL) and like our coffee. I do try not to drink more than 2 a day (same with wifey), so occasionally we do and occasionally we don’t. We also have had travel time away, so using a bit of rounding (as we have visitors than have coffee too).
I like American Smooth and her ladyship likes the Latte Macchiato. So lets make some assumptions:
1. 2 coffees a day for 350 of the 365 days (this covers holiday time away and visitors)
2. The cost fluctuates a little but an average price is around £4.50 a packet
3. My Smooth has 16 pods to a packet, but there are half that for the Latte as there are two pods.
So, in a year we have 700 drinks each, rounded this is 44 and 88 packets totalling £198 and £396 (total of £594).
On top of this there are my favourite cookies (brand will remain anonymous). Not expensive but I do like a ginger cookie (or 2, 3 4) with my coffee in my home office but not every day. I have thought about it and recon an average of 10 cookies a week is about right. The box has 8 cookies in it and the cost is around £2.50 at our local supermarket. so 10 per week for 5 weeks (approx.) gives 500 cookies, or 63 packets. (seems about right as I regularly buy 2 packets every couple of weeks and the odd ones in between). So that equates to £158 for the year.
So in total, our coffee & cookie habit means a spend of just over £750 for the year.
What strikes me is how such a reasonable sum just creeps up. I mean, we booked a fantastic week in Devon for £600 and even putting the sundries and meals out on, it was not vastly over £750…. £750 is a long weekend away on a city break fine dining – not an inconsequential sum.
In percentage terms, of the necessary spend (excluding holidays and mortgage), it is almost 3% of what we spend… just for a couple of coffees & a cookie a day !
Now I was wondering why our spend this years has been a little higher than I estimated when budgeting … one or two other things as well as coffee that seemed trivial but most certainly are not.
Makes you think !
PS – Not in any way changing my coffee & cookie habit … life just has to be enjoyed !!