Heard a neighbor at the grocery store talking about their 'coffee budget'

I was in line at the store yesterday and the guy in front of me was telling the cashier he had to put back a bag of fancy coffee. He said, 'My coffee budget is only $20 a month, and this puts me over.' It made me stop and think about my own small, random buys. I never had a line item just for coffee, but maybe I should. It's so easy to grab a $6 bag without thinking. Has anyone else set up a tiny, specific budget for something like that and actually stuck to it?

3 comments

3 Comments

parkerk562mo ago

You said it's easy to grab a $6 bag without thinking, but honestly, where are you finding coffee for $6? That's the part that got me. A basic bag of ground coffee at my store is at least $10 now. Setting a budget is smart, but the number has to be real for what things actually cost. My coffee line would have to be way more than $20 just to get through the month.

jamiegreen10d agoMost Upvoted

Everyone's missing the REAL issue here. $6 bag coffee doesn't exist anymore unless you're buying the generic store brand that tastes like burnt cardboard water. The trick isn't finding cheap coffee, it's quitting coffee for two weeks a month. That's what I do. Drink the good stuff for two weeks, drink water or tea the other two. You SAVE money AND reset your caffeine tolerance so the good bag hits harder when you come back to it. Nobody talks about cycling off coffee as a budget move, but it works way better than trying to find the mythical $6 bag.

angelafisher2mo ago

You're right about the $10 bag, but the real budget killer is when you buy the cheap stuff and then hate it, so you end up buying the good bag anyway.