If you’re like the average American who regularly buys coffee, you spend close to $1100 a year on coffee (Source). That breaks down to about $4 a day, every weekday. Over time, that really adds up. At the end of 30 years, you’ve spent over $30,000 on coffee.
Talk about too much caffeine! Will you look back and wish you did something different with that money?
Here’s what happens if you did: Instead of a daily coffee run that runs about $4 each weekday, you take that money and invest the savings every year for 30 years. At the end, you could have a portfolio worth close to a whopping $180,000 (assuming a 10% rate of return, which is fairly realistic, given the S&P 500’s arithmetic average rate of return was 11.29% between 1964 and 2013) (Source).
Can’t live without coffee? Try buying cheaper coffee. Or cut the donut. But even if you bought a coffee for $2 (instead of $4) and invested the difference over the same time period, you still end up with a respectable amount saved – $85,000.
Kind of makes you wonder if you don’t already have enough caffeine in your diet.
