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Why 'Shark Tank' Investor Kevin O'Leary Refuses To Spend $2.50 On a Cup of Coffee (cnbc.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Kevin O'Leary has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in small businesses over the course of his tenure as a star and investor on ABC's "Shark Tank." But there is one business to which he refuses to fork over his hard-earned dollars: coffee shops. "Do I pay $2.50 for a coffee? Never, never, never do I do that," O'Leary tells CNBC Make It. "That is such a waste of money for something that costs 20 cents. I never buy a frape-latte-blah-blah-blah-woof-woof-woof for $2.50." Instead, he makes it at home. "I drink coffee, one cup every morning," he explains. "It costs about 18 cents to make it, and I invest the rest." That idea -- saving small sums and investing continually -- is central to O'Leary's personal finance advice. "The truth is, there is a lot of crap you don't need," he explains.
The coffee shop explosion is one of the great rip-offs of our age
If everyone followed his advice our Clown World economy would collapse.
That's just the man's personality. As someone once said about writing code in a certain scripting language, there is more than one way to do it.
So the man doesn't go out to eat at all? All restaurants and cafes and whatnot all have prices that inflated. I have a feeling he still eats out a lot and is nothing more than another hypocrite.
It only costs 18 cents if your time is worth nothing. Way faster to go out of your way and wait in line at SBUX. /s
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
And a pretty easily proven one. He's talking about $850 a year. That's not going to make or break anyone's investment portfolio. It's like that schmuck in Australia who told the young uns the could afford a house in Sydney if only they'd give up avocado toast. It's nonsense the aristocracy tells it's workers to excuse stagnant and falling wages. Don't fall for it.
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So I'm supposed to believe a guy that is worth more than $300 million never buys anything he doesn't need? Sounds legit.
There are lots of things that are cheaper at home. Drinking a beer at home is a lot cheaper than drinking one at the pub, for example. You're not just paying for the drink, you're paying for the use of a big space where you can talk to other people. The problem isn't $2.50 coffee (actually, I'd be astonished if I could buy coffee that cheap around here), it's buying $2.50 coffee every day. Even once a day each week, that's $50/month on coffee. Two coffees a day and it's $100/month. Give that up, and you can afford a nice holiday somewhere, or pay back your mortgage earlier.
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Reread, please. He says it costs HIM 18 cents to make.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
'"The truth is, there is a lot of crap you don't need," he explains'.
As you go through life you can use the proceeds of your labour for different things. Kevin O'Leary apparently thinks that nothing beats a good big juicy investment portfolio.
If he thinks a cup of coffee cost 18 cents, I can imagine what kind of coffee he drinks. Anyone else thinking "Scrooge"?
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Is this supposed to be interesting or something?
How is this News for Nerds? More importantly do we really want to take financial advise from this guy?
But if someone is willing to spend 250$ of his/her hard earned money voluntarily who am I to object? It is all fine an good to preach about the value of drinking a 10$ bottle of wine and investing the rest. But be prepared to listen someone tell you why that 250$ bottle of wine is worth it and gives him/her a good feeling that is worth it.
I can tell a wine snob to take a hike and go fly a kite because I never preached about better ways to spend that money. It is your money how you spend is your business, give me the same respect, don't be a wine/coffee snob to me. But that O'Leary guy has opened to door, he deserves all the crap wine/coffee snobs heap on him.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
It's not just coffee. Almost everything has a ridiculous markup. Capitalism is awesome.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Rich people think the reason people are poor is because they spend little bits of money here and there. Budgeting is one issue with people but really its a lack of money. Also spending little bits of money is good for the economy.
His example is analogous to $100 HDMI cables, and the world is full of these examples. It's easy to laugh at someone when their choice is not your choice, but the fact is the world is run by parting fools and their money.
He's talking about what it costs him. Make a pot of coffee yourself and the price per cup is about 20 cents. Everyone in the family can have one before work. Whereas if a family of four have coffee out each day of the work/school week - Mom & Dad $2.50 each at a coffee shop and the teens $2.00 each at Tim Horton's, then that's 9 dollars each work day, for let's says 200 work/school days in a year, which totals $1800.00, just on one coffee each, i.e. around $20,000.00 a decade. That could pay for the Toyota.
I haven't done the precise math, but I think my cup of coffee is closer to 2 than 20 cents. I guess you can waste money at home too, if you use something like those proprietary capsule fads.
Nevertheless, I second the underlying idea. More generally, I don't understand why people feel the need to spend everything they earn, in particular, increasing their spending the moment they get a better job. Though I guess it's a matter of personality. I like to keep things simple, and I also like the opportunity of going back to school or personal art projects now and then. Honestly, since starting my first proper full-time job, I simply haven't been able to spend everything I earn, with all the time taken by the job itself.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
I'm really tired of this attitude.
It is essentially: "I don't like your life preferences, therefore you are an idiot."
People like to get pleasure in many different ways. I also think spending a bunch of money on coffee is a bit silly. Then again, I don't drink coffee, so what do I know?.
You should not care at all what I think. If you can afford it and you enjoy it, then knock yourself out.
This is the kind of foolishness that has happened as politics becomes a lifestyle.
Please, just mind your own damn business.
I just bought his book called "The cold hard truth about men, women and money". It is pretty good, and mostly is full of these kinds of ideas. I really think people just don't get personal finance at all, and don't realize these things are literally like death by a thousand cuts. Not that Kevin O'Leary is perfect, but at least it is written in language that is accessible to most people, and will probably get them worked up emotionally, and then on his side. The people who won't like it, is that group who thinks that people need to keep spending to keep everything running in the economy. If you know what I mean. Those who don't really want people saving money.
The simple truth is if you want a cup of coffee while you're out and about, you're going to be spending > $1 because nobody is selling a cup of coffee for less than that.
The only way to get a cheap cup of coffee is to make it yourself, and you can't really do that unless you're at home or at an office that has a coffeemaker. Coffee shops know this, which is why they charge so much.
I'm not going to give up coffee over a dollar or two. Neither are most people; that's why coffee is $1-$2. It sucks, but what can you do? I can't control what everyone else does, and I want my coffee.
You don't get paid on your time off. And most of us just can't tell the boss "I'm gonna work extra hours because I'd rather earn the money to go out than cook a meal." It just doesn't work that way.
I do not think that given his potential income that "coffee shop" coffee will make or break him. On the other hand, someone that that makes far less could put that same money into savings to get a bit shy of an extra thousand a year of financial buffer, assuming that they do not choose to divert it elsewhere. Of course, the few minutes of time making his own coffee could be invested elsewhere, but if anything like my significant other, then that task is likely being "worked-in" as part of multitasking another close proximity task such as making breakfast. Before I started my career, I usually eschewed "barista made coffee" except when "treating myself" after passing my finals or getting high enough performance reviews to qualify for a bonus. Now since I make a reasonable salary, I am a bit more relaxed about "extras." That said, as per the adage, "if you want something done right, do it yourself": I like my coffee a particular way, so I still tend to brew it myself. Also, the gentleman, who probably does it purely on principle, is free to make his own choice to brew it himself just as the person that opts to pay a premium to have it done for them.
They both were locked into a serious battle in South Asian shampoo market. With all that might of P&G, HL was running circles around them
My niece is a big shot in that circle (now working for Estee Lauder India) she explained the basic difference. "There are women who can not afford shampoo. But once in a while something nice happens, and she feels great and feels like treating herself to luxury. That thirty cent sachet of shampoo is a luxury for her. She will never have enough to buy a whole bottle ever, and will balk at the cost of a bottle. But... on any given day there are about a million such women willing to buy a sachet of shampoo for 30 cents. I am selling 300K a day. 100 million dollars a year."
There are people for whom that 5$ coffee is a luxury they are treating themselves to. The American dream of owning a home and having a comfortable retirement is gone for them. They see themselves working till the day they are going to die. They see 80 year old grandmas trying to work as walmart greeters. From their perspective, "I have 5$ today, I am going to splurge!".
A country this great, this wealthy, with that much of despair among the young ...
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Sometimes it is worth it. I bought a Japanese tea once that was valued at twice its weight in silver. That was without a doubt the best tea I've ever tasted. And before you say that I only thought that it was good because it was so expensive, I have poured a cup for a colleague who often mooches a tea from my personal collection and he also said that it was absolutely the tastiest cup of tea he ever had - and I never told him how expensive it was. Someday - when I feel better and have enough money set aside - I'll buy that tea again.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
If I would have just jerked off instead of renting hookers, I would have been a millionaire!
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
I wonder what he thinks of bottled water? Now there is a money making racket :)
His mind clearly cannot grasp other forms of value. I'm glad they have other investors on the panel like Troy Carter and Lori Greiner who can better understand human/consumer psyches and will invest in startups that address these areas. Those of us who are engineers often have trouble wrapping our heads around intangible value. If you want to expand your thinking in this area, I highly recommend a listen to this podcast episode: https://www.farnamstreetblog.c...
But he's not wrong here. Then again, broken clock / twice a day and all that.
$2.50 is overpriced for store-bought coffee. The local bodega (deli) on the way to work charges a buck a cup, and it's not charred like Starbucks.
Make your own, but also don't overpay for chain coffee shops.
He's just one more example of these big business psychopaths. To them, other human beings all fall in only three categories: A competitor to eliminate, an ennemy to destroy, or a resource to exploit. He's the canadian equivalent of Donald Trump, and every bit as disgusting.
These people are cold, manipulative, heartless, ruthless machines. They have absolutely no empathy, no compassion, no heart, no soul. They are monsters, abominations. They are behind every plague of humanity: Organised crime, sexual predators, slavery, human traficking, tyrany, genocide and bloodshed.
Why a supposedly advanced race tolerates the existence of such cancer of humanity is beyond me.
But there was not a show called Shark Tank at the time; his advice is timeless anyway. So I bought a medium sized pizza at a pizza place called King Arthur and ate the whole thing. Really, lunch vs. coffee sounded like a no-brainer.
No it doesn't. It costs him 18 cents in supplies. But I guarantee you it'd be cheaper for him to pay an intern $2 for the time it takes to brew the coffee, and get it to his desk. For him to spend the time doing it, is burning up his time at a much pricier rate.
He's talking about what it costs him. Make a pot of coffee yourself and the price per cup is about 20 cents.
That depends on the coffee, the cost of electricity, and how strong and bitter you like your coffee.
While I drink most of my coffee at work, I also spend around $20 a week on coffee beans for the 2-person household morning coffee, from a store where pretty much all coffee beans costs the same. Because the second best[*] way to reduce bitterness while still having a strong coffee is to use a fast brewer that reduces the time the grounds are exposed to hot water, it also means using more beans. And the price goes up.
[*]: The best way is to avoid New World and lowland grown coffee.
If making bitter swill is acceptable, the cost can be kept low. For someone who only drinks one cup a day, I guess enjoying coffee isn't a big part of their life, and you can get away with it. But for people who really enjoy good coffee, this is not a working option.
There's a line between being frugal and being miserly, and I think we know which side Kevin O'Leary falls on.
99% of the coffee I drink I fix at home. I generally don't wake up with time for coffee (either homemade or to stop at a store) so I typically tend to drink coffee in the evenings after I get home from work.
That said, when I go to an actual coffee shop it's more for the experience and to get what I can't really make well at home (eg, my home coffee is just coffee, creamer and sugar, not anything fancy). I kind of view it as an occasional treat. Granted, "coffee shop coffee" is something I do maybe once a month at most so it's not like I'm blowing a fortune on it.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
I know so many people who are in debt way over their heads and always complain about how they never have any money... right as they're on their way to spend $20 at Starbucks for their whole family (and they do this multiple times a week). Idiots.
You pay for the convenience of not having to fool with it
If driving to starbucks and standing in line is convenient, then I'd like to know what qualifies as a hassle. Just 5 minutes of waiting is enough to nullify the convenience for me.
Here's a coffee secret for slashdot: after becoming familiar with a pour-over and how blindingly simple the process of brewing coffee actually is, even a cheap walmart coffee maker seems like a giant overkill. Plus, you can actually clean the pour-over, unlike the inside of your algae -- I mean coffee -- maker.
xkcd https://xkcd.com/1827/
While frugality can be wise, it does impact quality of life. I personally have never found a satisfying 20 cent cup of coffee.
I, too, drink one cup of coffee each morning - home made espresso. After considering the cost of the machine (~$600 with 10 year lifetime), its maintenance (~$50/year), and the cost of high quality Italian coffee beans (~$8/week), I pay somewhere between $1 - $2 each day for my coffee. Hence the $2.50 cost for cafe espresso is not really outrageous. It is also nice to have such an option available when I'm away from home.
Everyone who samples my homemade brews is amazed at how good a real cup of coffee tastes. It does cost money, though.
Because the second best[*] way to reduce bitterness while still having a strong coffee is to use a fast brewer that reduces the time the grounds are exposed to hot water, it also means using more beans
Are you sure about that? Faster brews tend to get the bitter flavours but lose the richness. I drink a mocha / mysore blend and leave it in a cafetiere for about 10-15 minutes and get a rich but not very bitter cup. When I was in a lab with others who had similar coffee tastes to myself, we used a drip filter machine. Both methods have lots of time with the water exposed to the coffee. In contrast, if I try to use the same beans in the espresso machine at work I end up with something bitter and weak.
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I for one enjoy a nice evening in my favorite bar. That can easily run the vicinity of 100 bucks for the evening. Could I save that? Sure, I don't really need to go out for cocktails and cigars. I could actually do the same at home, with equally exquisite spirits and tobacco for much less.
Since I go there every other week or so, that's about 2500 a year. Give or take. Then again, why should I not do it? Because of the money? So what would I do instead with the money? Invest it? Ok, for what? To have more money? Ok, for what?
You see, money is a tool to get what I want. And, lo and behold, it already does that. It buys me cocktails and cigars.
What he's essentially telling you is to forgo whatever you actually want to do and "invest" instead. Because if we really lack something right now, it's money on the investment side. Jeesh.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Because you didn't have the book smarts for college and the entire manufacturing base was shifted overseas or to Mexico, right? Nope, poor financial decisions for the win.
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Looking at it that way, indeed, a cup of coffee - what, 30 seconds to decant and serve. 120 per hour, $21.60 per hour cost?
Well, an American coffeeshop cup of coffee is likely averaging 16 ounces, 1,920 ounces per hour.1.05 oz of beans per cup, 7,875 lbs per hour, and let's be really pessimistic and guess bean cost at $3 per pound, $23.625/hour? Ooh, beans have to cost $2.75/lb to break even.
Cups and lids gonna cost what, $.25 each Darn, $30/hour. they have to cost $0.05 ea to keep the bean cost at $2.36/lb.
And we haven't factored in water, machines, rent on the shop. Labor would force all costs above to be half to meet a gross labor cost of $10.80, or a net wage closer to $6.50/hr, which may actually work for bottom-end shops.
The claim that coffee costs $0.18 per cup to produce is a back of the napkin stupid guess. It goes to hell quickly. But even if it costs $1.05 per cup, that's more than low enough to make it profitable, and, well, profit!
One of the many things that seem to make sense until you think about it. Now, buying that fabulous dark roast decaf for $16.99/lb costs you about $1.12 per cup, maybe. A pound of coffee would make maybe 288 standard cups of coffee, if you stick to the customary formula. Real world, 108 cups. That's around $0.16/16oz, and ignores water (in your kitchen, negligible $), equipment ($30 press, negligible yearly cost), and of course purchase and maintenance of a cup ($20 acquisition, negligible maintenance, negligible yearly cost). It's an idea, so really this nimrod is pointing out that he's better than me for making a cupa joe at home for $0.18 v. my buying it at the shop for $2.44. He's right. And he needs me to waste my money on the things he invests in to be made. He wins, I merely pretend to leisure.
The problem with pinching pennies like that is the tiny bit of savings it gives you is precisely enough to buy jack all. I live in NYC. An apartment here starts at $1 million. I pay $450 a month just for a parking spot. My car insurance is $191 a month on a car I lease for $232 a month. I spend $100 a month just on gas and $121 on a Metrocard. My gym membership is $48 a month. $2.50 a coffee isn't even a rounding error given how expensive everything is. It's what $600 year if you buy one every work day? What am I supposed to do with $600? Buy 7.5% of 1 Bitcoin?
I think you may confuse acidic with bitter?
You still get the acids with a fast brew cycle, but the bitter taste takes longer to extract from the grounds. A slow dripper with low temperature (i.e. your typical $30 brewer) extracts very little acid, but a lot of bitterness.
For acidity, the beans matter a lot too. African highland beans are high in mineral acids (mainly phosphoric acid) while South American beans are high in organic acids (mainly acetic acid).
msMash is to busy sucking Beauhd's dick for coke..
how is this news for nerds..
Interesting, he is entitled to his choices.
What I wonder is - if he makes his coffees at home, what coffee machine did he buy? I'd bet it's not a $50 appliance. Did he get a $10,000 coffee maker? Did he work that figure in his depreciation/investment calculations?
Being so cautious with expenses if you have serious money problems makes some sense. Not wanting to spend too much on what you don't like seems quite sensible too; or other attitudes on these lines like not enjoying excessive luxury. But having more than enough money and caring about each single penny seems a quite negative attitude for that person and everyone else. Although it seems much worse to seriously think that a relevant wealth can be generated via carefully managing your money. Rich people are rich because they either were born rich or did a quite relevant effort (usually not precisely consisting in honest, hard work) to get there. The more you have, the more likely is that you can easily get more even despite a negligent management; or, in simpler terms, a rich idiot will probably always be rich and idiot.
Anecdotally, I have stopped drinking cafeteria coffee recently too, but only as a way to reduce my caffeine daily intake. I have always shared/spent all the money I had and will continue doing exactly the same thing for as long as possible. I am certainly (kind of) poor, mainly lately when I have decided to stop tolerating in-hurry, pushy and unfair arbitrariness and to focus on doing a proper work under proper conditions. If my behaviour was more money-saving-prone, now I would have a bit more money, a bit more fear (of losing it) and would have enjoyed/made enjoy others much less. I wouldn't have been rich under absolutely any circumstance, at least by having kept my principles and dignity intact. Ideally, it might have been possible via hard over-work and by provoking the wealth of practical people to be increased (e.g., you lend me some money, give me enough time, I earn enough for me and for you and we both win); but, as I have learned during the last years, this is an unrealistic fantasy: people are too stupid to allow everyone-winning scenarios.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
Does Kevin O'Leary own one or many coffee shops? If not, maybe that $2.50 for a cup of coffee isn't as ridiculous as he would make it seem. He's making it sound like it is printing money, surely an intelligent business person would want a huge part of that.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
This is a really bad way to view things.
I've had people tell me the same thing about why they pay for certain services. Say I make $50/hour. I can paint my own room or pay someone $15/hour to do it. (we'll assume supplies are a fixed price either way, so the only difference is the hourly rate). Let's say it takes 4 hours. Some would say that paying someone $60 to do the job make sense, because in that time I could earn $200, putting me $140 ahead. But that's not necessarily the case. For me to earn that $200, I actually have to be working, not painting my room. So paying someone to do it actually puts me $60 behind.
Same thing for anyone. If he's sitting at the table reading the paper while the coffee brews, he's not reducing his earnings. If he's paying someone to do it for him, he's still not earning anything, and he's paying out of pocket more than it would cost him to do it himself.
The simple truth is if you want a cup of coffee while you're out and about, you're going to be spending > $1 because nobody is selling a cup of coffee for less than that.
Depends on your needs for atmosphere. Plenty of gas stations will sell coffee for less than $1 per cup (and usually in generously-sized cups), but they're not places to kick back, relax and whip out your laptop, they're places to get your shit and get out. You're paying the premium on that coffee for the real estate, not the actual drink. Hell, my local grocery has a free self-service coffee stand for shoppers, and I've seen plenty of people come in just to get coffee and leave.
It's easy to find cheap coffee in the wild, but people also want safe, quiet spaces in which to enjoy it. And for that, they're willing to pay ridiculous fees.
I think this is another of the great falsehoods foisted off on the world. I mean, sure - if you're talking about the CEO interrupting a business negotiation to go make himself coffee, then yeah, that's wasting value. This guy is talking about putting on the coffee maker while he eats his morning granola. He's not going to use those extra 2 minutes to analyze a new investment or close a buyout, even if you add up the two minutes every day for 20 years. It's the same reason no sane person hires staff to tie their shoes.
Kombucha seems to be following the same trend. It is pretty damn cheap in raw materials for everything except maybe the fruit that goes into it. They charge crazy high prices for some fermented black tea, a little sugar and a 1/2 cup of fruit.
Good advice! But you can do better! Don't eat food at restaurants, you can cook food at home for a lot cheaper! And don't drink beer at a pub, you can drink beer at home for less than a dollar a bottle! Actually, why drink alcohol at all when you can get water for free? Just travel straight from work to home every day and have your break and water for dinner. But why have a home when you could just buy a cheap used van and get a gym membership? You can get a hot pot to cook ramen and eat vitamins and you should be fine! And after a year or two of that you should have enough money saved up that you can go buy some cheap property hundreds of miles away from civilization, get a few basic tools and some seeds and you can build your own log cabin and grow your own food! And don't worry about farming equipment, tens of thousands years ago people got by just by poking holes in the ground with a stick, so you can do the same! You'll never have to spend any money on anything ever again!
More seriously, i'm not going to say that saving money isn't a good thing, but everyone has to make their own decisions about what compromises they're willing to make for that, because making every decision on the basis of what will save you money can lead to some pretty weird behaviour. Some things just aren't worth the trouble. And honestly if you've got a net worth of several hundred million like Kevin O'Leary the amount you can reasonably spend on overpriced coffee is practically a rounding error. And ultimately, what are you saving all that money for if not to make your life a little more comfortable and enjoyable? If you live a miserable life but die with millions in the bank do you think you've "won" at life somehow?
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Mocha ,frapo blah blah . You need to drink coffee like it is meant to drink, you ground beans and put it in the water so much when you put tea spoon in it to mix it it doesn't sink, then you pour it in your cup and drink it , no sugar no cream no fancy-schmancy .
I'm not sure I've ever seen anybody as arrogant, cheap, and downright stupid as that guy. He's an insult to Canada, and when he dies, I hope they toss him into a crude hole, since a proper funeral costs a hell of a lot more than a cup of coffee. On that note, I'm surprised he doesn't just grow his own beans and shit... because that would cost even less!
One for himself and one for his money, cheap b*stard.
He could live in Arkansas for a quarter of the cost and reinvest. Look at the order of magnitude in the transgression...
Yawn.
Truth is, he gets to make it at home. That's a nice perk.
For many of us, the truth is steeped a bit more harshly. Many working American's are commuting for hours, running around trying ensure we meet all our government obligations (auto-inspections, permits, etc). Then we have personal obligations (feed the kids, fold the laundry, do the dishes, etc, etc).
I wager he is not dealing with most of those things. And as such, it is very easy to brew your own coffee when you can sit around for 15 minutes or so. Now granted, he may be brewing K-Cups, which is a fast alternative, and also a large part of the reason K-cups are so popular.
But even more of a question, why is our society structure so !@#$% up that we need to rely upon trillions of gallons of coffee? Perhaps because our society doesn't let our human bodies and minds receive the rest they need.
Many people who commit themselves 100% to eliminating debt and saving money find that a certain joylessness creeps in after a while. The same thing happens to dieters who deprive themselves of all their favorite foods for months, and then cave to late-night binges.
That's not a way to live, and that's not what I advocate. Austerity, yes; deprivation, no.
The key is to include spending on fun things in your budget. Set aside a manageable percentage every week in a fund that will let you splurge with cash. Go out for lunch, get your hair done, or use your fun money to go on a vacationâ"do whatever you want, as long as you pay for it outright. This way you can enjoy your splurges without feeling guilty!
Or is he specifically saying that haircuts = good but coffee = bad for some reason?
McDonalds is $1. If you cant make it home, next best thing.
Cause for many of us Gen-X'ers, investments haven't even broken even. Heck, we're going to be the first generation to pay more into Social Security than we'll get back.
That about sums up investing for Gen-X'ers.
It depends. If someone is doing that while also complaining about poverty, you'd be a sense-talking human to object. Or if not object, to mock them, pointing and laughing in their face, helping them to become aware of themselves.
That's all this is about. Most people are extravagant in some way (there is something you do that I think is crazy, and there's something I do that you think is crazy) and it's all good until someone complains that their extravagance is costing them too much money. As soon as someone opens their mouth, that's when they prove themselves to have erred.
It's all fine until they complain.
And then it's time to be merciless.
People complain about things like cable bills, then pay almost the same amount to subscribe to 20 music, movie and game clouds every month. Isn't this where the economy is supposed to be going? On the Microsoft side of the house, both businesses and consumers are renting their software every month, paying for it over and over again. The whole idea is to get consumers used to the idea of parting with small streams of money forever rather than paying once for something. If Starbucks had a monthly subscription program, I'm sure millions of people would subscribe. If you can get people to think of it as $x per month rather than $4000x over your lifetime, you win...it's the same tactic car dealers use to sell expensive leases or hide the true price of buying a car.
I admit that I have a daily coffee habit, but all I buy is coffee...I draw the line at $5 espresso drinks. But what's wrong with allowing people to enjoy themselves a little? All it is for me is a break from the time I drop my kids off at school to the time I go to work...it could be anything else but I picked coffee. As long as people are not blowing money required to survive, we only have a limited number of trips around the Sun. I think people who gamble are mentally challenged, but I don't sit and complain outside of casinos. Having a successful investor tell people they could be exactly like him if only they gave up coffee sounds like the guy from Australia complaining that Millenials can't buy houses because they buy avocado toast.
There's nothing wrong with saving, and I'm reasonably frugal in the rest of my life. We spend our money on stuff like home improvements that actually make sense and improve our daily living conditions. But living like a monk is just going to make you miserable...Scrooge is a very good example for this time of year come to think of it. The key to being happy in a society like ours is to realize that short of an extremely good run of luck, most of us are going to be regular people making regular money. Nothing wrong with hard work, but don't labor under the illusion that if you just work a little harder or buy less coffee, you too can be a billionaire celebrity.
the part about the coffee is just an example (clickbait), but the point he makes is that you can take 10% of your income and invest it in something solid (not bitcoin ;) and you will be better off in 15 years instead of just having a lot of empty starbucks cups. The same applies to renting movies, buying expensive clothes, or anything else that's optional expenses. every little bit makes a big difference because of compounded interest
/thread
Ask him instead about wine - which from what I gather from what he says on Shark Tank, is where he real passion is. 20 cent coffee maybe, but he probably follows that with a $$$ wine come evening.
And yet, SBUX shares are up $1.45 today, and for me, up ~1300% from when I bought some. I don't frequent their stores very often, but apparently a lot of people do. But if you like, say, their French Roast, you can buy big bags of it at Costco for cheap (and it's often on sale for $5 off per bag), and crank out a cup of that dark brew for a fraction of the walk-up costs, and ground/brewed exactly as you personally like it.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
how much more do you need? Being obsessed with investing the $2 you saved on a coffee is insane.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I've seen this point of view taken on a few times over this discussion and I wonder how many of you that say this really calculate your time this way. Do you think about how much time "costs" you when you watch a football game or a movie? Do you think of what the expense of your time is when you play games or fidget with your cellphones? How much did it cost you to post about something this meaningless on Slashdot?
I'm sure some of you really are very productive and make the most of it but my guess is that the vast majority of Slashdotters waste tons of time as they scoff at people who drop a few bucks for coffee.
This is just an illustration of how trickle down economics is utter bullshit. Of course the past 30 years of economic stagnation for the formerly middle class in the USA has also clearly demonstrated that fact. Trickle down is a front for wealth concentration at the top and extraction from the bottom. The repugnant tax cut the repugnicans are currently attempting to cram through congress is the latest escalation in the economic slaughter being visited upon us by the 1%.
Only I can judge you.
that's not true. Not even a little bit. There's two ways rich people invest:
a. Shotgun approach. Invest in everything that comes your way. You lose money on 90% but the 10% is so profitable it pays for the other 90%, plus you write the 90% off on your taxes anyway.
b. HFT, or High Frequency Trading. Basically rent seeking.
There's also a third method, the good 'ole boys network, where you get told in advance where to put your money. Remember, it's not illegal if you don't get caught. And what happens on the golf course stays on the golf course.
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Even better deal than this guy's...
Had one employer start charging 50 cents to squirt hot water through the flavia packs.
Brought a 4 cup coffee maker to my desk and a pair of scissors.
As someone who has seen nearly every Shark Tank and started multiple businesses, I normally appreciate Kevin. Here he is totally full of crap.
Kevin did not get rich saving pennies on coffee, just like Buffet did not get rich investing in a diversified mutual fund portfolio or even the S&P.
Never listen to what these liars SAY. Look at what they DO.
Saving a few dollars a day on coffee is meaningless. What you need to watch are the big expenses: mortgages, car loans, student loans, credit cards. Run lean, save your cash, and use it to find opportunities to generate more cash flow, then maybe you can replicate Kevin.
... is to not drink it at all.
I don't give a shit about the coffee or whatever overpriced shitty beverage I'm drinking, or crappy dried out husk of overpriced muffin.
I'm paying for a high bandwidth web connection, a plugin, a decent chair and work area, and a bathroom for an hour or two - I buy their goods because I feel like I really should be paying them for their availability, and $5-6 isn't unreasonable.
Although some places have some colossally shitty musicians polluting the airspace, they should refund me for listening to that.
-Styopa
This is obviously a man who doesn't like coffee, or only has a Starbucks in their neighborhood.
This statement comparing his 18 cent cup of coffee to a well made espresso is ridiculous. The man is an affirmed wine aficionado (according to Wikipedia). Why does he waste so much money on expensive wine when he can buy two-buck-chuck down the road and save tons of money?
The comparison isn't the exact same, I know. A cup of coffee is WAY cheaper than a bottle of wine.
I don't know anyone who drinks coffee from a coffee shop every day. I would completely agree that it's a waste-- but I think this is a straw man argument from someone justifying their fortune. "I am way richer than you because you waste money on frivolous things". It's a clear statement intended to paint the poor and middle class as stupid and wasteful and the upper class as intelligent and thrifty.
I'm sure he's a smart guy, and is way smarter with his money than most people. I won't fault him for his success, and think he deserves a great deal of it. But this kind of smarmy statement is nothing more than a ploy to justify the growing inequality between the rich and poor.
If you go to a coffee shop on the weekends to get a real, well made, cafe latte, I think that's a perfectly justifiable expenditure if you really like coffee.
Otherwise Mr. O'Leary better ditch his love of wines, that money could be far better spent by investing.
Came to the thread to read posts from snooty coffee snobs describing perfect beans while deriding harried salarymen (and women) for buying a cuppa joe on their way to work.
Was not disappointed.
and typically such advice ends up saying that you only need to save $50 a day, then invest it at an interest rate of only 10% and you'll be a millionaire within a couple of decades, ignoring that interest rates are low and $50 a day is a lot of money for most people.
Look at all the expense you do which are small , you don't bat an eye to do, and yet you could get cheaper elsewhere like coffee. You would be surprised how much that makes at the end.
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First of all. This is bullshit that he's claiming. The $2.50 covers the salary of the person making the coffee and everything connected to it (overcharging is always a possibility, but if the market is healthy that should not happen). He is free to make it at home for $0.18 as he does now but the pricing is there for a reason. When he says that he is investing $2.32 that is nonsense. His investments are built on a wealth that his parents established early in 20th century and he inherited once they passed.
Kevin O'Leary didn't get rich scrimping on coffee. He got rich selling a software company, and stayed rich by marketing himself. Not buying coffee from coffee shops is part of building the "Kevin O'Leary" brand mystique, not a meaningful way to build substantial wealth. When he gets to the office, he'll have assistants who are happy to brew a pot for him.
~Idarubicin
Big question is how much is your time worth? When I get coffee, I get typical 'murican coffee (no cream or sugar, just black). I also consider how long will it take? I don't earn as much as Oleary but waiting in line behind several other people getting some kind of frappa macca moca that takes five minutes to make... $2.50 is nothing compared to how much worth per hour.
mfwright@batnet.com
If you've accumulated the money he is and still isn't spending it then he may as well not even made it at all. What a waste.
I also suspect he's lying in that he frequently buys things that are much more than his cups of coffee saved just because he can.
I bet he doesn't drive a 1992 Escort for instance.
That's good, I assume he's spending all those coffee savings on his famous Olive Oil collection instead.
Surprisingly enough to our minds, but totally consistent with his approach to life, the fact that as a man he couldn't be expected to cook, and that the alternative would be the more expensive option of employing someone.
Incidentally has anyone done a film of A Christmas Carol with a female Scrooge?
Yea,
pretty good, like 0.80$ per cup.
No cleanup in the morning, decent espresso (get the ristretto capsules).
Fast, you can recycle the capsules in a provided UPS bag if you are eco conscious.
The the espresso machine I use in the evening and weekends. No steaming milk, just a splash of half and half is good enough for me.
I don't get the people who pay for little treats all the damn time. It's like they need constant rewards or they'll just stay in bed.
Yep. I'm surprised at how few people see it this way. Or maybe I'm surprised at how many people have access to infinite amounts of overtime or other hourly work, and when presented with a choice between doing other things or just working more and hiring a service, go for the service.
That said, it's not always unwise to pay for the service. Unpaid personal time has a value, too. Hiring someone to paint your room so that you can be out with friends or family, having fun, or just getting rest, may be a perfectly sensible choice. It varies a lot based on time, income, preferences, and circumstance.
For instance, I'll drink the free coffee at work most days, and usually make it at home on weekends. But I'll splurge on a fancy latte maybe once a month just because I want something different. And if I'm traveling, well, I'll buy whatever's around, but tend to pay a premium because a lot of times the basic stuff has been sitting around for hours getting burnt, which I find unappealing.
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You can get a large coffee at mcd for about a dollar. Its actually usually decent too. To top it off they'll even add the sugar and creme for you if you want, cause trying to do that in a car cup holder sucks.
But are you "out and about", or are you simply moving from home (where coffee is cheap) to work (where coffee may also be cheap, or even free) but stopping in between to get coffee? If it's the latter, then maybe you DO have another option.
Pink Sugar Espresso (and places like them) would beg to differ on that one. As would I.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I would never pay more than 5$ for a bottle of wine. Because I am a teetotaler.
I don't drink wine. I have however found that paying between 2-3 times the supermarket minimum price for a bottle of wine gets you a far better wine that's still a sensible price and goes over much much better when you visit friends and give them a bottle as a gift.
Kevin O'Leary is the kind of guy who pay big money to visit a high class hooker and whines when he arrives about paying £1 for the Pay and Display parking meter. I know because I've had clients like this.
I always offer clients hospitality drinks. After we're done socialising when time versus money are calculated I'm charging ten times what branded outlets charge for the same thing albeit with the client kissing me and caressing my thighs. I cannot recall a client who has finished their tea before we have sex.
I feel the same way. It's not that I don't ever buy a coffee somewhere, but it's a rare thing. For one, I like black coffee and most places cover up their terrible coffee with sugar and milk and flavorings. And it really stinks to buy a coffee somewhere and it be terrible. At home, I know what I am getting.
On a similar note, if anyone goes out to bars and spends money at them, they are wasting it.
Sure, there's the social aspect, especially if you are single... but just know that you are paying a fee for that in the extreme markup of drinks.
Want to save money, or spend it on other things, buy your own alcohol and don't go to bars. Or if you do, just drink water.
What does a beer cost these days at a bar? Depends on brand, but let's say $5 + $1 tip. For the price of 2 beers you can probably buy a 6-pack at the store. So you are paying a 3x premium. Same goes for wine and spirits. It's crazy. I'm not cheap, but I'd rather buy a decent bottle of bourbon and enjoy it than 4 drinks at the bar.
I don't agree with the idea that you should do it to invest it, investments are risky. You should do it because it makes sense. Or don't... it's your money.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I absolutely agree there are times when paying someone to do a job has other, non-monetary benefits, ranging from freeing up personal time, quality of the work, ability/knowledge to do the work, etc. These can all be very good reasons to pay someone to do something for you.
Whatever you do, don't spend a dollar of your money on anything you want. Consider your money to actually be the money of all the companies that exist on the stock market. Be sure to invest every single nickel you have, and hopefully you'll die before you retire.
If you buy things like Starbucks coffee, it's an indicator that you prioritize convenience and instant gratification over sound money management and working towards a goal. So it's $850/yr for coffee. $2500/yr on fast food instead of home-made meals. $3000/yr because you leased a nicer model car than you could afford instead of buying a more practical car. $6750/yr on higher interest payments on your home mortgage because you took whatever the bank was offering instead of researching a better loan. $3750/yr on interest payments on the credit card balance you're carrying because you just gotta buy that TV, stereo, computer, latest video game, concert tickets, whatever Right Now instead of waiting until you've actually saved up the money to afford it. etc. It all adds up.
For most people, this is the difference between making other people rich (the fast food franchise owner, car dealership, the bank, the credit card company, etc), and becoming rich themselves. It always baffled me how so many people say they're upset at the 1%, yet freely hand over their money to the 1% via their everyday purchase decisions.
It costs me about a dollar a cup. I have the boring simple drip coffee maker pot. I have to make a minimal of 4 cups or it doesn't work correctly. And so I generally waste most of my coffee I make.
Are most drip coffee makers like this? Maybe this is part of the reason people buy stuff at Starbucks or wherever.
If you get enough sleep at night, you don't need coffee.
.... It sucks, but what can you do? ...
Plan ahead a bit.
I fill a thermos with fresh ground and brewed coffee every morning. Better than any long-line drive-thru or the K-crap machine at work.
This has served me well for years. As much as I want to drink for the day at less than the cost of a single K-cup, and far less than any size from coffee shop.
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2016/01/26/news/real-and-shocking-story-kevin-olearys-business-career
A used car $10 k will do you fine. You think that's what he drives? Nope, me neither.
so yeah, sure he saves coffee money. but lets drop this bs lecture about frugality. people have preferences, and just because they don't spend the money like you they should, doesn't mean they spent it wrong. I spend mine on coffee, and drive a pos car. and that's how I effin like it.
He is comparing apples and oranges, but at the same time makes a good point - if not very clearly.
The quality, style, and presentation of coffee does not matter to him. He just wants a basic cup o'Joe. He can make that at home for a few pennies, and it's actually more convenient than going to the coffee shop.
I suspect that the vast majority of sheeples that go to Starbucks also care not a bit about the quality, style, or presentation of coffee either. Otherwise, they would be at a good independent coffee shop, and not at Starbucks!
It's not valid, though, to compare a cup of Chock-Full-of-Nuts made in the drip machine at home with an artisan cup of espresso, latte', cappuccino, etc.
The capital cost of doing this (WELL) at home, is fairly high. Sorry, no, that $10 or $20 blade grinder from Amazon will not do the same job as the high-end burr grinder they use at the shop. No, your drip machine will not make anything approaching a good espresso machine.
A few years ago, I invested $400 in a good burr grinder (Mazzer Mini) and $800 on a piston-lever style espresso machine (Elektra Micro Casa a'Leva). Aside, I think the only consumer purchase I've ever made that has actually appreciated. (The Micro Casa has doubled in price in the mean time... my late 2012 Mac Mini comes close, having retained it value... it's a much-sought Unicorn).
I jokingly calculated the cost-per-cup for a short time after I bought this rig. My first cup was the $1200 cup of espresso!
OK, so 10 years later, it has more than paid for itself.
Rough back of envelope: every two weeks or so I walk across the street to the artisan coffee roaster, and pay $15 for a bag of covfefe beans. I also drop $3 on a properly-made Macchiato. (Which you will not find at Starbucks.) But I will ignore that one cup, and just call it $15. I make one cappuccino every morning, so that's about 30 cups. 45 - 15, I have saved $30. * 24 I could have saved $720/year, if it weren't for my extravagant habit of one shop-made coffee every two weeks. I could have saved $7200 over the 10 years, so my capital cost was sunk a long time ago. (Oops, one $400 trip the repair shop...)
But, you can see, even so, this is not a .20 cup of coffee. It's a 0.50 cup of coffee in beans alone. Add a naive $5 for the share of the capital cost (ignoring opportunity cost), now you are at $20 / 30 = 0.66. If you add opportunity cost (I could have invested that $1200 10 years ago) we're well over $1/cup.
Now add what can be a very expensive retail lease in well-trafficked locations, cost of equipment, furnishings, leasehold improvements, employee cost, other costs of operations (utilities, disposables, etc. etc.) $2.50 isn't an unreasonable cost at all.
With the recent craze for "cold brew" coffee, there is a new wrinkle: inventory management and waste. Always been an issue for beans (having beans in stock that are not too new and not too old, and kept from oxidation). Customers expect cold brew to be made over-night and be fresh. A good place will toss what is left at the end of the day. They have to predict every day how much cold brew they will need. They will either have waste at the end of the day, or unhappy customers who cannot buy the cold brew they wanted.
I will occasionally make a cup of French Press, in an insulated stainless steel Freling press. It's a hassle, though, since I have to adjust the grind and then adjust it back for espresso. If French Press is your thing, you can avoid most of the capital cost.
If it MATTERS to you, seek out a good local artisanal shop, buy your own equipment and find a good source of beans (NOT Trader Joe!. Please NOT bagged Starbucks!). Skip Starbucks, but you already knew that if it matters to you. Find something else that you over-spend on every day and cut THAT.
If it doesn't matter, stop spending the money on garbage over-roasted coffee at a cost that is unreasonable for your wants. At the same time, stop blaming Starbucks for the cost. It's not the huge margin business you've been imagining it is.
So doesn't this guys philosophy, if shared by many of the wealthy, demonstrate that trickle down does not work? Aren't we allowing the rich to keep more of their tax dollars so they DO purchase that $2.50 coffee with it?
I've never been a fan of Starbucks coffee, seriously overpriced and it tastes like crap. I'd buy it in airports, but that was it. Some months ago Starbucks announced they planned to hire 10,000 illegal immigrants. That means those 10,000 jobs won't go to American citizens. You're dead to me, Starbucks. I will never spend another dime in your disgusting establishments. If there are patriots among /. readers, I encourage you to avoid Starbucks as well.
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
This is the problem with looking at everything through the prism of a balance sheet. You wanna save every dollar? Fine. Stay holed up in your shack and DIY everything. It's not about the coffee. It's about an affordable escape for a while. Get out of the house. See what struggling local artists are doing. Run into people with common interests, or just look cool behind your device while sneaking peeks at other people looking cool behind their devices. Simultaneously catch eachother. Start a relationship, find true love... or live like a hermit and literally die of loneliness; but hey, at least some distant cousin will get an unexpected windfall of freshly sterilized bank notes found next to your corpse.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
What the fuck is THIS crap doing on Slashdot?
are moved overseas? What do you do in the face of rapidly encroaching automation? Not everything is in your control. All the time here on /. I hear people say kids these days shouldn't borrow $160k to go to college but learn a trade instead. But even if you do that what happens if you pick the wrong trade.
There was just a story about a neo-Nazi (actual neo-Nazi, as in has Mein Kampf on his bookshelf) loosing his job at Applebees because he got interviewed by one of the left wing mags and his boss caught wind of it. Thing is, he was a welder between gigs. I can't tell you the number of right wingers who, when they hear me complain about my kid's college bills tell me she should be a welder. They point to high wages and ignore the lack of steady work. I guess if you want to live on the road. Good luck starting a family like that.
Is it just me, or are we, the working class, always being told to work harder for less? When I was a kid we were supposed to work less for more.
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$2.50 is a sufficiently small amount that it's not worth keeping track of.
Meanwhile, $0.99 for an app!?!??! So expensive!
He spent more money on his suit than the average person spends on a lifetime of coffee.
My girlfriend had a 3x/day Starbucks habit 7 days a week when we met. It blew me away, $12/15 dollars a day. Worse than smoking. I've still never seen coffee addiction like that since.
Our first Christmas together I bought her a nice espresso machine, a big giant box of Starbucks beans, grinder, the shitty paper cups, tiny little ceramic coffee mugs, a hipster jazz CD... everything she needed to replicate the experience if she just did it herself. It cost me a pretty penny, but way less than she was spending, and it was a damn impressive gift.
In the card I explained that this gift was not only a fancy coffee maker with all the fixings, but was also at least a $4000 savings over the year. She read it aloud and I could see our relatives running the numbers in their heads. It was beautiful. Perfect mix of shame and realization moved throughout the room as she unboxed all the paraphernalia .
We still use the machine, but I understand its a PITA to clean. Who knew? Anyway, she stopped buying coffee every day and started doing it herself with grocery store beans instead of Starbucks. I became addicted to the espresso beans through my simple drip machine, and I feel like we're a few shmeckles richer every Christmas.
And for the record, I don't know how Starbucks fucks it up so bad in the store. That dark espresso roast makes a damn fine cuppa joe in my kitchen.
The drip coffee at work is fucking terrible. The end.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
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They also have a coffee press, $445
Some years ago I read on the inventor's website that the method coffee beans are ground and pressed in the holder to make espresso could be the difference between blah and yea! espresso/coffee. That $2700 pays for machines that produce superior coffee, consistently.
$2700 buys a lot of Starbucks!
=====
O'Leary's objection reduce coffee to a caffeine delivery vehicle. Not new; I consider French Fries a catsup delivery tool, ice cream a chocolate syrup delivery vehicle...etc.
But coffee, espresso, lattes and all the other coffee based drinks are also something that can be enjoyed for flavor and tastes. Calvinists need not apply.
If you excuse me, I'm going to get Crio Bru.
https://criobru.com/
been in a Starbucks. You have to be retarded to pay that much for coffee. I make my own.
I've had it 2-3 times. It must be a thing you get used to. It's bad coffee, and most importantly, it is uninteresting coffee.
And you wouldn't need glasses.
Just another day in Paradise
You're paying for the time of the barrista, not the coffee.
It's idiotic to compare it to the cost of the materials.
The best coffee is a ristretto. No milk or random shit in it.
Coffee shops don't sell that.
I don't... achievement unlocked.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Kevin is promoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Casteism
This article must have been posted for purely trolling purposes!
Any semi-intelligent adult knows that ANYTHING done at home is cheaper.
One's time at home making coffee is usually considered valuable stress-free (meditation) of sorts; just an added benefit.
It could be argued that home brew coffee is much more to preferences than any other service.
So, fine! DON'T by a coffee-shop coffee for $2.50! Don't by a deli sandwhich for $8! Don't buy a deli salad for $7!
Go home for breakfast/lunch/dinner! Then, invest your savings!
Now get back to work finding important articles worth reviewing!
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.
Meh, I'll just take Lipton instant, maybe add a few leaves of mint to it if the mood strikes me.