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.

Comments

Reductio ad absurdum

[Daetrin]

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?