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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.
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 $100/month. Give that up, and you can afford a nice holiday somewhere, or pay back your mortgage earlier.
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Reread, please. He says it costs HIM 18 cents to make.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
'"The truth is, there is a lot of crap you don't need," he explains'.
As you go through life you can use the proceeds of your labour for different things. Kevin O'Leary apparently thinks that nothing beats a good big juicy investment portfolio.
If he thinks a cup of coffee cost 18 cents, I can imagine what kind of coffee he drinks. Anyone else thinking "Scrooge"?
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
How is this News for Nerds? More importantly do we really want to take financial advise from this guy?
But if someone is willing to spend 250$ 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...
$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 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
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.
Paying $3 for a cup of coffee every morning for 40 years = $43,800
Paying 20 cents for a cup of coffee every morning for 40 years = $2,920
That's a difference of over $40 thousand dollars. It's a hell of a lot more than that if you took that money and invested it over a 40-year span.
This is advice. Financial advice. And the hipster masses perpetually carrying around a caramel-drizzled fuckachino bitching about always being broke would probably be wise to listen.
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.
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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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).
Paying 20 cents for a cup of coffee every morning for 40 years = $2,920
Having a company-stocked Keurig? Priceless. Am I the only one with a coffee maker at work? Even before I took this job with the stocked Keurig, we had a coffee maker with an honor-system can for buying coffee.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
OK But you can apply this to any form of entertainment. You could always be saving money. It's always cheaper to cook at home. It's always cheaper to buy a six pack of beer than meet friends at a bar. It's cheaper to watch movies that come over basic television than to than buy/rent/ or go to the movies. It's cheaper to sit in your room and stare at he wall than to take a vacation. Yeah, so what?
Also, the guy is disingenuously muddying the idea of paying for a service and paying for a more expensive version of the product.: (frape-latte-blah-blah-blah-woof-woof-woof). OK you like black coffee better, but some people are willing to pay for something tastes better. It would be like telling people they are wasting money buying a craft beer instead of the cheapest forty. Again, yeah, so what?
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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?
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At my company, we have a coffee club with "all you can drink" coffee from a Bunn coffee maker. Membership is $6 per month. I drink 2-3 cups per day ( average 60-70 / month, or approx. $0.10 per cup)
Each year, we end up with a sizable surplus, which (this year) covered everyone's monthly fee for December.
( Last year, the surplus went toward group Lottery Tickets. We learned that was a waste of money as well. )
Truth is, he gets to make it at home. That's a nice perk.
For many of us, the truth is steeped a bit more harshly. Many working American's are commuting for hours, running around trying ensure we meet all our government obligations (auto-inspections, permits, etc). Then we have personal obligations (feed the kids, fold the laundry, do the dishes, etc, etc).
I wager he is not dealing with most of those things. And as such, it is very easy to brew your own coffee when you can sit around for 15 minutes or so. Now granted, he may be brewing K-Cups, which is a fast alternative, and also a large part of the reason K-cups are so popular.
But even more of a question, why is our society structure so !@#$% 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?
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.
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.
/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.
This is advice. Financial advice
You want advice. Live under a bridge. Eat nothing but potatoes, don't ever pay someone for something you can do yourself regardless of how long it takes you. Then you will truly be saving money.
It's a fucked life, but hey, every dollar right?
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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Worse yet, there are people who will regularly leave their home/workplace and drive somewhere for the sole purpose of getting a cup of coffee and bringing it back to where they were. Sometimes they'll do this multiple times per day!
Log in or piss off.
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
Ugh, your workplace should really just get a couple of drip machines instead of that vaguely coffee-flavored mud a Keurig produces.
Eat the rich.
Your workplace doesn't supply the coffee for free to you? What kind of third-world hellhole do you live in?
Eat the rich.
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.
We have a Bunn that fills a carafe, but it rarely gets used. Most of us prefer the Keurig; we have a dozen or so choices of coffees, teas, cocoa, or apple cider. Preferences differ, but nobody complains that they can't find something they like.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
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?
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.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
There is such a thing as being so cheap that it is not financially sound. Having clean clothes and showering every day gives you a massive increase in earning potential. Living near a major city provides access to more job opportunities. Having a balanced diet prevents costly health problems in the future. IMO, the most financially efficient lifestyle is owning a home in a city, but renting out some rooms to cover the costs. If you own a three bedroom house and you're renting out two of the rooms, you should be close to break-even. With none of the downsides of living under a bridge.
We have some thing with pads, not the keurig one and people use their own pads for thhose who do nott like the free coffee from the machine.
Pads and cups are also a way to charge people more for a cheap product. Bit like charging for a fixed IP for a adsl or cable connection that always will have an IP anyway.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
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.
Honestly, I would rather bring my own coffee in a thermos, than be subjected to such a thing.
Eat the rich.
It gets better. I just punched this into a compounding interest calculator: $3 a day for 40 years at a modest 6% outputs $172,526.71. Enough to have a major impact on one's lifestyle in during retirement.
All those things that you mentioned would indeed fuck your life. But abstaining from Starbucks wouldn't, so I guess that's different huh?
I would never pay more than 5$ 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.
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.
This is advice. Financial advice
You want advice. Live under a bridge. Eat nothing but potatoes, don't ever pay someone for something you can do yourself regardless of how long it takes you. Then you will truly be saving money.
It's a fucked life, but hey, every dollar right?
Extraneous recurring expenses are what will kill you financially. I make my own coffee, bring my lunch to work, mow my own yard, don't pay for cable, etc., because those costs add up massively over time. On the other hand, I have a very nice set of speakers for my home theater, because I can pay once, and enjoy them for a lifetime.
Add the $600 to the £11676 you'll save each year by ditching the car you don't fucking need and use it to hire a car for the two days a month you actually want to go somewhere the metro doesn't cover.
That'll leave you $11k a year to invest. It may not pay for a million dollar apartment but hey, you're the fuckwit that wants to live in a stupid overcrowded shithole.
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.
Your workplace doesn't supply the coffee for free to you? What kind of third-world hellhole do you live in?
I don't know about that guy but I've worked places where they offered a coffee for free and yet personal coffee machines showed up... YMMV.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Having clean clothes and showering every day gives you a massive increase in earning potential.
EVERY day? EVERY SINGLE day?!?!
slashdot: A failed experiment.
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.
Some people are just really picky with their coffee/tea. I like a good cup of well-brewed coffee, but I certainly don't mind strong-ass black as tar drip coffee, even cold. It's a nice reminder that life is bitter, and then you die.
Eat the rich.
Charging employees for coffee is just about the pettiest thing I've heard about in a long time.
Eat the rich.
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.
Never drink 'Pumpkin Ale'. It's almost as bad as can Bud.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
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"?
If you have a soda vending machine in the office, they are doing the same thing, just more discreetly.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
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.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
$2.50 is a sufficiently small amount that it's not worth keeping track of.
Meanwhile, $0.99 for an app!?!??! So expensive!
Paying $3 for a cup of coffee every morning for 40 years = $43,800
$43800 in 40 years will be worth about $100 due to inflation. Is that worth spending 40 fucking years worrying about making coffee every single day?
And what is the cumulative stress effect of counting coffee savings every single day for 40 years?
This is advice. Financial advice.
And it's pretty shit. Better advice would be to get a STEM education and never worry about the price of coffee again.
He spent more money on his suit than the average person spends on a lifetime of coffee.
Having clean clothes and showering every day gives you a massive increase in earning potential.
Now we're talking. And while we're talking given my current pay rate it is much more valuable to me to line up for coffee in the morning than make it myself given how much those 5minutes are worth.
But that's just me, who knows maybe someone who's worth $400million actually makes money by working for free and thus can't afford coffee.
Well going to Starbucks would. As for abstaining from coffee? Heck yes it would. Not all of us drink it for the caffeine hit. Some of us do it purely for the wonderful taste.
Hence the comparison with eating nothing but potatoes.
No poor financial planning is what will kill you financially. Doing something without the means is what will kill you financially. And that is kind of my point: Someone worth $400m just said to get rich skip on buying coffee. It's completely absurd financial advice that among other things ignores the time value of money.
The subtext of your advice on the otherhand is sound. "Live within your means and watch that expenses don't creep up on you". The same reason I also don't subscribe to cable. I will however spend a small fortune on my food and drink, and that includes getting nicely made coffees from specialist cafes.
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.
Your workplace doesn't supply the coffee for free to you? What kind of third-world hellhole do you live in?
I don't know about that guy but I've worked places where they offered a coffee for free and yet personal coffee machines showed up... YMMV.
Your kind of workplace supplied coffee bad enough that people brought their own machines in anyway? What kind of third-world hellhole do you live in?
We don't have vending machines, but you can buy a soda in the cafeteria. But soda is different. Coffee is healthy and a productivity booster. Soda is crap for you and makes you lethargic.
You may disagree of course, but that is the reasoning.
Eat the rich.
I check out my video entertainment from my library. I'm already paying for it, so there is no cost other than the three mile round trip to the bookmobile every Thursday evening. The library's movie catalog is far larger than what I can afford to buy, and better than what you can find on TV. I admit, there are disks that have scratches, but we leave them a note in the case, and get another copy later.
It gets better. I just punched this into a compounding interest calculator: $3 a day for 40 years at a modest 6% outputs $172,526.71. Enough to have a major impact on one's lifestyle in during retirement.
Not really. And certainly not 40 years form now.
If you are willing to live an entire life of deprivation, you can indeed save a lot of money. But then again, if you can live a life of deprivation, you don't need that money anyway!
Here's another conundrum - if everyone took this "smart" advice about living frugally and saving every penny, nobody would have a job!
There is only room for a few parasites to work the system.
The financial advice is for the smart people who value it. Because of this, there is no "conundrum" to worry about, because there aren't that many smart people armed with common sense in the world. Starbucks revenue alone makes that very clear.
he said, while using an electronic device worth several thousand coffees
My laptop enables me to perform my job, which has considerable value-add towards productivity.
Other than caffeine addiction, (and perhaps diabetes based on Starbucks "coffee" drinks), coffee adds little or no actual value towards productivity, and creates a considerable financial impact over the long-term. Zombie coffee addicts would of course disagree ("I can't function without it!"), but there are millions of people who don't drink coffee that have no issues being productive.
Sure, until you realize that, since you're writing in USD, many people need to save somewhere in the order of a million dollars over that time to be able to pay for retirement. In such a comparison, the $3 coffee is not such a big deal.
Plus what's the big deal? You could make the same argument about going for a beer.
For some people, the difference is huge. For others, it's miniscule. For example, let's say that you are paid not on salary, but hourly? Then sometimes paying other people to do stuff for you can definitely be worth it, economically speaking.
Extend my 40-year estimate to 50 years or more, which is the more likely length of a working career.
$3 a day for 40 years at 6% interest compounded annually works out to over $160,000 Extend that to 50 years, and it works out to over $310,000.
And that's just eliminating one expense (coffee) from your life. Do that two more times, and you've made a million just cutting extra expenses. That's not including what you could also save from contributing more towards a retirement plan from working.
Paying $3 for a cup of coffee every morning for 40 years = $43,800
$43800 in 40 years will be worth about $100 due to inflation. Is that worth spending 40 fucking years worrying about making coffee every single day? And what is the cumulative stress effect of counting coffee savings every single day for 40 years?
Saving $3 a day for 40 years at 6% interest compounded annually works out to over $160,000. Extend that to 50 years (a more realistic career length), and it works out to over $310,000.
This is advice. Financial advice.
And it's pretty shit. Better advice would be to get a STEM education and never worry about the price of coffee again.
The best job in the world isn't worth dick if you fail to understand the value of saving and investing. Plenty of lottery winners, ex-celebrities, and sports stars are dead-ass broke today, and they earned a lot more than any STEM job.
been in a Starbucks. You have to be retarded to pay that much for coffee. I make my own.
I work for government. Taxpayers tend to not want to pay for such "perks".
Right, because taking the advice to its extreme is the lesson here. No, no, no...if that's what you think, then you're not listening.
Just another day in Paradise
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)
Saving $3 a day for 40 years at 6% interest compounded annually works out to over $160,000.
Good, good. you know some basic maths. Now tell me what interest rates have been for each of the last last 40 years, compared to inflation and cross reference that against the averages cup of coffee, and add in all the side effects of 40 years of never drinking coffee, being looked at weirdly by friends and co-workers and all the other soft implications of behaving like a tight ass?
The best job in the world isn't worth dick if you fail to understand the value of saving and investing.
Yes it is, because even if you blow everything you have you've probably had a good life. Unlike a weirdo who won't spend a penny on anything.
"I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered." - George Best
Kevin is promoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Casteism
If public sector jobs didn't offer free coffee here, I think most people would consider it a human rights violation.
Eat the rich.
Well we're talking purely financial advice. Since the GP ignored any benefit or joy gained from drinking a lovely prepared coffee in a nice cafe then I guess we should ignore that for everything else too. Then it becomes a money game.
Yay potatoes. You can live entirely on them.
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.