A few years ago, I was terrible with money. I was spending all of my money and living paycheck to paycheck. But then I met my husband and he convinced me to change my bad money habits. In this post I’m going to tell you all about one of those bad money habits. I’ll tell you about how you can making this one simple change can save you $100 or more every month!
THIS ONE SIMPLE CHANGE CAN SAVE YOU $100 OR MORE EVERY MONTH
This post may contain affiliate links.
Note: This post was originally written in November of 2016. I was just looking back on it and feeling amazed at how far I’ve come from the spender I used to be. I wanted to share this with you again and reassure anyone who finds themselves struggling with the little habits that can suck up so much money. It’s not easy at first, but it gets so much easier! You can break those habits and change your spending ways. Overtime, you’ll gain momentum and find yourself in a completely different place where you actually have money.
MY BAD HABIT
I used to get drive-thru coffee every single morning on my way to work.
I would go to Dunkin Donuts Monday-Thursday and get my large coffee and sometimes a bagel too. On Fridays I would go to Starbucks (which I like better).
I felt like I deserved the Starbucks reward on Fridays because I thought I was saving a ton of money by getting the cheaper Dunkin Donuts the other 4 days.
I did this for years.
Then, when I was first thinking about cutting back on spending a few years ago, I started by taking a look on what I was actually spending my money on.
I went through all of my bank and credit card statements from the previous 3 months and added up how much I was spending in each area. I was so surprised by what I found!
Related: The First Step to Saving More Money
HOW MUCH I WAS SPENDING
When I discovered how much I was spending on my daily drive-thru coffee habit I could not believe it!
I was spending $120-$155 each month!
Each coffee trip was $4-$6 a pop. And as it turns out, that was really adding up over the course of the month.
I couldn’t help but think of all the other things I could have been spending that money on.
At that point in my life I was constantly feeling like I never had any money. So, I was shocked to find out that I had over a hundred dollars that I was choosing to spend on coffee every month.
I CHANGED MY DRIVE-THRU WAYS
I wanted to fix this problem, but I was not about to give up coffee. However, I was willing to give up the drive-thru.
So, I started making my coffee at home.
This meant taking the extra few minutes before leaving the house to actually make the coffee. But I noticed that I actually saved time in my morning because I wasn’t waiting in those drive-thru lines anymore.
It didn’t mean that my morning coffee was free, but it was so much cheaper.
Even if I did it the slightly more expensive (easier) way with the Keurig, it was way cheaper than the drive-thru coffee.
We already had the Keurig, so I didn’t consider that an expense. The only expense was the K-cups which generally cost $8.99 for a box of 18. Sometimes you can get them for much less than that. And of course it depends on what kind of coffee you like. My favorite is Green Mountain.
So, $9/18 cups of coffee = 50 cents a cup!
We also have a regular old drip coffee pot, and making coffee in that is even cheaper!
Related: How to Create a Savings Schedule you can stick to
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
Maybe you also start each day with drive-thru coffee. I get it! But I encourage you to take a look back on what you’ve been spending on coffee or breakfast the past few months.
But, maybe your bad habit is different than mine. Maybe you stop at target on the way home each day. Or you can’t stop buying shoes. Perhaps you buy a scratch ticket, or a soda, every time you stop at the gas station.
Just take a look of at what you’re actually spending or a month or a few months. Think about what else you could be spending that money on. And think about what you could do with that money if you saved it over the course of the next year.
WHAT WOULD IT MEAN FOR YOU?
For me, there was such a simple fix to my problem. I was able to substitute the thing I was throwing my money away on with something I can make at home.
Your solution might not be as obvious. You might need to get a little creative with how you can save money in your trouble area. But it is worth the time and effort.
Figure out how much money you would have if you just made a simple switch. Then, try it out! It might actually change your life.
Psst… Want to save even more? Hop on my email list here. It’s my favorite place to give you money saving tips and insights that I just don’t share anywhere else. Plus you’ll get lots of free financial tools just for signing up.
Want more? Here are some of my best posts about saving money:
No Spend November: Everything you need to know
The 2 Ways to Pay off Debt: Which one is right for you?
3 Tips to Cut your Electric Bill in Half
How to get a Good Deal on a Car when You’re not good at Negotiating
You can read more about my story here: A Spender and A Saver Fall in Love
I can go one better than k cups. I ordered the reusable cups on Amazon, buy a three pound can of coffee at CostCo and make my own! Ten bucks for coffee that lasts a very long time! IF I need a coffee when I’m out and about; I go to McDonalds!! I travel extensively and I can do it because of no coffee and little eating out!! It works!!
Wow…I buy coffee on the road a lot too! I’m going to add it up for the next month to see how much I spend. I don’t do it every day but I’ll bet I still spend a good amount! Thanks for the tip and for sharing with us at Share The Wealth Sunday!
Dining out when I’m too tired to cook. It definitely adds up!
I have a habit of buying lunch everyday even though I have groceries at home and should be making my lunch. It’s pathetic! I told myself for the rest of the year I can only buy lunch twice for November and twice in December.
Eating out, especailly at lunch. Food is ok, no social aspect to it, so why? Definitely save money when I think to grab food in the am.
Starbucks can definitely add up! I’ve been lucky that it’s never been a habit, but it is a treat I like to work into my budget. I pick up the discount gift cards on Raise or Giftcard Granny though and transfer them onto my gold card to max out my savings.
I’m not a big coffee drinker, but we definitely had a problem with convenience spending for a while. They charge a premium for making it easy!
Great story!! I’m such a committed at home coffee maker now myself 🙂 Starbucks is a very rare treat! I also stopped doing other things like buying greeting cards and magazines!
I used to spend a lot of money on daily lattes (work was next door to a coffee shop.) I also had a daily buy lunch habit. When I think about how much cheaper it is to make my coffee and lunch each day, I cringe at the extra bucks I could have been putting into my retirement accounts. At about $10 a day, I spent about $2500 over the course of a year. Cutting back even lunch and latte a week would have saved me $500.
I used to not spend at much per month – but then when I started dating my fiance… HELLOOOOOOOOO eating out!!! AND IT CAN GET EXPENSIVE FOR SURE! He and I are going to need to cook at home more… When we get married, things are going to change a little bit, he he!
We had to cut out fast food runs to get ahead this year. It made a dramatic difference pretty quickly. It’s so easy to let money slip out of your hands this way!
I never thought about it before. Wow, I need to go through my slips and see where all the money goes. Thank you so much.
Guilty as charged. Switched over to a Kuerg and make it at home. Get to stay home longer with out the stop time which was also a bonus!
I noticed this also, along with the fact that I was gaining weight with the lattes that I was getting. I started drinking coffee from home and saved a ton of money and lost weight!