You get into your car, start driving and find yourself in front of Starbucks before you are even fully awake. The morning coffee fix is a daily ritual for a lot of people. If you are having trouble giving it up, there is no need to pay full price for your cup of joe. Here are 10 ways to save at Starbucks from my latest article at TheStreet.com:
1. Don’t go
2. Buy your coffee at retail outlets
3. Make friends with Starbucks employees
4. Purchase Starbucks gift cards on eBay
5. Look for Starbucks offering promotions
6. Take your own cup
7. Order simple
8. Keep those gift cards (they are collectible)
9. Raid your change jar
10. Buy McDonald’s coffee
Coffee, like soda, can easily be a $1000 a year habit. If you’re not willing to give up Starbucks completely, these hints should help to keep some extra change in your pockets while still enjoying your vice.
And a bonus tip from me: Starbucks across the country will be giving away a free 12 oz or “tall” cup of coffee on Thursday, March 15th, from 10am to noon. It’s hard to beat free when trying to save money.
Haha. Number one should be bolded and highlighted.
Invest $15 in a coffee pot at Wal-Mart. Drop $5 on a can of maxwell House.
Note: I am a coffee lover, have roasted my own.
Fill up on free coffee at the office! If I didn’t do this, my caffeine fix would be costing me at least an additional $60 a month. I treat myself to one Starbucks latte a week (today was my lucky day) and the rest of the week is office coffee. It’s nothing special but it’s passable and it gets the job done!
I have a french press I keep at the office and as long as the beans are ground for a french press, I can buy them anywhere I want. The french press really does give the coffee a nice consitency, better than office coffee. And, its MUCH cheaper than Fourbucks. Hope somebody tries this and likes it.
make your own!
after paying $300 for an espresso machine and buying premium italian coffee beans, my capas and lattes tastes so much better than the mud served at starbucks. i also spared myself the mindnumbing 20 minutes it takes to get the crap (10 minute roundtrip travel + 5 minute wait to order because the idiot in front of you doesnt know the difference of americano or latte + 5 minutes it takes to make your order) and $4 each day. total starbuck savings 1.2 hours and $20 per week or 62.4 hours and $1000 per year.
i spend about $15 for beans which last 3 weeks. spending about $260 per year on coffee. total outlay for first year $560 (espresso machine and coffee) the espresso machine paid for itself, i have better tasting coffee drinks, and i am not part of the starbuck drone machine.
spending about $20 on my coffee is worth it.
Does anyone have experience with buying gift cards on eBay? I am thinking of buying some Home Depot cards for a discount in order to buy new appliances. However, I’m a little worried about doing this.
I buy gift cards on ebay. ebay now makes it so a selling can only list a certain number at a time due to fraud in the past. This has made things much better. It’s worthwhile looking at the persons rating, but I have not had any trouble to date (knock on wood) buying gift cards with about 50 ebay transactions.