Reuse your Coffee Grounds

[james.hendrickson]

Hi All,

Just as a quick reminder, if you make your coffee at home, you can always reuse your grounds. For example, we use a french press to make coffee here at my house and the grounds are usually good for a second press.

You can also re-use your k-cups. The second cup is sometimes a bit watery, but watery is better than paying for more coffee.

[disneysteve]

You can also re-use your k-cups. The second cup is sometimes a bit watery, but watery is better than paying for more coffee.

I am not a coffee drinker but my wife is. I can assure you that she would disagree that watery coffee is worth any savings it would create.

That said, she uses the little device that lets you put your own coffee in the Keurig machine. That alone is much cheaper than buying k-cups. I've also heard that if doing that, you can make a second cup by only adding maybe half as much to the holder along with the original grounds so you can save that way and not have to drink watery coffee.

[Thrif-t]

Yuck, tried it, no thanks. But we like our coffee strong. Heck sometimes when I try to just add another cup of water to an already made pot (Mr. Coffee) its way too weak. I just stock up when Maxwell House or Folgers cans are a good price because we drink coffee every morning, 3 of us.

[Fishindude77]

Hi All,

Just as a quick reminder, if you make your coffee at home, you can always reuse your grounds. For example, we use a french press to make coffee here at my house and the grounds are usually good for a second press.

You can also re-use your k-cups. The second cup is sometimes a bit watery, but watery is better than paying for more coffee.

I'm with you on this, do it all the time and my kids and wife give me a hard time over it. Why waste another paper filter, just shake a small amount of new coffee right on top of the first batch of grounds and run another pot of water through it. Money doesn't grow on trees !

[scfr]

I'm with you on this, do it all the time and my kids and wife give me a hard time over it. Why waste another paper filter, just shake a small amount of new coffee right on top of the first batch of grounds and run another pot of water through it. Money doesn't grow on trees !

Have you thought about investing in a reusable filter to save money in the long run?

[FindingFreedom]

This post made me laugh because my grandfather always used to reuse coffee grounds but would do it over multiple days. He would make a pot of coffee on Monday and then just leave the grounds in there to make a second pot on Tuesday.

We don't do that but we DO use a reusable k-cup filter. Way cheaper to refill that with a $7 bag of coffee than spend .50 per cup using a one and done k-cup.

[Smallsteps]

I have stretched coffee grounds like I was almost out so just added a scoop to stretch one more day so I put off a trip to store. Mostly I just use the used grounds in gardening.

In fact I used to get the used grounds from a starbucks before planting a patch of lawn.

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Yeah, no thanks. Life is too short for watered down coffee.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

I'm with you on this, do it all the time and my kids and wife give me a hard time over it. Why waste another paper filter, just shake a small amount of new coffee right on top of the first batch of grounds and run another pot of water through it. Money doesn't grow on trees !

But coffee does.

I don't drink my coffee especially strong, but that doesn't mean I would enjoy a drink from twice-used grounds. Besides being weaker, the entire balance of flavors would be off kilter.

[bjl584]

This is a bit extreme. To the point of focusing on the wrong things.

Keeping your car a few extra years will save you money.
Grocery shopping and cooking your own meals will save you money.
Reusing your coffee grounds will give you watery gross coffee.

[disneysteve]

This is a bit extreme. To the point of focusing on the wrong things.

Yes and no. How extreme you need to be depends on how bad your situation is. Personally, saving a few cents on a cup of coffee would have zero impact on our overall financial picture. However, for someone really struggling to get by, living paycheck to paycheck, dealing with debt, etc., finding a place to save maybe a couple dollars each month can be significant.

[rennigade]

Yes and no. How extreme you need to be depends on how bad your situation is. Personally, saving a few cents on a cup of coffee would have zero impact on our overall financial picture. However, for someone really struggling to get by, living paycheck to paycheck, dealing with debt, etc., finding a place to save maybe a couple dollars each month can be significant.

If thats the case I would encourage those people to stop drinking coffee altogether. Its not a necessity. For most people the first couple days quiting cold turkey is going to be tough since coffee is an addictive drug...but after a couple days your body will adjust.

[disneysteve]

If thats the case I would encourage those people to stop drinking coffee altogether. Its not a necessity.

Agreed. As I said earlier in another thread, most people who say they've cut the budget as far as they possibly can really haven't. Finding the cheapest way to get your daily cup of coffee is great, but cutting it out completely is even better.

[Fishindude77]

To me, it's not about money but some practices just seem wasteful. My wife gets up every morning, grinds a handful of special beans she likes, makes one cup of coffee and throws them out.

I'm certainly no coffee expert, good old off the shelf gas station stuff suits me same as Starbucks, but I'll guarantee you for the amount of beans the wife grinds up every morning you at least get 2-4 cups of decent coffee out of it. If brown water is still coming out of those grounds, then you are still making coffee.

[disneysteve]

To me, it's not about money but some practices just seem wasteful.

I'll guarantee you for the amount of beans the wife grinds up every morning you at least get 2-4 cups of decent coffee out of it.

That could be true. If she's grinding more than she needs and tossing out what she doesn't use, that is wasteful. Why not either grind less or store the extra for the following day?

My wife hasn't ground her own beans for a long time but that's exactly what she used to do. She wouldn't grind fresh every single day. She would grind a bit, use it for 3-4 days, and then grind more.