Around the time we had our second child, we started noticing our money tightening up. I was busy at work and Christy was busy at home. One thing that seems to happen for a lot of people when life gets hectic and they are short on time is, they start spending more money on meals.
I routinely left for work at or before 5AM, so I usually stopped somewhere for breakfast in the morning. When I was being good, I’d get a bagel at the grocery store or a pretzel from the shop up the street. But most of the time, I’d stop at 7-11 and get jalapeño cream cheese Taquitos when I was getting gas. 3 for $3.33! That’s a good deal.
Around this time, Christy started baking. I’m not just saying this because she knows where I live, but she is a great baker. Most of the things she bakes, especially at that time, were vegan. Her baked goods are moister than anything I’ve ever had with eggs and dairy. I don’t know now she does it.
She started making me the best muffins for breakfast every week – Cherry Almond, Lemon Blueberry, and Coffee Chocolate. They were great. I should see if she’ll dig up the recipes so that the kids can try them. She hasn’t made them in years.
Lunch usually wasn’t an issue. I’ve been packing my lunch most of the time for 20 years. I could probably blame it on laziness when I didn’t, but there was probably a part of my subconscious that just wanted to eat some crappy fast food now and then. You may ask, if I packed my lunch for 20 years, why wasn’t I packing my breakfast? I’d say that was probably for the same reason.
Shortly after we paid off our mortgage and became completely debt free I was pretty pumped about spreading the idea to others that they could do it too. I was talking to my right hand man at work about it and we got into the discussion of meals. That’s one thing I could never understand. I see my coworkers eating out every time I work with them, spending $8+ for every lunch. And some of these same people bemoan that they don’t have any money. I wonder why.
I asked him how much he spends on his meals every day. Every morning for breakfast he stops at Dunkin’ Donuts and gets a croissant @ $1.99 and a coffee @ $2.49. That’s $4.48 before tax and with the current NJ sales tax of 6.625% that is $4.78…a day…for breakfast. There are 252 working days in 2020 counting the 10 paid holidays we get a year. Lets say he took 3 weeks off for vacation, sick and personal days. $4.78 for 237 days equals $1,132.86, for coffee and a croissant. That’s close to a mortgage payment for one meal. He, like most people, didn’t do the math. They just wanted a damn coffee and croissant for crying out loud. Once you run the numbers though, it can be surprising how much money you spend on daily routines.
After our talk, I stopped by Shoprite on the way home to do some cypherin’. At the time I used the largest container of Folgers and a 6 pack of croissants as a comparison, but to be accurate to what he is buying and lessen the extreme of the price difference, I’m going to compare apples to apples and use a 20 oz bag of Dunkin’ Donuts brand coffee. Now I will take you on a nerd journey. Will you come with me?
The 20 oz bag is 566 grams which equates to approximately 37 tablespoons. The bag says to use a heaping tablespoon per 6 oz of water. We’ll just say a heaping tablespoon is 1.5 tablespoons and no one drinks 6 oz of anything, so we’ll double that. 37 divided by 1.5 gives us 24.7 servings, so doubling our serving size, a 20 oz bag should make twelve 12 oz cups of coffee. At $13.49 a bag from the local ShopRite, that gives us a total of $1.12 for a cup of coffee. A difference of $1.37.
Now for the croissants. A 6 pack from the ShopRite bakery is $3.29, so .55 cents a croissant. A difference of $1.44.
There would be tax on the entire order at Dunkin’ Donuts because that is prepared food. At the grocery, there would only be sales tax on the croissants, since you are preparing the coffee yourself. That brings our grand total at the grocery store for the year to $404.99. That’s a savings of $727.87 for the year for just for a croissant and a cup of coffee each work day.
Think of what you could do if you packed your lunch each day? If you are spending $8+ for lunch, you could cut that down by $4 without even thinking about it and you’d have at least another $948 a year. I’ve calculated some of my lunches over the years and it’s usually around $2 to $3 a meal. Sometimes less. Beverages were never an issue either because I always packed 2 quarts of water from the filtered tap and I don’t drink much while at work.
I’m not judging him or anyone else. People work hard for their money and it’s their money to spend how they want. I’m just presenting an exercise to show small changes you can make in your lifestyle that equal big results, like paying off your mortgage in 13 years. With the savings on breakfast above, that’s $9,462 over 13 years.
What’s more important to you? Would you rather spend more now and not have to worry about preparing things or save that money, do a little more work, and be in a more stable financial situation?