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Espressos and Lattes- How Much Are They Costing Me??

By Thom | February 2, 2009

Mmm… coffee zen…

Most people say that you should skip the $17 latte in the morning from your coffee shop, buy your own machine and do it yourself, but does it really work out? How much is a cup of coffee and all that it include? What about electricity?

When I was in high school, I was privileged enough to work in a local coffee shop. Definitely one of the best part-time jobs that I’ve ever had. I came home smelling like fresh-roasted coffee and a panini grill. Over the time that I worked there, I developed a taste for your standard espresso drinks, originally I was a tea man (I still am a tea man, but now I also thirst for America’s ‘tea’).

As college progressed, this casual love became a sever addiction, so I bought a ‘Mocha Pot.” Mocha Pots are great, they are easy to use, make pretty decent Italian Espresso and do it in a relatively short time. Eventually I needed the grand daddy – the real espresso machine. After some hunting sessions, I bought Katie a Starbuck’s Saeco Via Venezia (it’s a great machine, and I was able to purchase it cheap and save on shipping as you can pick one up at your local Starbucks)

However, is this thing really going to save me money in the long run?

In order to break it down, let’s calculate the cost of the ingredients:

Coffee: Most of the coffee we buy goes for $8 per pounds and I use about 12 grams worth of coffee per pull s0 (1 lbs= 455 g and 455 g/12 g=37 and $8/37=$0.22

Milk: Well, my standard cup of joe is about 8 oz of milk, and I can get milk for $3.00 per gallon – so (1 gallon = 128 oz. and 128/8 =16 and 3.00/16= .19) Total: 0.19

Water:$0.0033/ per gallon from tap, so we’ll say ~$0.05 because I filter it

Dishes/Cup: $.05 for water and electricity to wash the cup

The Via Espresso Machine

Measure it up:

The Kill A Watt- If you don’t have one of these, you NEED to get one. They can measure a lot of different info on how much electricity your ’stuff’ uses (for instance, my cell phone charger uses one Watt even when it’s not plugged into my phone – not much, but it all adds up).

The coffee maker ended up using 0.05 KWH or rough half a penny in electricity per cup of joe.

Grand Total Per Cup (not including the coffee maker): ~ 52 cents

Now, how long before I pay off my Via espresso maker, figuring that I make one cup per day and a normal latte is roughly 3 bucks – only 78.8 days

- we also didn’t factor in any time or gas that I would have spent stopping at a coffee shop – that’s for a later date I guess..

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Topics: Nutrition | 1 Comment »

One Response to “Espressos and Lattes- How Much Are They Costing Me??”

1. Jinny Says:
   March 22nd, 2009 at 4:43 am

   Hello,
   Ugh, I liked! So clear and positively.

   Thank you
   Jinny

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