Skip the Latte

Alright, in this blog’s very first post I talked about saving 10% of all you earn. Chances are many of you think you can’t afford to save 10%. You are doing the best you can living paycheck to paycheck. There’s no money left over after you pay your bills. First of all, you have missed how important saving 10% is. It should be pulled out of your income BEFORE you pay any bills! I know that is hard. The reality is that if you don’t pay yourself first nothing bad happens, at least not at that very moment. If you don’t pay your car payment, the bank comes and gets it! But trust me on this one. The bad happens later. And it’s way more costly than having your car taken away. But I digress. Allow me to get back to the purpose of this post. Finding money to save out of your maxed out budget.

This is the first of a series of posts that can help you ‘find’ money you didn’t know you had. Some are so obvious you’re likely to kick yourself. Others, less so. Anyway, as I sit here drinking my coffee that I prepared at home, my tip to you is to cut out the fancy latte.

Now, I love Starbucks. My drink of choice, almost without exception, is a venti, non-fat, no-whip mocha. I usually go venti because it only costs a few cents extra. For years I only got one every once in a while. The reason? I live in small town that didn’t have a Starbucks. I had no choice. Then one day I walked into my local grocery store and there was a sign that read, ‘Coming! Starbucks.’ I was ecstatic. But then I moaned. I didn’t need the daily calories nor did I need to pay $5 every day for coffee ($4.85 to be exact). Luckily, I still only get a mocha once every 2 months or so. The rest of the time I make my own coffee and it tastes great.

On to the savings. If you buy a fancy latte ($4 or so) once a week, every week, you are spending about $200 a year on those lattes (and how many times do you also buy a $2 muffin). If you happen to buy a latte every day, you are looking at about $1,000 a year! I realize this is probably a drop in the bucket. But hopefully, over time we can find some more drops that can fill that bucket. Remember, every dollar saved is a seed that can grow into a money tree! Which, by the way, is a great motto.

*Your goal this week is to cut out that small luxury that you can do without or replace with something much cheaper. Just be sure the savings actually make it to a savings account!