My Buying-Coffee-Daily Rant

It's cold...really cold. It's one of those days where I'm actually wondering why we moved here. I'm kidding. I'm very glad that we live in Denver, CO. Although it would be nice to see 70 & sunny at accuweather.com.

Something totally unrelated...I've been reading articles about how Starbucks is going to close down hundreds of stores and laying off about 100 of their staff at their corporate office in Seattle. I'm just wondering how the lines are out the door and a Grande Mocha at $3.40 that Starbucks is not taking over the world.

Right now, I'm at a Starbucks, sipping on my sugar free vanilla double americano that I made from home, observing customer orders. For a few minutes there, I saw a line of customers have orders that exceeded $7.00. That's a lot of money per customer.

I know of friends who attend - notice the word attend - Starbucks daily, even multiple times a day and spend around $4.00 for a cup of coffee - or sweetened coffee.

Now let's add that up for the hardcore coffee drinkers. We'll use a five-day work week to be nice, even though those folks usually buy coffee on the weekend as well.

$4.00 x 5 days = $20.00 per week

$20 x 4 weeks = $80.00 per month

$80 x 12 months = $960 per year

I know some who have spent:

$80 x 52 weeks = $4,160 per year

$4,160 PER YEAR

And that is just for one coffee per day. I knew of a lady who went to Starbucks at least - at least three times a day spending $4.50 each trip for her Venti Carmel Macchiato.

I'm wondering what could be done if that $4,160 could be used differently. Let's just see. I'll cut it by two-thirds and just use $2,773 per year.

- 576 people in Ethiopia, Mozambique, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Sudan could have clean water to drink thanks to Life Outreach International www.lifetoday.org

- 400 wool blankets can be distributed throughout Downtown Denver every winter so that those who cannot get into shelters can at least have some warmth. Denver's average temp in winter, 17 degrees...brrrr. www.northwestwoolen.com

I think that with Starbucks downsizing it shows that some are wising up and deciding not to get the $5.00 Venti Xtra Carmel, Carmel Frappuccino.

Money is a gift from God - how we spend what God has given us shows us where we put our treasures. I can improve on how to spend my money - but Starbucks seems like such an simple start. A good $300 espresso machine and $5.99/lb espresso (that can make about 80-100 shots of espresso) from Sunflower Market has proven to be a huge money-saver in the end.