Specialty holiday coffee drinks are not just loaded with calories, but they can be very costly as well. For instance, a medium (16 oz.) holiday coffee beverage from Starbucks costs $4.95, according to the Starbucks phone app. It is estimated that Americans spend $40 billion on coffee each year. The average price of an espresso based beverage is $2.45, and the average price of a drip coffee beverage is $1.38. The average American drinks around three 9 oz. cups of coffee per day, which equates to $4.14 – $7.35 spent on coffee per day. That money spent of coffee can really add up over the course of a year, and coffee drinking is increasingly on the rise, according to the National Coffee Association.
As was mentioned in the first blog of this series, you can definitely save yourself some money and some calories by making small modifications to your holiday drink orders at your local coffee shop. While these tips are great for when you’re at the store, have you ever considered making your own holiday drinks at home? A number of coffee chains have started to sell their products in grocery stores, including items that can exclusively be found in grocery stores.
For instance, you can buy almost any brand of ground or whole bean coffee to brew in a regular coffee pot at home. A typical bag of coffee will run you around $7.00 for a 12 oz. bag, depending on the brand. That 12 oz. bag of coffee contains around 24 cups of coffee, with 0.5 oz. of ground coffee going into 1 cup of coffee. That equates to costing you roughly 30 cents for a cup of coffee, if you brew your own coffee home, which is a huge savings compared to the coffee shop. Around the holiday season, many of the major and local coffee bra
nds release seasonal coffee flavors, such as peppermint mocha, pumpkin spice, and gingerbread. Because the beans already have flavor added to them, with minimal added calories, the brewed coffee can be tasty to drink black.
If black coffee is not your preference, there are plenty of coffee additions you can find at your local grocery store to add holiday flavors to your brewed coffee for a better value than what you would have to pay at a coffee shop. Some examples include flavored creamer, in bulk and in individual packages, pre-made coffee drinks in bulk containers, like pumpkin spice lattes, and flavored whipped toppings. Flavored creamer typically costs around $3.00 – $3.50 for either the bulk or individual packages, containing around 60 servings in the bulk size and 24 servings in the individual packages. Pre-made coffee drinks will run you about $3.50 – $5.00, depending on the brand and store, containing around 8-10 servings. What you would spend on one of these multiple serving coffee additions at the grocery store is roughly the same, if not less costly in some instances, than what you would spend at the coffee shop. Give a holiday drink at home a try this holiday season, and you may just find your new favorite coffee drink!
