Minor mustachian achievements (coffee related)

[intellectsucks]

These are somewhat minor victories, but every little bit helps!
First I switched from Goya brand, espresso blend coffee to Costco’s Kirkland signature blend which costs about half of the Goya.  The Goya is definitely better, but not 100% better.  Even when accounting for the fact that I use more Costco coffee to get the coffee as strong as I like, I’m not using double, so there are still savings.
Second, I used to brew enough coffee in the morning for three full cups, even though I usually only drink two.  Some days I would drink a third cup (or give it to a friend or coworker) and I didn’t want to buy it.  Now I brew only enough for two cups and on the occasional days when I need a third, I use the Keurig machine at work.
I haven’t run the specific numbers but there are probably a couple of hundred dollars a year in savings between those two!

[Gone_Hiking]

Nicely done!

[CutTheFat]

Good job!  We switched a couple of months ago to the Costco Rwanda coffee (it was the cheapest whole bean coffee that I could find at Costco).  If you like dark oily beans then this is your coffee!  DH drinks drip coffee and I drink lattes and this coffee makes us both very happy!

[pachnik]

Good on the coffee victory!  It in itself is small but it is also taking another step down the path to better finances.  :)

[Manguy888]

I'm all about small victories - they give us little confidence boosts that let us try for the big wins. Nice work!

[DarthCreationist]

For 3 years, I have consumed the same brand of coffee pads, which I was perfectly happy with. At some point, I got tired of it. So I started experimenting. I wanted to find a low-cost brand that still was decent coffee. I went to all local grocery stores and bought every brand I could get my hands on and returned with 40+ bags of coffee pads.

I unpacked them all, organized them in a weird system of which the pads were randomly chosen and I wouldn't know which one I was using. My girlfriend, who was involuntarily involved, was not so happy because I did the same with different brands of milk the week before and she thought I was going to lose my mind.

Turned out that I didn't need to compromise. The one I liked best was almost the cheapest. It's an espresso from Aldi. It's even fair trade.

Aldi is a famous discounter in Germany, known for very low prices, sometimes less than half of what you pay elsewhere. Somehow, many people still think the products there are bad, except for the brands they know from other stores. However, I found that if you try them in a blind-study, they are often one of the best. And I get to charge my car there for free. So I get the best coffee, for the lowest price, and a charged car. Life is good.

[pigpen]

Aldi is a famous discounter in Germany, known for very low prices, sometimes less than half of what you pay elsewhere. Somehow, many people still think the products there are bad, except for the brands they know from other stores. However, I found that if you try them in a blind-study, they are often one of the best. And I get to charge my car there for free. So I get the best coffee, for the lowest price, and a charged car. Life is good.

We have Aldi stores in the U.S. also. There's one very close to our house, and my wife and I visit often. The Aldi brand food is usually quite good, and the prices are great. To stay with the coffee theme, our store has bags of organic, fair-trade, whole-bean coffee for something like $2.25. The cheapest you'd find in any other store here would be about $7.99. If you have an Aldi near you, definitely give it a try. I don't know what the German stores are like, but the ones in my town (Nashville, TN) have a relatively limited selection, so it may be hard to do ALL your shopping there. What they do have, though, is priced at very Mustachian-friendly levels.

[Monkey Uncle]

Aldi is a famous discounter in Germany, known for very low prices, sometimes less than half of what you pay elsewhere. Somehow, many people still think the products there are bad, except for the brands they know from other stores. However, I found that if you try them in a blind-study, they are often one of the best. And I get to charge my car there for free. So I get the best coffee, for the lowest price, and a charged car. Life is good.

We have Aldi stores in the U.S. also. There's one very close to our house, and my wife and I visit often. The Aldi brand food is usually quite good, and the prices are great. To stay with the coffee theme, our store has bags of organic, fair-trade, whole-bean coffee for something like $2.25. The cheapest you'd find in any other store here would be about $7.99. If you have an Aldi near you, definitely give it a try. I don't know what the German stores are like, but the ones in my town (Nashville, TN) have a relatively limited selection, so it may be hard to do ALL your shopping there. What they do have, though, is priced at very Mustachian-friendly levels.

How much coffee is in the bag, and is it vacuum-sealed?

I'm currently getting organic, fair trade, shade-grown, whole-bean coffee through a Mayan co-op called Café Mam.  It is absolutely glorious coffee; there's no way I'm going back to the cheap swill.  But at 10 bucks a pound, the Café Mam stuff is kind of spendy.  I'd be pretty excited to find a comparable product at a better price.  The closest Aldi is an hour drive away, which means I'd have to stock up (hence the importance of the packaging).

[pigpen]

I don't have a bag right now, but I'll stop by and check on size and exact cost, in case my memory is exaggerating. The size is the standard-sized bag that you see in grocery stores, I believe. It's not vacuum sealed.

[Tyson]

I've also cut my coffee spending!  I use an aeropress to make 1 cup of coffee every morning.  I found that I could use less coffee when I switched to a metal filter (it let more oils through than the paper filters).  I've also found that if I use a finer grind, I get more flavor out of less coffee. 

Net result - I'm using about half the amount of grounds now vs a month ago.  I haven't run the #'s, but that's gotta be a pretty good savings :)

[tomatops]

Ditto on the coffee save! I switched from expensive Illy to Costco brand (which I make each morning before work).

At work, I was buying coffee in the afternoon every day - $2-$4 each day. I now have a french press which I received for Xmas and have a basic coarse grind coffee stash at work from the local grocery store.

Basically spend maybe $12.00 for two months worth of grinds for desk coffee. Way better than $2 a day!

[sparkytheop]

Our Costco is over an hour away, so don't go very often.  However, when I do, I always get a bag of coffee for the espresso machine.  I get the bags from different countries (I think my favorite was Peru, but they are always changing them, so it's been different each time).  Last time was Columbia, and I failed to check for the darkness of the roast and it's just too light.  So, I've been mixing some espresso beans (Kirkland brand) in order to get a darker result.  Works for me.

When I want really good coffee, I'll treat myself to some home-roasted beans.  My brother (who always roasts his own beans) gave me a bag of raw beans to try roasting some myself.  It's definitely better when it's fresh roasted, but not "better enough" to go through the process/expense daily.  I'm perfectly happy with the larger Costco bags for my daily coffee.

I also have a pour-over and a French press.  Prefer a whole bean, freshly ground for that. 

For cold brew, I use Yuban (stuff I bought for $5/large container).  With cold brew, you can use cheap, even stale coffee and still come out with a good result.  It's been a good way for me to use up stuff I bought before we got our espresso machine.

[meghan88]

We used to have a Braun drip coffeemaker that lasted about 14 years.  First, the automatic shut-off switch died.  The hack was to wedge a chopstick against it to keep it in the on position.  That kept it going for a while.  Then, the lid of the thermal carafe broke in two from old age.  So we finally replaced it with a Bonavita, purchased partly with an Amazon U.S. gift certificate (we're in Canada).  It was a pain to have to pay duty etc., but in the end we saved about $70.  Couldn't use the gift cert any other way.

Next was the filter hack.  When we go to Europe, we make sure to bring home a few packages of brown #4 cone filters because boxes of 80-100 cost 1 Euro each.  Here, a box costs $6 Canadian + tax: more than 4 x as much.  So we had about 300 cone filters here when the Braun died.  The Bonavita takes basket filters.  I tried folding the bottoms of the cone filter a little differently and scrunching them into the Bonavita basket and it seems to work just fine.  BTW, the gold filters don't work well for the coffee we buy.

Of course, the hack I would've really liked would have been to just buy a pour-over Melita cone for $3, but that route did not please DH.  For coffee, we like Lavazza Rossa pre-ground, which I can find on sale here for $2.50-$3.  Someone gave us a bag of designer coffee, very freshly-ground Peruvian stuff that retails for $15 for 375 grams.  Meh.  We didn't care for it.  Happy we don't have expensive taste in coffee.

[esq]

Here's how we save money on coffee: we mix 25% San Antonio blend HEB brand fresh ground coffee ($8.99 lb.) with 75% HEB brand 100% Colombian coffee ($3 lb on sale with coupon). HEB is a local Texas grocery store.

I've also discovered sprinkling a little McCormick pumpkin spice blend in coffee. Fabulous!

[Sarah Saverdink]

The husband LOVES Costco's Sumatran coffee. It's very dark. It seems to be a bit cyclical when they have it in stock. He went a few months without being able to purchase it and when it came back in stock, he bought 4 bags. lol. and I don't drink coffee. It's all him.