I make espresso for myself every morning, and I've been making a lot of milk-based drinks to learn how to do latte art. Since I’ve been making so much coffee, I decided to figure out how much each cup costs. Though it’s much less than if I bought coffee every day at a café, it still costs more than my mobile phone service—and it’s more reliable, useful, and enjoyable, too! Definitely money well spent.

How much coffee do I go through in a month?

I make one cup for myself every morning, and one more after lunch on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. That adds up to about ten cups per week, or about 43 cups per month. Each shot of espresso uses about 16 grams of ground coffee. The bags I buy are 12oz (340g) bags, so I’m using about one bag every two weeks.

Each cup of coffee uses about 6oz of whole milk. That means about 368oz per month, or about 2.88 gallons.

This is just the coffee I make for myself, though. In reality, whenever I make a cup for myself, I make another one for a family member. That means I make about 86 cups of coffee and use almost six gallons of milk each month.

What does it cost?

Each 12oz bag of coffee beans costs about $16.95. The cost of coffee per gram is 4.98¢, bringing the per-cup total to about 80¢. With the cost of a gallon of whole milk at $2.95 after tax, that brings the total up to about 94¢ per cup with 6oz of milk.

At 94¢ per cup, that means I’m spending about $34 on coffee and $5.94 on milk every 30 days for one person, or $80 total for two. By way of comparison, an 8oz latte from Starbucks costs $4.35. If I was buying even half the amount I’m making for myself, that would cost me nearly $100 a month. Making coffee yourself is definitely the way to go, if you’re going to drink it regularly.

What about time spent?

It takes me an average of about four or five minutes to make one cup of coffee. This means I’m spending five to seven hours just making coffee every month. It’s a good thing I enjoy making it. Otherwise, I’d really have to reconsider my morning routine. Making good coffee requires focus, skill, and attention to detail. As far as I’m concerned, this enjoyable process is well worth the time spent.

Summary

I spend a lot of money on coffee every month. I could reduce costs by buying cheaper beans, drinking more Americanos and fewer milk-based drinks, or just drinking less coffee (ha!). This doesn’t include other operating costs like equipment and maintenance. The biggest cost lever is the price of coffee beans. I buy light or medium roast beans from a local roastery. The price per gram for the 2kg bags of coffee at Costco is about half the local roastery. While I like supporting local businesses, I could cut my coffee costs nearly in half by switching.

Using Costco beans would cost $0.02628 per gram, $0.4206 per drink, $36.17 per month, and $434.04 per year. That’s a savings of nearly $400 over the cost of the local roastery’s beans. The big question for me is, which beans taste better? I intend to find out.

I would consider coffee a hobby, and it’s a fairly expensive one at that. It’s also one of my most regular expenses, and just as necessary as similar regular expenditures like mobile phone service. It makes sense to examine this part of my spending more closely, and it looks like sourcing my ingredients at a lower price will make a big difference in cost savings over a year. I’ll ponder it over my next cup of coffee.