I am an avid coffee brewer. Always have been (at least ever since I saw the FRESH java-coated light), and always will be. However, this does not mean I do not occasionally grace the most popular, local coffee shop with my esteemed presence. Since mid-last year, my few and far between visits to the café have been experiences that have stuck in my mind’s strongest memory closet.
If you are thinking that the reason for this is that the cup of java I purchased was so stupendously magnificent you are so WRONG!
What stuck with me was the fact that the price of some of the popular java-combos (with my favorite espresso beverages included) had risen by as much as thirty cents! Sure, this price is still manageable but MAN (or WOMAN), if you sit down and do the math, you might just throw up when you finally realize just how much you spend annually on your coffee habit (trust me, I’ve done the math and if you read on, you’ll be flabbergasted too!).
How Owning a Bialetti Moka Express 3 Cup Prevented Any Looming Financial Crisis
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After conducting some research and doing my math, I must admit that whenever I think back to my younger years and remember how my coffee craze made me haemorrhage money when I needed it most (I was a student then, and you know how hard it is to have enough to survive in this position), I thank the good heavens for my Bialetti Moka Express 3 Cup!
I have saved so much cash (especially when I count the number of years I have been making my own home brews)!
Why Buying Coffee Puts a Dent in Your Budget
Depending on where you live, and what you order at your preferred coffee shop, a 16 ounce (approximately 473 ml) cup of coffee sets you approximately $2 to $5 back (I opted to use this amount because it is the most commonly purchased amount).
Essentially, this translates to between $14 and $35 per week, $56 and $140 per month, and a whopping $672 and $1680 each year (assuming that you purchase only one cup each day of the week). If you are a true coffee aficionado and drink more than one cup (perhaps 3 cups per day), you use between $42 and $105 each week, $168 and $420 per month, and WAIT FOR IT… $2016 and $5040 annually!
How’s that for a wakeup call? Even on the lowest spectrum of this mathematical summation ($2 per cup), you are spending a vast amount of cash that you could have otherwise saved!
Now Fast Forward – How the Bialetti 6-Cup Stovetop Espresso Maker Can Help You!
It’s now time for some mathematical comparisons i.e. the cost of brewing your own coffee at home vs. buying some.
For this mathematical portion, I chose to use to use the price of a 1lb bag of coffee from Starbucks (after all, this is the most popular coffee shop franchise worldwide right?) which costs approximately between $12 and $14 depending on where you live and the specific brand of grind you choose.
As a general brewing guideline, I must mention that 8 ounces of water require a tablespoon of coffee grinds. Considering this measurement guideline and the amount of water a Bialetti Moka Expresso Maker 6 cup requires to make a 3 Cup brew (approximately 5 ounces), you need to use approximately three quarters to one tablespoon of grinds to make the perfect golden cup. To get the same amount of java (16 ounces) you would normally buy, you need 3 tablespoons.
Now, let the mathematical calculations continue.
You can get approximately 75 level tablespoons (or 60 heaped ones) from a single 1lb pack of Starbucks grade coffee! (For mathematical purposes, I’ll use 60 as my preferred figure). When divided appropriately (60 heaped tablespoons divided by the 3, the number of cups the Bialetti 6-Cup Stovetop Espresso Maker requires to brew 16 ounces), you can use the unit to brew a total of 20 cups of Golden Java!
If I’ve lost you in the mathematics, let me state it more plainly…
For the price of $12- $14 (the amount a 1lb pack of Starbucks coffee costs), you can brew a total of 20 cups. Under normal purchasing circumstances (which is basically $2-$5 per cup), you will need to spend between $40 and $100 to access the 20 cups!
Can you compare spending between $12- $14 for a pack of grinds and $40- $100?
Of course NOT! You can actually save between $28 and $86 if you opted to brew your own coffee at home!
In fact, this figure is grossly under-calculated since I have not factored in the amount of gas you spend en route to the coffee shop (for those who drive) and the amount of time you spend queuing in line in the coffee shop (or idling in its drive through option, which means more gas used!)! After all, TIME IS MONEY!
How Much Can a Bialetti 6-Cup Stovetop Espresso Maker Save You in the Long Run?
For this portion of the article, I will assume that you drink only 1 cup of java a day which basically translates to saving approximately $1.4 and $4.3 daily. This means per month (on average), you can save between $42 and $129! Each year, the figure amounts to between $505 and $1548 if you opted to brew your own coffee at home.
If you were to put this amount into a mutual fund with an interest rate of approximately 6.5 percent (which tends to be the most common percentage), and you contribute your monthly “coffee money” savings of between $42 and $129 each month, in ten years to come, you will have saved a total of…
$7,749.14! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!
(I arrived at this final figure by using the Compound Interest Calculator from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission)
If this figure has jolted you out of your coffee buying trance and you have been left wondering why I am specifically using the Bialetti 6-Cup Stovetop Espresso Maker as a reference, let me give you a brief breakdown of the beneficial features the unit can offer (OR YOU CAN CLICK HERE TO READ A FULL REVIEW):
– It makes an absolutely splendid cup of espresso
– It is really easy to use (in terms of brewing process) and quite easy clean.
– It is super durable since it is built to last. Making this point better is the fact that the unit is offered at the very reasonable price of $23 (great value for money!)
– Does not require electricity since the unit only requires stove-top heating (an aspect which is not only economical but also quite advantageous since the unit is designed in a way that allows for outdoor use)