The Cost of your addiction: Coffee Cost Calculator

Looks Cozy doesn't it?  Too bad it's destroying your Retirement!!

Ok, so maybe it's not quite that bad but it can certainly put a dent into it.   

My wife and I have been frequent coffee-shop-goers for a while now.  Our shop of choice is Caribou.  The addiction began when I was studying for the CFA Exam and my wife was studying for her degree in Dietetics.  We were going on an almost daily basis and justified it because it was for educational purposes.  We have cut down significantly since then and when we go now I usually get a low cost (relatively) tea or coffee.  But had we kept up this habit it could have cost us $320,000!  (to be fair this is $132,000 Present Value) Not a bad chunk of money.  I calculated this using the Coffee Cost Calculator spreadsheet.  You can download and use this fun little tool to calculate the cost of your coffee addiction.  This Spreadsheet will be posted for download in the  Resources  Section of our website for Future Reference. 

You'll notice that I assume about $4/person for the fancy Caribou Drinks (my wife loves the Northern Lite Dark Chocolate Mocha's).  I assume we go 5 days a week for the next 30 years.  Odds are we wouldn't go every day consistently for the next 30 years so play around with the calculator to find the cost of your own personal coffee habit.

It's not only the cost of the coffee but the growth of those dollars compounded over the years that really adds up, so be sure to enter a rate of return on your savings.