I’ve never understood the idiocy of people spending $5 for a cup of flavored water. I drink two or three cups of coffee per day, but I never buy it at Starbucks or any other retail outlet. I scoop some coffee into a filter and fill my coffee maker with water from the tap. My cup of coffee costs 10 cents and gives me the same caffeine surge as a pretentious overpriced Starbucks Triple, Venti, Half Sweet, Non-Fat, Caramel Macchiato or a Non-Fat Frappuccino With Extra Whipped Cream And Chocolate Sauce.
Walking around with a Starbucks cup in your hand is just another example of shallow math challenged people pathetically attempting to let others think they are successful and cool by flaunting that they can piss money away on flavored water with a fancy name. I guess it boosts their egos. Wasting money on such things is a reflection of a society of waste, egotism, shallowness, short range thinking, and ignorance. When you read the statistics about Boomer retirement savings averaging less than $50,000 and hear the sob stories about needing the government to support them, you just need a calculator and basic knowledge of math to see the impact of buying two Starbuck coffees per day versus saving that money. By brewing two cups at home versus buying two cups at Starbucks and investing the savings for 30 years with a 4% annual return, you end up with $50,000 to $100,000 of savings by retirement. Try it yourself:
http://www.hughcalc.org/coffee.cgi
This is just one example of the frivolous expenditures made by the ignorant masses without thought for the long-term consequences. The chart below reveals a few more things to me. When the Fed is blowing bubbles and the people feel wealthy because their home price is rising or their stock portfolio is growing, the wealth effect convinces them to waste money on non-essential crap. You can see what happened to Starbucks when the financial system collapsed in 2009. Their sales went flat as they continued to add thousands of stores. Profits crashed and the CEO was shitcanned. They closed almost 400 stores as the reverse wealth effect convinced millions of morons to stop wasting money on overpriced flavored water.
But Bennie came to the rescue and began printing fiat at hyper-speed. The return of easy money, rising prices for McMansions, and expanding portfolios for the 1% have led to increased revenues and profits for Starbucks. The delusional masses never learn their lesson. I wonder how many frappuccinos they will be selling after the next financial collapse?
You will find more statistics at Statista
What pisses me off is that when you want a cup of coffee and you see a Starbucks franchise inside a super market.
I just want the caffeine but I’m not paying that much for it and walk out.
Reverting to my hippie days …… Right On, Admin!
It’s just like the example I give re hamburgers. A McShits 1/4 pounder costs what .. $4 or $5. For about $7 you can get a pound of good quality hamburger meat. It’s insane.
Don’t shoot me. I happen to like the flavor of Starbucks coffee. Here’s the deal. You can buy a 12 oz package of coffee beans from Amazon for $11 bucks. Better yet … Target has them on sale periodically for about $5 bucks …. good enough for about 25 cups of coffee (depending how weak or strong you make it), or 20 cents a cup.
Whine whine whine. That is all you pricks do. Get a grip, as there are real problems looming.
Hell, the price of good Scotch is set to skyrocket and you guys are worried about the price of caffeine.
I mean, seriously, get your priorities right. The way it is going, I may soon have to abandon single malt for Chivas. The horror!
Admin – your math sucks. 2 starbucks coffees =$7. That equals bout thirty dollars over thirty years at four percent. You are only $100k off. .
Maybe you can get Yellen’s job with skills like that.
Llpoh
I hope you are an Llpoh doppler or your Ivy league degree can be used to wipe your ass. $7 per day X 250 days = $1,750 per year invested at 4% for 30 years = $95,000.
Llpoh’s opinion about Scottish Independence
Scotch is going up in price?? WTF?
Why?
Scotch futures are up as a result of uncertainty related to the independence vote.
I thought Injuns drank whiskey.
As far as Starbucks I agree, not worth the money at all, never understood how a business can stay afloat selling just coffee, unless they charge you more for the barista’s, the building and all the overhead involved, and who would pay all that extra dough for a .20c cup of coffee?
They must be insane.
I get my coffee beans from a Guatemalan I play soccer with, he gets them straight from Guatemala, and I grind them up one cup at a time.
You should see the looks at the soccer field, this brown skinned man handing you a kilo sized block of vacuum packed fresh beans and you hand him cash.
Hey man, you got the stuff?
No way in hell I’m giving up single malt for Chivas — or any blended, for that matter.
Time to stock up the cellar, I guess.
Yikes!!! I tried to tell you all he was missing a chromosome.
The best thing you can do for your cuppa Jo is use good water. Bottled or home-filtered. Anything but the crap from the tap. It makes all the difference.
Most Starbucks loving iDiots also carry around overpriced Apple iCrap. Their badges of stupidity. I hear lots of people refer to these people as hipsters, code word for poor young people who want to be cool too!
They are usually liberal retards, very different from fake conservative retards.
Libertarians tend to use whatever’s most cost effective.
Admin – Per day? You didn’t say per day. You said “two cups”.
Your communication skills suck.
BTW – that pic is not me. That is my really good-looking cousin.
@ Maddie’s Mom
Also, lose the paper filter and use one of these… percolated coffee makes all the difference.
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Admin said:
“By brewing two cups at home versus buying two cups at Starbucks and investing the savings for 30 years with a 4% annual return, you end up with $50,000 to $100,000 of savings by retirement. “. Two cups – not two cups per day.
I am stunned, stunned I tell you,that he would lie and obfuscate in order to not be shown to be wrong.
Next thing he will do is alter the text so as to cover his mistake.
Never trust a Mick.
I guess Ivy League schools don’t teach the skill of understanding concepts in the context in which they are being discussed.
Or maybe we can just chalk it up to the genetic deficiencies of injuns.
Buy a proper espresso machine and grinder. Expensive to start out – perhaps a couple of grand – but then you get proper coffee for years for just the price of the beans. Make sure it has a real boiler and steam generator, and is not a crappy automatic unit or Sunbeam or such.
It is the best and most used gizmo in our house. A thermomix and a good slow cooker come in close second.
A couple of years ago a young couple was being interviewed about how hard it was to get ahead…behind them on the kitchen table were two Starbucks cups. Any sympathy I might of had for them went right out they window.
My people have a long history of being screwed by fine print. So, we tend to take things literally. When you say two cups, we take that to mean two cups.
Ie if a treaty talked about giving us two cups per day for thirty years, then says that we agree to give you two cups, we do not assume context – we assume we are gonna be screwed and get only two cups, not two per day.
The Micks have a history of being screwed to rival any on earth. I would have thought they would better understand the need to be precise.
I shoulda been a lawyer. Even my shyster says so.
“Buy a proper espresso machine and grinder …. perhaps a couple of grand ..” —– Chief
Are you SURE you’re an Injun … errr, Native American? Cochise must be rolling in his grave.
I’ll bet you even have a color teevee in your teepee
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Llpoh as a Ute …
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… Llpoh today … didn’t realize smoking ages you
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Stuck – my teepee has all the modcons imaginable. Fuck hunting buffalo and farming with a pointed stick.
My favorite thing is my projector room. You would be amazed how I fit that into a teepee.
Hard to believe I am only ninety seven huh, Stuck?
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You want caffeine. Buy Mtn Dew soda like the one I’m drinking right now .You get lots of caffeine and more importantly lots of sugar right into your blood. This stuff is better the cocaine.I paid a 1.50 for my morning pleasure. Only sugary good soda for me.
“Scotch futures are up as a result of uncertainty related to the independence vote. ”
Just as long as I can still afford the tape….
“Most Starbucks loving iDiots also carry around overpriced Apple iCrap. Their badges of stupidity. I hear lots of people refer to these people as hipsters, code word for poor young people who want to be cool too!
“They are usually liberal retards, very different from fake conservative retards.”
————————-
If they’re female, they probably also have a tattoo somewhere of a Tweety Bird…or Betty Boop….or of some Chinese pictographic whose meaning is the opposite of what they think it is.
The tattooing of some banal symbol of our clueless zeitgeist is the single most valuable signal of just how much of a brainless herd animal is someone.
“Nice tattoo” = “You’re an empty-headed farm animal.”
I buy generic instant coffee so I can afford Silver Wolf vodka. Also, by turning your underwear inside out you can wear it another day, saving on detergent.
For those who prefer to chew their caffeine:
http://chocolate.ghirardelli.com/chocolate/Chocolate-Covered-Espresso-Beans
Hmmmmmmmmm
Jim…I agree with your point about Starbucks but you could apply that same thought to most of what we do as consumers . A Toyota Corolla will get you from point A to point B for 1/4 of the cost of a Mercedes E350. Likewise you can be comfortable and out of the weather in a 1500 square foot house verses a 4000 square foot house. I could go on and on with this comparison. I guess my point is if you can ” Truly Afford It ” then the luxuries of life aren’t a bad thing. It’s when you can’t afford those things and buy them anyway that makes this a losing proposition .
I have never spent a single penny at Starbucks, never even considered it. I get 3lbs. of Folders and make it everyday, damn good coffee.
Unless we are traveling, we never buy coffee from vendors, and especially Starbucks. Sitting in your car and waiting for coffee service is plain dumb and a waste of money. Same goes for people who don’t make their lunch and eat out everyday.
We use filtered water and have a Dutch coffee maker called Moccamaster with super hot water, and it makes 12 cups. Wife has two mugs in the AM and I make her one to take to work. We use Costco S.F. Bay French roast and it makes wonderful coffee.
At the risk of being called strange, I will tell you that about two years ago I began buying my coffee beans green, in bulk, from Brazil and roasting them a pint at a time, which usually lasts my husband and I a week, grinding a half cup or so at a time to limit the loss of flavor. I use a deep fryer to roast them, taking a half hour in the garage with the door open (the green coffee beans release a pungent herbal aroma when they crack during roasting, but once they go past first crack, the smell is wonderful!), during which time I do garage work alternating with stirring the roasting beans as they heat and crackle.
A short time in the freezer to cool, sifted in a colander or poured from container to container in the breeze to clear the chaff from the beans, then stored in a mason jar with a lid.
They are a lot cheaper purchased in bulk and will store a lot longer green than already roasted. My friend who first told me about roasting her own beans uses a Dutch Oven over an outside wood stove, but unless the grid goes down, I’m sticking with the deep fryer. But, it is good to know I can still have coffee IF the grid goes down.
The link to the site where I order my Brazilian Cerrado (a slight hint of chocolate when roasted to a dark medium roast) beans in bulk is below. Also, there is an image of my roast from yesterday, with some green beans in the mason lid beside the bowl holding roasted beans and a cup of fresh ground coffee.
I am less ticked off today.
Well, that didn’t work without a space between did it…
http://arcocoffee.com/green-unroasted-coffee/green-coffee-beans-non-organic?sort=20a&page=2
Last try…
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Well, crap, I thought I figured this image thing out. Now I’m ticked off again. And it is after noon, Kill Bill.
Never forget children ….. coffee = sex
Who gave me thumbs down. Damn bone heads. Listen to me .20 OZ OF Mtn Dew has 92 mil of caffeine +77grams of sugar. Starbucks 20 coffee has 95 mil of caffeine . Mtn Dew cost 1.50,Starbuckscoffee 7dollars per 20oz cup.I win + I get all the sugar. Meatheads.
Starbucks is horribly wasteful, but Tim Horton’s and Dunkin Donuts isn’t far behind. Overpriced coffee with a side of inflammation, obesity and diabetes.
A brand spankin’ new Tim Horton’s just opened up less than a mile from my house, on my route to my son’s place.
I stopped in there last Saturday morning, to pick up 2 breakfast sandwiches – sans eggs – and a couple large black coffees for me. The total was $11.
The sandwiches were awful, the biscuits sweet to the point of disgusting the sausage funky in texture and tasteless.
First time I’d been in one since I drove all night to the Carolinas, it will be the last time unless forced.
Then, the next day I drove the opposite direction on the same road, and less than 2 miles down they are building ANOTHER one.
WTF?
$6 for substandard food and coffee? This is what passes for an acceptable use of your hard earned fiat?
@Admin, 4%? What is this 4% investment return you speak of. It has been so long since we have seen that, that my 9 year old daughter would think she was rich on her vig. Instead she looks at the pennies and asks me why we bother to save it in the bank. Good question.
@bb, do you experience headaches, arthritis, joint, bone, tendon, pain? Heart burn? Energy peaks and valleys?
Most soda pop (and what do you mean “sugar” most soda is high fructose corn syrup which will eventually be proven the #1 health threat to the nation, with aspartame and other chemicals not far behind) contains phosphorus and other chemicals (“natural flavorings”= chemical/chemically altered and NOT regulated), that actively DEPLETE your body of nutrients. Most notably vitamin C, magnesium and iodine (others too).
I used to drink one or more Coke’s a day. As my health deteriorated and my pain increased I never attached it to the soda. After I stopped drinking it daily years ago I noticed a marked difference in my pain and health. At the time I attributed it 100% to the Apple Cider Vinegar and I am sure that was a huge part of it. But, now when I drink just one soda my hotspots for joint/bone/arthritis pain flare up the next day and it takes much magnesium oil to calm them back down.
It is bad enough I drink coffee everyday, at least coffee has antioxidants and other nutrients, but I am grateful everyday I gave up the evil soda.
Japs are douchebags.
Burger King Japan is introducing the All Black Kuro Burger ….. made with a black beef patty (regular beef colored), black cheese (made with bamboo charcoal), a black bun (dyed with squid ink), and black special sauce (black garlic, for the record, and also black).
There is a Starbucks and a drive up coffee stand just a couple of blocks from my house. There is also an elementary school and a middle school a couple blocks from my house. I usually leave for work about the time school is letting out but I drive out of my way to avoid the little cherubs and the traffic backups associated with it. The crazy thing is that when I have to go past the coffee places at the end of the school day, these places are PACKED with little kids pissing away money.
I can’t even imagine what they must be drinking. I know that coffee always tasted like shit to me and my brothers when we were kids. When we were little, like 5-8, we used to get up and fight over any coffee that dad may have left in his cup when he left for work. Funny thing is we hated it but it was dad’s so we all wanted it. I have not drank coffee since that time.
I know these kids can’t be drinking black coffee. I’ve never been in a Starbucks but I know it’s not cheap. If they had these kinds of coffee places when I was a kid I don’t think the employees working in them would have served little kids.
@ Stucky…. is that for real or a joke?
Am trying ONE MORE TIME to get an image of my amazing home roast coffee here.
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Thems some big ass beans.
@card802
trying again…
?why does the direct link work sometimes, not others?
“@ Stucky…. is that for real or a joke?” ———— Maggie
It’s real. Story just came out today.
On vacation in New Orleans / Louisiana and the drive thru Daiquiris are too cool!
TE , is that all evil soda has in it.?Cheap shit.Maybe that’s why it’s so bad for people. Oh well ,there’s still green tea.
dilligaf
HELL YEAH!
1960’s vintage Corningware Cornflower Blue 10 cup percolator coffee pot. With stainless innards.
Mama had one on top of the (gas) stove every morning when I was a kid, happily burbling away. Couple 4 years ago or so, I hunted one down for myself on FeeBay. Still New-In-Box and paid $15 bucks for it. Those sold new for quite a bit, as I recollect – at least 45 bucks or so.
No telling what it would take to make them new, to the same standard today…
Percolated coffee tastes better than brewed, IMHO. Thing is, most coffee you get has all the oil roasted out of it. Nothing like making a cup of percolated coffee, stirring in some REAL sugar and moo juice (half and half) and seeing that oil puddle on top of the coffee… 🙂
That’s some good shit right there…
Now I’m wanting to go anti-Starbucks and buy a 50 pound sack of green coffee beans and just do it myself…
By the way, if anyone cares, best coffee I’ve ever had was Jamaica Blue Mountain. The real thing. Too bad it’s like 50 bucks a pound or so…
Percolated coffee drinkers are douchebags.
bb is an idiot for sure. Here is what Mountain Dew does for you…
Each time you drink a soft drink you are taking vital nutrients from your bones and forgoing a few grams of bone density.
So in summary – these are the product *benefits* –
1) Acidic pH levels that leach minerals from your bones
2) High acid levels and sugar destroy teeth
3) High fructose causes hit to the pancreas, spikes glucose and causes weight gain.
4) Increases uric and lactic acid levels which increases disease risk.
5) Raises triglyceride levels
6) Inhibits copper metabolism
7) Contains 11.5 teaspoons of sugar per 12 oz serving.
8) Suppresses your immune system anywhere from 6-36 hours
9) Contains sodium benzoate which deactivates parts of DNA and destroys
mitochondria function thus inducing fatigue and other diseases.
10) High levels of caffeine tax the adrenal glands which lower immune resistance and hormone levels over time.
11) Brominated Vegetable Oil contributes to lower thyroid function through displacement of iodine and also creates bromide toxicity which has been tied to cancer among other degenerative diseases.
12) Yellow Dye #5 can contribute to allergic reactions. Allergies kick up
inflammation. Google chronic inflammation and you will see all the negative
aspects of doing this to your body.
The good thing is that bb isn’t long for this world.