<tldr> 365 days a year, three cups per day, 0.39€ per cup comes out to 421.68€ euro per year. </tldr>
I recently saw a video by Graham Stephen with the provocative title: “Why Buying Coffee Makes You Poor”. Even though I knew before watching the video that it was clickbait and that I was by no means the targeted group of this video at all as I nearly never drink coffee in cafes, I somehow was intrigued and wanted to see what he had to say.
The video does a great job of explaining the (back then quite heated) discussion of enjoying expensive coffee versus cutting expenses and saving money. Graham elaborates his view on the argument and provides good arguments and reasons. But for me, this video sparked a completely new question: “How much do I spend on coffee?”
Luckily I’m a very habitual human. My morning routine consists of exactly three cups of coffee. I always make the coffee the same way and I drink coffee every day of the week. Sidenote: I’m already reducing caffeine by mixing in decaf coffee but I still like the habit. (EFSA on how much caffeine is healthy)
I’ll try to calculate the cost as precise as possible but I’m using averages for measurements, current prices (Mai 2024) and calculated values for power consumption and dishwasher costs. That being said, let’s calculate.
Material costs
My three cups contain two spoons of decaf(20g) and one spoon of regular coffee(10g). This means 6.66g of decaf and 3.33g of regular coffee per cup. Additionally, for the three cups, I need one coffee filter, 750 ml of water and 180 ml of milk.
The cost of energy consumption I’m basing on this article. The author calculated the per cup power consumption for my machine to 0,0127kWh.
| Position | Buying size | Buying price € | Per cup price € |
| Decaf coffee | 500g | 9.75 | ~0.1299 |
| Regular coffee | 500g | 11.81 | ~0.0787 |
| Coffee filter | 100 pcs | 2.49 | ~0.0083 |
| Water | m³ or 1000 litre | 1.694 | ~0.0001 |
| Milk | 1 litre | 1.49 | ~0.0894 |
| Power consumption | 1 kWh | 0.3715 | ~0.0472 |
| Sum | ~0.3536 |
As we can see from the table the material costs per cup of coffee comes to 0.3536€.
Operating costs
The cost of regular cleaning of the cups and the machine can be easily calculated as well. Assuming I’m using the same cup for 3 coffees in the morning I can fit over all 30 cups in the dishwasher with the parts of the machine. This means we can add the price of one dishwasher run per 90 coffees. According to this article (https://www.stuttgarter-nachrichten.de/inhalt.kosten-einmal-geschirr-spuelen-mhsd.982d7c81-39c4-4da8-8c2f-064d5219b5f2.html) a single dishwasher run costs ~0,35 cents.
Also with my old coffee machine, I need to decalcify it approximately every 30 days (usually once a month). To decalcify I’m using 200ml of regular vinegar essence and 800ml of water. The water costs are ~0.0003€ and the vinegar essence comes out to 0.7180€.
Additionally, we need to factor in the machine cost of 42.99€. The guarantee lasts 2 years resulting in 730 Days or 2190 cups.
| Position | Number of cups per one buying | Buying price € | Per cup price € |
| Dishwasher cost | 90 | 0.35 | ~0.0039 |
| Decalcifying | 90 | 0.7183 | ~0.0080 |
| Machine cost | 2190 | 42.99 | ~0.0196 |
| Sum | ~0.0315 |
As we can see from the table the operational costs come to 0.0315€ per cup of coffee.
Overall Calculation
Adding up the material and operational costs we get a price of 0.39€ per cup of coffee. To put this in perspective let’s compare some timeframes and prices. I’m referencing the 2021 German coffee price index for “Milchkaffee” in Berlin which is 3.50€ per cup.
| Timeframe | Number of cups | Homemade price | Cafe price |
| 1 Day | 3 | 1.16€ | 10.50€ |
| 1 Working week | 15 | 5.85€ | 52.50€ |
| 4 Working weeks | 60 | 23.40€ | 210.00€ |
| 30 Days | 90 | 35.10€ | 315.00€ |
| 365 Days | 1095 | 421.68€ | 3832.50€ |
Summary
While writing this post and calculating the numbers I’m having my third and last cup of coffee for today. I did not calculate these numbers to change anything about my coffee habits. I’m not going to drink less nor will I stop drinking coffee at a cafe from time to time. I simply wanted to do the calculations myself and share my results. Let me know if I missed anything in the costs or if you think that miscalculated somewhere.
Thanks for reading! And if you want you can always buy me a coffee here 😉