Just realized I've burned through 217 espresso shots this year

I was cleaning out my work locker the other day (night shift problems) and found a stack of old coffee shop receipts. Added them up out of curiosity and it came to 217 espresso shots since January - that's like 4 bucks a pop at Blue Bottle in Portland. Not counting the stuff I brew at home. Made me wonder if I should just buy a better machine instead of feeding my habit to the baristas. Anyone else ever crunch the numbers on their coffee spending?

3 comments

3 Comments

terry_jones2mo ago

That thing you said about "justifying buying a fancy espresso machine" really hit home for me. I mean, I think the real issue nobody's talking about is the price of convenience vs. the price of actually having good coffee. At $4 a shot, you're paying for someone else's rent and labor, not the beans themselves. A decent home machine is like $500 and you could pay that off in like 4 months of not going to Blue Bottle. But here's the thing nobody says - you also gotta factor in the cost of your own time cleaning that machine and dialing in the grind every morning. That feels like a hidden tax on your sanity that nobody talks about. So maybe the real calculation is whether you value your sleep more than your wallet.

kelly_west741mo agoMost Upvoted

Haven't we all done the math on something just to make ourselves feel better about a purchase? I mean, I've definitely run the numbers on stuff before, usually while standing in line at the coffee shop thinking about how much cheaper it would be at home. But you're right, the hidden cost of my own grumpy early morning cleaning routine is one I conveniently forget every time. Honestly, the real reason I keep going back is I'm terrified I'd buy a machine, use it for a week, and then it'd just be a $500 dust collector on my counter. So maybe my sleep and my sanity are worth the $4.

averywilliams2mo ago

Wait, you're actually calculating this? (I mean, I get being bored on night shift, but that's a whole other level of accounting.) 217 shots at $4 each is nearly $900, which is wild until you remember half of those were probably pulled at weird hours when you needed the caffeine just to stay awake. Feels like you're looking for a problem that isn't really there, unless you're secretly trying to justify buying a fancy espresso machine to yourself.