STARBUCKS serves up to 5 million patrons a day.
By Nicole Bleidistel
Sun opinion editor
While movie theatres, restaurants, and shopping malls are dwindling down to ghost towns in the grips of a distressed economy, there is one industry that’s brimming with customers: coffee shops.
It’s understandable why we’re turning to Starbucks for a $4 latte fix; Americans are working harder and longer hours to keep their heads out of troubled financial waters.
A quick coffee can be a cheaper way to have lunch with a friend or a better alternative than stealing your neighbor’s Internet, but how much are our coffee habits costing us?
Author of “The Automatic Millionaire” and “Finish Rich” series, David Bach, did the math, and that $4 latte a day adds up to about $1,000,000 over a lifetime.
Bach’s “Latte Factor” serves as a reality check for the estimated 56 percent of regular coffee drinkers in the U.S., who spend about $18 million a year getting their fix.
College students consume a lot of coffee, and it’s easy to see why. Being a student in a hard economy is, well, hard. It’s natural to turn to something to get through this test, the day, tomorrow or the week. After all, Prohibition was repealed during the great depression; at least coffee tends to be cheaper than beer.
Regardless, the “Latte Factor” doesn’t apply to everyone, or even just to coffee. Whether you smoke, head to the bar, or fork over $2.50 for an energy drink, it’s likely that we each have some daily or weekly habit that costs a little now, but has the potential to add up to a lot later, especially if that $4 could’ve been sitting in a bank earning interest.
