How You Can Fight Inflation... And Still Enjoy Your Favorite Coffee
Enjoying a high quality cup of coffee every morning has become one of the great affordable luxuries in modern life. My wife and I are solidly middle class. With inflation at a 40 year high of 9.1% we are all feeling pinched and forced to adjust our spending.
It's very important to not forget your local small businesses, many of whom are making your favorite things, but who don't have the buying power to keep prices low!
So with that in mind, I want to share some of the cost-saving steps you can take to fight inflation while continuing to enjoy your favorite coffee.
Things You Can DO
1. Buy 5lb Bags, which saves you 10%. I know variety can be the spice of coffee life for many of us, but we give you a 10% savings when you buy a 5lb bag. Now many be a good time to trade some of that variety for a little extra savings.
2. Take advantage of our seasonal 20% off sales. We do four 20% off sales per year, with the next one coming up August 8-14, 2022. This is a great time to buy a little extra and capture that savings. We suggest buying a 6 week supply so that the coffee will still be fairly fresh if stored well, but you don't run the risk of ending up with stale coffee buy purchasing too much.
3. Buy items you know you will use in bulk wherever possible. My wife has gotten really great about buying staple household goods in bulk from places like Costco. Toilet paper, paper towels, toiletries, etc. It takes a little extra cash flow, but the savings can be significant to the budget.
4. Go big and take advantage of gift card deals to places you love. Every Holiday season, the salon at which I get my hair cut offers a 25% off sale on gift cards. For the past three years I have done the math to figure out how much I will need to cover a year's supply of haircuts and then purchased a 25% off gift card for that amount. Likewise, our favorite restaurant in Cincinnati (Crown Republic) offers a 20% off gift card during Thanksgiving. Same idea. We know we will eat there at least a few times a month, so why not capture a 20% savings for as many of those months as our cash flow will allow.
5. Forego that $16 cocktail or $12 glass of wine at your local restaurant and instead, enjoy the same quality (or better) drink at home for a fraction of the price. This has been a big one for me personally. I'm not advocating we don't celebrate when we are out at times. But seeing the markup on alcohol in a restaurant or cocktail bar setting is painful. I've switched to (mostly) choosing to enjoy a really good drink or glass of wine at home and thereby reallocate those dollars in our eat out budget to the actual food - which is rapidly climbing in price.
6. Drink fewer lattes at the cafe and brew more coffee at home. Now is the perfect time to up your brew game at home. If you need help, take our Brew Like A Pro class and learn. Brewing a Chemex, AeroPress of Hario V60 of a really great coffee at home can be done for about $1. I'm not saying cut out the coffee shop altogether, far from it. But by coming a few less times in a week or month and brewing more coffee at home will keep the good coffee flowing while capturing some savings.
Things I Suggest You DON'T Do
1. Don't elevate convenience over saving, when saving is possible. Saving is rarely convenient. Don't pass up saving on something you love because it will take a few extra steps or require a little more discipline.
2. Don't lower quality on the items that bring you tiny joys. At a time when cutting back is important, it is vital we leave some of the tiny things we truly love in place. They will help make the cuts elsewhere feel less painful and give us small moments to look forward to.
3. Don't forget the small businesses around you. I f you have to, REDUCE what you buy, BUT STILL BUY. If you love the cuts of meat you get from your local butcher, or you love the flower arrangements from your local florist, or heck, if you love the coffee you get from your local roaster, keep supporting them! If you need to cut back, cut back. But don't abandon them!
I know it is far from an exhaustive list, but it is a start nonetheless! Cheers to winning the fight against inflation while continuing to enjoy your favorite coffees