Going out to the deli for lunch, or nipping into Starbucks for your morning hit is perhaps hitting you in the stomach with more than a bad waistline. Check out these figures!
Ok, so we all like going out for a coffee. I love it personally. I don’t actually have an office, I have a coffee shop for an office. It saves me money. But if I didn’t have to use it and I had an office somewhere then I wouldn’t use a coffee shop at all: here’s why.
So a Latte has about 250 calories for a full fat. 4 of those a day and you are half way to your recommended daily intake. But that’s not the biggest problem with a latte. The problem is really financial.
Consider for a moment that you are rushing into work and you decide that on the way you are going to stop to get yourself a drink before you nip into the office. You have your routine, it’s dead easy. You go into the office carrying your foamy morning starter, and settle down with the newspaper or to the morning’s emails. It’s a bit like an athlete warming up for a race, and this is how you warm up ready for the day ahead of hard work. The telephone calls. The hassles. For you, it’s the only pleasure that you have in life.
Wrong.
It’s not a pleasure, it’s a deadly sin. Well not actually a deadly sin precisely, but it is going to do your bank account no good. That latte in the UK costs about £2.00. Get one of those every morning and it will cost 5x £2.00 x 45 weeks of the year. That’s a staggering £450 a year! Now, add to that the possible nip out to the deli for lunch every day, and you will be tipping your financial scales as heavily as your bathroom scales. Over £1000 a year? Groan! That’s bad.
So, here’s a solution. Set the alarm clock 10 minutes earlier. Seriously. Because if you do that then you can spend the time making a flask of coffee and a much more healthy snack and/or sandwich. Total cost will be about £1.00 a day, which is a much more reasonable figure. Can’t face that as a morning routine? Then do it the night before!
If you don’t believe what I say, then start budgeting and watching the cash flow. If you were in small business accounting using their software everyday to look after your figures, then you probably wouldn’t have too much of a problem picking up on these numbers. But if you are like me then you will probably want to consider something more practical and user friendly. There are a variety of excellent home softwares, and it’s worth consider some of the excellent free home accounting software that is available online, though you need to be careful of potential security issues.
