Costs of Our National Addictions: Starbucks Vs Gasoline Prices
Most of us are hooked! And hooked so badly, it’s almost pandemic. Daily, Americans shell out millions of dollars buying gasoline for our vehicles and coffee to fuel our bodies. Individually the costs can be budget busting for many.
But we keep on buying and buying and buying. Cars won’t run without gas and most people can’t function without their coffee. The price for oil keeps going up and now is hovering at $100 per barrel, while a “tall
Comments
Jonathan Fung
I'm not addicted to coffee, and glad for it. 1.69 is pretty steep for a coffee. Although I am addicted to the Acai cup from Jamba Juice. I don't think they offer it in all parts of the US, but it's crazy good...and then again, its 5.95 for 20 oz.
Civisi
These kind of equations are interesting, but not practical.
Yeah, Starbucks might cost $18.00 per gallon, but I don't use 3.5 gallons of Starbucks going to and from work.
jim
You spend more to make more money, and the world goes round and round. The minute everyone saves money and not spend, our economy goes to hell.
You pay more for your starbucks and more for your gas, so their employees get more money too, and they hire more people and open more Starbucks, and more people have jobs. So go out, earn money, and spend it. And our economy will go round and round healthily.
Eric
The kicker is that Starbucks is seeing a down turn in sales and is struggling, where as Oil Companies are making record profits.
Though the comparison is interesting, as someone else mentioned, I don't go through that many gallons of coffee to get me too and from work. Although there are those days when I feel I may need 5 gallons of coffee to function normally.
While Starbucks costs more than most of it's competition, it's a price that I am still willing to pay for the quality coffee it is. That is not to construe it with being the best coffee ever, but it is probably the best coffee at a nationwide chain level.
That same philosophy goes towards my car, however for more of a necessity than a taste preference. My car requires premium fuel to deliver the advertised horsepower. I can put in 87 or 89 if I want to, but I would loose horse power at the cost of saving 2-3 dollars a tank. If I filled up twice a week, the difference would be $312 a year. Which sounds like a lot, but it really isn't. Making the assumption that I get the same mileage with 93 as 87 (I don't, but for the sake of the argument, and the lack of me wanting to put 87 in my car to get worse gas mileage), I'm not going through any less gas, nor am I decreasing the amount of pollutants put into the air (again assuming 87=93.)
I could probably save more money by cutting options on my cable or mobile phone bill, switching to non-store brands, etc than I would be buying cheap gasoline. Getting back to the point of the article though. If I swore off coffee I would save myself an average of probably $8-$10 a week. Saving myself about $416-520 a year. Not quite the 6 times difference between my Premium VS. Cheap fuel costs, but it is more.
Food for thought.... err Coffee anyways.
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