Pinching Coffee Cups

In my house, a cafe-bought cup of coffee is an important unit of monetary measure. It is used as a way to describe the cost of something else or how much was saved.

For example, we recently considered cancelling the newspaper. We realized that this was costing us the equivalent of 7 cups of coffee per month. However, the savings at the grocery store that would result from coupons retrieved from the paper should equal or exceed that for it to be a justified expense. For example, last week alone I cut coupons worth at least 20 cups of coffee. I had to eat a lot of cereal and frozen dinners this week to cash in on those savings.

Gas prices these days, huh? The recent increase and subsequent fall of gasoline prices is killing me. From a cup and half up to two cups and back down again is not good for the blood pressure. Now that the gas prices are down again, I'm driving more. To the coffeeshop.

There's a line in our budget that converts savings to coffee cups. This makes it significantly easier to find coffee cups each month. More specifically, I recently cut out all personal hygiene products. You won't complain too much when that latte is on me, will you?