Do you know how much your coffee is costing you?

According to a Gallup Poll, 64% of Americans drink at least one cup of coffee daily.

Working as a barista—particularly one who doesn’t drink coffee—I was constantly in awe of how much money some of my customers dropped on their favorite coffee drinks, not to mention the amount of unhealthy calories and caffeine they were consuming in the process.

I’ve never seen anyone actually cry over spilt milk, but spilt coffee? Absolute mayhem.

Before you can say, “I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t drink coffee” (believe me, I’ve heard it a thousand times), trust me on this: with your coffee habit comes hours of waiting in lines, countless added calories, decreased quality of sleep, and hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars spent each year.

The worst part? It’s like watching awful reality TV : you keep going back for more.

How much you are spending

When I worked as a barista, there were multiple customers who would come and buy a grande (that’s medium-sized for those who aren’t fluent in Starbucks) Caramel Macchiato every single weekday. Let’s use this as an example—it’s not the most expensive drink on the menu, or the worst one for you, but certainly one that is very popular.

A Caramel Macchiato is a layered drink with vanilla syrup at the bottom, followed by steamed milk and foam, marked by two expresso shots, and caramel drizzle on top. It costs $4.93 at Starbucks with tax, but for the purpose of this cost-analysis, I’m going to round up to $5.

Say you buy your $5 drink every day on your way to work or class and make coffee at home on the weekend—that’s $25 per week. That would make $25 for each of the 52 weeks in a year = $1,300 per year on Caramel Macchiatos.

Yikes.

Not everyone is purchasing a $5 drink every day, so let’s break down what a medium-sized, medium roast coffee would cost you at Starbucks. $2.39 for each of the five workdays is $11.95 per week — We’ll round this to $12 per week for the sake of this analysis.

That doesn’t seem unreasonable, but the habit adds up quickly over the course of a year:

$12 for 52 weeks in a year equals $624 per year on your daily coffee fix.

Alternatives 

Rather than break the bank for brand-name coffee, support local businesses and stop at your local mom and pop coffee shop—chances are, they’re much cheaper and they may even offer a frequent buyer card.

For a price of $90-150, depending on the model, invest in a Keurig machine to make your own cup of coffee every morning. Assuming you make one cup of coffee every morning for a year, the cost of purchasing the required K-Cups would add up to $300-400 per year—still cheaper than buying a cup every day.

By far the cheapest option for coffee lovers—make your own filtered coffee at home. Brands like Maxwell House and Folgers are available in bulk sizes, and favorite brands like Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts sell their grounds by the pound for much cheaper than in-store prices. For $11.95 per pound, you can buy Starbucks Pike Place medium roast coffee, brew it at home, and have one cup per day for approximately $95 per year—instead of the $624 you’d be spending if you bought a cup each day at a Starbucks store.

The best option of all? Cut caffeine to a minimum—or entirely—and start living a healthier lifestyle. Increased mood, better sleep, superior overall health, fewer calories, more money in your pocket, and more time on your hands are all benefits that will come with nixing coffee.

Adulting can be tricky and expensive. Most of us young adults  don’t have much in our budget to spare for Beyoncé tickets, let alone to fund a coffee addiction that costs more than rent. Do yourself a favor and cut back on the caffeine– you’ll thank yourself in more ways than one.

Things you could be doing with $1,300 

• Put money towards paying off your student loans
• See Beyoncé on the Formation Tour four times, or splurge on VIP tickets
• Pay an advance on your rent and be successful at #adulting
• Purchase a new laptop so you can read more articles like this one
• Buy 9 years’ worth of meals in Ramen noodles

Things you could be doing with $624

• Buy a spontaneous plane ticket to visit a friend or relative
• Adopt the dog you’ve always wanted (if you’re responsible enough to be a pet owner)
• Get a super expensive haircut (if you’re Hillary Clinton)
• Six years’ worth of Netflix subscriptions
• Buy 2800 Chicken McNuggets (just kidding, don’t)
• Here’s a novel concept—save it!