Extended cost

Extended cost or cumulative cost, how much do we spend on small things over a month or year? How much are you really spending on coffee at starbucks, drinks at the bar, or cigarettes. How much are we spending on our habits?

Let’s start with coffee drinkers. According to http://www.e-importz.com/Support/specialty_coffee.htm “Over 50% of Americans over 18 years of age drink coffee every day. This represents over 150 million daily drinkers. 30 million American adults drink specialty coffee beverages daily; which include a mocha, latte, espresso, café mocha, cappuccino, frozen/iced coffee beverages, etc.” Let’s say you’re one of those 30 million, and you buy a grande mocha from starbucks every day. In Seattle that will now run you a whopping $3.91. After buying one every day for a week, you’re looking at a cost of $27.37. By the end of the month you would have spent $109.48 and by the end of the year your total would have risen to $1313.76. That’s a lot of money.

Ok then how about smokers. In a 2003 survey smokers age 12 and up smoked an average of 13 cigarettes a day on the days they smoked and the same age range of smokers, smoked an average of 23 out of the last 30 days. 13 cigarettes every day for 23 days is 299 cigarettes. In the US, a pack of cigarettes has to be at least 20. So at 20 per pack, the average smoker will smoke about 20 packs in a month. Tobacco Free Kids.org lists the average pack price at $5.26. Multiplied by 20 packs a month and you find you will be spending $105.2 per month and by extension $1262.4 every year on your habit.

God forbid you smoke and drink coffee daily, at which point you would be spending about $2500 annually on your habits.

Next, going to the bar? Let’s assume you go out on the town on Friday nights and drink moderately, having only 2 to 3 drinks. If you like mixed drinks you’re paying at least $4 and probably closer to $6 for a drink, so one night on the town will run you $12-18. Though I expect that’s probably on the low end. If you go out every Friday for a month, you’ve now spent $48-72 and if you go every Friday all year long, $624-936. Not as bad as coffee either but this is assuming you drink moderately.

How about other monthly expenditures, like cable tv, or Netflix? Comcast’s digital preferred service is $39.99 for the first 6 months, after which it jumps to $56 a month, so a year of cable TV costs $576. Netflix basic subscription of 3 movies at a time runs $16.99 a month or $203.88 a year. A movie once a month at $7 a ticket, $84 a year.

Fast food lunch every day, at minimum $5 a meal each day of a 5 day work week, $25 a week, $100 a month, $1300 a year. Gym membership at 24 hour fitness to work off the weight you put on by eating fast food every day, $30 a month, $360 a year.

So what you say? Everything you choose to do, eat or drink costs money. Not exactly a new idea, but each of those expenses means you have to make more money to support your lifestyle. This may mean working more hours or working harder, which in turn means you are tired when you get home. If you’re working hard to pay for entertainment, but are too tired to enjoy that same entertainment is it worth the cost? How much do you value your free time, time with family and friends? What is time worth to you? Is it worth a cup of coffee or, your cigarette? And this analysis isn’t even considering the physical effects that some of these habits have on your body. Time has value and is becoming a commodity in our increasingly busy lives. Take some time to think about the choices you are making and the extended costs of things in your life.