This is a guest post from Matt Collins, who extolls the virtues of DIY coffee roasting at roastingrevolution.com.

How to Save Money on Coffee

When it comes to reducing daily expenses, few (if any) pieces of advice are offered as often as this: cut out the coffee shop coffee. If you’ve searched online for saving tips, chances are that at some point you’ve come across this personal finance maxim.

The logic behind the suggestion is obvious. If you spend just $3 per day at thee coffee shop, over the course of a year that adds up to almost $1100.

Despite the cost, however, we continue to patronize coffee shops in droves. For many of us, the idea of cutting expenses by foregoing good coffee is about as attractive (or likely) as saving money on clothing by walking around naked. Sure, it makes sense from a purely financial perspective, but from a lifestyle perspective it’s much, much less attractive. We like good coffee.

In fact, we love good coffee.

And we’re not about to stop drinking it.

The good news for those of us who love high-quality, fresh-roasted coffee is that there is an alternative to the coffee shop. An ever-increasing number of coffee drinkers are roasting their own coffee at home. Home coffee roasting is quick and easy to do (it takes about 10 minutes), the coffee is better by leaps and bounds, and you can save a bundle of money doing it.

Actual Cost of Coffee

How much money can you save by roasting coffee at home? Consider this:

A medium (16 ounce) coffee at the coffee shop costs roughly $2 (not including the tip for the scowling barista). If you buy one medium coffee every day, you’re spending $730 a year. The same amount of home roasted coffee, on the other hand, would cost you less than $160. Even including the cost of a basic home roasting machine, you’d be enjoying a savings of about $480 the first year and $570 every year after that.

Think that sounds like a lot? It is.

Over five years the savings total up to about $2,760. If you were to invest those savings in a vehicle with 5% returns, after 5 years you’d have almost $3,200 in your account. Compare investments worth $3,200 with an expenditure of $2,760 and you’re looking at a difference in net worth of almost $6,000.

And who wouldn’t enjoy an extra $6,000?

Home Roasted Coffee is Better

Aside from being cheaper, the simple fact is that home roasted coffee is just flat-out tastier.

When it comes to coffee, fresher is better. Coffee flavor peaks 12-24 hours after roasting. Even whole bean coffee can lose about 40% of its flavor within two weeks of roasting (and pre-ground coffee doesn’t even merit discussion). Care to take a wild guess how long those bags of pre-roasted coffee have been sitting on the shelf at the coffee shop? Chances are it’s not less than 24 hours.

Here’s another little secret the coffee shops would rather you didn’t know: That specialty region coffee blend you’re so fond of? Most of the time only a fraction of the blended coffee is actually from the region being cited.

To keep costs down coffee shops generally blend more expensive beans, for example – Jamaican Blue Mountain beans, with less expensive beans. The resulting blend tastes, perhaps reminiscent of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, but lacking the balance and subtlety of a cup of pure Jamaican Blue Mountain (the very traits that make the beans so desirable in the first place).

How to get Started with Home Coffee Roasting?

Chances are that you’ve already got all the equipment you need to get started home roasting. Although experienced home roasters often prefer to use a specialized home roasting machine, coffee can be roasted on the stove top, in the oven, or even using an old hot-air popcorn popper.

All you really need in order to begin are some green (unroasted) coffee beans, a heat source, something to hold the beans while they roast and a basic understanding of the roasting process.

A great place to get started is RoastingRevolution.com’s free Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Home Coffee Roasting. It explains the pros and cons of the various roasting methods, how to know when your beans are done, some of the basic terminology and more. You’ll be a home roasting pro before you know it.

Both green beans and home roasting equipment can be purchased from a number of online suppliers. Do a quick google search on home coffee roasting and you’ll find more information than you can shake a stick at.

So what’s stopping you?

Drink better coffee. Save money doing it. That’s something to raise a cup to.

Coffee Discussion:

• Have you given up coffee to save money?
• How do you keep your coffee costs to a minimum?
• Do you have any home roasting tips?

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