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June 22, 2005
Now THAT'S a caffeine addiction
Thousands of students are heavily in debt because of their coffee addiction. Well, maybe just this one silly student that has run up $110,000 in law school debt, approximately half of which comes from interest on her $3 Starbucks lattes (okay, I'm making that last part up - the article doesn't say how much of it comes from tasty beverages).
Luckily, I don't like coffee and like credit card debt even less, so I'll probably never succumb to "Bankruptcy by Beans".
Still, the article made me think about how much small purchases over time can add up.
For example, one $3 cup o' joe every weekday costs about $750 a year. If you instead stole your coffee from work and invested that money at 6% a year, you'd have over $4,000 in five years. You could pay for a super duper teeth whitening at the dentist to remove all those coffee stains and probably still have enough left over to take the office to lunch.
The best part of the article has to be that Jeffrey Hanson, a director of a borrower education service, hands out fliers that detail the "real cost" of lattes purchased with borrowed money.. Man, oh man, I hope this organization is not receiving my tax dollars.
If you want to do some silly calculations for yourself, I found a guy out there who has waaay too much time on his hands and put together a fancy calculator to show how much you'd save by cutting back on a few bucks here and there.
And if you want a sticker for your credit card showing a steaming espresso drink, a dollar sign and a question mark, contact Jeffrey Hanson at Access Group.
Posted by brian at June 22, 2005 01:23 PM