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Today’s Coffee Is Tomorrow’s Debt

June 19, 2005

This just in — Starbucks is expensive, and buying on credit is even more expensive…

There’s a shocker, eh?

It must have been a slow newsday, but the Washington Post has an article on how college students are in debt, and still buying lattes…

To quantify the craziness, Lim distributes coffee-consumption charts. One shows that a five-day-a-week $3 latte habit on borrowed money can cost $4,154, when repaid over 10 years. She also directs students to a Web site she helped create.

The whole point being that it’d be much cheaper to make their own coffee in the dorm.

Of course, that’s assuming that they don’t go nuts on exotic blends, decent grinders, espresso machines, home roasting, etc…

So what’s next? An article about how it’d be cheaper for fraternities to brew their own beer for weekend blowouts?

My daddy had a much simpler way of putting it — if you don’t have the cash to buy something without borrowing, you can’t afford it.

He was right, of course — not that I was listening back in the day, mind you.

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