I've mentioned in previous articles that I financed the majority of my flight training, resulting in a pretty hefty amount of debt. As such, I've had to really lock down on what I spend each month so that I can make good headway on paying it all off. I've actually come across a few fun ways to save money, so I thought I'd write about my three favorites here so that you can do the same!
Home Roasting Coffee
Hear me out! It's no secret that coffee is one of my favorite parts of the day. Whether I'm out on a trip or at home, I love being able to make a fresh cup of coffee. One of the ways that I've been able to dive further into my love of coffee is actually roasting my own beans at home. Believe it or not, the cost to get into this can be super low.
Prior to roasting, coffee beans are green. They are actually not beans at all, but pits from the center of the coffee cherry. When you walk into a store and buy a bag of coffee from somewhere like Starbucks or the market, you're probably paying between eight to ten bucks for 12 ounces of roasted coffee (.75 lbs). It gets way more expensive if you're buying specialty coffee online or from your favorite local coffee shop. For example, I used to do a coffee subscription service where each bag was between 15 to 18 bucks. I also once bought a bag of Starbucks reserve beans that, as I recall, was 20 bucks for like ten ounces. I enjoyed all of these coffees, but that's a lot of freakin' money for coffee! Now, if you buy un-roasted coffee, you can get beans for an average of about five bucks a pound, give or take. If you do the math, you're saving an average of roughly 53-72% depending on what kind of coffee you like. If you're a die hard Folger's fan though, I can't help you and I'm sorry.
I'm sure you're thinking "Daniel this is great and all, but how do I roast them?" Well, you can pan roast your beans on the stove, put them in the oven, or throw them in one of those Whirley Pop stovetop popcorn makers (which is how I got into it). I'd be willing to bet you've got a pan at home already; this is a perfectly acceptable way to roast coffee. In fact, in Ethiopia they do something called a coffee ceremony where they pan roast coffee and then drink it right after. It's actually cool to watch; there are some videos of it on YouTube. The Whirly Pop my old roommate and I used to get into home roasting was found at a Good Will store for I think five bucks. If you wanna save some money, that's the way to do it. Admittedly though, I'm pretty into it and wanted to get a higher level of consistency with my beans, so I bought a small roasting machine. It is a small investment up front, but it'll pay for itself in a matter of months. If you want to dive into any of this, I'd recommend going to YouTube for some how-to videos because there's a lot of ways to do it.
I do want to say that if you're using a pan or Whirley Pop to roast, it can take quite a while to roast a single batch. Between actually roasting the beans and cooling them down, I've had a single batch take about 30 minutes (although you can do more coffee at a time). My machine can do a small batch in about ten minutes and I obviously enjoy the process, but the trade off in time may not be worth the savings in money for you.
Food Prep
I happen to really enjoy cooking, and one of my favorite things to do is find recipes that make a lot of food so that I can portion them out and freeze them. The easiest way to do this is with a CrockPot, but you can also food prep meals like smoothies and juices using a blender or a juicer. For example, lately I've been making hybrid juice/smoothie drinks that taste really good and get me a good daily dose of vitamins. It's significantly cheaper than going to places like Jamba Juice or Smoothie King, and you can make a lot at once and freeze it in mason jars for later consumption. Depending on what ingredients I choose, I pay about 10-15 bucks for the fruits and veggies that go in my juices and it makes about five days of drinks. Each morning I'll move one from the freezer to the fridge, and usually by the time the afternoon rolls around I'm ready to drink it so I'll microwave it for about 30 seconds and then it's ready to go (it's really more of a slushy but that's perfectly fine with me). Alternatively, you can put them in the fridge about 24 hours prior to consumption and you shouldn't have to microwave it at all.
I also have been prepping breakfast burritos for quite a while. My recipe varies with each batch, but I make mine with a combination of veggies, eggs, potatoes, bacon (or breakfast sausage), and cheese. I get enough ingredients to make about 8-12 burritos and it lasts me long enough to where I really only have to whip up a batch three times every two months. I'd say this costs me about 20 bucks per batch, and most of that is the bacon.
Food prep also saves a bit of time and hassle when it comes to deciding what to eat which can help out with decision fatigue (see article on that here). I really like keeping all of these different meals in the freezer so that when I get hungry, I don't have to think too much about what I'm going to have. If you cook healthy meals and freeze them, it's obviously easier to stay healthy.
Baking
This might fall under the food prep category, but I feel like it deserves its own section in this article. I love to bake my own bread because it's easy, tastes better than store bought bread, and doesn't have all of the preservatives in it. It's also cheap as dirt. Obviously you can buy bread that doesn't have that stuff in it, but why not just make it instead? My recipe for bread is courtesy of my grandmother and goes like this: Combine roughly three cups of flour, a cup of warm water, a heaping tablespoon of salt, and a heaping tablespoon of yeast. I usually like to start with the yeast and a little bit of warm water to activate the yeast. Stir it all up and let it rise for up to 4 hours. Make sure the dough is somewhat sticky. Then put the dough on parchment paper and bake it at 450 in a Dutch oven for 30 minutes with the lid on and another 10-15 with the lid off. Make sure to put the Dutch oven in the oven while it preheats. To take it up a notch, whisk up one egg and use a basting brush to spread the egg on top of the bread before you bake it. Sprinkle some everything bagel seasoning (or sesame seeds or whatever you like) on top and then bake it this way. You can easily turn this recipe into a few rolls as well, although they will be relatively dense. You also don't necessarily need the Dutch oven, but the result is far better if you do have one. As a result of this recipe, I have not personally bought any bread (with the exception of burger buns) for probably well over a year at this point.
I'm sure I'll come up with more of these little tidbits, but for now I hope you enjoy! If you like what you're reading, please consider using the Sign Up button to subscribe to my email list. I absolutely will not spam you every day; the email list is a way to have my weekly blog posts delivered directly to your email.
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