I don't drink coffee. Actually, I don't consume caffeine at all. And my PA Alexis recently asked me how much my coffee savings have added up to over the years.

So naturally, I decided to run the numbers.

My relationship with caffeine

Not drinking coffee apparently makes me something of an anomaly among physicians. Because if there is one substance that seems nearly as ubiquitous in hospitals as normal saline, it is caffeine.

But I wasn't always this way. Back in medical school, I drank coffee like plenty of other medical students. Then, during one rotation, I drank a particularly large cup before heading into the operating room. And I felt awful. I was anxious. I was jittery. My hands didn't feel like my hands.

For someone who was increasingly realizing that he wanted to spend his career operating, that was not exactly an ideal combination. So I stopped drinking coffee and basically haven't consumed caffeine since.

I've written before about not drinking coffee and how I manage without it. The short version is that I don't really “manage” it at all anymore. I don't miss caffeine because my body isn't accustomed to having it.

But recently another question occurred to me: How much money has not drinking coffee saved me over the past 15 years? And perhaps more interestingly, what would have happened if I had invested all of that money instead?

First, we need to make some coffee assumptions

Obviously there is no single “cost of drinking coffee.”

You can brew cheap coffee at home. You can buy a regular drip coffee on your way to work. Or you can order some elaborate concoction with approximately 17 ingredients that costs more than lunch.

So let's keep things simple. We'll assume that, had I remained a coffee drinker, I would have consumed one large cup every day for the past 15 years.

Then we'll look at three scenarios:

1. I made my coffee at home every day.
2. I bought my coffee at a coffee shop every day.
3. I split the difference, making coffee at home half the time and buying it half the time.

For some context, Bureau of Labor Statistics data show just how much coffee prices can move over time. In August 2026, coffee prices were 6.1% higher than a year earlier, while roasted coffee specifically was up 4.9%.

For our calculation, I used a current price of about $3.65 for a purchased regular coffee and roughly $0.45 for a large cup brewed at home. Then, rather than pretending coffee cost the same amount for the entire 15-year period, I modeled prices backward using an assumed average inflation rate of 2.5% annually.

This isn't intended to calculate my coffee savings down to the penny. That's impossible. Instead, it's a reasonable thought experiment to see what kind of money we're actually talking about.

Scenario #1: I brewed my coffee at home

This is obviously the frugal coffee drinker's approach.

Using our assumptions, the cost of a large home-brewed coffee starts around $0.32 fifteen years ago and gradually rises toward approximately $0.45 today. Add everything together and my total coffee bill over 15 years would have been approximately:

$2,084

Honestly, that's not that much. Spread across 15 years, we're talking about less than $140 annually on average.

And this is important because sometimes personal finance discussions demonize incredibly small expenses. Coffee has somehow become the poster child for this. Stop buying coffee and you'll become rich!

Well…not exactly.

But we'll come back to that.

Scenario #2: I bought coffee every day

Now things get more interesting.

For this scenario, we'll assume that I bought one regular large coffee every single day. Again, I modeled the price backward rather than pretending coffee always cost what it does today.

Over 15 years, I would have spent approximately:

$16,907

Okay, that's real money. It works out to more than $1,100 annually on average, although obviously the expense would be higher today than it was early in the 15-year period.

And remember, we're only talking about regular coffee. Start adding espresso drinks, flavorings, larger sizes, food that mysteriously finds its way into the order, and suddenly the number could become substantially higher.

Scenario #3: The more realistic middle ground

My guess is that most regular coffee drinkers don't exist at either extreme.

Maybe you make coffee before work most mornings but grab one at the hospital occasionally. You stop at a coffee shop on the weekend. You buy coffee when traveling. So let's assume I bought coffee half the time and made it at home the other half.

My estimated 15-year coffee expense would have been:

$9,496

For simplicity, let's call it $9,500.

Therefore, depending on what kind of hypothetical coffee drinker I would have become, my caffeine abstinence has “saved” me somewhere between about $2,000 and $17,000 over the past 15 years.

But now we need to make this more fun.

What if I invested my coffee money?

This is where every personal finance article about coffee inevitably goes. And admittedly, compound growth makes the numbers more impressive.

Let's imagine that every month I took whatever I otherwise would have spent on coffee and invested it in a broadly diversified portfolio instead. And let's use historical returns of roughly 7% to 10% annually as a long-term estimate for diversified U.S. stock investments.

Here's what our hypothetical coffee savings portfolio would look like after 15 years:

Coffee habit	Approx. money not spent	Invested at 7%	Invested at 10%
Brew at home	$2,084	$3,493	$4,420
50% home / 50% coffee shop	$9,496	$15,913	$20,136
Buy coffee every day	$16,907	$28,334	$35,853

Suddenly my lack of caffeine looks like a legitimate investment strategy.

Had I otherwise been a daily coffee-shop person and dutifully invested every dollar I saved, my strange aversion to caffeine could theoretically be worth more than $28,000 today using a 7% return assumption.

That's the power of compounding. You don't just potentially earn a return on the original money invested. Over time, you can also earn returns on your previous returns. That's how compound interest works, so small recurring savings can become meaningful amounts over long periods of time.

There's only one problem with applying that story to me.

I didn't actually do any of this

Obviously I didn't stop drinking coffee 15 years ago because I wanted to save money.

I stopped because I drank a huge coffee before operating one day and felt like I was vibrating out of my skin.

At no point did medical-student Jordan think, “Excellent. I will now redirect this $2.50 into a low-cost broadly diversified index fund.”

I can assure you that did not happen. Partly because I had no idea what an index fund was at the time. But mainly because I didn't look at it that way.

In fact, knowing what my finances looked like during medical school and residency, I can tell you with near certainty what actually happened to my coffee savings: I spent the money on something else. And even when I became a personal finance junkie and attending surgeon, I did the same thing: spent the money on something else.

Maybe it was food. Maybe it was another drink. Or maybe it was something completely unrelated. The money didn't magically accumulate in some “coffee savings” account. It simply became available for something else.

And that is actually the most important lesson from this entire exercise.

Not spending money isn't the same as saving money

This distinction gets overlooked all the time.

Suppose you decide tomorrow to stop buying a $5 coffee every morning. Great. You haven't necessarily increased your savings rate by $5 per day.

You have merely reduced one expense by $5.

If that money subsequently gets spent somewhere else, your net financial position hasn't changed at all. And this was basically how I handled money for much of my early adult life. As I've written about in sharing my past unhealthy relationship with money, there was a time when my savings rate was essentially 0%.

Money came in and money went out. Whatever I didn't spend on one thing eventually got spent on something else.

It wasn't until Selenid and I actually created a financial plan that this changed.

That's why I believe so strongly in paying yourself first

Today, we approach our finances almost backward compared to how we used to.

Instead of earning money, spending whatever we want, and hoping there is something left to save at the end, we establish our savings goals first. Our investments happen. Our retirement accounts get funded. Money goes toward the priorities established in our written financial plan.

Then we spend the rest.

This is the concept behind paying yourself first. And it is much more powerful than trying to micromanage every individual purchase.

Investor.gov similarly emphasizes consistently setting aside a portion of your income for long-term investing rather than relying on whatever happens to remain at the end of the month.

This simple reversal completely changes the psychology of personal finance. Because now I don't have to worry about whether buying a coffee is destroying my financial future.

Personal finance isn't about coffee savings

This is ultimately where I think so much traditional personal finance advice goes wrong.

It focuses disproportionately on the tiny stuff. Don't buy coffee. Definitely don't buy avocado toast. Don't go out to dinner. Save $3 here. Clip a coupon there.

None of those things are inherently bad strategies. And particularly during medical school, residency, or another period when money is tight, small savings absolutely can matter.

But for a physician earning hundreds of thousands of dollars each year, whether you spend a few dollars on coffee is rarely going to determine whether you become financially independent.

Your big decisions will.

How much house did you buy? How expensive are your cars? Did you allow massive lifestyle creep after training? Are you carrying high-interest consumer debt? Did you establish an appropriate savings rate? Are you investing consistently? Did you create a written financial plan? Are you protecting yourself against financial catastrophe with appropriate insurance?

Those decisions move the needle.

Whether you drink coffee usually doesn't.

This is also why I am such a big believer in intentional spending. If something fits within your financial plan and brings you sufficient value or joy, spending money on it isn't some personal finance failure.

It's what money is for.

The irony of my $17,000 coffee savings

Technically, I may have saved thousands of dollars by giving up coffee. But I don't feel particularly proud of that fact because it required no discipline.

I didn't sacrifice anything. I genuinely don't want coffee.

Meanwhile, I'm sure I've spent thousands of dollars over those same 15 years on things that another person would consider completely unnecessary. And that's okay. That's actually the point.

Once you've established an appropriate savings rate, automated your investments, addressed your debt, and built your financial plan, you have earned the ability to spend the remainder intentionally.

Maybe coffee is incredibly important to you. Great. Buy the coffee.

Perhaps you couldn't care less about coffee but love traveling. Or restaurants. Or cars. Whatever it may be. Spend there instead.

Good personal finance does not mean spending as little money as humanly possible. In fact, one of the most important changes in my own relationship with money has been realizing that our income really has two purposes: it can be converted into wealth to help buy our future freedom, or it can be spent intentionally on things that actually bring us value.

The key is making sure the first one happens before you worry too much about the second.

Focus on the dollars that actually move the needle

I've now gone roughly 15 years without buying coffee.

Our calculations suggest that could represent anywhere from around $2,000 to $17,000 in avoided spending and coffee savings, depending on what kind of coffee drinker I otherwise would have been. Had I religiously invested those savings, maybe that money would be worth $3,500, $16,000, or even $28,000+ today depending on the scenario and investment return.

But I didn't.

I spent most of it somewhere else. And I'm completely fine with that.

Because the financial progress Selenid and I eventually made didn't happen because I stopped buying coffee. It happened because we changed the big things.

We established a savings rate. And we started paying ourselves first. We created a written financial plan. We paid down debt. Then we invested consistently. And then we gave ourselves permission to spend intentionally with what remained.

That's the real lesson here.

If you love your morning coffee, you don't need some personal finance blogger telling you that a $4 drink is the reason you aren't wealthy. Figure out your goals. Create your financial plan. Save enough to reach those goals and automate the process.

Then use the rest of your money on the things that actually make your life better.

Even if one of those things happens to be coffee.

What do you think? How much coffee do you drink? How is that impacting your financial future? What could your coffee savings be? Have you thought about cutting back? Why or why not? Let me know in the comments below!