Americans love their coffee runs the way kids love Halloween candy. The morning trip to Starbucks or Dunkin' has become as automatic as brushing your teeth—only pricier.
According to Empower, many millennials spend around $7 a day fueling the habit. Do the math and that's more than $2,500 a year, enough to turn a caffeine buzz into a financial hangover.
"Shark Tank" star Kevin O'Leary thinks that's madness. He says he'll never be caught paying coffee shop prices when he can make his own cup for pennies at home. "I never buy a frape-latte-blah-blah-blah-woof-woof-woof for $2.50," he told CNBC back in 2017. "Do I pay $2.50 for a coffee? Never, never, never do I do that. That is such a waste of money for something that costs 20 cents."
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Instead, O'Leary brews his own every morning, proudly noting it runs him about 18 cents a cup. The rest, he says, goes straight into investments. To him, it's not about denying himself caffeine—it's about refusing to waste money on something that won't grow. "I drink coffee, one cup every morning. It costs about 18 cents to make it, and I invest the rest," he explained.
That idea—skipping small splurges and channeling the cash into compounding returns—is core to his financial playbook. He insists the "little leaks" in a budget are where most people sabotage themselves.
Coffee is just the easy example. It could just as easily be streaming subscriptions you forgot you signed up for, rideshares when a bus would do, or that overpriced salad you scarfed down at your desk. On their own, none of these things look fatal. But stack them together every day, and they eat away at money that could have been working for you.
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"The truth is, there is a lot of crap you don't need," O'Leary said. "What I've learned to do, and what has really helped me in maintaining growth in my own personal investing is, anytime I pick up something I'm going to buy, I say to myself, ‘Do I really need this?' Because if I don't buy it, the money is going to be invested and make money every year for me while I'm sleeping."
His prescription is blunt: everyone, no matter their income, should be setting aside at least ten percent of each paycheck for investing. He knows the excuses. People protest they can't afford it, that rent alone drains them. But he doesn't buy it. "People say, ‘I can't afford that! I can barely afford my rent!' But it's not true, you buy crap you don't need every day."
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O'Leary's point isn't to banish coffee altogether. It's to highlight how easily routine spending can balloon into something absurd. If the average American is really dropping thousands of dollars a year on takeout coffee, then the lesson is pretty clear: you're not just buying caffeine, you're trading away your chance at long-term growth.
He puts it in the simplest terms possible: "I don't buy a lot of crap. I buy good stuff that I need, and I invest the rest, and it works. Try it sometime."
At $7 a day, that "frape-latte-blah-blah-blah-woof-woof-woof" could be the most expensive 20 cents you'll ever drink.
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