How much do you spend on coffee every year? Itโs probably a number, while impressive, that youโd feel better not seeing represented as an โthat canโt be right, can itโ annual sum. Itโs an understandable feeling. When you can track your yearly spending in terms of number of home espresso machines (plural) you could have purchased instead, the number gets a little depressing.
But have you ever wondered how your coffee spending stacks up to others? Well, you are about to find out. In a new study, Amerisleep polled 1,008 coffee drinkers about their habits and have chopped those numbers up in a ton of interesting ways.
Brought to our attention by Brit + Co, the study takes a look at the coffee consumption habits of Americans across industries and age ranges and finds that, unsurprisingly, we drink a lot of coffee. 79% of coffee drinkers polled stated they consume at least one cup on a daily basis, even though 12% of those daily drinkers believing that caffeine is โdamaging to their bodiesโ (contrary to pretty much every scientific study we have written about here on Sprudge). What is perhaps more surprising is that almost as many people stated their primary reason for drinking coffee was the taste as there were who stated it was for energy/to stay awake/to stay focused, 42.9% to 46.4% (the study considers these three reasons to be separate, but they are all basically saying the same thing).
And as all these Baby Boomer-penned articles suggest (you know the ones, where avocado toast and coffee are keeping kids these days from saving money and buying houses), Millennials spend more on coffee than other age groups. According to the study, people ages 25-34 spend on average $2,008 a year whereas the next closest age group, those 35-44, only spend $1,410. As someone on the cusp of switching between these two groups, I can at least look forward to an extra $600 in my pocket. Do I get it in a lump sump on my birthday? That would be sweet.
Based on industry, the study finds that wholesale and retail and hotel, food services, and hospitality top the list of most cups consumed daily with an average of 3.5. Interestingly enough though, these two industries arenโt the biggest spenders on coffee. That designation goes to finance and insurance, spending $709 a year on coffeeโ$117 more than wholesale and retail in secondโeven though they rank as the sixth-highest coffee-drinking industry with 3.0 cups daily. All that extra whip and drizzle adds up. Hotel, food services, and hospitality spends an ostensibly low amount of coffee, $278 a year, until you realize that group is comprised of baristas and servers who have access to free coffee as part of their job and just make it for themselves.
Do you feel better about your coffee habits after seeing the survey? Yes? No? Want to feel better/worse? Then check out the full survey results here. And grab another coffee. What’s one more cup gonna do?
Zac Cadwaladerย is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas.ย Read more Zac Cadwaladerย on Sprudge.
Top image ยฉย Alena Ozerova/Adobe Stock.