There’s this bizarre idea online that if you make your coffee at home, it’ll make this huge difference. That your life will get massively better and rainbow unicorns will live at your house next to your two Lambos.
Saving money on coffee doesn’t work.
What the make-your-coffee-at-home advice misses
Another day another guru telling you to stop splurging on a coffee.
Screenshot taken by author (Credit: Business Insider)
The hidden message here is if you just make coffee at home, everything will get better. Dave Ramsey and the book “The Latte Factor” spread this coffee lie further. It’s so wrong.
Three money problems burden people:
- Compounding inflation
- A lack of financial education
- Not knowing how to make more money
There’s a limit to how much money you can save. If all you do is be frugal in every area of life, then eventually living costs destroy you.
And all the energy wasted on saving money could have been used to MAKE MORE MONEY.
A lot of life comes down to mindset.
You either have a scarcity mindset (and save on coffees) or an abundance mindset (and make more money). I recommend you choose option two.
The expense vs. investment unconventional wisdom
Some people go through life seeing everything as an expense.
Car parking is an expense. Coffee is an expense. Owning a home is an expense. There’s another crowd.
We see most things as investments.
Car parking is investment in more free time. Coffee is an investment in your happiness and provides networking opportunities. Owning a home is an investment in your family.
The smartest thing you can do is try to see how anything that requires money could be an investment.
If you play this game long enough your entire view of money will change.
One reader said to me, “If you are debt-ridden you must control your expenses.” That’s true. But the problem isn’t your $4 coffee addiction, it’s that you took on debt in the first place.
The solutions to debt are simple:
- Take on debt that’s well within your means.
- Don’t take on debt at all.
- Use debt to buy hard assets like real estate.
Life is too short to be a tight ass.
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash
Slow versus fast wealth
The crowd that worships *not* buying coffee misses another huge point:
Saving your way to wealth will take most of your life. And even then it may never happen. There are faster paths to wealth than saving. And frankly, they’re much better. And you already know what they are:
- Own businesses (stocks, VC, angel investing)
- Get a higher-paying job
- Start a business
- Real estate
- Etc…
I’m not interested in getting wealthy over a 40+ year period because I may not live that long. Same applies to you. It’s smarter to get a financial education and learn how to make more money, instead of saving money.
Earning more money has unlimited upside
That’s the bottom line.
Once you understand how money works and how it’s created, there are unlimited amounts of it to be made. The internet is a huge amplifier of this opportunity. Even if I wanted to I could never capitalize on all the financial opportunities online.
Neither can you.
So it’s less about how to save money and more about which way you’d like to make more money.
Now, the critics will say many of these modern money-making methods are scams. That’s because they believe there can be no cons to a money-making idea. But that’s immature.
Every strategy to make more money has a downside.
It comes down to which strategy you like the best, and which downside you’re okay to live with. That boils down to your risk appetite.
Learn these skills instead of giving up your $4 latte
These are skills I like the best that’ll make you more money than a 4-year college degree or saving $4 a day on lattes.
1. Learn to talk to these sexy beasts
Code is a relatively new language.
Those who can write code can communicate with robots. Read that again.
In the new world it’s us and sexy machines working together. The greatest machine of our time will be AI. There’s no denying it.
Coding has also got easier. You can have a basic understanding of code and then use ChatGPT to write some of the code for you.
Or you can use libraries of code that other people have written to make the job easier. The challenge isn’t coding. It’s resourcefulness. Can you use google search and chatbots to find answers without being told to?
If you can, the entire world is available to you and money will never be a problem again.
2. Learn why copywriting is such an underrated skill
People often think copywriting is writing.
They miss the point. Copywriting is words on a page but the real skill is persuasion. It’s using words to inspire people to take action. And that action can put money in your pocket in an honest way.
If you go deeper on copywriting (like I have) then you’ll learn it’s really the study of human psychology. Once you understand how the human mind works and makes decisions, you’ll never have a problem making money again.
What I’ve noticed is many people who struggle with money are selfish.
They think about their money needs and complain and blame their way to poverty. Copywriting teaches you to become obsessed with the needs of others. It’s quite nourishing for your morals and beliefs when you go from needing things from people to creating things for them.
3. Write to attract new opportunities
I’m living proof.
I write online about topics I’m obsessed with and it makes my email inbox a one-way street for new opportunities. I don’t have time for 95% of them which is a good thing. But the main point is I don’t have to go searching, asking for permission, or applying for opportunities.
When you write you’re perceived as an expert. As someone who is helpful.
This type of person gets paid disproportionally more whether you like it or not. And it’s fair as hell. So write online. Simple.
4. The quiet art of win-win negotiation
Much of life is about asking.
And so many opportunities require you to partner with a person or organization. The process happens through negotiation.
Most people see this skill through the lens of “How do I get as much as possible out of the other person so I can make the most money?”
Win-win negotiation is a rebellion against this approach.
It teaches you to quietly work with the other side to create a win-win. I’ve used this strategy to find employers and recruit business partners.
If you’re the only one that wins then eventually no one wins. Why? Because when a partnership doesn’t bear fruits for one side, they find every opportunity they can to get out of the deal and run.
Hostage negotiators teach the best lessons on this topic. Find their books on Amazon and read them.
5. Ethical selling
People hate selling. My weekly surveys prove it.
We hate selling because 90% of it is unethical. It’s manipulation, exaggeration, lying, and marketing gimmicks.
But if you learn ethical selling it’s a completely different approach. That’s what I learned in banking.
The best teachers are people like Alex Hormozi and Greg Isenberg. They strip away all the nonsense and show you how to persuade and form communities around your ideas. This is the future of selling.
Sell or be sold.
The upside to making coffee at home
Wait, what?
Yep, there is an upside. Learning to save money on expenses like Starbucks coffee helps you to heal from the consumerism virus.
Many people are addicted to spending.
They see every problem explained to them by a marketer as an urgent issue they need to fix. Or they’re easily tempted by luxury purchases so they can upgrade their status and say F U to strangers instead of healing from their childhood trauma.
So while making your coffee at home won’t make you a millionaire or increase your happiness in life, it can teach you financial discipline, which is the real epidemic no one talks about. But…
Focus on making more money. The rest is a dog and pony show.
This article is for informational purposes only, it should not be considered financial, tax or legal advice. Consult a financial professional before making any major financial decisions.
