Let’s begin the journey to the cheapest-yet-tastiest cup of java by learning how to save on ground coffee or whole beans, instead of spending $9 or more per pound at the grocery store or your local coffee house. Here are our hottest tips:
Shop Sales
Of course, the most obvious advice would be to buy coffee when it’s on sale or when you have a manufacturer’s coupon, or to shop where prices are lower.
Linda’s local grocery store often runs great sales on their store brand coffee, which is actually quite tasty. When they run a buy-2-get-3-free sale, she stocks up. And if you’re lucky to have them in your area, you can visit Trader Joe’s, which tends to have good prices; it’s where a lot of our friends and family buy their coffee. Other economical options are Walmart and online sellers.
Try out other coffee brands
A similar but less obvious tactic, and one that will let you try out less common coffee brands, is to shop discount department stores like Marshalls, HomeGoods, and TJ Maxx. Our coffee-loving reader Marianne Post noticed that these stores buy out coffee from a variety of boutique coffee companies, and none of it has expired, since it’s illegal to sell items past their freshness date. She’s snagged one-pound bags of unusual brands for as low as $6.99, which lets her experiment without breaking the bank.
Find better deals
Sometimes you need to dig to find the deals. You know those wheeled shelved carts where grocery stores put their about-to-expire foodstuffs on sale at a deep discount? Last week Diana was poking through one and found a dozen packages of Green Mountain Coffee and Caribou K-Cup® coffee pods. Regularly $5.99 for a package that contains 12 pods, they were marked down to $1.50—that’s 75% off, or a little over 12 cents per cup of coffee. In the past she’s also seen these shelves stocked with jars of instant coffee, as well as bags of ground and whole bean coffee, all priced to move.
Many shoppers eschew coupons because it can be a pain to clip, sort, and carry them just to save a few cents, but this little bit of effort can help you save big on coffee. The Krazy Coupon Lady website, for example, has offered printable coupons for $2 off 12-oz. bags of Starbucks ground coffee. Do a Google search on “store coupons ground coffee” or “store coupons coffee beans” and start saving. Then there are the Sunday newspaper inserts, where you’ll always find coupons for brands like Folger’s, Maxwell House, and Sanka, as well as Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, and other specialty brand coffees.
So your first stop for lowering the price of your daily coffee fix is to find, well, cheaper coffee. But it goes so, so much further than that. Read on for details, tricks, and tips on how to bring the price down even further.
Bulk Up
Often, the more you buy of something, the more economical it is. For example, warehouse clubs like Costco, BJs, and Sam’s Club will offer two 1-lb. bags of coffee beans or ground coffee shrink-wrapped together at a considerable discount. If you drink a lot of coffee, it can be worth it to stock up.
Keep in mind these warehouse clubs charge annual fees, but if you’re thrifty like Diana, you can find membership deals through places like Groupon and LivingSocial. In early 2016, she paid $55 through Living Social for an annual business membership that also included a $20 gift card, a $25 coupon to use on a purchase of $250 or more, and coupons for free pizza, batteries, and tortilla chips.
Looking for an even cheaper alternative to the warehouse stores? It can be done! Try an online restaurant supply store like webstaurantstore.com. On this site, you can buy eighty 2-oz. packets of coffee for as little as $30. That’s 10 pounds at $3 per pound, so these little packets will keep you in coffee for a long time without emptying your wallet.
Keeping All That Coffee
If you buy coffee in bulk to save cash, you then have the question of how to store it. Coffee experts agree that you should use coffee as soon after roasting as you can—but if you have several pounds of it, that probably won’t happen unless you’re a real coffeeholic.
The next best thing is to store your coffee in a cool, dry place in an opaque, truly airtight container, according to the National Coffee Association. Experts disagree on whether you should store your coffee in a fridge or freezer, because coffee absorbs moisture, odors, and flavors from other foods. However, if you use an airtight container, it shouldn’t be an issue, and keeping your coffee chilled might help it stay fresher longer.
Subscribe & Save
If you tend to go through the same amount of coffee every month, it could be worth it to subscribe to receive regular shipments of beans at a discount.
Amazon’s Subscribe & Save service offers discounts of up to 15%, depending on how many products you subscribe to, and free shipping to boot. The company has over 800 coffee products eligible for this service, from as low as $3.95 for 12 ounces of French press coffee, and includes unusual brands like Death Wish and The Coffee Fool. Other such services exist as well; for example, Target has a similar program.
To Grind or Not to Grind
The price of your daily cuppa depends in part on whether you opt for whole or ground beans. Whole beans are more expensive by weight; some experts say this is because whole beans need to be of better quality, since drinkers will notice any off flavors—and they’ll certainly notice if there’s anything weird-looking in their batch—whereas ground coffee leaves a lot of room for tinkering with cheaper beans and adding fillers.
However, one thing to consider is that whole beans may be so much more flavorful that you can use less of them and still brew a tasty cup, thereby evening out the price difference between whole bean and ground. Since you can buy a coffee grinder for as little as $13, you may find it worth the expense and effort to try both whole and ground beans and see if it makes a difference to you. You may end up with a better, budget-friendly cup even with the pricier beans!
Mix It Up
If you’re a dedicated drinker of expensive brands and don’t see yourself enjoying a discount coffee, try cutting your pricey beans with a less expensive variety to reduce costs. You may not be able to tell the difference. Start by replacing a quarter of the more expensive coffee with a more economical brand, and slowly increase the proportion of inexpensive coffee until you notice a difference—then scale back to the last percentage.
Grounds for Re-Use
This is a real tightwad tip but in the spirit of giving you all the options, here goes: Some coffee drinkers save big by double dipping, so to speak. Leave the used grounds in the filter and add 50% fresh ground coffee for your new brew. Again, you may need to experiment with the proportion of used to fresh coffee, and see if you can come up with a mix that works for you. Before you coffee aficionados come at us with pitchforks and frothers, we know this tip isn’t for everyone, but we’re going to put it out there anyway.
Take Your Time
The tips in this article may seem very time intensive, but compare the time it takes to brew your own coffee at home to how long it takes to wait in line behind a dozen cranky, caffeine-deprived coffee lovers, or to convey your order through a crackly drive-through intercom and then inch toward the pick-up window.
Once you commit to making your own drinks to save money, you’ll become faster and faster at it. The hardest part is the setup: Sourcing and buying the supplies you need at a good price. Once that’s done, you’ll be able to whip up a drink in a hurry that rivals the ones you buy at the local coffee joint, and for a fraction of the cost. No wait, no waste!
Grind It Again
You can trick your friends—and yourself—into thinking they’re drinking a premium brand of beans even when they’re actually sipping discount store-brand coffee. The secret is to regrind the ground coffee to a finer consistency before brewing, which makes the resulting brew a bit richer and bolder. If you experiment with this tip, you may find you can be happy with a cheaper brand of beans.
Grounds for Your Grounds
Speaking of grounds… don’t throw that brown gold into your garbage can. Used coffee grounds have a neutral pH, so they make a wonderful fertilizer for the plants in your garden. They not only add valuable nitrogen to the soil, but they improve the soil’s tilth (how the dirt looks and feels) and may even repel annoying pests like slugs and snails. Sprinkle the used grounds around your plants, agitate the dirt a bit, and your plants will thank you with beautiful blooms or vibrant veggies. Diana goes one step further and composts her grounds along with the paper filter she uses in her Melitta cone. She likes to think she has the most fragrant compost pile in the neighborhood thanks to the high quality beans she uses. Delusional much?
“Duh” Tip: Use Less Coffee
Look almost anywhere online and you’ll read that you need two tablespoons of ground coffee for every six ounces of water to brew a proper cup of joe. However, the National Coffee Association begs to differ: They say you need one to two tablespoons of coffee per six ounces of water, and add, “This can be adjusted to suit individual taste preferences”.
What this means: If you’ve been using two tablespoons of coffee for each cup just because you think you have to, you may be using more than you need. Experiment with different amounts to see if you can get away with using less coffee but still turn out a delicious cup.
Of course, the resulting flavor will vary depending on the type of coffee you’re using, the darkness of the roast, and the fineness of the grind. But if you end up cutting the amount of coffee you use in every cup by one half, and are happy with the results, guess what? You’ve cut your spending on coffee beans in half, too.
Digital Scale
If you’re really persnickety about saving your pennies, this is where a digital scale can help. Most folks simply eyeball how much coffee they scoop into their drip brewer’s basket or into a coffee cup. While using a marked tablespoon is a big step up from the guesstimate method, volume measurements are notoriously inaccurate; it’s why your potato chip bag has a message to consumers that reads, “This package is sold by weight, not volume”. At the very least, dig out your tablespoons for measuring, but even better is figuring out how much coffee you need to weigh out for the perfect cup. For us, it may be 15 grams ground; for you, it may taste great at 12 grams. That precise measuring can save you a bundle over time.
But Does It Taste Good?
Wait…what about the premium, pricey roasts harvested on exotic islands and roasted by fairies? That’s why you’re dropping $4 every day at the hipster coffee house, right? Buying cheap java in bulk, reusing grinds, and some of the other tips in this article… those don’t sound tasty at all!
Everyone has different preferences, and what tastes to one coffee drinker like a rich, dark roast tastes to another like the dregs from an ashtray. So no particular brand, price point, or method is objectively better than another.
Our research shows that more expensive doesn’t necessarily mean better. In a blind taste test, a Consumer Reports panel of coffee experts reported that Walmart’s Great Value 100% Colombian coffee tasted exactly like Starbucks. So even coffee experts agree that you don’t necessarily have to drop a bundle for a tasty cup.
Also Consider
If coffee is killing your budget, it’s probably not plain black java that’s to blame—it’s those frothy delights like vanilla lattes and salted caramel mochas with chocolate drizzle on top, which means you’re covering up a lot of the coffee flavor with syrups, sugar, cream, and other goodies. Don’t be fooled into thinking you have to invest in premium beans and use the maximum suggested amount if you’re only going to use them in a flavored coffee drink.
On the other hand, if you drink your coffee black, you might notice a difference—or you might not. Everyone is different, and we know people who swear by everything from store brands to Trader Joe’s instant coffee. Also, many people are perfectly happy using methods like regrinding ground beans, recycling grounds, and more. Try out some of the cheaper options, and our tips for brewing a less expensive cup, and you may be surprised.