This year, you might have vowed to save more money — but before you can do that, you need to understand just how much your lifestyle is costing you. Totting up how much your coffee, post-work drinks and smoking habits are costing you is retailer of soup containers, Inn Supplies:
For the love of caffeine
Britain is a nation of coffee lovers and, as a result, the UK’s coffee scene is thriving. The UK’s coffee shop market was worth £3.4 billion in 2016, up 37% from £2.4 billion in 2011. What’s more, in the next five years experts predict that the market will grow by a further 29% to reach a worth of £4.3 billion.
It seems like us Brits simply can’t resist the draw of the coffee shops. Research carried out on behalf of MyVoucherCodes has found that we visit a coffee shop three times a week on average — or 152 times a year.
To help us establish a potential total spend, we’ll use Costa Coffee as a reference point, as they have the largest number of outlets in the UK. There, a medium latte costs £2.45 on average. Based on the number of times we’re likely to visit annually, this means our caffeine addiction is costing us £382.20 per year. If you were to pop into your local coffee store five days a week — once for each of your morning commutes — you’d be spending a huge £637!
But how much could you save if you brewed up at home? According to Douwe Egberts, a pack of its 250g ground coffee will make approximately 30 cups of coffee. Assuming that a 1kg bag will cost around £15 (according to Amazon prices correct as of December 2017), this would deliver a price per cup of around 13p.
The cost of milk, sugar and energy and water costs will need to be added to this total. However, even if this price was to rise to 50p per cup — which is an unlikely high — you could still slash the cost of three coffees per week to £78.
Post work drinks
The Opinions and Lifestyle found that 29 million Brits over the age of 16 have drank alcohol. While the UK clearly has a thirst for alcohol, how we’re drinking it is changing. One YouGov study has found that in 2017, 15% of British adults preferred to drink alcohol at home. The country is clearly split between pub and home drinkers, with the latter growing in popularity as the number of pubs declines.
Brits love beer best (35.6%), but they are partial to wine (32.9%) and spirits (21.6%). 17% of Brits head to the pub 26 times a year (once every fortnight), research by Ritz Crisp & Thin shows — so how much is this habit costing us?
On average, a pint of lager in the UK costs £3.58. Assuming three drinks per visit, each trip to the pub will cost £10.74 on drinks alone. Over the course of the year, this would rack up £279.24 — a cost that could be even greater if you were to increase the frequency of visits or the number of pints consumed.
In November 2017, Brits paid £3.74 on average for a small glass of wine, according to the Office for National Statistics. Assuming two glasses of wine per each of the 26 yearly visits, and this will set you back £194.48.
But how much could we stand to save if we swapped the pub for a drink at home? June 2017’s industry figures show that a bottle of wine costs £5.56. With roughly just over four 175ml glasses in each bottle, the associated cost per glass of drinking wine at home shrinks to £1.39 — representing a £2.35 saving.
If you prefer lager, you’re in luck, as crates can usually be bought for around the same price as one visit to the pub, based on our calculations.
Many people enjoy the social aspect of going to the pub. You can still enjoy this while saving some cash by choosing a soft drink at the bar. These are often considerably cheaper than their alcoholic alternatives. For example, a diluted juice drink can cost under a pound, while a cola or lemonade costs approximately £2.20 — £1.38 less than the average cost of a pint.
Smoking
Smoking could have a serious impact on how much your lifestyle costs you. In the UK, a packet of 20 cigarettes costs £10.40. For a 20-a-day smoker, this gives a weekly cost of £72.80, a monthly cost of £291.20 and a yearly cost of £3,494!
To find out exactly how much this is costing you, NHS Smokefree has an online calculator that you can use to calculate your potential savings!
As we’ve highlighted above, there are ways to reduce the cost of your lifestyle and make some serious savings. While you’ll still need to enjoy yourself, an awareness of how much your spending on each of the above can help you make some serious savings in the future.
Sources:
http://www.mintel.com/press-centre/food-and-drink/uk-coffee-shop-sales-enjoy-a-growth-high
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3979712/coffee-costa-starbuck-nero-chains-cost-each-year/
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/drugusealcoholandsmoking/bulletins/opinionsandlifestylesurveyadultdrinkinghabitsingreatbritain/2005to2016
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/08/18/one-seven-brits-predominantly-drink-home/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/11720263/Todays-under-35s-dont-fancy-a-drink-in-the-pub.html
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/kef4
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/brexit-pushes-average-cost-of-a-bottle-of-wine-to-alltime-high-a3554261.html
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/budget-puts-price-cigarettes-tobacco-11566388