The Bad Math of Keurig

Overpriced coffee machine pimps Keurig recently redesigned their KKK-cups (sp?) to include DRM because their original patent had expired and generic pods were available. To keep the money coming in they're using the DRM to prevent non-approved cups from being used, but competitors are claiming they've cracked the code and because the evil DMCA doesn't cover this specifically, they're likely to get away with it. Good. But when reading about these silly things I started thinking about the math involved with Keurig coffee makers and it's appalling.

When I moved to my current job, where I work alone in my office, I bought a 4-cup (20 oz) Mr. Coffee maker for $10. Package of 150 filters was $1. Big can of Maxwell House runs about $6 on sale. I drink a pot a day (very occasionally two) and after 9 months, I've just gotten into my 2nd package of filters and am half-way through the 3rd can of coffee. Not counting flavored creamers, I've spent less than $30 for about 400 10 oz. mugs of coffee so far, covering machine and coffee.

To make as much coffee with a Keurig would require a $120 machine and 800 coffee pods at ~55 cents a pop. That's $440, or $560 total to make as much K-offee as I make for $30. It may be "better" coffee, but there's no way in hell it's almost 19 times better! (If K-offee made your penis a foot longer and grow fangs and every girl who was an hard-8 or better within 10 miles run to you and fight for your attention like an Axe commercial, I could see the value, but otherwise...)

I just bought an HDTV for $550, so just by drinking Maxwell House instead of Keurig, it's as if I got a free TV. People ask me how I can afford so many gadgets and Blu-rays, etc. It's because I don't spend much on what I buy and the savings allow me to buy other stuff. Keurig drinkers had some coffee which was on its way to Wyandotte a few hours later. I had just as much coffee AND a 50" TV which I'll be watching for several years.

CFE: Saving Money The DIRK® Way

The Backstory: Lifehacker had a silly item about saving money by imagining things cost 10 times as much. Many people in the comments remarked how dumb an idea this is in practice, so I chimed in with this:

As others have noted, this is stupid advice because it asks you to imagine spending something no one without a royal title would consider paying.

What I do is view money not as a number but in terms of what it buys and what not spending on one thing allows me to purchase somewhere else. For example, I was considering getting a Galaxy S3 on AT&T. Amazon did a sale last year where all non-iPhones were a penny, so I decided to wait a couple of months for the time they'd done the sale to save the $200, which is like 20 Blu-rays on sale.. While waiting, the Nexus 4 was released and I'm using it with Straight Talk. Over the term of what the AT&T contract would've been, I'm saving over $900 going this route which is a new laptop or most of an HDTV or rent and gasoline for a month.

The reason people don't realize how the little things add up. Going to the cafeteria for lunch costs $7 a day, that's not so bad, right? Sure, unless you realize that it's $35 per week or $1750 per year! What aren't you able to buy with that $1750? How about buying some lunch meats, cheese and bread for $10 per week, brown-bagging it, and having $1250 more in your pocket to spend on something else? Don't buy the new game the day it comes out for $60; wait 6 months or a year and get it for $10 - the entertainment value doesn't evaporate.

With a little patience and some deferred gratification, you can save tons of money. Instead of imagining something costing 10X as much, just multiply what something costs over time and then see how much other stuff you could buy (or SAVE!) instead. I'm able to live a lifestyle of someone making twice as much by just being smart about spending. While my friends are subsisting one paycheck to the next or are buried with credit card debt, I've got no debt, just pay my monthly bills/rent/car lease without interest, and have the ability to splurge on whatever I want on the rare occasions some deal comes along because I've saved.

Another tip is taking drinks with you when going to the bar. Since you have to go outside to smoke, it doesn't look weird to be going to the parking lot in between bands. Two tall boy cans of Labatt Max Ice are $3 (plus tax and deposit - $3.38 at the party store and have the liquid quantity of four beers and the alcohol content of eight beers. Depending on the bar, brand, and tipping, eight beers would cost you around $30! Save $26 bucks by getting your drink on in the car or buy one in the bar and still save a Jackson.

If you drink pop (soda, Coke, soft drinks, whatever your locality calls it) and aren't buying 2-liter bottles, you're throwing money away. People laugh at my giant bottles of pop at work, but I paid $1 for over 64 ounces - don't tell Nanny Doomberg! - while they paid at least $1.20 for the 20 oz. bottle they have. I've got three times the pop for less than a third the price. When there's a sale, I stock up. I drink about a liter a day, so $2.50 takes care of me for a week. Co-workers are paying at least that much per DAY for their consumption - five times as much. Chug!