Friday, January 22, 2010

Starbucks Schmarbucks - A frugal tip friday for tea time

I work right next to the heavenly place we call Starbucks. I go there every morning for a Zen tea one tea bag in a Grande cup, its my little "gift" to myself for waking up early and, well, going to work and whatever else I have to do that day. I stopped getting the grande skim chai teas (only on special occasions) because they cost a whopping $4.50...for a tea and milk!!!! (fyi whole foods, fairway and westerly all have the tazo chai mix that Starbucks uses, just have to add hot milk) I would wake up early and walk alittle faster, pounce alittle lighter on the concrete knowning my yummy zen tea with three honeys for only $1.91 was waiting for me at a smiling green aproned cashier. But I have to say goodbye to all that now. I have to put aside my habit of overpriced tea and start being realistic...because Starbucks has raised its prices even more!!  I walk down the sidewalk and into the Starbucks to pick up my tea, wait in the monstrous line, am 10 minutes late for work, and she rings me up. The total for a grande zen tea with 1 tea bag is now $2.45!!! WHAT the !!????&&&&**** 2.45 for a cup of tea!!??? with one tea bag!??Thats like a 54 cent hike in prices!  I could buy a whole box of tea for that much.  I figured out why too...now if you buy a tall or a grande tea, they cost THE SAME. Which means, someone over at Starbucks corporate money scheming land must have realized that people like me were paying for a tall tea in a grande cup, and oh no, we were getting that little bit of extra hot water for free. So basically, 54 cents is paying for a little hot water. This was insane and I knew I had to stop my morning habit. I just couldn't okay spending 15$ on tea every week when I could be buying one of these:
3 spools of yarn, 3 boxes of tea with a bottle of honey, dinner, like 7 bushels of kale from whole foods, 2 grass fed steaks from whole foods (or maybe 1 big one)

I had to say goodbye to the warm smiles in green aprons, the glass doors with the little snowflake design on them, to the glass case of goodies, that even though buying those was like death by carbs, I could window food shop for.  I bought a box of yogi tea (with cute sayings on them) and a bottle of honey and this week we got an electric tea kettle for 20$ in our office! Most of us at the office love the electric tea kettle. Its so much better than spending 15$ a week on tea, being late for work and not having free refills of hot water all day. Thats the frugal tip today, just say no to Starbucks and yes to your own electric tea kettles! :) A few people in the office are still hooked, but I'm thinking they'll eventually come around. How could you not with cute sayings on tea bags like this one??

2 comments:

  1. I am way proud of you lady! And saddened that Starbucks raised the prices. Maybe its to help their employees have health insurance, even the part timers. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Coffee is one thing that I have never been addicted too, and am glad! I was thinking of becoming addicted to it, so then I could stop and "save" money and convince my hubs I need a new LV with my "savings"

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for stopping by and dropping some comment love!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...