NEW YORK (AP) — For years, it was a daily McDonald’s trip for a cup of coffee with 10 sugars and five creams. Later, it was Starbucks caramel macchiatos with almond milk and two pumps of syrup.
Coffee has been a morning ritual for Chandra Donelson since she was old enough to drink it. But, dismayed by rising prices, the 35-year-old from Washington, D.C., did the unthinkable: She gave it up.
“I did that daily for years. I loved it. That was just my routine,” she says. “And now it’s not.”
Years of steadily climbing coffee prices have some in this country of coffee lovers upending their habits by nixing café visits, switching to cheaper brews or foregoing it altogether.
Coffee prices in the U.S. were up 18.3% in January from a year ago, according to the latestConsumer Price Index released on Friday. Over five years, the government reported, coffee prices rose 47%.
That extraordinary rise has brought some to take extraordinary measures.
“Before, I thought, ‘There’s no way I could make it through my day without coffee,’” says Liz Sweeney, 50, of Boise, Idaho, a former “coffee addict” who has cut her consumption. “Now my car’s not on automatic pilot.”
Sweeney used to have three cups of coffee at home each day and stop at a café whenever she left the house. As prices climbed last year, though, she nixed coffee shop visits and cut her intake to a cup a day at home. To make up for the caffeine, she pops open a can of Diet Coke at home or rolls through McDonald’s for one.
Dan DeBaun, 34, of Minnetonka, Minnesota, has likewise trimmed back on coffee shop visits, conscious of the increasing expense as he and his wife save up for a house.
“What used to be a $2 coffee, it’s now $5, $6,” says DeBaun, who now buys ground coffee at Trader Joe’s and fills up a travel mug to bring to the office.
Source: Drudge Report
