by Katie Barton | staff writer

Coffee is a typical part of everyday life no matter what age you are. Either you drink it because you like the taste or you drink it because you like that it keeps you awake. And while coffee has it’s benefits, it definitely seems to have a catastrophic effects on people’s wallet.

Now, I myself don’t really drink coffee that much, mostly because I don’t really like how it tastes, so I usually stick to hot chocolate. But even just buying hot chocolate from Starbucks costs $3.45, which seems kind of ridiculous when I could just make it at my own house, pretty much for free, instead of wasting money.

Sophomore Carly Pierdolla gets coffee about three or four times a week and has spent somewhere between $800-$1400 just on coffee in the last year. 

“Sometimes I make iced coffee at home, but like 90% of the time I’m out getting coffee,” Pierdolla said.

Pierdolla’s usual drink is a caramel iced coffee from Apollo’s coffee shop. Drinks from Apollos Coffee shop can range anywhere from $3.50 to $5 depending on the size of drink and that’s before tax and without adding anything like extra shots and different types of milk, which cost about $.50 each.

Sophomore Chloe Jordan has a different perspective as she used to buy coffee all the time, but has recently began only getting coffee once a week.

“I used to get coffee more often in middle school,” Jordan said. “I enjoy coffee only every-so-often.”

Jordan’s go to drink is a Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks. Caramel Macchiatos can cost between $3.75 to $4.45 depending on what size you choose. Buying one of these everyday for just one month costs around $127.10. 

All it really takes is one in depth look at the prices on the Starbucks menu for people to realize how much their coffee spending can add up. 

“I realized I was spending a lot on coffee last year, because of the receipts on the Starbucks app and just paying attention to the menu more,” Jordan said.

So as we can see, coffee costs a lot of money, which begs the question; How can high school students afford to pay for all of the drinks that they buy? And the answer to that question from most teens including myself is our parents. Most teenagers have no job or no money of their own to spend on coffee.

“It was and is a good mix of my dad paying for my coffee,” Jordan said, “And me buying my own coffee and coffee for my family with Starbucks gift cards.”

Ultimately, while coffee has its benefits and some good things going for it, we really need to think about how much money we are spending on it.

“After realizing how much money it costs, I decided to tone it down a bit,” Jordan said.