It’s the beginning of January which means nearly every blogger, podcaster and planner under the finance umbrella will be touting their lists of ways to trim the fat and save money in 2016. One of the items that is sure to turn up on practically every list is the old “save money by making coffee at home” suggestion.

It’s tired, overdone and an easy target but I thought it would be interesting to look at this popular exercise from a manual brewing perspective (and as someone who values financial scrutiny as well as a great cup of coffee).

If someone wanted to give up their daily trip to Starbucks, how would they go about making the switch? What equipment would they need? How much money could they save? And, perhaps most interestingly, how much of a quality increase could they expect for the same amount of money?

High Upfront Costs- What equipment do I need to start brewing coffee at home?

If you are starting from scratch, there is going to be a bit of an investment to begin making coffee at home (whether brewing manually or with an auto drip machine).

As the average price of an automatic coffee maker continues to climb, I believe manual brewing is the thriftier way to go. You should also be able to get a higher quality cup of coffee from manual brewing.

Continue reading