Become Wealthy By: Using the Library and Your Own Coffee Pot

I know that it is really fun and easy to go to Amazon or Barnes and Noble to buy books. Both of these retailers have millions of books that can allow us to get lost in a fantasy world with Harry Potter, walk on the Appalachian Trail with Bill Bryson, or learn about the workings of the universe with Stephen Hawking. And, like so many people, I love reading: from huge fiction collections like Game of Thrones to non-fiction thrillers like Into Thin Air. Books, blogs, and magazines can both help us escape from reality or figure out how things work.

I absolutely love books!

Over the past few months, I have also realized that I absolutely love to drink coffee! For the first 39 years of my life, I never really had any coffee except for a couple of cups per year after Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. However, I have recently found that coffee helps me be sharper, more energetic, and it even helps me to get by on way less sleep.

I know that you are thinking that I am the only person in the world who didn’t already know this. Duh … coffee helps us to focus when we are low on sleep. Obviously!

Here’s the thing, though. Although I love books and coffee, they can be expensive habits. Coffee can cost us $2 to $5 per cup and books can cost us $14 or so each.

Wait … that actually doesn’t seem too expensive. It’s just a couple of bucks, here and there. It certainly won’t cause me to work another year before I can become financially independent or cause me to be unable to help send my kids to college.

Right …?

Well, just to be sure, I should look at some numbers and see what a couple of books and coffees actually could cost me.

The Numbers

As I mentioned before, I love reading books. I typically read 25-40 books per year and listen to 10-20 audio books. This doesn’t even include any books that I pick up, but then put down after only reading a few pages. Based on how much I read, it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that I could purchase 4 books per month. At $14 per book, this could easily cost me $56 per month or almost $700 per year.

Coffee is probably a similar expense. At $2 per day, coffee could cost around $60 per month or a little bit more than $700 per year.

Now, I am a big proponent of spending money on stuff that we love to do. I am happy to spend money on books, coffee, travel, and great experiences with my family since they bring so much joy into my life. And, $1,400 per year is an expense that many people, including me, can afford in their lives. It is also an expense that we should be willing to spend, if there wasn’t an easier and better way to get our coffee and books. This is where the library and our own coffee pot can be utilized.

The Library

I live in a small town of about 5,000 people, so it is always confusing to me that there aren’t hundreds or at least dozens of people crowding the library at any given time. After all, the library hires people whose sole goal is to purchase, catalogue, and help us find books for our reading pleasure. If you ever doubt me about this, just go to your local library and ask the librarian for recommendations of a certain type of book. Typically, your librarian will have already read the book you are looking for and be able to recommend 3 other books just like it. However, when I walk into the library, there are usually just 5-10 people there, so I can browse thousands of books all by myself.

Another cool thing about the library system in Michigan is that I can request books from all over the state. All that I need to do is request a book from the library’s website and it will be sent to my local library to pick up. How cool is that? I am no longer stuck with just reading thousands of books located at my local library. Instead, I have access to hundreds of thousands of books throughout the entire state.

The library isn’t just good for physical books, but also for e-books and audio books. At my library, I can download an app like Hoopla or OverDrive that allows me to conveniently listen to 5-10 books per month. Before, I would have to try to find books on Audible or books on CD, but now I can find and listen to a book in seconds.

Besides books, the library also has movies for rent, magazines, and programs that bring in a local artist or musician. In most towns, the library may even be closer to your house than Barnes and Noble or another large bookstore is.

Because of the library, I can make sure that my love for books doesn’t cost me $700 per year.

My Coffee Pot

One thing that always puzzles me is seeing 20 people standing in line at a coffee shop waiting to buy a coffee. I mean, I kind of get it. Coffee is tasty and it may even feel necessary to have in the middle of a long day. However, waiting in line to buy coffee takes at least a few minutes and often much longer. Although we tell ourselves that we don’t have time to make coffee in the morning, we probably save time by making it ourselves instead of buying it.

Plus, coffee that we make usually tastes better than something that we buy from a coffee shop. As my wife will attest, I’m still a child when it comes to coffee, so making it at home allows me to put the appropriate creamers and sugars in it to make it taste just right!

Since it only costs a few cents to make a good cup of coffee at home and it is so easy and convenient, my newfound love for coffee doesn’t have to cost me $700 per year.

The Big Picture

So … it looks like using the library and my own coffee pot can save me $1,400 per year, or $56,000 over the 40-year span of an average career. This amount of money could easily allow me to retire one year earlier, send a kid to college, or pay off my mortgage.

However, the crazy thing is that these two habits can save me significantly more than $56,000 if I factor in compound interest. Using a relatively low rate of return of 7% will turn $1,400 per year into $299,000 after 40 years!

Using the library and making coffee at home will save us $299,000!

I am pretty amazed that these two small habits will allow me to save so much money over the course of my career. But besides the money, the better reason to use the library and make coffee at home is because these habits make my life better. I avoid waiting in line at coffee shops and using up resources to make books and disposable coffee cups. I also gain the ease and convenience of making a cup of coffee exactly how I want it and having a staff of librarians to curate and recommend books to me.

As Michael Scott, from The Office says, “It’s a win, win, win!”

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And thanks for reading!

~Nathan

Let’s keep living a great life … with the help of money. So what’s next?

• You can travel for free by using rewards credit cards.
• You can get motivated and get out of debt.
• You can check out the next post or the previous post and continue to learn.

But no matter what you decide to do, let’s leave the ordinary behind and take action today!