What Quitting Coffee For A Month Taught Me About Money

“I’m sorry, you’re what?” was the incredulous response when I told a friend I was going without coffee for a whole month. This was followed by a concerned look and, “Are you feeling alright? Headaches, shakes, out-of-body experiences? Any other uncharacteristic urges?”

No to all of those. I don’t drink coffee for the caffeine or because I’m addicted to it. I drink it for the taste and the cozy ritual (at home) or the social experience (at a cafe). And I had done a month-long coffee detox before, so I knew I could do it again.

But since this is an article about money, let’s get to it. Guess how much money I saved by quitting coffee for a month. Go on. Take a stab.

By quitting coffee for a month, I saved:

1. Enough for a house deposit
2. $5.20 latte x 30 days = $156.00
3. I don’t know, maybe $50?
4. Nothing

If you guessed d) Nothing, you’d be right. There’s a reason the title of this blog isn’t I Saved Hundreds Of Dollars By Quitting Coffee For A Month. But then, saving money wasn’t the point. For me, this wasn’t some kind of no-spend trend. It was a mental check.

It’s not (just) about the money, money, money…

See, there’s this thing in psychology called habit replacement. It’s why a former alcoholic might chug two liters of Coca-Cola a day, or a former smoker might carry an armload of nicotine patches. It’s why I went to the supermarket, looked a little further along the shelves from my usual coffee sachets, and picked up a box of Chai Latte packets instead.

That same cozy sachet-tearing ritual? Check.

A hot milky drink with an inviting scent? Check.

No cost difference? Check. I only buy them on special, which generally works out to around 50c per packet.

So my usual grocery coffee budget was diverted to grocery chai instead. My cafe coffee budget went the same way. All I did was replace spending money on coffee with spending money on chai. It’s what you might call a zero-sum game.

And it was okay! I was prepared for some residual taste bud cravings (yep), being haunted by the smell when around other coffee drinkers (very much so), and curling up on the sofa with what was essentially a hot cinnamon milkshake instead of the coffee I was accustomed to. The first two weeks were fine.

But then I ran out of chai.

Recognize the reflex

In the previous four days, I had somehow gone through an entire ten-pack of chai sachets. Why? Because the reflexes were still there. I was treating chai exactly the same as I’d treated coffee — as a breakfast pick-me-up, as a 10am ritual, as a post-lunch snack, as an after-dinner wind-down.

Sure, I wasn’t mainlining coffee. But was a like-for-like treatment of chai really what I wanted out of this detox month?

No. No, it was not.

Okay. So there were mental reflexes in play that I didn’t realize might be an issue when I started this thing. It’s that little whisper at the back of my head. When I’m checking emails in the morning and instinctively go to sip a hot drink. When I come home from a long walk in unseasonal drizzle and just want to relax.

And now I’d run out of chai. Great.

How could I beat the like-for-like replacement issue? Simple. Do what any chocoholic does: Put it up high in a box on an inconvenient pantry shelf that takes effort and second thoughts (and a step stool) to reach.

Confession: I actually did this with a block of Whittakers Roasted Supreme Coffee chocolate. Eating it would have been cheating.

Or, since I was out of chai anyway, I could take the consequences of my own actions on the chin and just… go without… for a while.

So I did. I went without. I drank any and all fruity teas I could scrounge up from the depths of the kitchen drawer. I chugged a glass of milk. I even upped my intake of plain cold water. Three days later, when I was back at the supermarket for my weekly shopping trip, staring at those oh-so-tempting boxes of chai that were back on special, I asked myself one question: Why?

Interrogate the impulse

I was aware of the reflex now. I could look it in the eye, stare it down, and break the habit by deliberately reaching for my water bottle instead. But I still wanted — even craved — the cozy ritual that coffee and then chai gave me. The times in the day when I could take a deep breath and relax. Those small moments that signaled ‘rest’.

Had I been doing it mindlessly, without thinking? Absolutely. There were times I reached for coffee out of boredom or habit, not because I genuinely wanted one. But far more often were the times I drank coffee mindfully, deeply in the moment, whether that was relaxing on the couch or stopping for a rest break halfway up a mountain.

The habit was broken. The reflex was there, but it didn’t have to rule me. And I wanted those moments back. Fruity tea just wasn’t cutting it. I wanted chai again. I could do this.

And I did.

As I wrapped up the month, preparing my return to coffee with a deeper awareness and intense gratitude, I wondered: Do I do this with other habits?

I’m sure I do. I’m sure I sometimes spend money mindlessly, by reflex, because it’s a thoughtless habit and not because I really want or need whatever I’m buying. I’m sure there are other money habits that have slipped past me — that are so engrained I don’t know they’re there.

There are ways to catch them. They might be slippery, zig-zagging like rabbits, but there are ways. It’s why I do an annual overview of my spending. It’s why there’s a separate “Regret” category in my budget. It’s why I’m actively working on taking a step back, recognizing my reflexes, and interrogating my impulses. Even the subconscious ones.

No, it’s not just about the money. I didn’t save a single cent by quitting coffee for a month. But what I learned — about myself, my habits, my mindset — was more valuable than any $5 cafe latte could ever be.

Rachel E. Wilson is an author and freelance writer based in New Zealand. She has been, variously, administrator at an ESOL non-profit, transcriber for a historian, and technical document controller at a french fry factory. She has a keen interest in financial literacy and design, and a growing collection of houseplants (pun intended).