Home Coffee Machines: are they financially worth it?

Home coffee machines – are they financially worth it?

Short answer – heck yes, they are!

Coffee machine sales hit an all-time high last year throughout the COVID lockdown. Ever since then, there’s been a shift in the way people consume coffee. Many of us now enjoy both a cuppa at home and a cuppa at our local cafe; while others have become full-time home coffee drinkers.

The big question is: are home coffee machines financially worth it? Putting aside our extremely biased opinion of ‘when are coffee machines ever a bad choice?’, we decided to run some numbers on an average household.

The magic numbers

Based on an average household of 2 adults, who buy 2 coffees each day, at an average of $4 per cup. The average household spends $16 per day on coffee. Now, multiple $16 over 365 days per year; that’s an annual spend of $5,840.

Woah! We were shocked too.

Average coffee machine costs across various brew devices:
Home Espresso Machine – $800
Batch Brewer (e.g., Moccamaster) – $500
Manual Filter Brewer (e.g., V60, Plunger) – $30

Average specialty coffee cost: 
Blends – $48/1kg (makes approx 50 cups)
Single Origins – $55/1kg (makes approx 50 cups)

The savings!

If you purchase a home espresso machine and decide to drink all your coffee at home. Based on an average household consuming 4 coffees per day; you’ll need approx 1kg of coffee each fortnight (1kg of coffee makes approx 50 cups).

Here are the numbers –

First year:
Cost of home espresso machine: $800
Cost of coffee (based on 1kg per fortnight): $1,248
Total cost: $2,048
Total savings: $3,792

Every year after:
Cost of coffee (based on 1kg per fortnight): $1,248
Total cost: $1,248
Total savings: $4,592

Considering most home espresso machines have 5 year warranties, if you were to keep the same espresso machine for 5 years, you would save a total of $22,160 over that period.

And if you decide to buy an even cheaper brew device, like a Moccamaster, V60, or Plunger then your savings just keep getting bigger! But we think you’ve got the point by now, so we’ll restrain from boring you with any more numbers.