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Pick the year you'd have started. This replays real coffee prices, and the stock market growing what you saved, from then to the latest month.
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The same coffees on both paths; making them at home puts the difference away each month.
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The latte factor is the idea that a small daily spend, like a coffee on the way to work, adds up to a lot once the money is invested instead. This calculator replays it with real prices. Pick the year you'd have started, any January from 2000 to 2025, and how many coffees a week. Each month it prices the coffees bought and made at home, puts the difference away, and follows it to the latest month, invested in the S&P 500 with dividends or held in savings at the real rates of the day.
Both coffees start at a price for January of the year you pick, and you can type your own over either. From then on, a bought coffee rises with the official price index for eating out and one made at home with the price of coffee from the shops, month by month, so a £2 coffee in 2015 costs what that coffee really costs now. It counts 52 weeks a year.
In the UK, a bought coffee is the average price of a cup of coffee in a café or restaurant that ONS collects for inflation, and one made at home is 2g of instant coffee and a splash of semi-skimmed milk at ONS shop prices. In the US, no official source publishes the average price of a coffee bought out, so the bought coffee starts at an example of $5 in 2026; type in what yours costs. One made at home is 10g of ground coffee and an ounce of whole milk at BLS average prices. Investing is tax-free, as in an ISA or a Roth IRA, with no fees.
These use the calculator's starting figures for one UK case and one US case, and are refreshed when the data updates.
Had you made your 5 coffees a week at home from January 2015 and invested the difference, by August 2026 you'd have £18,779 from £7,785 saved on coffee.
Had you made your 5 coffees a week at home from January 2015 and invested the difference, by August 2026 you'd have $28,579 from $11,627 saved on coffee.
At January 2026 prices, a UK café coffee averaged £3.36 against about 12p for an instant coffee with milk made at home: about £3.25 a cup, or roughly £845 a year at one coffee each workday. Pick a start year above to see what that added up to, and what it grew to invested.
One bought coffee each workday, 5 a week for 52 weeks, is 260 coffees. At the UK café average of £3.36 that is about £875 a year; at $5 a cup in the US it is $1,300. Two a day, every day, is 728 coffees: about £2,450 or $3,640 a year.
A phrase from the author David Bach for small, regular spending that would add up to a fortune if it were invested instead. Critics point out that a coffee is rarely what stands between someone and wealth; housing, cars and pay matter more. This calculator shows the real figure for coffee, so you can judge for yourself.
That is the "Invested" setting: each month's saving goes into the S&P 500 with dividends reinvested, converted to pounds in the UK. Switch to "In savings" to see it earn real savings rates instead; the chart shows the money saved on its own for comparison.
Type what a cup costs you as the coffee made at home. ONS priced coffee pods at £4.79 for a pack of 8 to 16 in January 2026, roughly 30p to 60p a pod before milk. The calculator carries your price back to your start year with the price of coffee.