Tracked my monthly coffee spend for 3 months - hit $94 in January alone

I started a little spending tracker in my bullet journal back in November just for fun. By January I hit $94 just on coffee from the shop near my job. That number shocked me because I thought I was only going maybe twice a week. Turns out I was stopping by almost every day without even thinking about it. I drew up a simple graph in my journal showing the spike and it made me cut back to just Fridays. Has anyone else used their bujo to track a single habit like this and found a surprise?

3 comments

3 Comments

carr.elliot10d ago

But isn't that $94 well spent if it got you through the work day and you enjoyed it? You tracked it perfectly and made a change, so really the system worked great.

charliestone10d ago

Yeah but that's kind of missing the bigger picture. It's not about whether that one coffee was "worth it" that day. It's about how we keep tricking ourselves into thinking small daily spends don't add up. I see it everywhere - people dropping $5 here, $10 there, then wondering why they're broke at the end of the month. That $94 could have paid for a week of groceries or half a car payment. The tracking part was good, but the real win was realizing the pattern, not just justifying the expense. We've all gotten too comfortable with treating convenience as a necessity, and that's how you end up spending your whole paycheck before you even notice.

davis.adam10d ago

But is it really a "system that works" when you're still spending $94 on coffee no matter how well you track it? Tracking alone doesn't change the fact that the money still left your account... it just makes you better at explaining where it went. Seems like the real test is whether you actually cut that spending after you track it, not just pat yourself on the back for noticing.