For months Starbucks employees from various locations would try to entice me into buying a loyalty card. Every day I would hear how I could save the charge for soy milk and the syrup add-in. Every day I would say no thanks. And then one day I finally gave in. Heck, on my morning latte I would save seventy cents alone. Often Caroline and I would get a latte late in the day, I could save another $1.10. I took my newly charged loyalty card home and registered it on the internet so I could begin my savings.

Immediately I see we are going to save $54 dollars a month and I am quite happy. The thing is though, this has backfired for the Starbucks corporation. All too soon I have to recharge the card, so I put another $30 on it. Within three days my balance is once again depleted, ok I’ll put $40 on it this time. Every three or four days I find myself having to put money on this card. While I was buying a coffee every day on my debit card I never bothered to account for what I was spending, it was just a little here and then a little more later in the day. Now I’m faced with feeling like I’m charging the card three or four times a week and if I put $30 or $40 each time, I do a little calculation, we must be spending between way too much and an ungodly amount per month on coffee.

Solution: just as I took the card to save $54 a month on our coffee habit, I must use the card to wake up to the financial waste and stop the morning coffee, which will save me another $105 a month. That works for a while but now I’m considering that we move to only go to Starbucks every other day which would save another $97 a month. Attention Starbucks corporate marketing geniuses you have cost your company $159 dollars a month in lost revenue and are about to lose another $97 a month for a grand total loss of $3,072.00 per year because you pushed your baristas to interest me in a loyalty card. Thank you for your consideration in bringing my reckless spending to my attention.