Someone asked me recently whether switching to black coffee would save them any real money. Four cups a day, no milk, what’s that actually worth over a year? I had a feeling the answer would be a bit underwhelming, but I worked it out anyway, because that’s apparently just what I do now.
Drinking Coffee Black at Home: The Honest Answer
If you’re making your own coffee at home, a splash of milk in each cup costs somewhere around 2p to 4p, depending on what you’re paying for milk and how generous your “splash” actually is. Across four cups a day, that’s roughly 10p to 16p a day.
| Milk per cup | Cost per day (4 cups) | Cost per year |
|---|---|---|
| A modest splash (30ml) | around 9p | around £33 |
| A more generous pour (50ml) | around 15p | around £55 |
| A properly milky coffee (100ml) | around 30p | around £110 |
So, somewhere between £33 and £110 a year, depending on how heavy handed you are with the milk. That’s a nice meal out, or a couple of months of a streaming subscription. It’s real money. It is not, however, “I drank black coffee for a year and now I own a yacht” money. If you were hoping drinking coffee black would meaningfully change your finances, I’m sorry to disappoint you, and also slightly impressed by your optimism.
Drinking Coffee Black at a Coffee Shop: Now It Gets Interesting
If those four coffees a day aren’t ones you’re making yourself, though, the whole calculation changes. At Costa, for example, a medium Americano is around £3.80, while a medium latte is around £4.40. That’s not really a “milk surcharge” as such, it’s just that black coffee and milky coffee sit in different price tiers entirely. But the effect is the same. Ordering the black option saves you roughly 60p a drink.
Four of those a day, at 60p saved each, is £2.40 a day. Over a year, that’s around £875.
That’s the bit worth sitting with for a second. The “skip the milk” advice that gets repeated everywhere makes almost no difference if you’re brewing your own coffee. But if you’re buying milky coffees out, several a day, switching to black versions of the same drinks is one of the more painless swaps you can make. You’re not giving anything up except the milk, and you’re not changing your routine at all, just what you’re handing over at the till.
What About Sugar?
If you’re wondering whether the same logic applies to sugar, sort of, but the numbers are even smaller. A teaspoon of sugar costs a fraction of a penny, so even four sugary coffees a day adds up to maybe a fiver a year at home. At a coffee shop, sugar is free anyway, so cutting it out saves you precisely nothing on the bill, just possibly something on your dentist.
If you want to go further down this particular rabbit hole, I’ve already worked out whether sizing up at Costa and Starbucks is worth it, and what a daily coffee habit actually costs over a year. Between the three, you should have a pretty complete picture of exactly how much of your money is, quite literally, milk and sugar.
So, don’t cry over spilt milk. But if you’re buying it by the cupful at coffee shop prices, four times a day, it might be worth at least a small sniffle.