Sometimes I don’t wake up early enough to make a cup of coffee. I’m too frugal to buy a coffee every day before work. Due to my extremely early starting time for work and long work hours, many of my colleagues depend on the java juice to keep them going. I like the taste of it (black though, sugar and cream seem to take away from the real coffee taste), but I’m not addicted to it. Nor does it really affect me, with the exception of it being a diuretic (a substance that promotes the production of urine).

Image via https://www.flickr.com/photos/epsos/

For many people, coffee is a daily necessity. Coffee is ubiquitous and can be purchased at any eating establishment. It is affordable and has a casual sense about it, which makes sense as to why people ask each other to grab a cup of coffee.  Regular coffee, meaning real coffee, is usually under two bucks, even for a large.  So even if you are buying a regular coffee every day, five days a week, it isn’t costing you that much.  It’s the fancy specialty coffees that do.  They are the ones that have a long name with so many options that I already forget half of it while saying my order to the barista.

Sounds familiar? As you can probably tell, I’m not the frequent visitor to Starbucks. Not only do I have to say something like supercalifragilistcexpialidocious (this is apparently how it is spelled), I have to specify the size as a tall (not a small), venti (which is Italian for 20, A venti is 20 oz. or 590 ml)[1] and grande.  Short is the smallest size and is only available for hot drinks. Trenta is the newest and largest size, meaning 30. However, it is actually 31 oz. or 920 ml and only available for cold drinks.

Shouldn’t ordering a cup of coffee be simple regardless of whether or not it is fancy?

I’m not trying to belittle Starbucks. They are a lucrative company that has a strong hold of the coffee market.   Based on revenues, they are the world’s biggest coffee chain.[2]  They are continually expanding in emerging markets such as India and China.  What I am impressed with is rather than throwing their original products in these countries’ faces and refusing to change, they are more adaptive and responsive to the huge tea drinking culture that is present over there.

What I am not too impressed with is the prices of their fancy drinks. As my brother-in-law once put it, Starbucks should change its name to five bucks. The total price of some drinks in the tall size are almost five bucks. The company is being criticized in China for their MORE expensive prices compared to the U.S. A grande latte costs $3.80 in the U.S., whereas it is a dollar more in China.

I rarely buy coffee, and if I do, it’s usually regular coffee rather than the specialty coffees. I find McDonald’s has pretty good coffee for a cheaper price and a bigger size. Even their specialty coffees are decent.

Although there are a few Starbucks locations close to each other in my town, I don’t drive around looking for a Starbucks just to get a cup of coffee.  Believe or not, Starbucks can be a demographic indicator. [3] I live in a relatively affluent town overall that is known to other cities and towns as being a “rich” town. This makes sense to me as to why there are more Starbucks locations vs. Tim Horton’s.  The city where I grew up in is a mixture of pockets of different class. The area in which my parents’ live in is a nice middle class neighbourhood.  There are three Tim Horton’s locations, but only one Starbucks location nearby. The next closest Starbucks location is in the downtown core, which is a 12 minute drive away. It seems as if Starbucks seeks locations where the big bucks are made.

According to the Maynard institute: “Starbucks created an affluent and vibrant cafe society in upper-middle-class suburbs, high-income city neighborhoods and prestigious college campuses. The green-and-white Starbucks logo is a sought-after status symbol”.³

There is no specific rule that says Starbucks has to charge their customers a certain price for their coffee. They haven’t had to lower their prices to compete with other coffee chains.  It’s probably the other way around. Starbucks obviously knows what they’re doing.

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Do you think Starbucks coffee prices are outrageous and do you see their coffee as a status symbol? Do you still drink their coffee or specialty coffees anyway?

If you ever went to college or university you probably could relate to the term “starving student.”  Although I am working full-time now and have a grocery budget, I buying food can still be expensive. It drives me nuts when grocery stores raise the price of certain items, then drop the price down to its regular price and consider it a “sale”. I keep track of many of the things I buy in a price book so I know when a “sale” is really a sale and when to stock up on certain items.

image via pembrokemall.ca

I went away to school so that I would be far enough from my parents, but close enough to come home on the weekends. When I came home, I stocked up on food big time.  There were even times when my parents would come up to visit me and take me and my roommates grocery shopping.   Alright fine, so I wasn’t exactly a “starving student”. But at times, especially during exams, it felt like it when I was running low on supplies.   Who has time to grocery shop and cook when you’re in the middle of studying for finals? Of course there is the more expensive option known as the meal plan….which I resorted to using from time to time.

The Dollarama Diet

I have never bothered to check out the food aisle in Dollarama. In all honesty, just the thought of making a meal with food bought from Dollarama grossed me out.  Thanks to my common law partner though, I’ve tried a couple of snacks such as chocolate covered pretzels and gummy candies.  Needless to say, the price matched the quality.  They weren’t too pleasing on my taste buds.

One university student, Jonathan Lemieux, took the term “starving student” to a whole different level by living off of food sold in Dollarama for three years. I love Dollarama. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t. There is so much stuff you can get for a dollar (or more). The closest I’ve ever gotten to buying food from Dollarama was pop and candy.  But food?  Actual food? The same canned goods and non-perishable items you would find at your local grocery store? Except these items would most likely be brands I’ve never heard of, made by companies I’ve never heard of.

Although Lemieux would still go to the grocery store to find discounted meat and produce, about 90% of the food he was living off of was from Dollarama. He used his creative culinary skills and even made a thrifty version of seafood paella using canned mussels and oysters and beef jerky instead of chorizo.

While a Dollarama diet may not be the healthiest due to the high salt content, there is no doubt that it is the cheapest. Lemieux managed to survive for three years on a monthly food budget of $75!

What’s even more amazing is that by the time he completed his second degree, he accumulated over 90 self-tested recipes to create a cookbook entitled: Survivre avec une poignée de change (Surviving on a handful of change). This cookbook is currently sold only in French. I hope they come out with an English version soon or I’ll have to brush up on my high school French to figure out just what exactly can you make with Dollarama food. Then maybe, I too, could try out the Dollarama diet.

For a week or two. That’s it.

Do you think you could live off of food mostly from Dollarama?

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