Breakfast: How to Spend Less Than $1 Per Day

Ahh breakfast. There’s nothing like waking up after a long restful sleep, and filling your stomach to start the day off right. Well, the most important meal of the day can become the most expensive meal of the day if you aren’t careful. But you can reel in those urges and get off on the right foot (both in a health sense and a financial sense) the same way I do with a few simple tips.

Buying Breakfast

Although there are many tempting options, buying breakfast is the fastest way to deplete your wallet before the day even begins. With overpriced breakfast sandwiches, coffee, and of course the add-ons, you can end up spending $10 or more if you aren’t careful.

Now $10 might not sound like a lot of money when you’re rushing to work, but that means you’re spending $50 per week, $200 per month, and $2400 per year on breakfast! That’s a lot of money for coffee and bacon-egg-and-cheeses!

Let’s look at three common breakfast options: McDonald’s, Dunkin’, and Starbucks.

McDonald’s

While McDonald’s has a good variety of breakfast options, the McMuffins are a staple. Assuming you love the classics, let’s say you get an egg McMuffin meal (coffee and hash brown included). Well, that special meal that gets you going is gonna get your wallet going (read: screaming) too.

At $10.19, this combo is pretty pricey. If you buy this every day on your drive in to work, you’re spending $50.95 per week on breakfast! Now I’ll stretch it out and say this is your routine every day all year long. That means you’re spending $2547.50 for 50 weeks of McMuffins each year!

Dunkin’

With McDonald’s being so expensive, perhaps Dunkin’ is better?

Dunkin’ is known for their donuts, but their bagel sandwiches are also a popular option. A bacon, egg, and cheese, hash browns, and medium coffee will cost you about the same, at $9.47. That means you’re spending $47.35 per week, or $2367.50 for a year of Dunkin’ breakfast.

The good news is you are saving almost $200 per year over McDonald’s, but still that’s quite a bit of money for breakfast.

Starbucks

And now we reach the most expensive of the three.

Starbucks, while known for their coffee, also have a host of breakfast sandwiches. While they offer similar options to Dunkin’ and McDonald’s, they don’t offer as many meals as the other places. For a comparable meal, you can get a double-smoked bacon, cheddar, and sandwich, a grande coffee, and a blueberry scone for $12.51. That boils down to $62.55 per week, or $3127.50 per year.

Of the three options, this is definitely the most expensive, with it costing over $750 more than Dunkin’ breakfasts for a year.

Bringing Things Into Perspective

While buying breakfast is fast and easy, it can also be very expensive. To give you an idea on what else costs $3000, here’s a list of things I know I would much rather spend the money on:

• a round-trip plane ticket from New York, USA to Sydney, Australia
• a 12-day cruise around Europe for 2 people
• a budget-friendly bathroom remodel
• a 2-day class in rally racing

To me, all of these things are worth the $3000. I don’t feel like I should be spending that much on breakfast. If you feel the same, let’s look at some alternatives. And if you’re not sure how to feel about your spending, definitely check out this article.

Making Your Own Breakfast

Not too much of a surprise here, but making your own breakfast is much cheaper than buying out. Sure, making eggs and bacon every morning is a hassle, but who’s to say there aren’t other options to choose from that are easy once you’ve got the new routine down?

Cereal and Milk

This deserves a place in the memory books for me. I would always eat cereal for breakfast before going off to school. The best thing about it: it takes almost no prep! Step 1: pour cereal, Step 2: pour milk, Step 3: enjoy.

Not only is cereal easy to make, but it’s also easy on your wallet. Cereal costs $4.49 for a box and milk costs $2.99 for a half gallon. With those, you can get about 10 bowls of cereal, making each bowl cost about $0.65-$0.75.

Now, I’ll give you a minute to compare $0.75 of cereal and milk to the $12.51 Starbuck’s breakfast. Swap one week of Starbucks to one week of cereal and milk, and you save $58.81. Make the change for a year, and you save $2940.50! Time to sign up for that cruise around Europe!

Bagel with Cream Cheese

Another easy option: a bagel with cream cheese is also super simple and super cheap. Whether or not you like it toasted, the biggest hurdle is spreading the cream cheese.

Bagels cost about $3.59 for six, and cream cheese costs about $0.82 for a block. Assuming you need two blocks of cream cheese for those six bagels (I know I do), this option costs about $0.85-0.95 per meal.

Over the course of a week, you could save $57.80 per week, or save $2890 per year over the Starbucks breakfast. Look out Sydney, here you come!

Oatmeal

Here’s my new go-to. Oatmeal is another very easy option in the morning. Add oats and water to a bowl, microwave, and there’s breakfast! Nice and simple.

Oats costs you about $2.19 a container and you can get about 13 meals out of it, making each meal cost only $0.17! Compared to Starbucks, you can save $61.71 per week, or save $3085.39 per year! Nothing is stopping you from remodeling your bathroom now!

My Breakfast of Choice

So here’s the thing. I used to be gung-ho cereal until I started living with my wife. She introduced me to oatmeal, and I haven’t looked back.

The reason I changed wasn’t the taste or the money savings, but actually how full I was throughout the day. I could eat less oatmeal and be more full compared to cereal. I could actually make it to lunch without needing a morning snack. It was a win-win.

Here’s my ‘breakfast of champions’: PB&J oats. (And yes that’s ‘peanut butter and jelly’).

• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tbsp peanut butter
• 1 tbsp jelly
• 1 tsp of chia seeds
• 5 raspberries

This quick breakfast only ends up costing me $0.82 per meal, and it’s healthy. Also, if I can’t find one of the ingredients, there are plenty of substitutes. I can swap flax for chia, strawberries for raspberries, or mix up the jelly flavors for plenty of different combinations.

If I drag that out over the year, that means I spend about $205 per year on breakfast. Again, I’m not counting weekends or holidays, where I make the occasional bacon and eggs breakfast or pancakes. But still, $205 is nowhere near the $3000 of yearly Starbucks.

Final Thoughts

So, I see two things that determine how much a breakfast costs: what you eat, and how you get it.

In terms of what you eat, getting a breakfast sandwich with the coffee and the side costs far more than cereal or a bagel. You might get a bit more food, but you can find alternatives to fill your appetite to your pleasing that don’t break the bank. Even switching from the breakfast sandwich and scone to oatmeal at Starbuck’s can save you $5.45 per meal. That’s over $1300 in yearly savings by switching up your order.

In terms of how you get it, breakfast that you make will always (99% of the time) be cheaper than buying breakfast. The oatmeal with blueberries at my local Starbucks costs $4.05, and its comparable in toppings to my $0.82 oatmeal that I eat every morning. For taking 5 minutes to make breakfast every morning before work, I save over $800 yearly!

If you’re ready to make a change in your spending, and I mean really make a lasting change, start here.

Happy Spending!

-The Spendgineer