I know this argument well, because I spend most of my time around people who work with money. Financial advisors, planners, advisors, and accountants—all people who really care about helping Canadians make smart decisions. To be fair, they are not entirely wrong. Small expenses do add up, lifestyles are real, and irrational spending can quietly erode financial stability over time.
But somewhere along the line, something went sideways in the way we talk about spending money. One’s finances stopped being about building a sustainable life and began to be a never-ending charity work, where every dollar had to be justified, nurtured, and removed from emotions. And sometimes, the spreadsheet is just plain wrong.
My dumbest purchase
Mine is Tim Hortons medium black decaf every day. Yes, that’s a good read: I spend $1.92 every single day on brown flavored water. Sometimes, if I’m feeling a little lazy, I upgrade to a $4.15 Starbucks tall decaf Americano. And I feel guilty about this every morning.
Not because we can afford it, and not because my wife thinks—she couldn’t care less. The guilt comes from somewhere else entirely. The world of personal finance has conditioned many of us to believe that a daily coffee is the ultimate sign of financial irresponsibility. Get it over with, the thinking goes, and somehow you’ve unlocked retirement, your children’s education fund is filling itself, and financial peace is falling from the sky.
That case is so ingrained that I think five times before putting decaf coffee on the expense report when I go to work. Sadly, I felt a little guilty when it still had caffeine, because at least then I could adjust the purchase as needed. Now it feels like I’m paying for warm spiced water and a moment of peace.
And yet I still buy it, every day. Not because I need caffeine, but because I like great taste. More importantly, I buy it because of what that coffee stands for.
Regular price $1.92
By the time I take that first drink, I’ve usually been awake since 5 am to clear emails and maybe create more work for my coworkers, stand by my wife and prepare breakfast and lunch, get our daughter ready for school, and finish my daily workout. Only after that comes culture.
I get my coffee, sit in the car, open my breakfast list, and for exactly 20 minutes I’m just there. No calls, no notifications, no demands; just music, gratitude, and a warm cup of brown water. That $1.92 is not really about the coffee at all. It’s my daily reminder to pause before the chaos of the day begins in full force, and I tell myself that no matter how busy life gets, I still deserve 20 minutes to think, breathe, and reset.
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How do you calculate the return on that? And more importantly, should you try?
The problem with the development culture
Human financial culture often treats spending as binary. There are good uses and bad uses, wants and needs, and very little space in between. But life is rarely that clean.
Ironically, many people who want to cut back on small purchases completely ignore the decisions that really touch the needle—things like housing costs, car costs, high-interest debt, inconsistent savings habits, or unstable income. At that time, we direct a large amount of guilt to one coffee.
The “latte factor,” popularized by author David Bach in his book of the same name, was originally intended to show how small recurring costs add up over time, and mathematically that’s true. A daily purchase of $5, invested consistently over decades, can grow into a meaningful investment.
But critics of the idea have long argued that the conversation has been skewed, especially at a time when housing, child care, groceries, and transportation have significantly outpaced wage growth. For many Canadians, ditching the coffee isn’t the difference between financial struggle and financial freedom. That’s not to say that spending less money isn’t important; it means contextual issues.
Why deficit budgets fail
There is also an ethical side to this discussion that personal financial advice sometimes misses. Strict budgets often fail for the same reason that food fails, meaning that total deprivation is almost impossible to sustain.
Research consistently shows that people are more likely to stick with long-term plans when there is room for flexibility, fun, and intentional rewards along the way. Psychologists have found that energy and self-control are finite resources that diminish under constant constraint, and behavioral research on budgeting has found that rigid, tightly tracked budgets can backfire, while methods that build on flexibility prove sustainable. A budget that includes small, meaningful pleasures usually lasts longer than one built entirely on limitations.
That distinction is important, because there is a real difference between spending money on purpose and spending people unwittingly. My daily coffee is on purpose, and so is my gym membership. Both passed what I consider my “best” test, because both have a positive impact on my mental health, physical health, and ability to perform at a high level. That doesn’t mean all indulgences are automatically justified. Far from it.
