Your Starbucks latté is going to cost you a little bit more starting this week. The coffee chain on Tuesday is set to raise prices on some of the drinks it sells in its U.S. stores by an average of 1%. (CNN Money)

CNN Money reports that the increase in prices will affect Starbucks’ latté, tea, coffee and other brewed drinks.  A spokesman from Starbucks said that in some of their markets the cost of coffee would increase by about 10¢.  Surprisingly, this is the first increase in prices for Starbucks in about 2 years.  Which is surprising considering that it seems like everything else in today’s economy has seen an increase.

One way you can avoid the price hike according to Starbucks is to bring in a personal tumbler or a reusable Starbucks cup and they will give you 10¢ off.  …that seems like a good deal.

What doesn’t seem like a good deal, to me anyway, is to pay 5 bucks for a cup of coffee.  Before the housing market crash, I owned a mortgage company and we were doing pretty well, financially.  It was not uncommon for me to drive thru Starbucks on the way to the office and then again on the way home.  I didn’t really notice it then, but the money I spent to have my “fancy” coffee sure did cost what is now a small fortune.

With rounding off, you can consider a Venti (big cup) coffee costs $5.  That’s $10 a day, times 6 days a week, that’s $60 a week or over $3000 a year on coffee.  What the…?  Also, if you figure in that back then I was smoking a little over a pack of cigarettes a day to the tune of let’s say $6.00 a day.  That’s another $2100 or so a year.  Can you imagine?  …over 5 grand a year between coffee and cigarets.

This example is real proof that no matter what your financial situation, you should, at least every six months, take an inventory of your expenses.  Take at least a week, preferably a month, and write down everything you spend money on.  Keep a list of what might seem like the smallest things, and then at the end of the month, sit down and go over your list and look for ways that you could have / can save money.

There is no good reason why I had to stop at Starbucks to get coffee when I could have brought coffee from home or if I just had to stop and get coffee, that I couldn’t stop at 7-11 or some other convenience store and get a cup of coffee for a dollar or so.  I was certainly financially irresponsible back then.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that you should never get a coffee from Starbucks, I’m just pointing out the fact that it is kind of silly to spend so much money, on a daily basis, for some flavored water.

My wife and I will still stop at Starbucks for a “Venti White Moca” on occasion, but it is now a “treat” and not the standard.