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May
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- HEALTH AND WEALTH; save your money while improving your health
- HEALTH AND WEALTH; The shopping list
- HEALTH AND WEALTH; Sodas, coffee, bottled water and you!
- HEALTH AND WEALTH; The Farmers’ market, your place for healthy bargains.
- HEALTH AND WEALTH; Friday fit and fun factor
We’ve been talking about health this week, both physical and financial. Most people think only the rich have time to be healthy, but that’s completely untrue. There are many ways in which being healthier could actually save you money. Today, we’re going to be talking about one of the easiest ways in which you can save money and get healthier, drinking water.
The Problem
If I look at the drinking habits of the people around me at work and at home, I see coffee, tea, soda and bottled water. I see people spending between $5 to $20 a day just on their drinks. That’s a morning coffee, a lunch time soda, a couple of bottles of water and another coffee in the afternoon. Weekend drinking habits can be worse, even if you don’t include those seven beers you have Friday night. On the weekend, we typically don’t have access to the free beverages most offices supply so we spend even more. You might spend upwards of $50 to $100 a week on drinks. That’s $2600 to$5200 a year. Does this make sense to you? You’re paying to be unhealthy. Let’s take a look at these drinks and see what you’re getting.
A Host of Bad Options
Coffee - Completely empty calories. Includes caffeine which is bad for you since it spikes your metabolism and then crashes it. If you add the usual Starbucks crap to it, you can end up with more than 500 calories in a single grande. That’s the equivalent of a big mac right there, only less nutritious.
Soda - Worse than coffee. Same problems with calories and caffeine, with extra chemicals for bonus fun. Did you really need those three cans of coke today? Because they just added 300 calories to your diet. Plus sodas typically come in packages which are environmentally harmful if you want to feel even worse.
Bottled water - Not much that’s harmful in here, but it does cost money and cause waste. By the way, most bottled water is just tap water in a bottle, so if you think you’re getting better quality water, you’re wrong.
Tea - The least bad of a number of bad options. Herbal tea is not too bad, it’s cheap and doesn’t cause much waste. However, it still costs you money. Also, make sure to stay away from the caffeinated brands.
The Solution
So what’s a better option? Simple, it’s water! Yes, that stuff that comes out of your tap is your best option. It’s cheap, has zero calories and no caffeine. If your areas has issues with tap water, I would recommend investing in a filtration system. They can be had these days for only a few hundred dollars. Far cheaper than paying for bottled water every day.
Summary
Take a close look at your drinking habits. If you add up the soda, the coffee, the tea and the bottled water, you’re probably adding at least 300 calories a day to your diet and $5 a day to your budget. That’s 31lbs and $1825 every year. Are you ok with this? Are you ok with paying $1825 a year to be 31lbs heavier? Switch to tap water, it will take you two weeks to break the caffeine addiction and after that, you’ll never look back.
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Comments
7 Responses to “HEALTH AND WEALTH; Sodas, coffee, bottled water and you!”
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You are absolutely right about the cost of drinks as well as the sugar and added chemicals. Bottled water is not necessarily a healthy alternative - some having been tested and found to contain more contamination that household tap water.
For the cost of a faucet mounted water filter, you can save money on bottled water AND be sure that your water is the best quality. Tea and Coffee will only taste as good as the water used to make them. With clean water, tea is actually a pretty healthy choice with all of it’s flavinoids antioxidants, particularly green tea.
Plus, there are those really cool looking reusable fitness water bottles. At least we can all LOOK like we’re fitness buffs
Linda
Home Water Filtration Systems
Black coffee and unsweetened tea both contain essentially zero calories. A pound of excellent quality loose tea leaves costs me about $20, lasts me at least six months, and tastes delicious.
There are actually more stringent health/safety rules for tap water than for bottled water. Plus, taking water for bottling, then transporting it, is a bad thing for the environment.
SIGG bottles are the best choice for reusable bottles. They don’t leach anything.
@Amy
That’s true about the calories but those drinks usually contain caffeine, which isn’t good for you. On the other hand, there are some herbal teas which contain no caffeine. I guess for me, there’s just no reason to drink any of these things when water is just as good and cheaper.
@Canadian
Very true. I think that’s what most people don’t realize about tap water vs. bottled water. They see bottled water and automatically assume it’s pure. Well, it’s not and it’s also harmful for the environment. Just take a hike around your local park and see how many water bottles are lying around.
I would argue that coffee has just as many (if not more) positive effects as it does negative. Compared to water, it does pinch the budget, though.
@Argonautica
Thank you for stopping by.
Most people drink coffee that’s so mixed in with other stuff that it loses much of the benefit. By the time you add in the cream, the sugar, the cinnamon and whatever else your local coffee shop tosses on there, you have the equivalent of a few cheeseburgers on your plate. At that point, it’s definitely not healthy. If you take your coffee black and unsweetened then you might get some benefit out of it. Even then, caffeine is not your friend.
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