It's giving obsession

Last year was my Junior year of college and every day I walked to the Starbucks at the front of campus to grab myself a ham & swiss croissant and a venti iced white chocolate mocha with oat milk. As we all know, Starbucks is expensive- my polar points quickly ran out and my boyfriend graciously offered up his own polar points when they did but on days where I couldn’t snag his card, I used the loyalty app and started collecting stars. What does this mean? Free drinks? Free food? No, free cups.

For one, the cups are pretty. I liked the patterns and that some of them had a metal interior to keep my drink cold for longer. For two, I hated the cups they gave in store. All the flavor that made me buy the same coffee drink every day was at the bottom. The sippy lid didn’t cut it and neither did the amount of plastic waste I would generate getting the drink every day plus a straw. So I got a cup! And then another. And pretty soon I had one cup for every day of the week. I was a little bit obsessed. Saving the environment a little bit but definitely not saving much money. 

It takes 400 stars to get a cup, which roughly translates to every dollar spent would give you two stars. Over the course of Junior year, I collected four cups using stars. Do the math. That’s $600 spent on coffee and a small breakfast to collect enough for more cups! 

As money was a bit tighter starting school this time around, I decided to quit caffeine and my Starbucks obsession. I noted that it started to make me more tired and the only benefit turned out to be that the coffee quenched my sweet tooth for the day. It’s almost strange not coming to class with a cup of coffee in hand every day. When I told my sorority little I was quitting coffee, she said “I can’t believe that… That was like a huge part of your identity.” And it totally was but I’ve noted, it’s certainly for the better.