Coffee Math

According to the directions on the coffee can,  you use 1 to 1 1/2 tbsp (15 to 25 ml) of coffee for every 3/4 cup (175 ml) of fresh, cold water.  (Who the hell drinks coffee by the 3/4 cup anyway?)  My coffee/tea mug is 500 ml, Leaf's is 15 oz.  If I want 1 mug of coffee and Leaf wants two, how much coffee is needed? 

The reservoir of our coffee machine doesn't use oz or cups or ml.  It has marks labelled 2, 4, 6, 8.  Each little mark is about 300ml.  There are also plus a little travel mug (one or two) icon.  How much water is needed?

Perhaps a more important question...  Why does it take a calculator, an online metric-imperial converter, and 20 minutes to figure out how much coffee to put in the coffee machine?  I'm not math phobic by any means, I have very good numeracy skills.  Really though, should it be this difficult?  It sounds like a trick question from a grade nine math test.  I hate that only one country in the world officially uses the imperial system, and that they are our largest trading partner.

For the record, 8-12 tbsp of coffee, water just under the "10" mark in the machine.  Leaf says I make coffee too strong.

Battling the Tim Horton's Addiction

First off, for the record, I would like to state that it is all Leaf's fault!  I didn't drink coffee, and the only time I would ever go to Tim Horton's would be to get a chocolate eclair (sadly no longer offered at Tim's).  Not a coffee drinker.  I resisted for at least 5 years, but eventually got hooked.  I think the deciding factor was moving into town and going from 20 minutes away to less than five.  Its on the way to everything.  I can even kayak to Tims.

This past summer, we started putting everything on credit card to better help with budgeting.  Although this goes counter to the conventional  wisdom of paying cash so expenses are noticed, we decided on credit card since everything is tracked.  No more guesstimating the Tims budget, I can just add up the statements.  It wasn't pretty.  I figure we were spending about $100 a month at Tim Horton's (twice what I would have guessed based on cash).  And their coffee isn't even that great.

In our defence, Tim's is our fast food of choice.  If we are away from home - down to the city for  shopping for example - we'll usually eat there.  I don't know about factual information, but their sandwiches and soups at least give the illusion of being healthier than typical fast food.  A family meal is going to run about $20, we eat there at least once a month, the Tim's budget can't be that horrible...

Nevertheless, it needed to be remedied.  We were easily spending over $1000 a year, and there are so many things that would be a better use of the money.  Decided in December (after the giant $120 November tally) to start cutting back.  Due to vagaries of billing cycle we didn't start until mid December, but there was an immediate improvement.  I'm pretty happy with the January numbers.  I don't think we'll ever eliminate it completely, but reducing by two thirds gets us to a more reasonable budget amount.




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