How to get 75% cheaper Lattes and indulge your visitors.

I'm a complete coffee addict. Not in that I drink a lot of coffee - I probably drink 2-3 cups of it a day - but in that I have to have my daily latte fix and that I get quite jittery if I don't have access to coffee house. Living in London you're never further away than 6ft away from a rat or a multi-national coffee chain so it would seem. I live in a 'London Village' which has a high-street of about 200 shops and has a Nero, a Costa and a Starbucks as well as around 10 independent cafes. This is my 'nearest' high-street because it is five minutes closer than the high-streets of another 3 'villages' that surround us; all boasting a similar selection of coffee house options.

So as you can imagine, family holidays always prompted one key question - "Will I be able to get a latte?" Much to my mother's 'patient' amusement, this coffee-house anxiety is quite a thing. When in the depths of beautiful, rural countryside, I have been known to become quite unreasonable in my demands to find the homogenised familiarity of a COSTA. I can go about four days before the 'homesickness' hits.

Much to my relief, and lots of other people's protests, the rise of the multi-national coffee chain has spread it's evil wings across the country, aggressively pitching up in 'quaint' Cotswold towns and seaside harbour villages.

However, there is more than an ethical, political cost to this coffee-house culture, and that's a hit on the wallet. My obsession started five years ago when I was on maternity leave. A trip to the coffee shop was a convenient six minute walk away - just long enough to send the baby to sleep - it was warm and most importantly it was tidy. I also started writing seriously at this time and for some reason there is an affinity with a coffee shop and writing - mainly because the wash basket and the hoover are in an entirely different geographical location. It seemed to be a cheap entertainment until I suddenly added up all those £7.00 coffee house trips over the course of the week. Before I knew it I was placing nearly £50.00 a week into the till of those coffee giants. (£200 a month - on coffee!!! Well not just coffee, but the requisite toasted pannini and cheesecake too!)

Then my husband got given a Dolce Gusto Coffee maker from his then work. We'd had a coffee maker  way back in the naughties when the first pod-capsules came out. It was crap. The water was never hot enough and the faff and the mess was unbearable. In the end it became a very trendy kitchen ornament.


However, never one to dismiss a freebie we gave it a whirl and geronimo - proper coffee in less than a minute! No walk down to town, no £200 price tag a month, no extra naughty cheesecake temptations and the upside of coffee on tap!!

Of course it means drinking coffee in your own home (mine's now much tidier as I can't bear to sit in mess) and you also end up drinking more lattes then you'd buy which negates some of the savings. But at 75% per coffee cheaper, you'd have to get through a lot of coffee to make it quits.

TOP MONEY SAVING TIP. 
Currently a box of Dulce Gusto Lattes are around £3.75 for a box of 8 lattes (you get 16 capsules in a box 8 coffee/8 milks) This works out at around £0.47p a latte. However these do have the powdered milk which for a complete purist does make the latte taste a little off kilter. The solution to this is to buy the box of Espresso capsules. £3.75 a box for  16 capsules (all of which are coffee based) and then heat skimmed milk in the microwave. Transfer heated milk to latte glass and then place under the machine. Add your shot of espresso to it.
Not only does it taste much better (i.e. like the coffee shop) but you are getting a latte for around £0.37 (including your milk costs)


DULCE GUSTO LATTE £0.47p a latte
DULCE GUSTO ESPRESSO + own milk £0.37p a latte
COSTA 12oz regular LATTE £2.05
NERO 6oz regular LATTE £1.55 (3.10 equivalent 12oz)
STARBUCKS 120z regular LATTE £2.05

SAVING PER LATTE = £1.68 (75%)