I'm preparing to buy a new coffee maker in order to save money on my electric bill. That may sound a bit strange from a person who's been drinking instant coffee for more than three years already. How could I possibly save money by buying a coffee maker that requires electricity in order to operate? Believe it or not, the hot water dispenser that I use to make hot coffee uses more electricity than a coffee maker ever will.

My Electric Bill

There are two items at my house that are sucking up the juice: My hot water dispenser and my hot water tank. The reason is because the heating elements are constantly on (unless I'm a victim of yet another weekly power outage).

I know these two items are the primary culprits because the only other things I have on constantly in my house is my refrigerator and my PC. When I bought the hot water dispenser, my electric bill jumped up by about $20 USD per month. That's just too expensive, in my opinion, for the convenience of a ready supply of hot drinking water.

There is one other way to heat the bottled water and that's by using the microwave oven, but that kind of defeats the money-saving idea. The tap water gets pretty hot, if I let it run for a couple of minutes, but there's no telling what kind of nasties are in it along with the water. No thanks, but I prefer the safety of the bottled water I buy (at about $4.00/200 pesos for 25 gallons, I might add).

Sorry, but I won't sacrifice a hot shower for anything. Not even to save a few more bucks.

Which Coffee Maker or Coffee Maker Brand

There is one other reason I want to buy a new coffee maker: I'm tired of drinking instant coffee. I'm tired of making it by the cup and I'm tired of forgetting how many spoons I put in (when interrupted by relatives) the cup. Not only that, but a couple of in-laws leech instant coffee from me on a regular basis.

A small, 4-cup coffee maker just won't do. I can polish that off within an hour of waking up in the morning. I don't fancy myself making more than two 8 or 12-cup pots of coffee per day. With carafes of those sizes, my in-laws can steal some of my coffee each day and it won't interfere with my daily routine.

Now, I live in the Philippines. I've been to most of the stores where coffee makers are sold and I've seen some Japanese brands as well as American brands, but I didn't see any Mr. Coffee. It doesn't matter, because I prefer buying a Cuisinart coffee maker and I think that's a brand I spotted at the SM Mall in San Fernando, Pampanga the last time I was there. I probably wouldn't have to go that far again (about 50 kilometers) and can probably find one locally, but I doubt the local stores carry Cuisinart coffee maker accessories such as replacement lids and filters.

Back in 1988, I gave a Cuisinart coffee maker to a fellow US Marine at Christmas time because he drank more "lifer juice" than I ever did. When I left that base in 1992, he was still using it and it still worked like it did when it was new. In contrast, I had a GE coffee maker that bit the dust within four months during that same period. I don't remember what brand I bought to replace it with, but I spent more money on it than I probably should have.

Checking Review Sites and Prices

I wouldn't be doing this if I was in the US. In the Philippines, however, I have to check prices before going on any kind of specific shopping run because I know what gimmicks the sales people pull. One of my nephews worked at a local appliance store and the way the sales associates made more than their paltry wage was to jack up the prices (no prices tags on the items).

To be forewarned is to be forearmed, or something like that. So I headed over to TestFreaks, a site I'm already familiar with, and checked out the Cuisinart coffee makers. After selecting the model I want, the Cuisinart DTC-975 (because of the thermal carafe), I headed over to PriceGrabber.com to get a feel for the median price. It appears I can expect to pay between $60 and $90 USD for it.

The Filipino Art of Haggling

I don't know if I'll be able to get that exact coffee maker model. It depends on import stocks. I'll still get a similar model, with a thermal carafe, for around the same price or even less. I learned the Filipino art of haggling from my wife and I'm getting pretty good at it.

The secret is to buy multiple items. When I do that, and haggle along the way, I usually get the prices knocked down for each item. I live on a fixed income and every dollar (or peso) counts. As the expression goes, a penny saved is a penny earned.

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After watching the employees at one of the Starbucks locations in Phoenix, Arizona, my wife decided to do an experiment to see if she could make coffee that tasted as good as Starbucks coffee. More specifically, she wanted to reproduce the taste of their lattes.

Latte is Italian for Milk

Lattes were invented in the US. In Italy, latte means milk. It's probably okay to order a caffè latte in Italy now, after all the publicity of the drink, but years ago it would have fetched you a glass of milk.

In the US, a latte is quite simply a cup of coffee made with milk instead of water.

It Starts With Espresso

Starbucks has machines which produce espresso, a concentrated coffee beverage brewed by forcing very hot water under high pressure through coffee that has been ground to a consistency between extremely fine and powder. Espresso, which was invented in Italy, is used as the base for lattes, cappuccinos and mochas.

My wife noticed that two shots of espresso were added to the large drinks at Starbucks, while they added only one shot to the smaller drinks.

How to Mimic a Latte

It's easy to do if you have your own personal espresso machine. What if you don't? Here's how my wife did it:

She filled a cup with milk (whole milk, not 2%, 1% or skim milk), heated it in the microwave oven for 2 minutes, added two spoons of coffee power and stirred. I'm talking about the spoons you eat with, not teaspoons for measuring.

What you end up is a strong cup of coffee, a simple latte. If you want to turn it into a cappuccino, add whip cream to the top. If you want to turn it into a mocha, add a spoonful of sweetened, powdered chocolate.

Why Starbucks instead of at home?

If it's so easy to make coffee that tastes like Starbucks coffee at home, then why don't people do that instead of spending much more money at coffee shops like that? I could never afford to regularly stop at Starbucks and probably wouldn't make it a point to do so even if I had a Starbucks gift card.

People are always "on the go" and don't take the time at home to enjoy the simple pleasures. They stop by coffee shops on the way to work or on the way home. It's the fast-paced societies that keep companies like Starbucks in business. They can keep their business. I'll drink my lattes and cappuccinos at home.

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