LWA #1
The first LWA (Little White Addiction) that gets us going every morning and continues to feed us all day is caffeine. No matter what we look like or what time of the morning/afternoon/night it is, we’re impatiently standing in line at the nearest Starbuck's thinking dirty thoughts of the first sip of black sludge that will wire and keep us semiconscious for the next few hours.

Why the coffee hang up? Well, let’s see. If you go to Starbucks every weekday morning (but for most, it’s a seven-day-a-week habit) and order your usual drink at a cost of $3.45/cup, you’ve spent $17.25 for your five-day work week on coffee. An average month can have 22 work days, which means $75.90 for coffee each month. After 12 months of (average 22 work days/month) coffee addiction, you’ve spent $910.80/year. That’s a lot of dough for a cup of coffee.

Consider buying a coffee pot for your home (or cappuccino machine) and make your own. This is not an unheard-of option. People have been doing this for years. Plus, it might save you the time and headache of standing in line every morning.

LWA#2
The second LWA doesn’t fall far from the caffeine tree and can be combined to make a deadly combination. If you haven’t figured out already, I’m talking about sugar; fructose, corn syrup, any way you want to slice it, I’m targeting the sweet stuff.

How often do you hit the vending machines? On your break at work? Each morning before class? By 2 pm, are you opening your second Dr. Pepper, balanced with a package of fresh Ding Dongs? If your daily of soda costs $1 and your candy bar/bag of chips costs 75 cents, then you’re spending $1.75 a day on this habit. By the end of the week, you’ve spent $8.75. The month total is $38.50 and your yearly total is $462.

Try bringing your own candy bar and drink to work/school to save yourself some real money. A case of soda will cost around $5-$6 depending on where you shop. That’s roughly 21-25 cents for one can of soda.

If you compare your vending machine yearly total for soda ($264) to your cost from home soda ($66), you will be saving yourself $198/year in soda costs alone.