I know someone would immediately jump in with water if I didn’t caveat that, haha. Tap water is the most frugal drink, yes I know, but for me plain ol’ water more of a basic survival thing. And I like to be happy too, not stuck permanently in survival mode, even if I’m also being frugal.
So.
One of my “vices”, if you can call it that, is fancy tea.
I’m American and we’re not really a tea-drinking culture, so I was taken by surprise when I got into drinking tea and learned you can get surprisingly nice quality loose leaf tea online that blows grocery store tea bags out of the water, and it’s not a terribly expensive habit. Grocery store tea in tea bags is basically ‘tea dust’ left over from processing better teas, and basically almost any loose leaf tea is a better quality than bagged tea dust, so you don’t have to break the bank to see immediate improvement in your tea quality.
And that surprised the heck out of me!
I eventually realized that’s because tea is a dry good and cheap to ship–it’s light, dry, packs small, ships well. Much easier to get your hands on than, say, alcohol or liquid drinks that are heavy or distributed in glass bottles.
So yeah. It’s not as frugal as water, but I found I can usually still have some nice tea around even if I’m pinching every penny, and it can help tide me through tough spots without the downsides of other vices (like drinking, smoking, etc.)
What are your guys’ favorite frugal drinks?
For me it’s the tea dust lol. I can’t get enough. I have some nice loose leaf stuff from the local bulk store that I’ll drink after work. But for the most part it’s name brand English Breakfast, orange pekoe, maybe an Earl Grey or green tea after lunch.
But I do so love a tall frosty glass of water too 😋
I keep a fountain cup from AM/PM to get refills on the rare occasion for just $1 at the fountain. They have a lot of juices (not just sodas) at most locations. Hell, the one closest to me has horchata, which is awesome. And the cup is so big, I can transfer to a pitcher and have juice for a few days.
I’m American and we’re not really a tea-drinking culture
I’m from the South; speak for yourself!
Peppermint tea. If you have a garden you can grow it yourself. But you have to keep it from spreading everywhere.
Been making my own kombucha recently…it’s still kinda tea but different enough to mention.
An honorable mention is hop tea when I want to sleep, it’s a lot cheaper than other sleep aides.
Something that requires a bit of investment but will pay for itself overtime is soy milk. Just rehydrate beans and put it in a soy milk machine and you get fresh soy milk. You can either drink that or make your own tofu for the cost of bulk soy beans. The machine can be pricy however.
in Germany this is boomer humor when referring to beer: chilled hops’ infusion