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A Latte To Think About

To my mind, the one big casualty of the credit card era is the word “afford.”

By Lakshmi Palecanda October 10, 2008 at 8:46 AM

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These days, I have a latte to think about. Have you seen the prices of essential commodities lately? Everything seems to be frothing over.
I first noticed that something was amiss during a visit to my favorite coffee shop a few months ago. I ordered my favorite skinny mocha latte from a skinnier 20-something blonde barista, and handed over $4.

"Keep the change," I said grandly, only to receive a dirty look from the woman.
"What change?" she demanded.

I looked at the price listings, and sure enough, every item had gone up a quarter in price. Now, if it had been anything else, I might have made the ultimate sacrifice, but this was coffee we are talking about.

I grew up loving coffee in South India. In fact, the first thing I learnt to make in a kitchen (other than a mess), was a mean cup of good old-fashioned filter coffee. When I first came to the United States in 1991, specialty coffees hadn't come to the tiny university town in Montana where I landed. I taught myself to drink the watery black brew with creamer that passed for coffee, until the good folks at Starbucks set up shop, two years later, and became the center of my universe. I gladly bared my slim wallet to them, and in return, they gave me back the sucking instinct I had lost at age 5, when I was weaned off my thumb. The addiction has become so strong now that you can separate a hungry hand-fed tiger cub from its milk bottle more easily than pry my 16-oz. hot coffee from my hands. Until now, the only problem my habit caused me was heart burn. Was it about to impoverish me as well?

With a white face, and mocha latte in hand, I went about my errand ... which was to fill up the car's gas tank. Of course, I got clobbered there too. I returned home in tears, and blubbered to my husband that I had spent $50 on just coffee and gas.

"How are we going to manage?" I whined. "My favorite coffee now costs $4 and I feel so guilty about buying it. It is almost the same price as a gallon of gas."

My husband was his usual helpful troubleshooter. "Well, what do you know, the car has a 'habit' too!" he riposted. "Never mind, just imagine that the car is a gas-guzzling Hummer, instead of a small fuel-efficient Toyota Corolla, and transfer the coffee spending into the gas portion of the budget. No more guilt, problem solved," he said.

I remember when my parents used to discuss financial matters. My mother would mention a problem; my father would say "We'll see," and things would work out. They never fought over money matters. At least, as far as I know. In 1983, on the verge of his retirement, my father was making Rs. 5,000 after deductions, at his job as a high school headmaster. On the first of the month, he would bring the cash home in an envelope and hand it to my mother. She would put it in the right-side locker of our steel Godrej (the left-side locker was for important documents and bank passbooks with handwritten entries; remember those?) Once, I was given the honor of putting the envelope away. I still remember the thrill of feeling the thick envelope (the amount was in Rs. 100 notes). Sometimes, I wish we didn't have the direct deposit option of payment. The feel of real money gives a satisfaction that is hardly engendered by a pay statement.
Using real money has other points in its favor too, since the use of debit and credit cards and even checks to pay our way through the month can be hazardous at times. During my student days, there were occasions when checks ricocheted off the walls of hollow bank accounts. I don't think my parents ever wrote a rubbery check; for one thing they were very frugal, and nobody used a check for small amounts in India those days. On the 2nd or 3rd day of every month, my mother would take out some money from the pay packet and head to the Chintamani supermarket (in North Coimbatore) to buy the month's grocery, bringing it home in heavy tote bags. These days, I do my shopping with my debit and credit cards, trusting divine Providence and my husband's money skills to keep the tap flowing as virtual money changes hands through virtual channels in today's inflationary times, with virtually abysmal buying power. If only we could get away with doing virtual work!

To my mind, the one big casualty of the credit card era is the word "afford." In the old days, if you didn't have the money, you went without, or saved until you could pay for something. But with the advent of credit, anyone can afford anything, provided he lives long enough to finish paying for it. Buying only what you could pay for at the time of purchase, the old way of doing things, seems so archaic.

However, the stark reality of having to put the house-key in the mailbox and walking away from a beloved home or seeing a foreclosure sign up on the familiar front door has brought word affordability back in fashion. With food and gas prices going up, equity flying out the window and no one willing to lend money, people are being forced to cut back. Maybe we should eat out less, they are thinking, maybe we should just avoid the mall and go for a walk, this weekend. Maybe we shouldn't treat shopping as a form of entertainment.

I know you're probably wondering if the price of gas will ever return to last year's levels. But me, I'm more worried about my specialty coffee. Will my favorite coffee shop ever bring its prices down ... or is it a tad too latte for that?

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