If you think spending $10 a day on coffee is harmless, Kevin O’Leary thinks you’re setting yourself up to stay broke. And he’s not subtle about it.
In a May 2024 Facebook post, the “Shark Tank” investor didn’t hold back:
“Everyone is wasting money on something. The world wants to take money from you. It’s not easy to commit to saving and investing instead.”
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He followed that up with a jab at daily habits that drain your wallet:
“No matter how hard it is to say no to spending $10 on a cup of coffee each morning, small habits like that are really stupid choices people make without realizing the long-term impact on how they manage their money.”
It’s a line he’s echoed for years. In 2017, O’Leary told CNBC he flat-out refuses to pay even $2.50 for coffee, calling it a “waste” when it’s so much cheaper to make it at home. Now, with inflation pushing prices higher, the coffee tab is up to $10—and so is his frustration.
His advice is simple: stop spending like everyone else. In his book “Cold Hard Truth on Men, Women & Money,” O’Leary breaks down the math. Someone who buys a $10 coffee every day, a $12 magazine each week, and $200 in lunches every month could miss out on $276,000 over 20 years—just from lost compound growth. He refers to this kind of mindless spending as “Ghost Money”—cash that vanishes without building anything. “Ghost Money is dead money,” he wrote. “Money wasted on stupid things, money that should have been invested instead.”
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That’s the kind of long-term damage he warns about. To O’Leary, it’s not about skipping every pleasure in life. It’s about knowing the cost of unconscious spending—and recognizing how quickly it adds up.
“You have to have the discipline of thinking the way money thinks,” he wrote in the same Facebook post. “Building places for it to grow, and putting in the work to see it THRIVE.”
In other words, $10 coffee isn’t just about caffeine. It’s about mindset. O’Leary’s built his brand—and his fortune—on investing in things that grow.
And that mindset came early: he’s often credited his mother, a working woman who quietly built a sizable portfolio by putting 20% of every paycheck into dividend-paying stocks and sticking to a strict rule—never letting any single stock exceed 5% of her portfolio.
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O’Leary still follows that formula today. “If a company doesn’t pay me a dividend, I won’t touch it,” he once said in a Forbes interview. For him, dividends and diversification aren’t just buzzwords—they’re non-negotiables.
Sure, he knows it’s hard. “The world wants to take money from you,” he said. But he’s also made it clear: you don’t have to hand it over.
Of course, if cutting coffee feels like financial surgery or your budget disappears faster than your paycheck, it might be time to call in backup. A qualified financial advisor can help you spot the leaks, build a plan, and maybe even find smarter ways to let your money thrive—without giving up everything that sparks joy…or caffeine.
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Image: Imagn Images
