While a weak economy may have driven consumers to cut back, we know that they are still indulging on the little things.

Leah Nash for The New York Times

As we’ve been told over and over, those indulgences add up. According to a new survey, half of all American workers buy coffee regularly during work hours, spending more than $20 a week on java, or about $1,000 a year. (Workers 18 to 34 years old spend about twice as much, on average, as workers over 45.) Two-thirds of workers buy lunch instead of bringing something from home, and spend an average of $37 a week. That translates into nearly $2,000 a year — the price of a new piece of furniture or a vacation.

The survey, which Braun Research conducted for Accounting Principals, a staffing firm that is a unit of the Adecco Group, has a margin of sampling error of 3.1 percent.

Many workers simply do not budget for lunch or coffee, said Jodi Chavez, a senior vice president of Accounting Principals.

“They budget in new furniture or their commute, but not a coffee here or there,” Ms. Chavez said. “So over the course of a week or month people don’t realize what this expense is.”

Ms. Chavez said that a “$3 cup of coffee is a little way to reward yourself and it’s a nice little pick-me-up and a guilty pleasure,” and added: “People tend to have an easier time dismissing those small expenses as a means to reward themselves. It’s a little easier to hide the evidence of a cup of coffee than a big shoebox in the closet.”

Then again, it’s not so easy to hide the credit card balance. When those polled were asked what kinds of financial changes they planned this year, 43 percent responded that they would “pay down my credit card debt or other outstanding bills.” Just over a third said they would bring lunch instead of buying it. They were not asked about coffee.

As for me, I’ve brought in a new thermos and bought a box of teabags on the way into work today.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=29880b829276084c9163a5c98f1eba67